TGIF -- Social Networking and Significant Discussions: 2 GREAT Events this Week

Twenty seventh issue, Volume Five	TLT Group TGIF 11.27.2012
From TLT Group World Headquarters	"Giving Tuesday" is a socially responsible way to use social media as 2012 ends.  We hope you'll also consider a donation to the TLT Group at this time, after you decide what you can do for the other organizations whose work you admire most - the organizations that are still helping so many people suffering from the impacts of Hurricane Sandy and other economic and natural disasters..

WHY $support non-profit TLTGroup via tlt.gs/DonationCC when deciding what you can do in 2012 for orgs you admire

Please click here to support the (non-profit) TLT Group with a donation as 2012 ends and you decide what you can do for the organizations you admire.  

Why?  

• We find ways to improve teaching and learning with technology in colleges and universities - ways which take advantage of new resources and new ideas without sacrificing the principles that matter most.
• Our perspective is especially valuable when external pressures (like the continuing financial crisis) compel many to make - and others to accept - wild claims for the educational possibilities of technology.  
• Our approach always builds on respect for what has been accomplished in the past, balanced evaluation of new options, and enthusiasm for emerging possibilities.
• We provide resources and ideas that support collaborative change.  We help faculty members and other academic professionals to share their expertise and insights.
• We "walk the walk."  We use, demonstrate, and advocate low-cost, low-threshold resources:  tools and activities that are easy to learn, easy to begin using, and have low incremental cost in dollars, time, and stress.  We make Frugal Innovations.

Thanks again for your past support!  And thanks in advance for your future support!

Steve  

‘Giving Tuesday...national day of giving' just launched to help charities #givingtuesday

"Giving Tuesday" is a socially responsible way to use social media as 2012 ends.  We hope you'll also consider a donation to the TLT Group at this time, after you decide what you can do for the other organizations whose work you admire most - the organizations that are still helping so many people suffering from the impacts of Hurricane Sandy and other economic and natural disasters.  

"First, there was Black Friday. Then Cyber Monday. Then Gray Thursday.  Now, there’s...Giving Tuesday...organizers hope will become a 'national day of giving' to encourage Americans to give to their favorite causes during the holidays. ...More than 2,000 charities and nonprofits around the country are participating, as well as dozens of Web sites that combine social media and giving, such as Crowdrise.By mid-morning, #givingtuesday was a nationally trending topic on Twitter."    

- from "‘Giving Tuesday’ launched to help charities," by Annie Gowen, Tuesday, November 27, 2012, The Washington Post

See below for more about "Giving Tuesday" and how and why to give a donation to the TLT Group.

Help weak-willed weak-backed computer-users overcome immobility?

I plug my desktop computer monitor into a very long extension cord which is plugged into a digital timer plugged into an outlet in a different room. So I must get up & walk to the other room every 60 minutes.
Other ideas to help us weak-willed weak-backed computer-using semi-workaholics break our habitual self-inflicted immobility? - Steve Gilbert Nov 16, 2012

 

Posted with Blogsy

Clickers/CellPhones in Class; Facebk for Profs: 3partSIMULCAST 1:45pmET Nov16 FreeONLINEreg: tlt.gs/frlv #lillycon #TLTGfrlv +F2F@LillyConf

Cell Phones as Clickers;  Clickers in Classroom;  Facebook for Profs:  Experimental 3 session simulcast (Lilly Conf/FridayLive!) 

BEGINS 1:45PM ET Friday November 16, 2012

Register free for online participation:  tlt.gs/frlv

NOTE UNUSUAL SCHEDULE:  1:45PM ET to 4:30PM ET 

3 Sessions in a row.  Register, free, once and participate in any/all 3.  

• Live from Lilly International Conf 2012, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
  Room: Marcum 186 (Conference session codes: 11f, 12i, 13h)
• Live Online from FridayLive! the TLT Group's weekly free online interactive Webinar series Fridays, 2:00PM ET

For more info, registration:  tlt.gs/frlv  

Participants - onsite or online:  You are welcome to enter (login), depart (logout), or actively participate, or merely "lurk" in any or all of these 3 sessions as you wish.  Each of these Lilly International 2012 sessions will be offered live, online (and by recording thereafter) thanks to the Lilly Conference's generosity, but  if (and only if) each presenter also agrees to this experimental step.  

