The Bad, The Good, The Ugly, and The Beautiful. Or, This One Time at Band Camp....

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The semester is finally ending. With its conclusion I am tasked with writing one final reflective blog entry. The topic of which is, of course, the course itself. This was only my second ETEC course. Compared to the first, I was honestly and utterly disappointed. That was until I began thinking about what I wanted to write here. Having now spent some time in contemplation of this course, my opinion has changed. I now see it in a more positive light. Be that as it may, whereas I would recommend Dr. Bert's ETEC 620 course in a second, I could not, in all good consciousness, recommend this course to a friend. It has the makings to be an awesome course. However, as it now stands, it needs more than a little polish. Let me tell you how to transform this reasonably good course into an awesome one!

First, clone Frank! Just kidding! But seriously, Frank was simply awesome. He was always accessible and was always ready to help. I only hope that he will be able to maintain his energy and enthusiasm as he progresses through what I am sure will be a long and very successful career as an educator.

The course Google site is very good. In fact, as I have said before, I believe that this interface between Dr. Bert, the students, and the material is much better than the Wiki pages and Trello combination that we used last semester in ETEC 620. There is, however, one major addition that I recommend. These online courses are a ton of work. There are so many things that we are expected to read, write, and do. It is really hard to keep track of everything. The fact that all of the different tasks are seemly assigned with the randomness of a shot gun blast makes finding them and keeping track of them very difficult. 

In tonight's class I will present my suggestion for a personal solution to this problem. Here I want to suggest a course based solution to the problem. I believe that there should be one central page in the course site which lists all of the required tasks and their due dates. It need not break the tasks down to their component parts. Hyperlinks could be used to direct the students to the details. It would just be nice to not have to spend tons of time checking and rechecking all the various pages on the site in the quest to determine just what we are expected to do and by when.

At the risk of offending Dr. Bert whom I respect and admire greatly, I want to talk about the absolute worst part of this course, the "Assignment Proposals" assignment. In theory it was an excellent idea. For a course called "Emerging Technology: Trends" putting us into groups and tasking us with designing an assignment that utilizes emerging technologies for learning seemed like it was an excellent idea. Not only would it require us to work together in groups, it would require that we seek out, find, and learn about emerging technologies for learning. Furthermore, and this is the bonus part, it would help us develop our skills in project design. The assignment was brilliant in theory!

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Considering that we had all chosen to enroll in this "Emerging Technology: Trends" course one would assume that we all had an interest in emerging educational technologies. Combining this assumed interest with the verbiage of the assignment it reasonably followed that the assignment proposals should have presented us with a virtual smorgasbord of emerging educational technologies. Unfortunately, like John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men wherein "The best laid schemes of mice and men / Often go awry." so too did this assignment go so very awry! Looking at the proposals it seemed to me that almost everybody in the course not only forgot to read the assignment instructions they also forgot that this is an educational technologies course. Almost nobody stayed on point! When I saw the proposals of the other groups I knew that we had a disaster on our hands.

Compared to Dr. Bert I have relatively no teaching experience. What experience I do have is at the community college and private school level. Be that as it may, when I notice that an assignment that I created is going over like a lead balloon I attempt to salvage the situation by asking my students where I lost them. I then retool my assignment and try to float it again.

The "Assignment Proposals" assignment was a colossal failure. It went over like a lead balloon. Judging by the shoddy and unfocused nature of the majority of the proposals, it should have been retooled or at least reexplained, and we should have been made to redo it. The fact that we just went with it and had to waste our time and money doing these pointless projects that were all but completely devoid of ANY emerging technologies for learning really upset me.

To be fair, the third proposal, the Kibits proposal, at least had some emerging technologies relevance and while it was not a pleasant experience, it was a good learning experience. The second proposal, the self introduction proposal, at least tried to touch upon emerging technologies. Unfortunately, the unpolished nature of the project design itself more than overcompensated for the tangental connection to emerging educational technologies.

