On 08/23/2010,
in change, disruption, education technology, engineering, intelligent tutoring, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, learning theories, personalized/customized learning,
by Daniel Christian
On 07/08/2010,
in elearning, instructional design, motivation, personalized/customized learning,
by Daniel Christian
In Designing e-Learning Motivation Makes all the Difference — from Allen Interactions
What was deeply personal to one group was irrelevant and pointless to another.
This is exactly the problem we face so often as designers of e-learning. Our subject matter experts or project owners live and breathe the content we are to teach. And they expect that the same values that have given significance to the content for them over many years can be directly transferred to the learners. Unfortunately, that’s impossible. To get learners engaged in understanding new content and performing new skills, we as designers need to tie the content to some motivation existing in the learner, or to manufacture an urgency (using game design, networking, or simulation aspects) that the learners buy into. This is important in all learning, but particularly so in e-learning where learners are, for the most part, working entirely on their own.
So equal to the task of analyzing content and designing instruction is the challenge of understanding our learners and designing interactivity that will provide personal motivation.
…
Here are some ideas for designing for motivation:
- Ensure learners are aware of meaningful consequences
- Develop a sense of risk
- Ensure the learner benefits from adaptive content and branching
- Draw the learner in by expert storytelling and creation of suspense
- Appreciate the aesthetic appeal of graphics and media
- Engage in meta-thinking with questions whose importance is elevated through multiple-step tasks and delayed judgment
On 06/28/2010,
in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, innovation, personalized/customized learning,
by Daniel Christian
…
On 06/24/2010,
in engagement / engaging students, K-12 related, personalized/customized learning,
by Daniel Christian
…
On 06/07/2010,
in educational games / serious games, interaction design, K-12 related, personalized/customized learning, social learning / networks,
by Daniel Christian
Like Facebook, but for learning — from eSchoolNews.com by Laura Devaney
Combining social networking with studying, Grockit encourages academic success through peer interaction
Aiming to engage students who are multitasking with different forms of technology, companies are creating collaborative learning spaces online where students can help one another solve homework problems and study—all while building important 21st-century skills.
One such social-networking study site is Grockit, which currently offers test-prep services and is expanding its focus to include math and English for students in grades 8-12, with history and science soon to follow. Grockit has opened enrollment for a free Summer Enrichment Academy, which is designed to keep students from falling behind during summer vacation as they participate in collaborative group study forums online.
On 06/07/2010,
in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, learning agents,
by Daniel Christian
Web 3.0, A witness protection program for Artificial Intelligence (AI) — from inventorspot.com [via SteveKnode.com]
(Emphasis below from DSC)
In our current era of privacy concerns with Facebook and Google, the next decade will see an ushering in of pull technology replacing push. This will address a lot of the security issues we face today. Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents will pull information for us based on the parameters we establish and control. They will then deliver it to the social networks that exist inside our own data networks that we supervise – dissimilar to Facebook’s Open Graph philosophy.
According to Valeria Maltoni, brand strategy and co-author of The Age of Conversation, “Web 3.0 is the true era of conversation, where the real dialogue begins.” She sees the next generations of browsers as ‘smart clients’ working online and offline to facilitate connections of one’s AI agents with someone else’s AI agents, similar to how humans currently match up experts with various business opportunities.
“Our agents will in turn carry out sophisticated tasks for users, making meaningful connections between bits of information so that “computers can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, combining, and acting upon information on the Web,” notes its originator, Internet pioneer Sir Tim Berners-Lee…
Also see:
Primal.com
- Primal Storm – Your online brainstorming assistant. Give Primal Storm a few words to start and it will suggest related ideas.
- Primal Search – Select from a cloud of thoughts to express a big idea. Primal Search will find web pages about your idea as a whole.
- Primal Fusion – Store your ideas in a thought network so you can explore, discover and act on them anytime. Interested in a particular topic? Struggling to organize and capture your thinking around it? Use Primal Fusion to remember your thoughts about the stuff that matters to you.
- Labs – Check out our playground for Primal prototypes. Here you’ll find new products, concepts and ideas that we are exploring. Visit often and tell us what you think.
On 05/12/2010,
in K-12 related, personalized/customized learning,
by Daniel Christian
Explore Our Newest Schools That Work: Differentiated Instruction Wins in South Carolina — from Edutopia
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Discover Forest Lake Elementary School Find out how technology helps tailor the learning process. |
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Teacher Development This elementary school trains and supports its staff to blaze a new digital trail. |
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Ten Tips for Personalized Learning The educators of Forest Lake Elementary deploy a powerful array of digital-technology tools. Discover what your school can learn. |
On 05/05/2010,
in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, intelligent tutoring, personalized/customized learning, ubiquitous learning, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
On 04/07/2010,
in higher education, K-12 related, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning,
by Daniel Christian
Personalizing learning – the important role of technology — from OpenEducation.net by Thomas
New Viewpoint – Personalizing Learning
Clearly, that mindset has changed. With learning styles now a part of the educational landscape today’s teacher is expected to adjust to the varied preferences of students so as to maximize the learning potential of each individual in the classroom.
