ZaidLearn

Wednesday, May 7

Is PowerPoint Evil? (Part 3)

"It's the way people depend on all those bells and whistles that come with the software to try to shore up a weak presentation." - Chris Oakes (1998)

"...To critics, PowerPoint serves largely the same role in the classroom as pre-processed snack food does in the lunchroom: a conveniently packaged morsel that looks good but doesn't match the intellectual or corporeal nourishment of, say, a critical essay or a plate of steamed spinach." - Joanna Glasner (2002)

"The practical conclusions are clear. PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and projector. But rather than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for it. Such misuse ignores the most important rule of speaking: Respect your audience." - Edward Tufte (2003)

"The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster...It should be ditched." - Professor Sweller (2007)

IS POWERPOINT EVIL?

Edward Tufte (2003) even explains in his "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" book, how PowerPoint caused the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. I suppose PowerPoint is evil! Wait a minute! Isn't also the Internet evil! What about chocolate? Yes, cars are certainly evil! Motor bikes are even worse! Certainly, sex is evil! Actually, everything I can think of is evil!

Should we blame PowerPoint on our own failure to create compelling content and engage students to learn? Or perhaps PowerPoint is the problem as it lacks the features needed to enable us to express ourselves effectively (Perhaps we should use Apple's Keynote)? Or is it a combination? Perhaps we could blame the students? We could probably ask questions and argue all day long without getting anywhere. If I was a psychologist, I would probably use the famous statement that is practically used for every argument: "It depends." And for this case, I would probably have to agree.

But instead of getting into a logical and/or emotional argument about the constructiveness or destructiveness of PowerPoint, I will instead put on my student experience goggles, immerse myself into my learning mind, and transport myself back to a blended learning graduate course I took a few years back entitled 'System Analysis & Design', which was a learning experience worth sharing and reflecting. For the name protection sake, I will simply call my lecturer, Dr. PowerPoint.

READING SLIDES

"...Lecturers who know nothing else except their PowerPoint slides...They are just PowerPoint notes, not process. They have no stories, no biographies, no histories..." - Professor Bajunid (2005)

As this was a blended learning course, we only had eight (8) 2-hour tutorials with Dr. PowerPoint. Four tutorials were conducted online (using Centra) and four were conducted face-to-face (F2F). Interestingly, we had to cover 17 topics in this 'System Analysis & Design' course, which means theoretically we had to cover around 2 topics per class. Although, we had 17 topics to cover, it was relieving to know that we had PowerPoint to rescue us from the giant book (It takes you one page to fall asleep!).

As usual, Dr. PowerPoint would always be late for the F2F tutorials (4 out of 4!). The great thing was that we always finished classes early, too. Start late, finish early! Please, tell me a student who wouldn't love that? ME! I remember one class, she was around 15 minutes late, and managed to cover 3 topics and complete the tutorial (or lecture!) 15 minutes before time. It was amazing; it was like watching Speedy Gonzales swoosh through the slides.

What is wrong with that? Just imagine. We come to class, and then we watch Dr. PowerPoint read the bullets out loud for 1 1/2 hour. As she was late and had to cover 3 topics this time, she rushed more than usual. The best part was when we reached areas in the slides that she thought we could read on our own. She would ironically say, "Oh, this part is easy! You can read this at home!" One poor student had to travel for 3 hours to attend these tutorials, and that is what he gets. Come on! This is a graduate course (Masters!), and that is what we get!

And you know what, several of my graduate courses that I took, followed the same PowerPoint reading routine and pattern. If the PowerPoint slides were more attractive, engaging and stimulating, it would at least provide some fun during the learning process. Just watching bullets and text can get kind of boring after a while, especially if the lecturer can't read properly. Actually, that part was really funny. Sometimes we would come to certain parts of the slides, which Dr. PowerPoint read out incorrectly, or seemed not to understand what she read. How is that possible? Well, since all the topics of the book come with slides, I suppose the lecturer conveniently used them (guessing here!). Come on, be prepared at least!