The first proposal, the cooking show proposal, was the biggest waste of time and money of the three. I still do not see ANY connection to emerging technologies. That proposal cost me so much time and money that I am still upset about it. Come on guys! We are trying to learn about emerging educational technologies. We are not studying the culinary arts. If you want to study them, go for it. Drop out of graduate school. Enroll in Leeward Community College's culinary arts program. Judging by the food I have eaten there, the program is very good. Just do not waste my time and my money. I am here to learn about emerging educational technologies; not cooking!

Obviously, that was the "Bad" referred to in the title. As for the "Good," well, there was a lot of good in this course. To begin with, making us enroll in a MOOC and write about the experience was a very good idea and a great experience. I only wish that we would have been given that assignment at the very beginning of the semester and that it would have involved more writing about our experiences and thoughts. Of course if that had been the case we would have had to cut something else out. Maybe cutting out the cooking channel proposal would have been a good idea?

Likewise, making us participate in the TCC was an awesome idea. Those three days were the highpoint of the course for me. I learned so much. It felt so cool to be connected with so many people from all over the world. I know that this is very nerdy but, I especially got a kick out of sitting in the Waianae Starbucks after teaching my class and before the show that I had to photograph watching presentation after presentation on my iPad. I felt as if I was truly part of something so much bigger and so much more important than just myself. I realize of course that someday I too may get to present at the TCC. I find the thought both a little nerve racking and more than a little invigorating.

Now on to the "Ugly." This ties right back into the Assignment Proposals. The selected proposals were for the most part so poorly conceived and so poorly drafted that trying to work in groups to complete them was very difficult. I believe that the root of the problem was a general lack of motivation on any of our parts to work on these assignments. We all had better things to do than meet and or even work on them. Heck, if it were not for my desire to earn a great grade in this course, I would have rather spent my time cleaning my bathroom with a toothbrush than working on the proposed assignments. The strength of my reaction may be a little over the top but judging by just how much difficulty we encountered every time we tried to find the time to work together, I can only surmise that my fellow classmates and group mates felt the same way.

Do not get me wrong, working with my group mates was not the "Ugly" part. The work we had to do was the ugly part. Yes, I realize that I am therefore being repetitive. I just really want to drive this point home.

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Turning now to the "Beautiful," despite the difficulty of working with my equally unmotivated group mates, once we were able to muster the motivation to meet, all of the meetings went very well. They say that misery loves company. I guess that our universal misery brought us closer together. When we did meet we almost always spent some time complaining about whichever assignment we were working on at the time. This universal misery gave us all more common ground upon which to build even stronger bonds of friendship and cooperation. 

In conclusion, the irony of the situation is not lost on me. I realize that on the one hand I feel that my fellow classmates failed me and themselves by making proposals which had little or nothing to do with emerging educational technologies. I also feel a little let down by Dr. Bert's allowing us to continue down a course that I still believe to have been way off track of both the assignment's and the course's objectives. However, because of the great suffering these assignments wrought, I feel that I have formed closer bonds and even some friendships with these classmates with whom and by whom I have suffered. I have also come to realize that I unexpectantly learned something about designing assignments at the graduate level.

They say that experience is what you get when you do not get what you want. In terms of its title and my expectations, I did not get even half of what I wanted from ETEC 647e Emerging Technology: Trends. I did, however, learn a lot. Possibly even more importantly, I made new friends and built stronger bonds with my classmates and future working colleagues. On balance, it was a good course. Well done Dr. Bert. You and Frank both have my heartfelt gratitude. I hope that I will be able to take yet another of your courses in the very near future.

http://bryanwilsoncomedycello.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/bandcamp.jpg

Endless Possibilities...

Endless Possibilities by Dimarie

If you have read my blog regularly you know that I try to entertain my readers and draw them in with catchy titles and cool graphics. This week, however, try as I might, I cannot come up with a pithy and yet fun title. Perhaps this debilitation arises from the fact that I do not have to suppress myself and filter out what I really want to write. Perhaps it arises from the fact that I am awestruck by the possibilities, the endless possibilities....

