bitdepth

I’ve been playing Super Mario Galaxy a lot on the Wii and thinking how it’s quite enjoyable and that I’m also learning a lot (in the context of a universe filled with various gravities, worlds, stars and princesses). In spending time in that world, it’s fascinating to see how you explore and develop the skills that are needed to complete the challenges that you face as Mario in the game. What are the implications for teaching and learning? Could Mario show us better ways to construct environments where learning can happen?

The Nintendo Wii is a beautifully-designed gaming system and Super Mario Galaxy brings Nintendo’s core character to the platform with a complex and richly-detailed world that is fun and filled with learning. To get through the game you have to collect 120 stars (twice!), which means that you must go through 240 different levels each with rules and powers that change. When my daughter completed the game, she said it was the first video game that she had finished all the way through. The game kept her challenged and encouraged enough so she stuck with it to complete things. That’s the perfect balance we need to strike with learners as they expand their skills and apply them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa Rousseau tagged me in the non-semantic way with the 8 things you didn’t know about me meme (hey, that’s me three times…) and after agonizing on and off about who else to tag, I’m going to write my list of 8 things that you probably didn’t know about me.

1. The first film festival film I ever attended was in Montreal in 1986 when I saw the world premiere of Blue Velvet. It was a last minute decision to see the film with a friend and David Lynch and Dino de Laurentiis presented the film and after the film I saw Pierre Trudeau, who was in the audience.

2. I’ve shaken the hand of three Prime Ministers of Canada - Brian Mulroney (before he was PM), Joe Clark (after he was PM), and Kim Campbell (after she was PM).

3. My earliest memory is of watching the landing of Apollo 11 when I was about 3 1/2 years old.

4. In the 1980s I saw Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin speak in Fredericton.

5. I have a scar on the back on my right leg from a non-malignant cyst that was removed from behind my knee.

6. I was the first Macromedia Authorized Flash Trainer in Canada in 1997.

7. The first email that I sent was via a computer terminal in 1989.

8. While I’m an extrovert, I can be very shy at social events.

To change things a bit since I’m agonizing over who to tag, I’m going to add a goal to 43 Things to get 8 people to share 8 things that I (probably) didn’t know about them since it’s a wonderful community filled with interesting people.

Here we go for the 6th time and another list of 10 films that I loved this past year. It was a good year for film and it featured films from some of my favourite directors such as the Coen brothers, Danny Boyle, Bruce MacDonald and David Lynch. It seemed a bit thin on documentaries, but many of the films incorporated documentary elements or reality into their worlds. Challenging and entertaining, it was a year that had some great moments.

The films in perhaps a rough order are No Country for Old Men, Sunshine, Control, The Tracey Fragments, Inland Empire, Michael Clayton, The Bourne Ultimatum, Low and Behold, Juno, and Good Copy Bad Copy. Read on to find out why they made my list.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not a fan of big expensive applications (with the notable exception of Final Cut Pro), but I love open source and shareware that is the product of small companies or individuals. There is something satisfying about sending money to someone who crafts something useful and affordable. Over the past few years I’ve come to rely upon a small collection of applications to read, write and create things for the web. With many of them I didn’t realize how much they have become part of what I do until I switched to my newer MacBook Pro and there were a lot of things missing.
Essential software for me would be NetNewsWire, MarsEdit, Pukka, Twitterific, Flickr Export, Graphic Converter, and Transmit.

Read the rest of this entry »

Five years ago today things changed online in the copyfight. Frustration with the increasingly hostile environment surrounding intellectual property and a fundamental shift in copyright law in the United States, a brilliant and positive initiative called Creative Commons launched. It shifted things around by not asking “how can I stop people from stealing things?,” but by asking “how I can I share what I make and work with others?” With a set of licenses that were legal as well human and machine readable, an amazing amount of creativity and collaboration became possible.
This blog had started a few months before the launch in December of 2002 and I licensed all my blog posts from that point on. Now I have 331 posts that can be shared and remixed as long as it’s noncommercial and I’ve given credit. All of my 6,547 public photos on Flickr have the same license. The 10 episodes of the Bad Metaphor podcast are also licensed and everything that I create and put online will be licensed in a similar way.
It’s been a positive and encouraging experience to use the licenses as I’ve been able to meet and work with people from all over the world because of the project. The more that you give and share, the more you get back.