Today it is so easy to be a lecturer, if we use this formula:

No need to prepare content (slides come with the book)
Come to class
Read the slides out loud
Ask at the end of the class: "Any questions?"
No questions (needed, students got the PowerPoint slides!)
The END (of learning!)

Come on! In short, PowerPoint is evil! Wait a minute! Can we blame PowerPoint for this?

MEMORIZING SLIDES
Does reading and memorizing PowerPoint slides facilitate learning? How do you measure learning? Assessment! If we use written exams as a measure, I can share with you that with some of the subjects I took; I could amazingly score an 'A' by basically reading and memorizing the slides. Why bother reading the book, when we can score good grades by simply reading and memorizing the PowerPoint slides! Strangely, when I engrossed myself in a subject (reading and reflecting the book and required materials), my exam results seemed to suffer. I suppose information overload enabled me to forget the key points needed to score an 'A'.

Luckily I learned a few tricks from my Bosnian friend. This guy never really studied, and he always did very well on exams. What was his secret? When he saw me one day stressed out preparing for exams, he told me to read a book that would unleash the genius in me (or help me score good grades without much effort): Quantum Learning. After reading that book, I learned a few cool tricks (Not telling! read it!) and exams became a breeze, but learning seemed to suffer. In the end, I decided to sacrifice a few 'As' for the sake of learning. Not kidding!

If we were required to take the same exam again a few months (or weeks!) after the semester was completed, it wouldn't surprise me if we fail, or at least get a much worse grade. It is strange! I thought that when you learned something, it sticks (for a while!). Just like learning to ride a bicycle. I suppose some formal courses are more complex.

THE FIVE MINUTE UNIVERSITY!

The idea is that in five minutes you learn what the average college graduate remembers five years after he or she has graduated. Father Guido Sarducci's Five Minute University (video) is probably applicable until today for some courses out there (Too much focus on memorization!). If it is still happening in some of your courses, use this incredibly funny video to spice up the discussion about effective learning.

Father Guido Sarducci's Five Minute University video could bring to light the seriousness with a bit of laughter. Actually, I have now watched it more than a dozen times, and I am still laughing (and crying!). Then, we can together laugh a bit at ourselves, and move on to more effective teaching, facilitation and learning.

EFFECTIVE LEARNING?

Today, millions of people around the world use presentation tools like PowerPoint to create content to persuade, explain, illustrate and facilitate learning. So, until something better comes along that appeal to the masses, we might as well do the best with what we have. Anyway, if you ask me, I would argue that PowerPoint is actually a constructive tool to facilitate learning, if you know how to use it (Still learning!). If you don't know how to use it, it can also be a very destructive tool (Same goes for any other learning tool!).

Now, I am not going to give you a written lecture on how to get it right. The reason is that I want you to learn from the real masters in preparing and giving presentations (or lectures). Learn from them, and then reflect, adapt, and do your own thing. First, here are a few wonderful PowerPoint resource sites to explore:

PowerPoint - On-Line Technology Practice Modules - A comprehensive directory of links (URLs) to tutorials, sites, game templates and articles on how to use PowerPoint effectively.
Sonia Coleman's Digital Studio - Free PowerPoint templates and tutorials!
PowerPoint 2007 Tutorials (Florida Gulf Coast University) - Including graphics, tables, charts, formatting text, printing and slide effects.
PowerPoint Tutorials (Wikivid) - PowerPoint tutorials are broken down by topic so that you can navigate the list to find exactly what you need or watch them all from start to finish to become a PowerPoint expert.

Alright, that is the macro stuff. What about some super tips on creating compelling presentation slides?

Have you heard of Tom Kuhlmann? Check out his Rapid eLearning Blog, which shares practical tips and tricks on creating excellent presentation slides. Also, download his free 46-page ebook: The Insider's Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro. It is an amazing resource that could spark your slides to life. He has already more than 21,000 subscribed readers (free!), so perhaps it is time to become one, too!