I am, of course, referring to and writing about wearable technology. As an educator at a college with the proverbial "open door" admissions policy, I have the honor of potentially teaching every conceivable type of student. After all, to enroll at the college where I teach students need only 1) be at least 18 (or have their parent's consent) and 2) be alive. A high school diploma is not required.

Many of the students I teach are ill prepared for college and lack the requisite skills necessary to successfully attend college. The college and the administration is very supportive of all our students. We all want them to succeed. There is, however, only so much we can do. The students need to make the effort and show some initiative. Wearable technology, if we can but get it into the hands of students, may help students, both the strong and the weak ones, succeed in college. In general terms it may help them by motivating them. Let me tell you how I envision it helping them in more specific terms.

Students have been able to record classroom lectures for decades. With these recordings they can go back and listen to the lectures again. While useful, the process is slow, arduous, and a sure fire cure for insomnia. 

Imagine instead students wearing something similar to or even better than Google Glass. Imagine them recording not just the audio from the classroom but also videoing the visual elements as well. From powerpoint slides, to scribbles on the white board, to handouts everything could be captured and saved for later review. A system could be devised which allows the user to earmark particularly important parts of the lecture for ready review. 

Waiting for that bus which never seems to come? Why waste the time listening to and watching the Harlem Shake when you can be reviewing your class "notes" and organizing them to make studying for the test that much easier? This technology can help students not only get the most out of class time, it can also help them get the most out of both study time and other time which otherwise goes wasted. Such efficiency will make the students better learners and give them more free time during which they can make non academically related bad decisions.

Perhaps as the technology continues to progress, the software in the device would transcribe the spoken words and the student would be able see to the lecture as well as hear it. Such transcription, especially if in real time, could help students understand what is being said whether they have a hearing impairment, are learning through their non native language, or have the misfortune to have a teacher with a very thick accent.

These wearable learning aids could also help the students develop their vocabulary. What? The teacher said a word that you do not know? Don't ignore it. Look it up! Review it later too. Perhaps on the bus?

Having students with the internet literally at their eyes, would also allow teachers to assign tasks which require the students to scour the internet looking for information. I will not go more deeply into that as we have already covered it this semester.

As I am trying to stay positive I will not address the ways in which the lazy and dishonest students will misused this technology. Reminding myself that they are only really cheating themselves, I will drop the topic here.

In conclusion, wearable technology offers all students, the good, that bad, and the ones who need a little more help, the tools which can make their educational experience both more meaningful and more enjoyable. I only hope that the price point will come down to a reasonable level sooner rather than later. This technology can be very helpful but only if we get to use it.

Augmented Reality: What's Not To Love?!?!

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Okay, as the title of this week's reflective blog indicates, I am a fan of Augmented Reality (AR). I liked the idea as soon as I heard and understood it. The excellent presentation by guest speaker Marisa Yamada reinforced my belief that AR is both cool and can be a potentially very powerful tool to help us educators turn our students into learners.

Without putting too fine a point to it, the vast majority of 20 something (and younger) college students are true-blue-dyed-in-the-wool "short attention spanners." They grew up with tools and technology that we could only dream of as we watched Star Trek as  kids. Our old school educational technology (printed books) just cannot compete with instant gratification electronics. Books, no matter how well written, cannot hold a candle to all the electronic entertainment that our students play with on a daily basis.

Books, whether printed on paper or displayed upon a screen, are still an integral part of the machinery we use to educate. AR offers an ideal "bridge" between the old school world of static words and the living world of interactive content. By bridging this divide, AR provides educators with the proper tools to translate static information into the virtually living and very intriguing knowledge which seems to naturally catch and hold the interest of today's learners. In effect, AR allows educators to translate our knowledge and communicate it readily to our students.

Me As Mona Lisa via FaceStealer

As a photography art teacher I am very excited about the possible applications of AR into my classroom. Composition is the hardest skill to teach. I can imagine an AR application on one's phone that allows one to pre-visualize a shot by overlaying a database full of successful compositions and explanations as to why they work over an existing scene. In effect, this AR app could let the student photographers preview the shot and learn how and why their audience will react and respond to a given composition.

