Leading From The Heart

by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.

Category: Tech

  • AI – keeping it simple

    AI – keeping it simple

    I have seen so many charts and frameworks and documents and infographics around AI that no wonder many in classrooms are simply prone to banish it from between their walls.

    This morning, I spent about 15 minutes listening to a podcast on AI literacy for educators by Greg Kulowiec ** and he broke it down into 4 key areas:

    • Tinkering (with curiosity)
    • Understanding (where does the info come from)
    • Evaluating (be critical)
    • Morals & ethics (determine your comfort levels when using it)

    And that’s it – we need to remember that every time there is something new we need to get to know it, critique it, and check in with ourselves if we are comfortable using it. Not so much as in personal comfort levels but as in am I ok putting my name to this or asking students to use this?

    It’s no different for AI. And I think this framework can be used with any new learning.

    Keeping it simple, with as little language in between the new thing and us as people, is what works.

    I also liked how he focused on the fact that AI is a set of tools. As tools, we determine how we use them. And we can only do that by getting to know them.

    I’m starting to think about this visually, too, as a drop of water rippling outwards. With the process repeating as it ripples outwards, old knowledge folding into new.

    **I like text to refer back to after – and sometimes during – listening, so I made a transcript of the podcast with Revolvdiv chrome extension. It worked like a charm – and quickly!

    Note – this article is cross-published at FNAESC Teaching & Learning, where it is also translated into French.

  • A note (again) on digital citizenship

    I originally published this post in May of 2013. I feel this rant coming on again…so here you go.

    I hear so many educators complain about how technology is hijacking our students’ education. How they don’t know how to be digital citizens. How they are addicted. How all they care about is YouTube and Facebook and their social lives. So instead of teaching it they dismiss it, poopoo it, and try to ban it.

    Tell me… How do you propose students learn about being digital citizens if not at school?

    Note over. And out.

  • so. technology is not the goal. what is?

    Playing with Coggle, which I read about on Avi Spector’s blog, Beyond the Tools. Pretty neat little thinking tool.

  • Motivation, feedback, tech, and me.

    The ‘and me’ is key. This is in reference to me as a teacher and therefore a creator of learning situations.

    How do I use myself as a motivating instigator with those I teach?

    motivation_bathing
    Made lovingly with the GIMP and SweetClipArt

    How do I provide effective feedback to those I teach?

    feedback_loop
    source: Gamification and Motivation: Tapping into psychology by Chloe Della Costa

    How do I recognize the feedback I receive from those I teach, from my colleagues, from other professionals?

    Feedback_in_Disguise
    source: Recognizing Feedback in Disguise by Trev

    How do I mobilize technology when I teach, motivate, and provide or receive feedback?

    opportunity_capacity_motivation_circles
    source: Sustaining Rather than Sustainable ICT4E by James BonTempo


    These are all big questions but this is not a blog post about providing pat answers to those questions. They are ongoing questions and the answers may should change as I work with different (groups of) learners.

    Essentially, I need to create situations where these questions are present, in the foreground. Situations where these questions create a framework for learning.

    This week, I am examining the creation of Personalized Systems of Instruction (PSI) and specifically how Wix, Weebly, CamStudio, MERLOT, and Hot Potatoes could facilitate learning situations based on PSI (see here how PSI is used by Rocco Iafigliola in a Quebec CollegePhysics classroom).

    Those questions will remain at the front line while I test out each of those resources. In the meantime, I have sent out a tweet for user experience…

    psi_tweet
    source: Tweeted on Jan. 13.
    Click here to view tweet + responses.

    …to be continued :)

  • Once again…it’s not about technology

    I saw this image floating around twitter this morning and it pretty much sums up what I think about technology and learning.

    boring is still boring

    We don’t want to use technology for the sake of having a fancy, shiny tool to bedazzle our audience into learning. Like THAT’S going to work. An iPad is not going to instantly transform a lesson that doesn’t connect with our learners into one that does. Really, it won’t. If we try to do that, we’ll probably end up supporting the notion that it just adds another distraction to our learners because it will offer them another way to divert their attention from the same thing they weren’t connecting with in the first place.

    So, allow students to use an iPad if it makes sense. But not to dress up an old lesson.

    The why or when to use it is really contextual. Creating, connecting, practicing, researching…these are all good reasons to want your learners to have access to an iPad. But the real questions lie around what you are expecting your learners to create, connect with, practice, and research. Does it have meaning for them?

    Do they care?

    And, ultimately, do you?