Great, but I want to see one example of great presentation slides? Death by PowerPoint (Alexei Kapterev). Also, you might want to check out an example of presentation slides for a full-blown course: Critical Thinking (links to all the slides are included in the article). Oops, that is my article and slides. Just had to! It is not great, but I am kind of satisfied with it. I think you will actually find it quite interesting, too :)

To see many more examples, I would advise you to explore Slideshare, which is an amazing repository of both excellent and poor presentation slides. If you need some inspiration to create engaging slides, that is a great starting point.

Alright, great stuff! But, I want a learning resource to inspire me to become a great presenter?

Have you heard of Garr Reynolds? Check this out: Google Talk - Presentation Zen. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today's world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Watch and Learn!

Did you like it? If you did, you could always explore his juicy blog for further nourishment: Presentation Zen

By the way, PowerPoint Extreme Makeover by Dean Shareski, is another excellent recorded lecture worth watching a couple of times (At least 3!). While you are getting into the groove, you could also watch: How To Create a Great PowerPoint without Breaking the Law, by Alvin Trusty.

That is cool! But what if I don't want to use presentation slides, and simply want to inspire my students to learn. Any examples to benchmark myself with? Do Schools Kill Creativity?, by Ken Robinson is one great example. If you want many more, TED Talks is simply an amazing learning adventure.

Here are two incredible TED talks by Hans Rosling that I wouldn't want to miss:

Now, if you are teaching statistics or need to visualize your data, Hans Rosling with his Gapminder is certainly a great role model or benchmark. Although, Gapminder is a great data visualization tool, it was Hans Rosling's passionate, energetic, and inspirational talk that really blew me away (I mean in learning terms!). He is what I call a great presenter!

While you are at TED talks, check out Jill Bolte Taylor's inspiring talk: Stroke of insight. She uses a real brain to make a point. I am not kidding! Now, that is an attention (brain) grabber!

Wait a minute! I am a lecturer, and I teach physics. I mean, how engaging can you be with such an inherently boring course? Well, perhaps Professor Lewin could teach you a trick or two.

Whether you use PowerPoint (Windows), Keynote (Apple), OpenOffice, or no presentation tool at all, there are endless of possibilities of what you can do to create compelling content, and engage the student's mind to learn.

Yes, PowerPoint or presentation slides can be destructive (and perhaps even evil at times!). But with a bit of creativity and flavor, I believe presentation slides can assist in facilitating effective learning, and awaken our creative side to express ourselves beyond words.

However, if your content is poor, no fancy design or flying dogs are going to save you. Get the substance content right, be creative and passionate, and engage your students with a lot of relevant and challenging learning activities and mind boggling puzzles (embed them within the presentation slides). However, remember: If you are hopeless (Can't read, write or talk!), teaching is going to get tough, no matter how cool your slides are. Even if you are a hopeless teacher, don't worry! If you have the desire and passion to learn, you can overcome all your weaknesses, and nurture them into strengths. Learn, practice, reflect, improve, practice, reflect, etc.

So, is PowerPoint evil? I don't know, and I don't care (Got better things to reflect)! Since we are stuck with it for now until something better comes along (I kind of like it anyway, so no worries mate!), we better focus instead on how to make the most of it to facilitate engaging and effective learning :)

"Of course, PowerPoint is not inherently evil, it is just poorly used..."
- Stephen Downes

Friday, May 2

I Have Bragging Rights, Because I Am ...? (Part 2)

"If you done it, it ain't bragging." - Walt Whitman
"It's not bragging if you can back it up." - Muhammad Ali

“He who is humble is confident and wise. He who brags is insecure and lacking.” - Lisa Edmondson

In the last episode, we got a taste of a lecturer that only had time to engage the whiteboard, so that he could complete his syllabus. This time around, I will have to put on my student experience goggles and transport myself back to an undergraduate psychology course (Deviant Behavior) I took in the previous millennium. For the identity protection sake, we will name this lecturer Dr. Brag.