Likewise, an understanding of light is one of the foundational stones of a good photographer. AR offers one the opportunity to "set up" various lighting arrangements and to see how the light will affect the subject. The ability to visualize a shot via AR will help students experiment and play without requiring access to expensive lights. It will allow them to spend more time visualizing and less time actually setting up, measuring, and moving lights.

Granted, AR is still just in its infancy. I doubt that my compositional teaching idea is even possible. However, there are still many ways in which AR can already be used. Furthermore, the idea about using AR to set up virtual lights is not as unreasonable as it might at first sound. Photoshop allows one to add lights, change their angles, and change their intensity already. It will not be long before it can be done on a mobile phone.

As educators we need to get ahead of and stay in front of the AR educational technology wave. Even as immature as AR is, it still has much to offer. We should maximize the current benefits it offers and thereby prepare ourselves and our students for all the educational possibilities it will provide in the future.

Me as Fukuzawa Yukichi vis FaceStealer

Game Based Learning Or, That Really Sucked!

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This blog entry is late. I admit it. I messed up. I confused the required team submission on Eyewire with this required blog entry. I assumed that in doing that assignment I had also done this one too. I was thinking along the lines of happily having killed two proverbial birds with one proverbial stone. But, alas, I now realize that I was mistaken. Now, this blog entry is late.

Maybe that is a good thing. Having had a few more days to cool down since suffering through the horribly painful and irritating Eyewire experience, maybe I can be a little more level headed in my expression of my feeling.... Nope! I am still not a happy camper. I still want to vent.

With all due respect, what a waste of time that was! I felt like I had become a modern “Huck Finn” tricked by the “Tom Sawyer” scientists into painting the neurons in the so called “game.”

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From the perspective of the scientists and, of course, Tom Sawyer, suckering someone else to do your work is a really good idea. However, from the perspective of this “sucker,” it is anything but a good idea. It was a colossal waste of time. 

Turning to its potential application in the classroom, I have to bite my tongue for fear of saying anything too strongly. What I can say is that to educators the idea that we can use this so called game in our classrooms to help enhance the learning potential of our students is very appealing. After all, those of us who teach from our hearts really want to help our students learn. Just the possibility makes this game interesting and intriguing to us. 

Talk about bait and switch! Eyewire should be both the poster child for it and the first description found on the related Wikipedia page. Think about this! How can forcing my photography students to paint neurons for scientists help them learn photography? I have a very creative mind and yet I cannot even begin to fathom an answer to that question.

Now do not get me wrong. I am not saying that games cannot be incorporated into the classroom to help facilitate learning. Clearly they can. And that is the rub! Why did we (my fellow classmates and I) have to waste an hour of our lives "playing" Eyewire? There are any number of games that possess at least a modicum of pedagogical value. Why did we have to be subjected to Eyewire? 

Reflecting upon my last question and hoping to find a way to end this post on a positive note, I began looking for appropriate quotes. I found the following quote by Lucius Annaeus Seneca. “Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.” This quote helped take some of the sting out of this assignment and it put my thoughts into a more positive state of mind. Who in graduate school does not want to strengthen their mind, right?

In this happier state of mind I came across the following quote by William Shakespeare from As You Like It. “Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” Through this  horrible assignment I was able to commiserate with my team mates. We all suffered. Through this suffering we found further commonalities and I believe that our friendships grew stronger. Crying was not an option so we laughed at the absurdity of this assignment. It was good to laugh. Our laughter served as a healing ointment on our minds bruised by the time wasted "playing" Eyewire. 

In conclusion, I really did not appreciate the exposure to Eyewire. However, I really do appreciate the way the adversity and absurdity of this experience helped my team become better friends and helped us forge a stronger learning community.

