SlideShare Team to me
Hi gviller,
We've noticed that your slideshow on SlideShare has been getting a LOT of views in the last 24 hours. Great job ... you must be doing something right. ;-)
Sppose so... Been under the weather lately so this kind of perks things up a bit. There are more likeminded people out there than I was thinking...Mmm =)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Assessments should measure 21st Century Skills
Hi, I believe that we must give assessments a total new spin. It is necessary to make sure that we aren't measuring by old standards but by what truly matters today,which is that new generations master 21st century skills. Therefore, it is important we find the way to include technology applications in assessments. Think of it as open books tests, where it isn't just the content knowledge that is being assessed. I recently read the document "Assessment: A call to action" download.microsoft.com/download/6/E/9/6E9A7CA7-0DC4-4823-993E-A54D18C19F2E/Transformative%20Assessment.pdf It was truly inspiring and I recommend it be read, for it focuses on the important issue of including 21 century skill assessments for overall education transformation.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Inagurational Speech: A different perspective on the most popular topic today
As a foreigner, but one whose formative years were spent in the USA, this was a priceless moment. I confess that living overseas I couldn't listen to the speech live, so I read it last night. Mr. Obama speaks to our generation, the one that has ridden the fast years as kids and young adults, looking up at the older generation for clues of what went wrong and what was rightly done. I also confess I shed a tear or two reading the speech; for although a foreigner, my values were shaped in America; honor and hard work were principles that lead to success, and anyone had the right to a dream and the means to reach it. That's the reason why many foreigners, far away from their own countries look up to this moment as the moment they've all been hoping for, a moment of reckoning and of dreams again being possible.
I have no idea werther former presidents spoke or not to their generations as Obama did with this speech, but this one really did it for me. I believe our generation was robbed of their innocence and dreams before their even had a chance.The forecast today looks promising...
I couldn't vote for Barrack Obama: but had I been an American citizen, I most surely would have, and would feel as elated as I do now. I just hope we're not thrusting upon his shoulders all the dreams and hopes for him to bear on his own (or the blame when tougher times continue to arise), but that America and foreign countries alike are willing to share the load and ready to shoulder in themselves to help this man meet all our expectations.
I have no idea werther former presidents spoke or not to their generations as Obama did with this speech, but this one really did it for me. I believe our generation was robbed of their innocence and dreams before their even had a chance.The forecast today looks promising...
I couldn't vote for Barrack Obama: but had I been an American citizen, I most surely would have, and would feel as elated as I do now. I just hope we're not thrusting upon his shoulders all the dreams and hopes for him to bear on his own (or the blame when tougher times continue to arise), but that America and foreign countries alike are willing to share the load and ready to shoulder in themselves to help this man meet all our expectations.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
eLearn 2008 Part II
Ok, that was long enough between part I and II. I apologize for that.
One of the subjects that was most drawn on presentations was that of Online gaming as learning environments and that of course included Second Life.
It is to be understood that Physical gaming as opposed to virtual gaming requires at least a temporary portioning of the physical environment for the game or simulation to take place, the laws of physics apply to all players and people typically behave with socially construed rules and norms continuously maintained. Virtual games on the other hand are free of many of these restrictions or variables; however the minute you get into the augmented realm that is that of Second Life for example, the situation isn’t all imaginary and a temporary positioning of a physical (although virtual) environment is required as much as design laws apply to possible interaction. Likewise because of the virtually physical environment, socially construed norms and rules virtually permeate the interaction!
Having said the above, we find from the paper presented for a University Curriculum for Second Life Course (Calif. State University) that authentic context and activity are built in, there is access to expert modeling and performance, there are multiple roles and perspectives available, with collaborative construct of knowledge that allows scaffolding, reflection and coaching of individuals, including authentic assessment possibilities.
I also attended some good presentations on design and development of web-based formative peer assessment, on open models that addressed multilingual aspects of online participation and e-learning. However, the most outstanding discussions from my personal perspective are the ones I have mentioned in PartI and here.
One of the subjects that was most drawn on presentations was that of Online gaming as learning environments and that of course included Second Life.
It is to be understood that Physical gaming as opposed to virtual gaming requires at least a temporary portioning of the physical environment for the game or simulation to take place, the laws of physics apply to all players and people typically behave with socially construed rules and norms continuously maintained. Virtual games on the other hand are free of many of these restrictions or variables; however the minute you get into the augmented realm that is that of Second Life for example, the situation isn’t all imaginary and a temporary positioning of a physical (although virtual) environment is required as much as design laws apply to possible interaction. Likewise because of the virtually physical environment, socially construed norms and rules virtually permeate the interaction!
Having said the above, we find from the paper presented for a University Curriculum for Second Life Course (Calif. State University) that authentic context and activity are built in, there is access to expert modeling and performance, there are multiple roles and perspectives available, with collaborative construct of knowledge that allows scaffolding, reflection and coaching of individuals, including authentic assessment possibilities.
I also attended some good presentations on design and development of web-based formative peer assessment, on open models that addressed multilingual aspects of online participation and e-learning. However, the most outstanding discussions from my personal perspective are the ones I have mentioned in PartI and here.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Overall comments on eLearn2008 Part I
Hi, took me a month, but I finally did it and here I am with overall comments and what not on Las Vegas eLearn 2008 conference.