• 1:45pm ET "The Pros and Cons of Using Cell Phones as Clickers"
  
  View/Download PowerPoint Slides for this session
  Download a PDF file of the full session paper
• 2:50pm ET "Technology and Clickers: Enhancing the Learning Environment"
  Download a PDF file of the full session paper
• 3:45pm ET "Facebook for Professors: Retrospective Inquiry-Based Assessment of Teaching and Learning"
  Download a PDF file of the full session paper

View Steve Gilbert's slides for the entire "simulcast":  tlt.gs/nov16slides

More descriptions, including identification of presenters, below:

MOOCs are NOT ATMs for the mind. Moore's Law still prescient AND prescriptive, but no "Moore’s Law for Learning!" #CFHE12 #tltgSMOOCHERS

Reminder:  No “Moore’s Law” for learning ...ever.  No ATMs for the mind.
No new app or educational approach will double the speed of human learning in a couple years.  Not even the most promising xMOOCs, cMOOCs.  Not even the scariest brain enhancing drugs.  Not even intense economic and political pressure to extend the accessibility, increase the effectiveness, and reduce the costs of education.  

NOT about human learning!

At best, we will continue to develop more valuable combinations of technology and pedagogy.  We will continue to increase the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of education in many fields.  We will continue to make improvements.  Many will be significant.  Some may be dramatic.  None will be exponential.  Not like Moore's Law. 

Moore's law helps to describe and explain the extraordinary progress of digital information technology.  At best, educational institutions can help develop and then use new tools and resources based on the exponential progress of that technology.  However, the scale of gains achieved in education by using such technology will never result in exponential improvements in human learning.  


See:

• "Moore's Law: The rule that really matters in tech," excellent recent article explaining Moore's Law, providing an update on its progress/viability, and some implications. -by Stephen Shankland, CNET News Cutting Edge, CBS INTERACTIVE INC. October 15, 2012 12:00 AM PDT 
• "Moore's Law BOTH Prescient AND Prescriptive" and "No 'Moore's Law' for Learning!" -by Steve Gilbert, TLT-SWG blog, June 13, 2011.

"heal a sedentary body by breaking the ‘seated cycle’"

"heal a sedentary body by breaking the ‘seated cycle’"

Sitting too long, especially without moving from one position, even at a computer, is bad for your body - and maybe your psyche, too. "'Setting an alarm to go off every 20 to 30 minutes is a good reminder to stand up,”...Even 15 seconds of standing helps break the seated cycle.'”

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS TO HELP US GET UP AND MOVE AT LEAST ONCE EACH HOUR?




-excerpts above & below from "..heal a sedentary body by breaking the ‘seated cycle’: Why sitting too long is bad for you," by Maggie Fazeli Fard, washingtonpost.com, Published: November 12 online, in print p. E3 Nov 13, 2012. ".. view the entire article or email a link/copy to a friend

BTW, a laptop computer cannot be used in any ergonomically desirable position [according to everything I've read or experienced]. If the screen is at a "good" distance/location for your eyes, then the keyboard cannot be at a good distance/location for your arms, back, etc. Similarly for iPads/Tablets. This is easy to fix by using an external keyboard with a laptop or iPad/Tablet. So, obviously, avoid using iPad/Tablet attachment that provides an external keyboard that can only be used in a position that emulates a laptop configuration!

 

"Set up a way to stand up and do some of your computing once in a while. Treadmill, rubber/wire rack from Home Depot held on by LOTS of velcro, laptop, and very very very slow speed." Email from Ilene Frank

More excerpts from "Why sitting too long is bad for you":

We can’t "..exchange the anxiety of autonomy for the comfort of following orders" because, eventually, reality defeats bluster

Cleopatra, Queen of Denial

With humility, caveats, and accountability, predicting the future can be useful.  Without all three, predicting the future can be self-serving, hypocritical, and dangerously influential.  In higher education, we can (and should) accelerate the times when reality deflates - and defeats - bluster.

"...prophets are people too, blinded by their own self-interest, swayed by their own self-promotion, neither omniscient nor omnipotent. In a political culture that treats its consultants as demigods, this is too often forgotten, by the consultants themselves most of all, ... Of course arrogance, or at least self-assurance, is a consultant’s stock in trade. That’s what we buy when we buy advice: not just the content of it but the authority, even the grandiloquence, with which it’s delivered. We exchange the anxiety of autonomy for the comfort of following orders."  See more from "The Oracle's Debacle"," by Frank Bruni, The New York Times, Sunday Review, The Opinion Pages, online November 10, 2012, in print November 11, 2012 [more excerpts below]

• How can we avoid  “...the intellectual sin of the century: passing judgment on the fate of others in the name of their future as you see it, . . . concerning which you claim exclusive and perfect information.”  See more from Francis Fukuyama's review of One Man’s History: Tony Judt Reviews His Life’s Journey, New York Times February 3, 2012 
• How can we deal constructively with issues that have been distorted by hyperbolic claims from polarized groups? 
• How can we "clothe the emperor" when it's not enough to reveal the emperor's nakedness?  See more from "Clothing the Emperor"  

More excerpts from The Oracle's Debacle:

Video: Inspiring speech by Obama day after re-election as our president Nov 7, 2012

"President Obama made a surprise visit to the campaign office in Chicago  yesterday [Nov 7, 2012] to give a heartfelt thank-you to staff and volunteers.

