Mark's PF Blog

Friday night I watched a TV program about the impact YouTube has had on information gathering and dispersal worldwide. Segments of the show on 20/20 featured everyday people reaching millions of viewers with simple video tutorials. A link to the show is here.

As I read through Chapter Three in our text my thoughts kept going back to the YouTube documentary. We are said to be a visual generation. The written word is fine, but if you really want to reach people make a video! One segment in particular impressed me. Many of you probably have all ready heard of The Kahn Academy. Sal Khan has put up thousands of instructional videos (for free) about hundreds of topics. Bill Gates was so impressed with Khan that he gave the academy $1.5 million (Google chipped in $2 million) to continue the work.

In designing my upcoming online course I’m paying special attention to how short videos can do most of the instruction. I say ‘short’ because I’ve heard it said that short videos (3-5 minutes) are effective, but anything longer than 15 minutes in length tends to lose attention. Thus, one of my lessons may take 4-5 “bite-size” videos to present instead of one 30-minute “droner.” (This may not be news to many of you but the point is worth repeating.)

The videos I am making (I’m using the program Camtasia to edit my videos) do not replace written text. They are meant as supplementary instruction and I explain that distinction to students beforehand.

Switching gears: I went to the ‘What is HTML?’ site linked from the Pedagogy First website . . . Looking at all that code produced a glaze over my eyes. I took a course in HTML a couple years ago and I remember the meticulous detail the code demands. The good news is that I’m seeing more and more websites employing user-friendly interfacing that omits onerous HTML coding. Knowledge of HTML in the future may not be necessary (actually, one can get around nicely without it now).

I took the Beginner’s Questionnaire and found that I tended to side more with the presentation approach . . . meaning that I favor providing and demonstrating instruction over having students construct their own learning environments. The questionnaire offered a chance for me to review the presentation approach and so here are my thoughts on the matter.

I think back to when I took a number of community college classes — including one online course. I pretty much saw myself as a consumer of information. If my instructor(s) had adopted the constructionist approach and had me “construct my own method for learning the material” I would have cried foul. I mean, it’s great that I’d be given the chance to run the show but, frankly, that’s extra work and I paid my money to have the instructor provide the material. Plus, being, like so many other students — one to cut corners when necessary, I was always on the lookout to do just what was required of me to get a grade. (I’m imagining myself as a typical student now.) . . . I’m afraid that many students will take advantage (meaning they’ll cut corners) of a course that’s puts them in charge of major parts of the syllabus.

One’s approach to instruction, Presentation or Construction, depends a lot on what course is taught of course. In the courses I teach (I teach computer art software such as Photoshop) I employ both methods. I impart a lot of material in hands-on demonstration mode, but I also allow for my students “to call the shots” by encouraging them to design their own projects. I implore them, in fact, to make their projects about themselves to serve their interests. So, yes, I’m wary of the constructionist approach to pedagogy but I do see the benefits in getting students to invest a certain degree of personal control in the learning process.

I just viewed Lisa Lane’s “Pedagogy First! Week 2 Panic” video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-AlMdV1ZKw&feature=player_embedded

Thanks, Lisa, for addressing an issue(s) that had me concerned. I confess to being overwhelmed by all the posts and links and online technology gizmos and gadgets that come with this course. I feel inundated with information and I’m not sure how to sort it all out . . . but I hope to get a handle on it soon.

I got my Google Reader worked out and added Pedagogy First to it. I probably won’t use it much — I just prefer to go straight to to the news sites that I have bookmarked (The Google reader is lacking in visuals and there’s no emphasis on what is major news and what is not — the snippets are all the same format).

I enjoyed Alec Couros’ video about trends in Internet sites. My wife and I were discussing some of the trends, and the remark was made (and I imagine you all have wondered this too) — if everyone is spending tons of time expressing themselves in their own blogs and YouTube videos and Facebook posting and Twittering . . . who has time to fully tend to others’ expressions? . . . I authored a blog a few years ago and I feverishly kept it up thinking that I was doing the universe a service by keeping everyone informed of my whimsy and then it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, nobody was paying attention . .  So that blog experience kind of died.

I drew a cartoon of that blog experience:

Hi POT bloggers,

I’m putting together my first online course (starts in October) and am in the process of learning Camtasia. I’m aware of other screen-capture programs such as Captivate and Jing. I wondered if anyone has specials insights on what software works best (and why). Please comment if you do.

–Mark

Hola. Blogs need visuals(!) so I’m adding the above avatar of myself — and to test whether the RSS feed sends images. Also, I’m adding a one-second ‘click’ audio .wav file to test audio inserts.

Plastic Click 1