Read the rest of this entry »

When I started this site in May of 2002, I was using Rael Dornfest’s amazing Blosxom script that takes text files and converts them into postings. It’s worked without a hitch for over five years, but I’ve been wanting to use a more comprehensive system for a while now. Yesterday I installed WordPress and migrated over. Importing my previous posts was a bit of a pain, but I was able to do it. The biggest changes are in the look and in the addition of comments to the site. One of the reasons that I haven’t been here as much over the past while is probably the lack of comments and interaction as there is nothing like an audience to motivate you and I’ve been spending more time where I’m connecting with people.
Things have changed a lot with web hosting and blogging systems over the past five years. Configuring and installing systems is much easier now and for many people, they won’t have to use MySQL commands or even use the terminal to set up and configure things. I think that I’ve struck a good balance between a system that I install myself and can configure and change without a lot of effort.
Now instead of using a text editor for posts, I’m using MarsEdit and I have to say that it is a fun and geeky day for me and I hope to be writing more and to be hearing from you as well. Thanks for being here and enjoy the new look and site.

Five years ago I started working at the Nova Scotia Community College and one of the requirements for full-time employees is that they have to take part in a program called CCEDP (Community College Education Diploma Program). It usually takes about 2 years to complete, which includes a couple of summers spent in residence taking courses. I completed the program and was lucky enough to be chosen as the valedictorian which gave me the opportunity to sum the experience up in my valedictory address. The best parts of the experience of learning how to teach adults were the connections made between the participants and instructors in the program. Now I know dozens and dozens (maybe hundreds) people from all over the province who work for the college.
A few months ago Carolyn asked me if I’d like to be part of a session that she was organizing called Engaging the Digital Learner that would be part of the New Faculty Orientation that happened in Yarmouth in October. I had a great time when I was in Yarmouth for it and I jumped at the chance to be able to give something back. It was a lot of fun and I contributed with some information about podcasting. I didn’t realize until afterwards that I’d been in CCEDP courses with most of the members of the team that facilitated the workshop, but now we were all at the front of the classroom with a few years of experience within the organization. It was very nice to have it all come full circle, and I’m so glad that I could be involved.

With his second book, The Myths of Innovation, Scott Berkun takes a different approach to the subject. With The Art of Project Management, he provides a detailed and very useful guidebook to navigating the difficult world of managing people and projects. The Myths of Innovation is built (quite logically) around a series of relatively common myths about innovations and innovators. While I thought that I knew about the myths, the power of the story often remains even when you know that it’s not true and Berkun manages to puncture the myths, while explaining the appeal. We all love a story about the bold lone inventor who had a brilliant idea that changed the world, but we don’t like hearing about the failed inventions or the team of people who painstakingly followed the many dead-ends in the development of the product. Berkun shows how our love of a good story can make us miss what is important in creating anything. You need hard work, a willingness to follow your instincts, determination and being able to keep working even though many of your ideas will fail or will not be accepted.

The book is well-organized and entertaining with an extensive and annotated bibliography that can keep you reading for years. The concepts are covered clearly and extensive web links throughout the book allow you to find a broader context online as a springboard for more exploration. Berkun also drew on the experiences of innovators that he talked with and via a survey. While the book is casual and fun, it has a solid foundation based on research and experience. You can read it from front to back as I did, or jump around without getting lost. It’s also a book that will be good to revisit for relevant stories and perspective as the challenge of trying something new starts to bog you down.

While much of the book debunks myths, it’s also encouraging as the underlying message is that dedication and working together with people is essential for innovation to take place. It’s the combination of all of the right factors that allows things to succeed and not merit or genius or luck. It’s a call to action against complacency and conventional wisdom and it will hopefully get people to become more aware of what they are doing and the possibilities and opportunities that often exist in front of you if you’re willing to see them.

The book boldly concludes by asking if innovation is inherently good, which made me think a lot about how our views of what we do and what we use evolve. I no longer use a pda, but a combination of tools that include a laptop, a cell phone, the web, and notebooks and pens. Progress and innovation doesn’t mean more tiny devices or new things, but the innovative use of what is appropriate and what works.

All too often we seek technological solutions to human problems. In gearing up for the Fall term I’ve been thinking about ways to integrate technology into the classroom and I realized that I was approaching it the wrong way. I should be thinking about ways that I can improve my teaching and the learning that takes place. The focus should be the learning and not which tools are being used.
As with the design of curricula and teaching in general, the first thoughts should be related to the outcomes and less about the tools. I want to be a better teacher, not a better technologist. No matter what classroom you’re in, there is technology involved, whether it’s paper and pen, a chalkboard, a whiteboard, data projector, mobile phone, or computer. But we don’t have fancy workshops or books about integrating whiteboards into your teaching or advanced flip chart use. A “smart” classroom is where learning happens, so it doesn’t even have to be a room or have a class.
It’s important to ask “why?” before a lot of time, effort and money is spent on setting up things that are never used. Whichever techniques or tools that you use for teaching have to be effective and appropriate for you and your learners. I love playing with the latest tools and being on the cutting edge, but if you’re leaving a lot of people behind, it’s not efficient or effective. So I am trying to think of ways to engage my learners and to use all of the tools that work for them. Ideally we can get out of me standing at the front of a room and talking and get into building spaces for learning.
Technorati Tags: learning, teaching, technology