Asynchronous Vs Synchronous Learning- A "First World" Option

My breakdown of this “First World” option of E-Learning:

Benefits:

• Saves space. Many schools and classrooms are over impacted. With Elearning or Online Learning, more people can take advantage of education and not be limited by space issues or constraints. 
• Students can participate in the class in the comfort of their chosen surroundings, i.e. library, coffee shop, home in pajamas, etc.
• Students can take a class or a whole program from a school that is located anywhere in the nation. This opens wide a wealth of opportunity and choices.
• The learning materials for the class are often of a technology nature, saving money on physical books, and using resources that can be reviewed over and over unlike a one time given lecture.
• In an Asynchronous class students can move at their own pace.

Draw Backs:

• Asynchronous learning can lend itself too easily to procrastination and therefore stress induced learning for those that are not as personally motivated or who are already extremely busy.
• With Synchronous Learning everyone sees your immediate work (when you type) which does not give you an opportunity to make corrections, i.e. spelling or grammar.  There is also little or no time to process information because an immediate response is expected.
• There is little to no interaction with other class members and never personal relationship building with classmates or the professor.
• Discussions online take much longer than communicating face to face, therefore professors and students are not able to cover nearly as much content in the same amount of time online as you can face to face.  In fact Ned Kock who wrote ‘Media Richness or Media Naturalness? The Evolution of Our Biological Communication Apparatus And It’s Influence On Our Behavior Toward E-Communication Tools’ estimates that “an exchange of 600 words requires about 6  minutes for complex group tasks in face-to-face settings, while exchanging the same number of words over email or chat would take approximately one hour.” 

I suppose I am “old school” as I still would much prefer the face-to-face version of learning, mostly for the personal interaction and real time instruction and assistance. But after review of a few articles reporting the benefits and the concerns of Asynchronous and Synchronous learning, I definitely see the wisdom in finding a “blended” format.  That sounds like a copout perhaps but, while I truly find both options intriguing and somewhat beneficial, I know I need the discipline of having to submit work by deadlines but I also like the idea of working at my own pace to take in the content.  

Blog #4- App Review

The Sitch on Skitch

Being that I am new to most of these apps I am speaking as a novice.  But I have been playing with Skitch since we learned of it in class and I love it!  There have been many times that I wished I could save a portion of an image on a website and Skitch enables you to do it so easily. And I’ve also wanted to learn how people make annotations on pictures and images for purposes of direction and/or instruction and to literally point things out.  Now I am able to do that very thing.

Features:

• It is user friendly
• All the buttons for features are visible on the screen surrounding your picture so you don’t have to go back and forth
• Many font choices, sizes, and colors
• Can share the screenshot URL as a direct image URL, HTML, HTML thumbnails, or forum code.
• Can make multiple copies of the screenshot and “wipe” each to make changes
• Saves right into Evernote
• Best part… it is compatible with Mac so I can use it on my computer as well as the IPAD! 

Application for Education:

I can see how easily this could be applied in the classroom for live instruction, in making handouts, for use in a video or virtual instruction such as Prezi, etc.  It is a very intuitive app, which makes it easy to get going and begin using right away. Being that you can save the image once and make multiple copies, you can easily make minor changes each time to show progressive points on that same image. The features, like colors and sizes, are simple and therefore more noticeable.

There are so many ways I could have used this in my music teaching days. I could have scanned a sheet of music and pointed out the lines on the staff that each part is singing, made note of the dynamics as they are written, and highlight Codas, just to name a few. There are so many wonderfully practical ways to apply this app to teaching!

Blog Entry #3 - Flipping Out Over The Flipped Classroom

Flipping Class

I love that with the Flipped Classroom idea the class time becomes a place for students to process and interact to put that knowledge to practical use rather than it being just a lecture hall of sorts. As stated in the Flipped Class Manifest, “…students become active learners rather than receptacles of information”. Also fantastic is the way in which this Flipped Classroom allows the class time to be used for asking direct questions of the teacher and receiving more one on one instruction after the students have already familiarized themselves with the content.

If feel the most advantageous outcome of this model of teaching is any student who needs can watch the video over and over again until they really feel they have it. Others who were able to grasp the information the first time do not have their time wasted hearing it repeated and they may move on to the next project. It is quite practical as well in enabling students who must miss class to be able to keep up.

Mary Beth Hertz points out in her blog that these are not video games as people perceive videos. The video made for the Flipped Classroom is “a mixture of direct instruction and constructivism”.  As the Flipped Manifest indicates, teachers cannot expect to create a video on a subject one time and use that for all time.  The effectiveness of that video will change as quickly as all the rest of technology.  I’m sure that teachers using this method will find that they need to “update” and make changes often to make it fresh but we are learning in this class just how many amazing resources there are out there to allow teachers to be current and find new tools of information that will enable them to make those changes quickly.  Mary Beth Hertz also makes the point that “videos used in the flipped classroom model must include a variety of approaches in the same way a face-to-face lesson would”.  Again, there are a vast variety of resources, methods, and tools of technology that can help us to make this happen.