A Tale of Three MOOCs

Source: http://richmccue.com/2012/10/04/is-the-mooc-coursera-model-the-future-of-higher-education-in-canada/

In the realm of education, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are all the rage. It naturally followed that, as an educational technology (ETEC) graduate student, I would have to enroll in one and experience it for myself. Having done so, it now falls upon me to reflect upon the experience, gather my thoughts, and share them with you here through my ETEC blog.

Initially, the experience was much worse than I feared. Eventually, it was better than I expected. My initial attempts to find and enroll in a MOOC that interested me met with very little actual success. As a photographer and photography instructor I naturally sought a MOOC on photography. Luckily, or so I thought, I found one. It was in India. I thought that was cool. I thought that it would afford me an opportunity to virtually meet and potentially form friendships with photographers and photo enthusiasts in India. Boy was I wrong!

To begin with, their were technical difficulties. I could not register. The site was up. The forms were there. However, the security system that was in place to prevent robots from enrolling also prevented humans from enrolling. When I wrote to the organizers for support, I had to wait about four days for a response. The response did resolve the problem. But still, four days? That seems a little slow and inattentive.

Second, the photography MOOC was anything but "massive." Once I was able to enroll, I discovered that there were less than 20 people enrolled. Maybe they should have let some of those robots that they so obviously feared enroll too? That might have helped generate at least some action in the course.

Which brings me to my third unfortunate discovery about the MOOC: nothing was happening. They were not covering any material. They were not discussing anything. It seemed that the format of the course was well, unformatted. There was nothing going on. 

In summary, I learned nothing about photography. I did, however, learn that just because someone calls something a MOOC does not mean that it really is one.

Obviously, that so called MOOC was not going to help me fulfill the requirements of the ETEC MOOC assignment. I therefore had to search for another one. Finding one that interested me turned out to be substantially harder than I expected. After exercising great due diligence I found a course offered by Harvard through edX. The course was called The Ancient Greek Hero. Unfortunately, it did not start until March 13th, much too late for this assignment. I had to start looking again.

After even more searching I discovered a course offered through Coursera called 

Contraception: Choices, Culture and Consequences.The course was adapted from the ten-week version at UC San Francisco taught to Nursing students pursuing Master's and Doctoral degrees. It was already well underway when I joined. 

The course was well organized. The required readings were easily assessable through the course site. The procedure of the course was to read the material, answer related questions and, if you wanted to do so, join in a directed online discussion. I was unable to join or experience any of the discussions. However, I was impressed with the material that the instructor provided concerning these discussions. She laid out very clear and considerate guidelines. Considering the volatile nature of the course subject (contraception) and the tendency of people to get very emotional when dealing with it, I thought that the instructor handled the open and online nature of the course very well.

Having joined the contraceptive MOOC relatively late in the game, it was more than half over when I enrolled, I felt that my MOOC experience was somehow still lacking. To make up for this self perceived deficiency, I decided to go ahead and start participating in The Ancient Greek Hero MOOC offered through Harvard. Honestly, I am both happy and sad that I made that decision.

I am happy that I started participating in the Harvard MOOC because, by being involved at the start of the MOOC, I really gained great insight into what I think a MOOC is supposed to be. To begin with it really is massive. There are over 40,000 learners enrolled in the course. We come from over 150 countries. Considering that there are only 196 countries on the whole planet, that is a remarkably high percentage. I am sad because I really like the course but I do not have the time to give it the attention it both requires and deserves. 

To help facilitate learning communities the professor and his assistants sent out an email soliciting information about the learning communities which had evolved on their own. The expressed idea was to make their contact information available to the entire class thereby allowing even more participation in these communities. They did offer to keep it private if that was preferred. The impression was that the professor also wanted to know if and how his students were working together.

All of the material is available online for free through the course website. Most of the material was written and or translated by the professor. In addition to written material, the professor posts videos of himself "lecturing" on the material. The format sort of reminded me of a flipped classroom wherein we the students are expected to read and be familiar with the material before the professor addresses additional points and allows us the opportunity to ask questions. As for asking questions, there is a forum on the course web site that allows one to post their questions, read the questions of other students, read the answers posted, and post answers too. 