"...He wasn't just talking to those of us in the office -- he was talking to all of you.
[Click here and watch the video!]
 "...How we got here must guide where we go. If we're going to accomplish the things America voted for on Tuesday, you've got to be even more involved in getting them done than you were in giving us all the chance."

-Excerpt from email Nov. 8, 2012 from Jim Messina, Campaign Manager, Obama for America.   

Several people posted links to this wonderful video.  Steve Gilbert

TOMORROW Nov9 2pmET online free: Sex and Retirement.. Entering the Silver Cloud! tlt.gs/frlv #TLTGfrlv TLT Group’s FridayLive!

Sex and Retirement... Entering the Silver Cloud!
TLT Group’s  FridayLive! 2pm ET November 9, 2012 
Free Online! Register in advance

• How is learning about retirement like sex education?  
  Even though you already know it all, you might want to attend so you can “help a friend”?  
• How is learning about retriement NOT like sex education?  
  Parental permission not required!
• For people within a couple years of retirementA couple years before or just beginning retirement [all others welcome].  

Meet some mature adults from academia who are just beginning retirement and learn about their successes, recommendations, and cautions!

S. Gilbert’s Fundamental Questions: What do you most want to gain? What do you most cherish and want not to lose? tlt.gs/FQ2012

This is a good day to ask our "Fundamental Questions" again.
What do you and your colleagues, friends, and family care most about transforming?  about preserving?

Steve Gilbert's Fundamental Questions:  

1.  What do you most want to gain?  
2.  What do you most cherish and want not to lose? 

These two simple, powerful questions can help people identify their most important shared goals and commitments as well as significant differences in their hopes and fears.  Can help build a solid foundation based on these principles for change: 

• Respect past accomplishments, long-lasting values, diverse needs and abilities.
• Welcome new ideas and resources, but recognize and resist fads and hyperbole.
• Eagerly explore, thoughtfully select, and frugally adapt, new options.

More about "Fundamental Questions"...    This posting:  tlt.gs/FQ2012

Information technology can be the excuse and the means to make almost any kinds of change in education and elsewhere.  

Encourage.  Enable.  Engage.

Antioch students can take Coursera MOOCs, get Antioch faculty advisers & credit. All make $! [maybe] #tltgSMOOCHERS #CFHE12

Antioch students can take Coursera MOOCs, get Antioch faculty advisers & Antioch credit.  Antioch can "...take advantage of the [Coursera] content and platform while not leaving students to fend entirely for themselves,"...

"'When Coursera makes money, we’ll make money, and when we make money, the faculty member will make money.' - Lynne O'Brien, director of the center for innovative teaching at Duke."

HYPOTHETICAL (1-side, no edges, 3-dimensional) 

..."Any revenue from the Antioch deal is hypothetical at the moment. "

"For Coursera, ...Antioch deal is a first step toward developing a product that it can sell to colleges: 'self-contained' online course platforms, complete with built-in content and assessment infrastructure. ...'It’s not just the box, it’s a course in a box.'"

...

Coursera-Antioch "deal represents one of the first instances of a third-party institution buying permission to incorporate a MOOC into its curriculum -- and awarding credit for the MOOC"

...Coursera "will share... revenue [from Antioch] with the universities, which own intellectual property rights for their courses as part of their contracts with Coursera."

- Excerpts above (more below) from "MOOCs for Credit" by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed, October 29, 2012
[Link provided to sMOOChers by Akesha Horton, Mich. State U. on Nov 1, 2012]

TOMORROW Nov2 2pmET online free: 3Gens on Teach/Learn/FacDev. Milt Cox, Derek Bruff, AppGuys(Kaufman/Lombardo)tlt.gs/frlv #TLTGfrlv TLTGroup

3 Gens: Teaching, Learning, Technology, & Faculty Development -
Past, Present, Future 
Is higher education changing too fast or too slowly?  Or both? 
TLT Group's FridayLive! Friday, November 2, 2012, 2:00 pm (ET)
Free Online Register Now!

