My Technology Colored Glasses
A Synthesis Essay by Dave Collins
July 12, 2011
I work with technology every day. Many of us do. We now take for granted that if we have a laptop or a mobile device that we should be able to connect to the internet anywhere to get answers to our questions. This is a matter of convenience.
As I walk around campus I see busy people. Students sitting in hall ways on floors connected. Faculty in offices connected. People walking outside between classes connected. Everyone connected to something from wherever they happen to be. The connection is expected to be reliable and is almost taken for granted. This connectivity, made possible because of the internet and digital technology, has triggered a surge in distance education at MSU and around the world.
When I first came to MSU as an undergrad in 1984 the Internet was still in early development and not widely used. Term papers were still typed on typewriters. Students waited in line to enter the “Pit” to register on cards for classes. I spent much more time in the library pouring over periodicals and books to do research. In my spare time I listened to my albums on a bulky Zenith stereo with an 8 track player and turntable. To communicate we had one phone in our house that was attached by a cord to the wall. My news source was a printed newspaper or the 6:00 local television news. No internet. No wireless. No mobile devices. No connectivity.
Much has changed. The digital revolution drove that change.
Now that I am finishing my master's degree in Educational Technology in the College of Education at MSU, I have a broader perspective of the enormity of that change. I now have some perspective and an appreciation for the winding road of technological progress that has taken place over the last 50 years of my life. I have directly benefited from this progress and today I use a variety of digital tools in my personal and work life.
At home I can access hundreds of news sites and feeds from around the world to review research, access media files and download course content at anytime of the day. I am no longer restricted to predetermined building hours, book due dates, outdated materials, bulky equipment and cords connected to the wall.
At work as a multi-media producer I am able to use digital tools to assist faculty with the creation of course content to educate students around the world. I use a variety of software to help plan, produce, edit, publish and support distance education materials. I can then connect from anywhere on campus to access the content and provide orientations to the services. Innovations in digital software have greatly increased the efficiency of the work and the quality of the finished product.
Although my work responsibility often involves innovative distance education projects, sometimes the focus is narrowed to improvements in certain field of distance education, such as videoconferencing or lecture capture. However, once I started on my masters program, the vast world of technology related to education and the tools defined as social media really opened up to me. I discovered that there was much more to the integration of technology in education than I expected. This awareness has helped me have a broader vision at work.
My work also involves training of others. I coordinate technology workshops for faculty interested in learning about new systems to reach out to their students, like podcasting and lecture capture. These workshops are comprised of adult learners who have a different learning style than younger students. As a result of one of my courses I now understand the various characteristics that make adult learners unique.
My work involves problem solving and the generation of ideas. Software and hardware can break. Systems stop working. New versions are released which can affect the functioning of other apps that interface. Faculty come to me with ideas, requests and needs. They want to serve their students more effectively. I try to light a spark within my team to develop a solution that will satisfy their needs.
My work involves the creation and maintenance of quality web sites. Although I have worked side by side with a few web authoring professionals, I now appreciate the depth of the work that goes into a creative design that is usable, easy to navigate and more likely to be recognized as a quality site.
My work involves groups and teams of people working together with a common goal. Group dynamics can be complicated. A great team clicks and reaches goals by effectively using a variety of communication tools, focuses on teamwork and cooperation, and has good leadership. I have learned this from experience and trial and error. Since nearly all of my courses were fully online, many of the courses required group work on projects. I had many rewarding experiences in a variety of groups in this program that really improved my ability to participate as a team member in a productive and engaging group.
Adult learning, the generation of ideas, quality web site development, and group dynamics: these are some of the themes that I have found interesting and focused on as a student in the masters program. I will next review some of my courses that were the drivers for these themes.
EAD 861 Adult Learning John Dirkx
I was fascinated with this class because I conduct workshops for adult learners and also because I am an adult learner. I was driven by the urge to know more about how the majority of my students learn so I could better design my workshops and have a more realistic set of outcomes for the class.
This course defined adult learners as those who are over the age of twenty-one, married or head of a household. I learned that the U.S. continues to experience steady growth in adult education. I have witnessed this as more adults (faculty) are interested in technology learning opportunities.
As I made my way through this class I discovered that there are a few factors affecting the growth of adult education. The information below provides some specific details that contribute to the overall picture of adult learning. Much of this information was obtained from online course lectures or from the text for the course, Learning in Adulthood by Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner 2007.
Demographics indicate that there are more adults and the population trends predict that the older adult population will continue to increase.
Technology is another factor that has greatly shaped adult learning. Technology has provided more accessibility, more flexibility and more reliability for some groups of adult learners. Many adults are purchasing more mobile devices that allow for connectivity. Globalization and the global economy has affected training in the work place, changing the educational emphasis to focus on ”improved product and service quality, greater worker responsibility, and teamwork”. I discovered that globalization has changed our society and in turn has shaped the design of adult education. This data caught my attention as I began to think more about the increase in adult enrollments at community colleges, online schools and at our university.