Such an approach has been characterized by the global term: personalizing the learning experience. The concept is considered as critical to the next generation of teachers as it is for the next generation of students.
Personalizing learning involves differentiating the curricula, including expectations and timelines, and utilizing various instructional approaches so as to best meet the needs of each individual. Essentially, students should be able to do varying assignments and have the freedom to work at a pace that is conducive to their abilities and skill set.
(Inserted comment here from DSC — Can you imagine how a teacher or professor is supposed to do/manage this for 20-25+ students without the use of technology — and with that number of students in the classroom about to go up substantially?)
Not too surprisingly, individual elements of a personalized learning environment are well known to current educators. The challenge is not so much what those elements consist of but how to piece the elements together to form a cohesive strategy.
Most importantly, personalizing learning for the current generation of learners demands specific technologies. Educators need to understand that children are growing up in a media-rich environment.
Schools must deliver a product that engages students and generates within them the desire to learn. Today’s curricula must involve liberal uses of technology whenever it is relevant to the task at hand.
But technology also plays a more important role in the personalization process. Ultimately it is the conduit for teachers to move to a learning approach that features materials developed for each individual student.
Relevant graphic below from DSC:
On 03/29/2010,
in intelligent tutoring, learning agents,
by Daniel Christian
Intelligent Agents
Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy-playing computer, trumps humans (video) – “A fascinating and insightful update on Watson, IBM’s computer being developed to appear on Jeopardy and compete with humans using the same game playing rules.”
From DSC:
This is both exciting and potentially-disturbing to me. At times, I don’t like to cover a lot of things related to artificial intelligence (AI) — as the motivations of those seeking advances in AI are sometimes suspect to me and at times border on arrogance — but to turn my head and ignore everything that’s happening in this area is not helpful either.
The disturbing part lies in who uses such technology and for which purposes. The exciting part is how intelligent agents can work for us. In fact, I created the following graphic back in May 2008 (with slight edits on the wording made today):
Also see:
Digital doomsday: the end of knowledge – Even as we are acquiring ever more extraordinary knowledge, we are storing it in ever more fragile and ephemeral forms. If our civilization runs into trouble, like all others before it, how much would survive?
On 03/02/2010,
in education technology, strategy,
by Daniel Christian
Good news from the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation — from 1 to 1 Schools blog
I frequently hear negative press regarding laptop initiatives and it seems like the positive stuff is quietly released. Jeni Corn and Phil Emer from the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation recently reported preliminary findings from their evaluation of NC 1:1 Learning Collaborative to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee. I’m pleased to say that they have positive results to report. I’m fortunate to be able to visit several of these schools this month and I look forward to observing classes and hearing the stories of the leaders, teachers and students.
On 02/16/2010,
in future, future of higher education, personalized/customized learning,
by Daniel Christian
Quote from “Opinion: Internet and Education — Back to the Future“ — from Vikram Savkar, SVP and Education Markets Director for Nature Publishing Group, a leading global science publisher:
That’s the promise of the Internet, which excels above all else at scale: scale of information, social interactions, geographic reach. But while there is seemingly nothing in education that isn’t migrating online — bookstores, labs, classrooms, field trips — not all of the Internet-driven attempts at innovation have equal merit. The acid test I apply to every new initiative is: to what extent does it bring us closer to the old system of individualized, personal, expert instruction, except with scale? (emphasis DSC)
On 02/04/2010,
in education technology, personalized/customized learning,
by Daniel Christian
Digital Tools Expand Options for Personalized Learning — from EdWeek.org by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo
Digital tools for defining and targeting students’ strengths and weaknesses could help build a kind of individualized education plan for every student.
Teachers have always known that a typical class of two dozen or more students can include vastly different skill levels and learning styles. But meeting those varied academic needs with a defined curriculum, time limitations, and traditional instructional tools can be daunting for even the most skilled instructor.
Some of the latest technology tools for the classroom, however, promise to ease the challenges of differentiating instruction more creatively and effectively, ed-tech experts say, even in an era of high-stakes federal and state testing mandates. New applications for defining and targeting students’ academic strengths and weaknesses can help teachers create a personal playlist of lessons, tools, and activities that deliver content in ways that align with individual needs and optimal learning methods.