DEVIANT BEHAVIOR
Dr. Brag was not an ordinary lecturer. No, he was an extraordinary lecturer! I used to enjoy coming to his classes, and occasionally he practiced what he preached, too. So, why are you writing about Dr. Brag? Let's begin!

Although, I admired his expertise, experience and knowledge, it got kind of frustrating listening to him brag (boastful statements/arrogant talk) about all his amazing achievements every class. By the end of the course, we probably knew more about him and his family's achievements than the subject matter itself. Every class, we would hear one self-glory ego-boosting story after another, covering his greatness in sports, politics, work, family and education. Yes, he was also writing more than 10 books concurrently at that time. My best friend was assisting him in editing these books, and that must have been reasonably challenging. I wonder if Dr. Brag ever finished writing any of those amazing books.

I have to feel sorry for the guy, too. He had high blood pressure and was a diabetic in a country like Malaysia. Now, that is a bad combination, especially when the classroom is hot and humid with many students who are mentally on holiday. Or sleeping with their eyes open!

Anyway, I was there! Since I had already developed the habit of sitting in the front row and asking questions, the classes got quite lively at times. Although, he bragged a lot, I loved the fact that he would always challenge us. The one bragging challenge that really got to me, was that he was happy to claim that, "No student in my class has ever gotten an A!" I am not sure if that is something a lecturer should be proud of, but strangely some are.

That was a challenge too good to resist. I didn't get that many 'As' during my undergraduate days, but somehow this particular challenge inspired me to get one. And I am really proud to share with you all that I was the first student at the University to achieve an A with him (Am I bragging or what! I hope he was actually telling the truth!). The glory was short lived though, as I heard that others got 'As' with him in the following semesters. Well, I am proud to be the first one at least (Bragging again!).

I suppose 'Deviant Behavior' was a course that came naturally to me, so I should not think so highly of my success. It is also no surprise that I also scored an 'A' in 'Abnormal Psychology' (Oh man, can you stop bragging!). Some students scores 'As' all the way, some score 'As' in only subjects they like, and some don't get a single one. Nothing to worry about, if you believe in yourself and work hard, I am pretty sure you can succeed anyway. Also, scoring 'As' is probably not the best indicator to predict future success in life. Though, it does help to get a few 'As' on your scroll, because it could at least help you to get an interview with a top company. Why didn't I think of that earlier!

REFLECTION

Some argue that 'Teachers or lecturers join the academic world (of theory), because they are failures in the real (practical) world.' Such statements often drive academic staff nuts (even if it is sometimes true!), and brings laughter to students. Anyway, we don't need to go into this discussion here, because it will probably lead to no constructive alignment.

Instead, we could ask ourselves, "why do we like to brag about our achievements?" Do you brag? I certainly do, but I usually feel kind of stupid when I realize it. But then again, we forget fast, because it is always nice to feel appreciated and important. The best thing is when someone else praises us about our work. But if none do, we could always do it ourselves.

The best thing about teaching and bragging, is that we are guaranteed an audience, which will probably just look in shock and awe (some will already be sleeping!). I mean, no sane student is going to stand up, and tell the lecturer, "Give us a break from your pathetic achievements, and please get on with the class!" And unless one or a few students make it clear sooner or later, the lecturer will probably continue semester after semester, year after year. Interestingly, the stories will become more amazing and exciting every time they are told. There might even be 2-3 new versions every semester, especially if the lecturer is teaching more than one section.

Certainly, lecturers that have a lot of experiences relevant to the topic discussed should share them with the class. However, we should also ask ourselves whether we are doing it to assist our students to understand the learning content better, or emphasize an important point, or are we doing it to boost our ego. Perhaps we do it for both reasons.

If you think that your achievements are so great, perhaps you should watch a few TED Talks to put your achievements in a global perspective (do a bit of benchmarking, please!).

In my opinion, the greatness of a lecturer does not lie in what he (or she) has personally achieved. Instead, a great lecturer is a person who is able to consistently facilitate AHA-moments in students (Oh, now I understand!) and inspire (or trigger) them to explore and discover their true potential.