In support of these ideals I have to say this is meeting the kids right where they are at today.  While the videos, etc., are instructional, the format is one that they are not only used to but are grasping onto faster than any of us.  It is time that we catch up and make our instruction relevant for today but we must also keep teaching our kids to be responsible learners.  As the Manifest states, “We are actively transferring the responsibility and ownership of learning from the teacher to the students in a Flipped Classroom.”

One final thought from someone who has not taught in a classroom in 16 years. As I was reading these articles and reflecting on how I might put this into use if I was still teaching today I realized…I was doing the Flipped Classroom model 20 years ago. I was a music teacher and I while I taught my choirs and ensembles to read music in class, I also made recordings of our music, often with my voice dubbed over the top singing their part. (yes this did take HOURS of my own time outside the classroom, as did making 68 copies.  With the technology tools of today it would probably take me half the time now).  I did this so they could learn their part on their own time as homework.  By doing this I was able to spend the class time focusing on the whole group and their blend, the dynamics of the music, all the nuances that make the piece beautiful rather than spending our whole hour plunking out individual notes on the piano.  This way we were also able to learn, perfect, and perform more.   

A PLN - Professional Learning Network or Personal Limitless Narratives

A PLN - Professional Learning Network or Personal Limitless Narratives

This world of virtual communication and online chatter is an amazing thing. While I am truthfully fighting it on the one hand (it takes up a tremendous amount of time as one gets caught up viewing others comments and conversations) I also have to admit there is some really cool stuff out there!  (excuse the high school vernacular)  I have never Tweeted or Blogged before this class so I cannot speak as one who has experience or a vast array of options within my Professional or Personal Learning Network.  But if I had to explain how mine currently works, I would say that my PLN consists of my cell phone which holds all my contacts and is my first line of communication be it a phone call or a text or an email. That is the truest sense of my network thus far.  The next arrow in my PLN quiver would be Google. As basic as that may sound I am one of those people that “googles” everything. Want to find the answer to most any question…just “google it”.  Of course now YouTube has become the visual answer to Google. It’s amazing how there seems to be an instructional video for everything under the sun on YouTube now.  Of course I also have a FaceBook personality but I rarely make an appearance on there.  I am one of those people who feels a certain level of security is at stake using FaceBook as I have been a victim of a stalker through FaceBook. Just because they are a friend of a friend doesn’t make it safe.  Other than those, my network consists of good ‘ol fashion face to face, real person time with my family, friends, church, work, and the new people I meet each day groups. But I am expanding my network with this class, that’s for certain!

Being that I am no longer in the classroom, I am experimenting on these many sites to hopefully find ways to use them in other areas of my professional life. For example, I can see gaining helpful information in Pinterest to use in my professional singing and modeling careers by way of style, music sites, costume design, etc. I am interested in learning to use Pinterest more but to be honest I have had difficulty in either understanding it’s true purpose, as I have not found it to provide too much more than pictures and links to more pictures, or it’s functionality, as I tried to post a pin myself and received a “this field required” message with no explanation. It is moments like this that I am not happy with any form of technology. 30 minutes wasted on trying out something that should probably only take 30 seconds. (Professor Rounds said to be honest about our experiences here).

I will definitely continue to explore the world of blogging and will create a professional blog for both my Sweethearts of Swing music group and a personal one for public speaking. I am excited to grow my PLN in this area!

I have been trying out Scoop.it. I found some great pages on there regarding public speaking. I will continue to peruse this one but it scared me a little when I tried a tag that opened something asking me to create a scoop. I don’t know that I am ready for that just yet. Someday perhaps.  I am enjoying Diigo and will definitely try to condition my mind to start using that on a much more consistent basis, especially to help me remember sites I have been to.  Although I have been playing around with that site too for quite some time now and I am still having a hard time figuring out how to save anything there. Oh how I wish I could learn things by only seeing it done once.  And oh how I miss actual instructional books.  Here’s the broken record…I can find and read in a manual in 3 minutes what takes me 30 minutes to 3 hours to find and learn on the internet.  I’m just sayin’…

I did, however, find it very easy to Tweet links and to follow the links of those I follow on Twitter. 

My final parting project and thoughts cannot be captured until after I participate in the #musedchat Monday evening. I will blog again on that experience. But I wanted to complete what I could of our PLN Assignment before burning the midnight oil on Monday. All in all I can say that I can see practical application for Blogging, Twitter, Pinterest, Diigo, and maybe Scoop.It for my professional purposes even though I am not a classroom teacher any longer. I look forward to discovering other sites and adding them to my PLN.