I also learned that there are some important characteristics and attributes of adult learners that need to be considered when designing and conducting training for adults. Adults are independent, self directed and they want or need to know why they are learning. This makes sense to me based on the interaction that I have had with my adult students during the workshops. Adults also have a variety of life experiences which can be a valuable resource within a course. They bring knowledge gained from direct experience. They are problem focused and are internally motivated. Adults basically want to know how the specific learning will benefit them so that they can apply the skill at work or in their personal lives.
There are also factors that affect adult participation in some training programs. The adult may face a variety of barriers unique to adults, such as a preconceived attitude about enrolling in a specific type of training. They may also face limits on their time because of other priorities in their life such as childcare issues or work demands.
There are also learning factors that affect the actual learning process. I am fascinated with the idea of self directed learning where adults take their own initiative to plan, implement and then evaluate their own learning. The idea of reflection is an important step for adult learners. Reflection involves a review of some previous assumptions by thinking about the content or the experience, thinking about the process or ways to deal with the experience, and reviewing the beliefs held about the experience. Adults learn from experience and then apply that experience when faced with new learning activities.
How does all of this information about adult learning affect my profession? All of these factors affect how I design, conduct, and evaluate the technology workshops that we provide where I work. The factors also affect the attendance and performance of my adult students. The advances in technology allow for more adults to continue their education. The technology allows adults more flexibility for their learning. I believe as technology advances the growth in adult enrollment will continue to increase.
This course included many more themes and was very revealing to me because I have taught these workshops for years and now I more fully understand the complexity of adult learning.
CEP 818 Creativity in Teaching and Learning Punya Mishra
The text for this course was called Sparks of Genius written by alumni of MSU. The book reviewed common themes that creative people share and identified some of these traits. The authors studied many artists, poets and other creative folks and then developed 13 “thinking tools” which can assist in creative understanding.
One of the ideas that struck and stayed with me was how many of these creative people had ideas that began with a gut feeling or some sudden intuition and then use some of these creative tools to further develop the idea. The book also talks about the similarities in the creation process between the scientist and the artist. The ideas come as they try to solve a problem. Problem solving is an area that I am interested in because I enjoy the challenge of looking for solutions from a variety of angles
I am also one of those folks who likes to discover and nurture ideas. I love to see the spark in a student’s eye as they discover an inspiring idea. I also like to capture those ideas, to explore them, sometimes develop them or see if they lead to other, more creative ideas.
The book covered a variety of themes related to generating ideas. I choose a few of my favorites to discuss: observation, imaging, and patterns. Ideas can be created in a variety of settings. The book promoted the idea of creating small, safe environments where people can experiment with limited risks. We have all seen someone express an idea within a group and heard another person shoot it down before it is fully developed. The idea may have been fantastic and was ready to be developed but suddenly it was lost. I work in an idea generating environment. I see how young people can be inspired to develop ideas or can be threatened into closing up. Fear of failure is ingrained in our culture.
I work with very bright college students who like to experiment and talk about technology. I have found that if I create a relaxed atmosphere open to everyone’s thoughts and ideas, then the ideas and solutions begin to flow. In this environment, if they feel safe, and I assure them that failing is actually just a part of the learning process, the students become more engaged and feel a sense of ownership over their ideas. They are more willing to express ideas which lead to solutions.
Many of the creative people mentioned in the book also used observation techniques to see deeper and imaging of the final outcome to solve a problem or create their art or product. Using observation techniques, some artists and scientists see details that others miss. These details often offer clues or solutions to problems. Great artists have honed the patience and discipline needed to look, and then look again, to hear, touch smell, taste and feel to fully appreciate and understand the subject matter.
The benefit of imaging is the ability to instantly visualize a finished product and the ability to see flaws. This can be very beneficial to a team working on a web site. There are often many pages of content with a variety of tools, images, videos and navigation elements.
These creative types also recognized the importance of identifying patterns. Patterns surround us. They occur naturally or are manmade. Patterns exist in language, dance, music and engineering, I believe that pattern recognition and formation is natural to humans. The authors of the text state that “every moment of everyday we organize the random events we see, hear or feel by grouping them.” They continue: “Our ability to recognize patterns is the basis for our ability to make predictions and form expectations.” I had a thought while reading this that perhaps pattern recognition is a survival skill that humans have developed over time to ensure safety for themselves and others they are responsible for. If a particular danger provides a threat in a regular interval or pattern, then once the pattern is determined, the threat becomes more predictable and can be easier to manage.
This means that not all of nature is chaos. I have read that when we study mysteries, sometimes analogies can help us to shed light on our subject area. So as we continue to research the benefits of pattern recognition for humans, perhaps a look at patterns in nature might provide some interesting insight. The authors touch on the motivation of some scientists to search for patterns in nature in an attempt to discover some order in what often appears on the surface to be simply chaos.
So how are these themes of safe environments, observation, imaging, and patterns, related and what do they mean for my work? This course was about creating the spark that generates ideas. I feel that I am the most creative when I surround myself with creative people. I now understand that:
- People are more likely to experiment, take risks, solve problems and create something new in safe environments.
- Observation sometimes takes a lot more work but can reveal details previously unknown.