To sum up, Dr. Brag was actually a very knowledgeable and experienced lecturer, but his habit of bragging was something that was in my opinion more destructive than constructive in motivating students and facilitating learning.

Do you brag in class (or at work)? Has it become a habit beyond control? Think about it! It doesn't take much effort to change. I am trying, but I want to be appreciated and feel important! Unless I tell them, they will never respect me, recognize my amazing talent, and look up to me. What was the agenda again?

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success." - Dale Carnegie

Thursday, April 24

500+ Power Links That Could Make You Go GAGA!

"It's not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results."
- Warren Buffet

I am happy to announce that ZaidLearn's Del.icio.us Discovery Collection is growing fast and has now gone beyond the 500 mark. Alright, I have to admit that there are amazing dudes in del.icio.us that have managed to assemble collections that have nearly 20 times more links (URLs) than mine (e.g. ggrosseck). Kudos to them! However, since this post is about my collection, I shall say no more (about that!) :)

However, if you are looking for specific suggestions on free stuff to solve your learning issues (or problems), I strongly encourage instead that you to explore my post entitled "A Free Learning Tool for Every Learning Problem?", which include more than 100 excellent free tools/resources. Interestingly, that 100+ juicy learning tool/resource list has been promoted by bloggers and sites in several countries around the world, including Canada, United States, England, Ireland and India. In short, it has less links, but perhaps more power :)

DEL.ICIO.US JUICE?
Although, I am still in the early stages of building my arsenal of power links, there are a few tags worth getting ourselves dirty with already. Here we go:

1) Content - OpenCourseWare (OCW) & Open Educational Resources (OER)

2) Learning Tools

POWER LINKS?
Please, keep in mind that my strategy is not to bookmark every single free learning tool or resource out there, but instead target those juicy links that I believe are useful, relevant, interesting, and have a long lasting value to our learning adventures. I am still exploring new tagging formulas and naming conventions, so you might find the current tag strategy messy and frustrating. However, I am still learning, and hopefully the power links will be increasingly easy to find as I master (or disaster!) the art of bookmarking and tagging.

REFLECTION!
During the last couple of weeks, I have begun a fascinating journey to find great courses available among OCW repositories around the world. I am certainly not interested in bookmarking every single one of them. MIT alone has now around 1800 free courses! But then again, how many of them give you learning goose bumps? Currently, there are already more than one hundred courses in my collection, and you can surely expect more in the coming weeks. When my learning adventure for full-blown courses begins to slow down, I will begin the struggle to bookmark particular free lectures and talks (videos) that give me learning goose bumps.

In other words, it wouldn't surprise me, if my del.icio.us collection reaches 1000 before July 2008. Having said that, it is not about big numbers, but instead it is about capturing great learning juice out there in the fast growing information galaxy, and making it easily available to hungry learners around the world.

I have to admit that I really enjoy using del.icio.us to bookmark and tag my learning discoveries. It is a brutally simple, focused and easy-to-use tool with no frills to distract you from it's core purpose, which is to help you collect, manage, and share your links (URLs) online. And that is probably why this tool is ranked the number one learning tool on the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 (Jane Knight).

Another beauty of managing your link discoveries with del.icio.us, is that when you bookmark a link, you can actually see how many other del.icio.us users that have bookmarked it. It is like searching for stars in the galaxy. When you discover one, you can check whether you are the first one to do so or not. Interestingly, I have noticed that del.icio.us users are great in bookmarking learning tools (e.g. Moodle = 6500+ have bookmarked it), but seem to lack interest (or awareness!) in bookmarking great free or OCW courses (Physics I: Classical Mechanics by Professor Lewin = 130+ have bookmarked it). Actually, most OCW courses that I have bookmarked fail even to reach the 20 mark. Perhaps, del.icio.us users focus more on bookmarking individual lectures or resources within the courses.

ZAIDLEARN GOES DIIGO?
There has been a lot of hype regarding 'Diigo', the new social bookmarking tool in town (it is not that new, brother!). So, to feel the hype I have also explored this tool. As Diigo allows you to import collections from other social bookmarking tools like del.icio.us, it was extremely easy to transfer my power links. Click here to experience ZaidLearn's power links in Diigo.