Blog Entry #2-Part 2 Tweeting and Chatting

BLOG Entry#2-Part 2 Tweeting and Chatting

I have been working on my Twitter library.  It has been fun thinking through who I should add to my list. Being that I am not teaching any longer, I am looking to expand my list to include people that I might glean from in my professional areas, i.e. , musicians (even more specifically worship leaders), pastors, jazz artists.  I thought it an odd thing to look for “public speakers” at first. But I actually found some possibilities thanks to Scoop.It.  It’s just a little odd following people you know nothing about. I would rather “follow” them based upon a recommendation but since I’m kind of navigating this road on my own I will leave it to chance at first.  As I follow a little I’m sure I’ll begin to pick up on how legitimate someone is. Currently I am following the likes of Chris Tomlin, the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Israel Houghton, Darlene Zschech, and Pastor Leo Giovinneti just to name a few. 

I participated in an educational twitter chat tonight.  That was a trip.  I went on to #musedchat this Monday evening at 5:00 (listed as 8:00pm EST).  I found this site on Cybraryman’s Catalogue of Educational Websites.  It was a trip. Honestly, a little difficult to figure out how to get on it at first. I had to “google” how to join an edchat.  After 20 minutes searching, reading, and navigating how to get setup, I was finally in.  The entries sometimes fly in so fast I had a hard time keeping up, especially with any one thought as one was answering a comment made by someone 8 entries earlier.  In this respect it is totally reminiscent of the chat rooms of the early days of the Internet.  As such I would say this format is taking a great step backwards. In any event, I did finally jump in. That was a little intimidating as well as I wasn’t certain I was writing to everyone at first or even if my entry would make it in.  It did and some responded.  There is a certain satisfaction in knowing you are able to contribute to this vast array of information and suggestions shooting by.  All in all I would say getting to the experience was once again time consuming but once I got on and got in it was quite enlightening and even fun. 

A Visiting Pioneer

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As Seen By A Digital Pioneer

By Prensky’s definition I can definitely relate to a Digital Immigrant.  I do feel that I do keep a “foot in the past”. For example, I am fully capable of tying a paper in a Word document. I see the convenience of editing it on a computer. I understand that it is “saved” and “filed” where I choose.  But I still like to print things out and file it in “real time” as well.  I just don’t fully trust the system yet. To continue with Prensky’s analogies, I would go so far as to say I am a Digital Pioneer.  

I still remember how easy it was to lose all your work with the trip of a breaker or an accidental unplugging of the computer.  As antiquated as that may now sound, I still experience and hear of incidents where people lose a body of work, or misplace a file, or all is lost with a crash. Albiet with the creation of things like Carbonite or the Cloud we will hear of fewer and fewer of this type of problem.  And to the end, that is the beauty of the accelerated advancements that technology experiences. But still…I can’t help but continue to print out those retail receipts just to be sure…and to remember I even received them.  Oh what a confession!

I do agree that there is an every expanding gap between the Natives and the Immigrants that is no more noticeable than in the classroom.  Not so much for the new “up and coming” teachers as they have the opportunity to learn to incorporate the latest trends in technology into their initial teaching instruction (as with this Masters degree).  However, I do feel for teachers who have been teaching for 15+ years.  Their world is changing around them dramatically and they are in a position to have to choose to go back to school themselves to learn to keep up with their students, the Natives, or be accused of antiquated teaching methods.

I wouldn’t totally agree with Prensky’s statement that Digital Immigrants believe learning shouldn’t be fun. I believe that not matter what method or generation a teacher derives from, if a teacher at heart, they do all they can to make learning fun. The methods that teachers have used to achieve this goal have simply looked different over history. But I absolutely agree that we need to “learn new ways to teach old stuff”, especially rather than doing away with “old stuff” all together.  Lord help us if we become a world that doesn’t know how to reason or process how we arrived at an answer!  I believe the idea he came up with to create a “game” to teach a whole new system to engineers was brilliant!! And he is so right. This methodology can be used for all subjects.  We just need to learn to adapt to this new format of instruction, as we are doing in this class. 

 Just Stopping In For A Visit

I found that David White’s categories, while perhaps more modern as it pertains to social media, still are too definitive.  Once again, I lean more toward one side than another but I do not, myself, fit fully in just one definition.  I have to agree that Residents want to be visible at all times, and in order to do that they must post even the most mundane of information.  I find this to be a complete waste of time, both to post and to read. However I do appreciate the accessibility and “real time” information that social media affords and I can appreciate that to be current one must be more of a Resident. 

I identify more with a Visitor especially for the fact that I am concerned with privacy on all levels. I felt his explanation that the Visitor is not technology inept but rather uses/learns it on an “as need to know” bases, i.e. to achieve a goal was perfect.

I hadn’t really thought about the web as a “tool box” of information but I can understand that description as well. I think I most closely relate to the Resident for professional purposes and Visitor for personal purposes mentality. Although I believe our K-12 learners today are completely immersed in the online Residential lifestyle already.  Therefore, once again, as educators, we need to learn to meet them where they live, and today that seems to be on the web.