The course is very well designed and very well presented. It is possible to earn a certificate of completion by doing the readings and answering the weekly questions. I am not sure how these questions are being assessed. I just did not have the time to read all of the material, all of the posted questions, their answers, and then answer the questions myself.

This brings me to the last point that I wanted to bring up. I found the course offered through Harvard to be very well conceived, constructed, and presented. In fact, I found it incredibly interesting and very time consuming. It drew me in and made me want to keep reading. When I read questions from my fellow learners that I knew I could answer, it took all of my self control to not take the time to answer. Between my three jobs and this ETEC course, adding this MOOC was almost too much. Had I given the course the time and effort that it demands and deserves, I doubt that I would be writing this blog entry right now. I would probably still be in a Starbucks, curled up with my iPad and drinking an Americano while I read plays about Greek heroes and tried to understand them not through my modern eyes but rather through the ancient eyes of the play's intended audience.

In conclusion, this assignment took more time away from my busy schedule than I had expected. It forced me into contact with and gave me exposure to a MOOC that was not a MOOC, a MOOC that was a good example of one and, a MOOC that was an excellent example of one. I now have a much better idea of what a MOOC is and how it operates. If I could make a suggestion on how to make this assignment better I would suggest giving it earlier in the semester, perhaps during the first week. I would also suggest making actually participating in a MOOC part of the assignment. Of course, in order to not overwhelm the students, some of the other assignments would have to be either reduced in scope or, perhaps, removed entirely. Reflecting back on the assignments for this course, I cannot help but feel that my time would have been better spent engaging more deeply in a MOOC than making a "healthy" pizza or learning to speak Klingon. 

Oops! I just realized that I forgot to address the question of how these MOOCs differ from a "traditional" online course. Confining my thoughts to the Harvard MOOC, I think that the main difference is that with so many learners it is easy to just sit back and let other students answer the questions posed by both the professor and the other students. It also seemed like it would be easier to establish learning communities in such a MOOC because with there being so many students, you kind of have to build a support network. Also, with so many fellow learners, you are bound to find more than a few with whom you simply "click."

"Tablets for Learning" or "Time to Rethink"

Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVu_STME7T3drwKrEtCktVBHrqCYwfNdstfbuwroBc3vMS-smDDxsvZb5Q_pcaqLp8XG6jbwGYE2a1mXcVZ1WMkptWRZVC47TQNKrMJISUSGxGN9ZINZ4k-qHVSYHgZvN-J9aUVjHM60kd/s400/tencommandments+ipad.png

I really enjoyed this week's activity wherein we had to find a primary source on the topic of the "iPad & Learning" and summarize it. Well actually, I did not really enjoy the summarizing part but, I did find the researching and reading part very fascinating. I also learned four interesting things. 

First, I learned that when your professor gives the whole class the same assignment to "find and summarize" a primary source on the week's topic and admonishes that each student must summarize a different reference source, the professor changes the nature of the student - student relationship. No longer are we members of a learning community working together to master the material. Rather, we are rivals seeking the best informative gems. The situation suddenly becomes a zero sum game. 

With this change, strategy suddenly becomes important. It suddenly behooves us to do two things. First, start our research early. Second, go to the class page as soon as we find a good reference source and "stake our claim." We should do this even before we start to summarize it. We have to prevent our classmates from coming in while we are summarizing and "snaking" our reference source. Yes, by limiting our resources, the professor suddenly made strategy come into play. 

I am not saying that that is a bad thing. I am just saying that I found the paradigm switch from learning community to zero sum gamesmanship very interesting.

Source: http://www.economnomnomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/swipe.jpeg

Second, and maybe this is just me but, I learned that the online availability of a reference source is inversely related to its potential value to my research. I cannot recall how many references to seeming right on point articles I found that, when I went to find them, I discovered that they were not available online. In direct contrast, the less desirable an article seemed to my research, the more readily available online it seemed to be. Humm...