• Milt Cox, Project Director for the Center for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching and University Assessment at Miami University
• Derek Bruff, Director of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching
• "App Guys" from Ashland University:  Steve Kaufman, Associate Director of Learning Management and Tim Lombardo, Instructional Designer and Quality Matters (QM) Institutional Representative 
• Moderator:  Steve Gilbert

This multi-generational panel will focus on the past, present, and future of how we teach, how we learn, and how faculty members adapt in higher education.  Our guests are thoughtful and widely-respected for their experience and views.  Each will be invited to present a BRIEF opening statement and then to respond to some questions from Gilbert AND FROM EACH OTHER.  

In this very rapidly changing part of the world where technology and education meet...  Where technology and education keep touching each other so furtively, tentatively, eagerly, and expectantly...How can we deal constructively with issues that have been distorted by hyperbolic claims from polarized groups?  How can we "clothe the emperor" when it's not enough to reveal the emperor's nakedness?
We'll discuss questions such as:

• Which widely advocated improvements in teaching and learning have been most surprising?  most disappointing?  most over-hyped and under-used?

Goals for the second half of the MOOC. Results to be shared During FridayLive on November 30th, 2:00 pm ET Third sMOOChers Cohort Follow UP Register for free here.

sMOOChers (Smart MOOCs Higher Education Research Subgroup) goals for the second half of the CFHE12 MOOC listed below 

• Results to be shared during FridayLive on Nov 30 or Dec 7, 2pm ET [check tlt.gs/frlv for schedule updates] Register (free)
• Join us for informal update tomorrow Nov2 1pm ET tlt.gs/login
• Also see MOOC tips, observations, and recommendations to help others learned as shared in the text chat and summarized in Beth Dailey's notes from Second #CFHE12 MOOC follow-up Oct 26; extracted from Dailey's blog:  Learning and Leadership

Goals for the second half of the MOOC

• Beth Dailey:I want to try to leverage the massive part of the course. This past week I tried expanding my social networking skills within the #CFHE12 MOOC by connecting my own blog, twitter account & Google Reader. Next week I plan to learn how to use TweetDeck. 
• moy@sepche.org: This is Beth again. Perhaps keep a running list of the roles that faculty would play in a MOOC and the skills they would need to play the roles effectively. Beth agreed to synthesize, summarize list of good/useful intermediate roles for faculty making MOOCs more useful to learners, colleague?

• Dale Parker: I just see this as a cultural revolution and I just want to watch and learn about the changes.

sMOOChers session Oct26 notes: #CFHE12 MOOC follow-up #tltgSMOOCHERS [Smart Massive Open Online Courses Higher Education Research Subgroup]

sMOOChers ( Smart MOOCs Higher Education Research Subgroup ) midterm discussion Oct. 26, 2012, TLT Group's FridayLive! 

• Also see sMOOChers' goals for the second half of the CFHE12 MOOC: results to be shared during FridayLive on Nov 30 or Dec 7, 2pm ET [check tlt.gs/frlv for schedule updates] Register (free)
• Join us for informal update tomorrow Nov2 1pm ET tlt.gs/login

Beth Dailey's notes from Second #CFHE12 MOOC follow-up 
Extracted from Dailey's blog:  Learning and Leadership

Nan Zingrone - Atlantic University coined this phrase in the chat “ loveless Moocs (xMoocs) have no discussion in them.”  Nan credits Nellie Deutsch of Integrating-Technology For Active Online Learners (www.integrating-technology.org) for the term loveless in reference courses with lectures plus exams only. “ No chance for participants to build relationship in loveless Moocs.”
We had a good discussion about the synchronous and asynchronous elements of the MOOC, who was using which ones and why.  We also talked about building community and different ways to accomplish this.
Priscilla Stadler persistently asked about how best to characterize MOOC pedagogy.  I’m not sure we really answered this question.
A summary of some of the MOOC tips, observations, and recommendations to help others learned as shared in the text chat.

• Nan Zingrone - Atlantic University:i get turned off by the volume of the tweet feed; I have subscribed only to the introductions that I'm responded to, and otherwise it's using the Newsletter to remind me of what I'm interested in and where that can be found

• Ilene Frank - The presentations have been eye-opening for me! One that Ilene recommended, October 22 session with Debra Quazzo

Boat on RR tracks: amusing(?) photo among reports of hurricane Sandy: pic.twitter.com/ruVlqZOG @NYGovCuomo

Only amusing photo I've seen among reports of hurricane Sandy:

@NYGovCuomo:  "Metro-North RR crews discovered this boat washed onto tracks at Ossining #sandy #surge: pic.twitter.com/ruVlqZOG"