The first thing to say is that I took my husband and VC2 (our company) as sponsors on this participation, so now VC2, a consulting and training enterprise, is also very present in the educational arena and will continue to expand in that direction.
On the pre-conference workshops, I had a lot of fun at the 1st morning workshop. Unfortunately at the moment I'm posting this comment I don't carry the names of all the presiding participants, but they were all pretty helpful and gave us such great leads, I'd say the workshop alone was good enough to justify the trip! Kudos to Andrew Shim and company, sorry guys if I didn't get all your names this time. Zamzar.com was a memorable tip and my recommendation is to try to attend the workshops, you might learn about some pretty cool tools.
The next thing I attended was Richard Baraniuk's presentation on open access education.... Agree! Agree! Agree! Millions of books have the very same information so we do have to learn a couple of things from the music world: create, rip, mix and burn... The things we could do with an Interconnected Global repository and World Wide Library! The road is through creative commons and wikis... we just have to accept them as creditable and practical solutions. As for the future of the Publishing Industry, not to worry, it is the long tail that is for open access, not the Harry Potters that conform the head of the publishing tail. Baraniuk's speech was inspiring...listening and seeing is believing. There is a way, let's hope the rest of the world sees it.
Ok this is part I, I'll be back with more.
The first thing to say is that I took my husband and VC2 (our company) as sponsors on this participation, so now VC2, a consulting and training enterprise, is also very present in the educational arena and will continue to expand in that direction.
On the pre-conference workshops, I had a lot of fun at the 1st morning workshop. Unfortunately at the moment I'm posting this comment I don't carry the names of all the presiding participants, but they were all pretty helpful and gave us such great leads, I'd say the workshop alone was good enough to justify the trip! Kudos to Andrew Shim and company, sorry guys if I didn't get all your names this time. Zamzar.com was a memorable tip and my recommendation is to try to attend the workshops, you might learn about some pretty cool tools.
The next thing I attended was Richard Baraniuk's presentation on open access education.... Agree! Agree! Agree! Millions of books have the very same information so we do have to learn a couple of things from the music world: create, rip, mix and burn... The things we could do with an Interconnected Global repository and World Wide Library! The road is through creative commons and wikis... we just have to accept them as creditable and practical solutions. As for the future of the Publishing Industry, not to worry, it is the long tail that is for open access, not the Harry Potters that conform the head of the publishing tail. Baraniuk's speech was inspiring...listening and seeing is believing. There is a way, let's hope the rest of the world sees it.
Ok this is part I, I'll be back with more.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Back from AACE eLearn2008 Las Vegas Conference
This was a real good experience and a good starting point for CURITE. I now can see where CURITE can grow and how to connect with other fellow researchers that are travelling the same road.
There so much that can be done and I'm a true believer that CURITE can grow and stretch out to mold and adapt to so many possibilities, it's just a matter of time.
I learnt a lot of do's and don'ts with presentations at this conference and would first like to share a bit about it.
Before I look like a show off, my first comment will address what I believe wasn't the best in my own presentation: I have come to really understand that adding a few more lines in the title does make a difference. Curricula in Technology - CURITE, was a hard sell for a title, it was too short and didn't quite explain what it was about. At first I didn't understand those so very long titles, and my marketing judgment interfered and had me set what I thought was a clean, short simple title... Not a good a idea! The more is said that leads to the content, the better. So next time I'll make sure to improve on that. It will probably attract a larger audience and a more participative one too.
Now, on the other hand my presentation, was what I believe to be good to outstanding. Here we were at an eLearning and technology oriented conference and most of the presentations not only were lame, but many didn't bother to follow even outdated guidelines like the rule of 7, or just simple common sense in preparing them. You had light blue backgrounds with white letters, letters too small to read and downright real busy backgrounds!! Some were just a bunch of text, nothing visual and absolutely non-attractive. I really think that if you are to make a presentation you have to take care of these details. And if the presentation is to be at a conference where the infusion of technology into learning is the issue, well I'd say that making an effort to make the best use of it should be a priority.
There so much that can be done and I'm a true believer that CURITE can grow and stretch out to mold and adapt to so many possibilities, it's just a matter of time.
I learnt a lot of do's and don'ts with presentations at this conference and would first like to share a bit about it.
Before I look like a show off, my first comment will address what I believe wasn't the best in my own presentation: I have come to really understand that adding a few more lines in the title does make a difference. Curricula in Technology - CURITE, was a hard sell for a title, it was too short and didn't quite explain what it was about. At first I didn't understand those so very long titles, and my marketing judgment interfered and had me set what I thought was a clean, short simple title... Not a good a idea! The more is said that leads to the content, the better. So next time I'll make sure to improve on that. It will probably attract a larger audience and a more participative one too.
Now, on the other hand my presentation, was what I believe to be good to outstanding. Here we were at an eLearning and technology oriented conference and most of the presentations not only were lame, but many didn't bother to follow even outdated guidelines like the rule of 7, or just simple common sense in preparing them. You had light blue backgrounds with white letters, letters too small to read and downright real busy backgrounds!! Some were just a bunch of text, nothing visual and absolutely non-attractive. I really think that if you are to make a presentation you have to take care of these details. And if the presentation is to be at a conference where the infusion of technology into learning is the issue, well I'd say that making an effort to make the best use of it should be a priority.
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