Although, Diigo is a cool tool and has a lot more features than del.icio.us to socialize, communicate, and have fun, it does not appeal to me (at least until now!). The reason is that I want my social bookmarking tool to be brutally simple, easy-to-use and focused. I have enough of other free learning tools to socialize, communicate and have fun!

Though, it would be nice if del.icio.us allowed users to provide comments to our learning discoveries, and be able to report broken links. Besides that, del.icio.us is still my first choice! But then again, I will continue to export my collections, and import them into Diigo (whenever I remember!). You never know in the future :)

Friday, April 18

Teaching Habits That Inspire You Out of Learning? (Part 1)

Link to ZaidLearn's Del.icio.us Teaching Links

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” - William Arthur Ward

Can anyone become a great educator (teacher or lecturer)? Or is it gift that we are born with (Nature)? Or can we become a great educator through learning, practice, feedback, reflection, etc. (Nurture)? Or perhaps it is a combination of Nature and Nurture? Or perhaps it is neither? What are the characteristics of a great educator anyway?

WHAT GOOD TEACHERS SAY ABOUT TEACHING?
"At the University of California at Berkeley, the Distinguished Teaching Award was instituted in 1959 to recognize and reward excellence in teaching. Since the inception of the award, over 150 faculty in forty-eight departments have been honored...although these essays (by the award winners) were prepared independently over a number of years, there are striking similarities about what good teachers say about teaching. On at least ten propositions, the contributors are in near or total agreement (Source):

The teacher's main task is to guide students through the learning process, not to dispense information.
The goal of teaching is to help students read, speak, write, and think critically—and to expect students to do these things.
Learning is a "messy" process, and the search for truth and knowledge is open-ended.
Good teachers love their subject matter.
Good research and good teaching go hand in hand. Students' engagement with the subject is enhanced by knowing about the teacher's own research, and the interaction with students often provides new insights into the research.
The best teachers genuinely respect students and their intellectual capabilities.
Good teachers are rarely satisfied with their teaching. They constantly evaluate and modify what they do.
Good teachers usually had good teachers, and they see themselves as passing on their own teachers' gifts to a new generation of students.
Good teachers treasure the small moments of discovery in the classroom and the more enduring effect they have on students' lives.
Good teachers do not see teaching as separate from other activities; rather, they see their lives as remarkably integrated."

The interesting thing today, is that we increasingly have access (if we have Internet!) to all sorts of content about the art of excellent teaching (A short list). In addition, we can also study and reflect amazing lecturers through video lectures and podcasts from many of the most respected Universities around the world, including MIT, Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge (YouTube Channels, Podcasts and OpenCourseWare).

So, why can't we inspire all our students to learn (if you can, please share your secret!)? That is a tough question beyond my intellect, knowledge and experience (I suppose because it needs two to tango)! However, let's play a bit with this question, and instead ask, "what were the least inspiring teachers we experienced during our student days?" Or more specifically, "What were the teaching habits that inspired us out of learning?"

5-PART SERIES?
In this 5-part series (which might evolve into a 10-part series!), I will reflect specific teaching habits practiced by some educators that I experienced personally during my 20 years career as a student (I suppose when I do my PhD I can add another 3-4 years). I am not interested in witch hunting any particular educator (I am really bad with names anyway, so that is not a problem!). Instead, I am trying to reflect back and learn from their teaching habits (and perhaps avoid them!) that made me wonder: Are you kidding me? Is this guy for real? This guy needs a life! What is wrong with him? Can't he see that we are sleeping! Don't teachers undergo training on how to teach and facilitate learning? Perhaps he doesn't care!

Since I have had the privilege to experience educators from every major continent of the world during my 20-year career as a student, I suppose I will have some very interesting teaching habits to share with all of you. Whether they are bad teaching habits or not, I will leave that for you to decide. But one thing is for sure, these teaching habits certainly inspired me out of learning.