- The ability to create an image to visualize the final result is a gift shared by many famous artists and inventors.
- Recognizing patterns can lead to discovery.
I really enjoyed reading and learning about these common themes shared by creative people. These concepts reinforce other existing notions that I had and will help me in my future creative endeavors.
CEP 817 Learning Technology through Design Punya Mishra
This course covered the fundamentals of good design within web sites. We looked at aesthetics, usability, creativity and functionality. We also spent a good amount of time with the definition of quality, trying to identify characteristics that people associate with quality. The goal of this exercise was to help us think about the attributes associated with the design of a quality web site. After this course was completed I think I had a better appreciation for the depth of the definition.
We assign a quality definition to many kinds of things: products, art, skills, events, even things like communication, leadership, relationships, etc. The list goes on. I am a big fan of quality. I admire quality items, try to provide my family with quality experiences, and I strive for quality in my professional life. When I see quality, I want to stop and admire it for a few moments. I might even be distracted from my original intent to stay a little longer just to admire the attributes that make the items a quality product. So the idea of learning more about what makes a quality web site was appealing to me.
After much reading and discussion on the topic, I created this summary of my thoughts on quality:
- The terms of how individuals arrive at a definition for quality can be affected by many factors.
- The terms can change from item to item and vary by context and change over the course of time.
- An individual’s personal preference as well as the passion, interest and motivation of the person creating the item may affect their view of the quality of an item. Musicians and other artists often have a passion that motivates them to produce in a specific genre that they find appealing. Others may not share the same passion and find the item of less quality.
- Previous personal experience with an item can also play a role in an individual’s judgment of quality. An auto mechanic’s experience with a particular make and model may affect the mechanics opinion of the vehicle.
- Many individuals judge quality by how usable the end product is. A wine bottle opener may have a snazzy design but if it fails to be user friendly then it may not be viewed as a quality product.
- Others believe that form and function are linked and work together to define quality. A teapot that has a nice aesthetic design, whistles when the tea is ready and pours the tea properly may rate as a high quality product.
- I also believe that many individuals can recognize a final work that has been created over many, many hours of labor, and thus appreciate the end product by the time invested. The famous automaker Rolls-Royce takes pride in engines that are still completely hand built. Each automobile is custom made and may take over three months from order to delivery.
But in the final analysis, my instructor Punya summarized the difficulty with defining quality like this: “We can’t define quality because it is not a finite, fixed concept — it changes with time, and culture and experience.” Although this was true, and we experienced a variety of examples during the course which added credence to this idea, the plan for the course was to prepare us to create a “quality” web site as our final project. He gave us the tools and helped us to realize this. I am pleased to say that I believe I produced a high quality web site that is useable, functional, aesthetic looking with a bit of creative flavor added.
I also learned how that the term quality can be interpreted differently by different people, but that there are some common denominators that are shared by many when users evaluate a web site. This information will help me as I design web sites in the future.
Groups
I participated in some type of group work in nearly all of my classes. Many times I was a group leader, other times I was a specialized participant. Every one of these experiences taught me something new about interacting with people. In most cases we all shared a common goal - a high quality completed project. Each group project was an experiment in dynamics, project management and communication. Each group used a different type of technology to work towards the common goal. Each person brought their own specialized skills or knowledge to the project. The team work often resulted in a much richer and multi dimensional final product. I highly value the results that we achieved and the friendships that developed during these projects.
Technology Driven Trends
There were many other themes that I focused on during my study within the masters program. The common driver is technology. Some of my thoughts on these themes which are technology trends include the following:
- The advances in the quality, versatility and reliability of technology for distance education will allow more students of any age to have more control in their learning. Tools will become more affordable and content will become more accessible.
- The convergence of voice, data and media is occurring more rapidly because content providers offer more choices, distribution channels continue to improve in quality and the portable devices become more dependable and contain more options. Most of these tools are available thanks to the development of microprocessors, digital technology and the Internet. Devices will continue to merge and become more convenient to use.
- New models for learning suggest a change from teacher-centered to peer-to-peer models for instruction are catching on at many levels of education. This may also be driven in part by technology, a direct result of the influence of social media tools.
I believe these trends will continue to impact distance education as well as my future academic, professional and personal life.
Summary
Adult learning, web site development, the generation of ideas and working in groups are all related in my world: linked by the underlying course and direction that I have set for my professional life. These themes have one common thread for me – the use of technology to enhance learning. I now have a deeper understanding of the implications of incorporating technology into a learning environment. The simple introduction of a new technology is not enough.
Teachers are discovering that their knowledge of the subject matter (content) and teaching methods (pedagogy) needs to be balanced by knowledge of the appropriate application of technology in a learning environment. I now have a much greater appreciation for those teachers who understand this balance, which is based on the TPACK model.
The technology trends that are occurring bring more flexibility and more opportunity for students and teachers to access information for research and learning. These trends will continue to improve teaching and learning in the traditional classroom as well as in distance education courses.
I now look forward to the next chapter in my life. My road towards my Masters of Educational Technology has helped to construct a foundation for future opportunities. I am looking forward to the journey ahead.