Source: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvd8ejQR3O1qb4j6qo1_500.png

Third, and this was the most shocking, I learned that when it comes to iPads in the classroom, I am an "old school" thinker. I learned that I need to retool my thinking to allow me to maximize the pedagogical value to my students of their using tablets in my classroom. The article The Game Changer: Using iPads in College Teacher Education Classes. (http://eres.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pbh&AN=77305728&site=ehost-live), really drove home the point that to be in effective educator in today's and tomorrow's classroom, we educators must first educate ourselves on how our students learn. We must then take that knowledge and use it to transform our own thinking  about how best to teach and how best to prepare and present the material we create for our students.

Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbsAmbCyqATUxbnhDbRzRs-7eFwxvCEM8ocho-V8Zcdyoevl3udRBdIE5arv7WP5hPfg8-6QgON6fyPnc_bOD3L_wOgjSbwPCv1JzB6r8W1E0E37XFkVW4sV8QtmBgEaRh5OZvlOYzTDa/s1600/Monkey-Thinker.jpg

Lastly I learned, or rather relearned, that the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know and how much more I have yet to learn!

WOW! That Knocked the Blinders Right Off My Eyes!

http://www.automatedhumanity.com/wp-content/uploads/BlindersFull.jpg

The New York Times article "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" by Charles Duhigg (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=0) that we had to read this week was a real eye opener. I had no idea that some companies collect and mine big data in that way. I had no idea that they can and do target consumers so precisely. It was really shocking and yet at the same time, it made perfect sense. As I read the article it seemed only natural that companies mine big data in this way. 

In fact, it makes such sense that I found myself wondering why I had not realized it on my own. All the signs are there. Log into Amazon. What do you see? A tempting selection of items that almost always appeal. Sign up for Safeway's Club Card. You will start receiving coupons that interest you in no time. Even if you have not signed up for Kmart's discount card, just making a purchase generates seemingly miles of coupons with your receipt. They too seem to tempt one with their spot on offers! Yes, Target is not the only one targeting specific consumers with tailor made offers. Now that I am looking for it, I realize that the behavior is ubiquitous and is not limited to retailers.

FaceBook seems to mine big data too. How else do you explain all those usually interesting ads that pop up on the right side of the screen? Google+ does it too. Heck, even Twitter does it. After I signed up for a MOOC I was suddenly getting suggestions from Twitter about who I should follow. When I do elect to follow someone, I quickly receive another email from Twitter trying to entice me to follow even more people. With FaceBook and Google+ I have found the suggestions to be interesting. With Twitter I have just found them to be overwhelming. Following too many people is like having too many cooks in the kitchen. I do not have the time to watch even a portion of their feeds and what I do follow is usually so dissociated that I usually end up all but ignoring most of the Twitter feeds.

In light of how ubiquitous big data mining is, tonight's guest speaker really got me thinking. Sure, at first blush giving every student from kindergarten through 12 grade their own iPad seems like a great idea. I wish that the college where I teach could do the same thing for our students. However, having each student create their own Apple ID through which they register their software licenses and purchase additional programs and content may not be such a good idea. When I heard that the students do not get to keep the iPad when they graduate but do get to keep the software licenses, all I could think of was how much personal data they were generating. By the time a student graduates from high school, Apple, through the data collected through the student's Apple ID, will probably know more about the student than they know about themself. 

I believe in and support putting iPads in the hands of every student. If we educators can learn how to use them to maximize their educational value, our students will truly benefit from their usage. However, if such use becomes a rich data source for companies contriving to manipulate our kids, the long term cost to our students who will be targeted by retailers and other marketers, may very well out weigh the educational benefit derived from using the iPad. 

Administrators and educators need to consider the iPad usage question from this angle. What good will it do to educate our children with iPads if doing so gives data mining companies the information required to specifically market goods and services to them just as they enter the marketplace as high school graduates? It is hard enough for adults to recognize and resist targeted marketing strategies. Our children do not stand a chance. Once the marketers can hook the kids, they will be hooked for life. We need to find a way to give these young students mobile learning technology while at the same time protecting their anonymity. 

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