Finally, before we begin this 'unlearning' journey, I have to admit I have never been an easy student to deal with. During my primary and secondary school I was rude, noisy, and spent a lot of time in detention. I literally slept through high-school, and just managed to scrape through. Once, one lecturer threatened to kick me out of class if I didn't stop sleeping, and even placed me in the front row to ensure that I didn't sleep. It didn't help much! When you are tired, and have to sit through a boring lecture, what do you expect! I suppose if I had taken more vitamin supplements, given up on football, stopped having fun, and slept earlier, things would have been different. I suppose it is a learning process!

Then I moved to Malaysia, and the power of faith (Islam) brought the passion back to learn in me. During my undergraduate and graduate days, I forced myself to sit in the front row until it became a habit I am proud of. Not only did I sit in front, I also become the ultimate annoying student that always asked questions. I became the kind of smart-aleck I used to despise in my younger days. In a nutshell, that is my story as a student. Now, let's move on to the real point of this 5-part series.

WHITEBOARD AND I ARE ONE!

During my undergraduate studies, I had a very interesting statistics lecturer, which I will name Dr. Woody (woodpecker) for the name protection sake. Dr. Woody was a multimedia encyclopedia of statistics, and he certainly did not need to refer to any book or notes during his lectures. He had perfected every lecture he conducted. In addition, he was a caring guy and always smiled. So, what is the problem! Yeah! Hmm, got a point there!

Interestingly, I had two different statistics (can't remember the names!) subjects with Dr. Woody that semester, and we only had a 10-minute break in-between the two 90-minute sessions twice a week (6 hours a week with Dr. Woody).

Dr. Woody was always punctual and so was I. I remember, he would always be stressed at the beginning of each class and would be eager to start as fast as possible, so that we could complete the syllabus on time. As soon as he began teaching, he would face the whiteboard with his markers, and begin the magic statistics writing adventure. And you know what, he would just go on, and on, and on, and on, like a dog hunting a fox. His urgency to do his thing (teach!), gave him no time to turn back and assist the helpless students in shock! We managed to complete 50% of the syllabus within the first 3 weeks of a 14-week semester. Of course it was impressive to see Dr. Woody practically write the book on the whiteboard, doing it at a speed that even Ferrari would not be able to match.

My fingers (and brain) used to be really exhausted after two consecutive 90-minute sessions (twice week) of nonstop writing (15-25 pages of notes each time!), trying to capture everything that Dr. Woody wrote on the whiteboard. Thank GOD many lecturers today use PowerPoint, or provide some form of course notes. However, we have to keep in mind that taking notes itself, is a skill that all students should master. Because in most working environments, there probably won't be any books or notes to rescue us, and solve all our problems.

REFLECTION
It was only after I discovered notes taken from his previous students that I realized how amazing Dr. Woody's memory was. It was as if he had imprinted the notes and formulas in his brain, and simply repeated it again and again every semester. Even a photocopy machine would be proud of such perfection. Although, we got to experience him do his thing (process flow!), it was kind of overwhelming, and I believe most of us had problems dealing with the information overload. I suppose if we could replay the lecture in slow motion (many times!), it would be more useful.

Interestingly, when I revised the notes I had taken from Dr. Woody's lectures, I couldn't even remember that I had written them. Did I really write that! I suppose I had no time to think while taking the notes.

Overall, Dr. Woody was knowledgeable, skillful, caring, experienced, and an expert in his subject area. However, I am not sure I learned much about statistics from him. Actually, I didn't! Though, since I had the passion to do well, I managed to do quite well anyway.

But, what is important to keep in mind here, is that being an authority in a knowledge domain, does not mean that we are fit to educate and facilitate learning. Even worse, some educators have an amazing ability to make you sick of a subject (They might argue that it is self-inflicted!). Is that a natural gift, too?

Although, it is important to learn new ways to improve our teaching, it is also important to reflect our own existing teaching methods, and perhaps unlearn those that really inspire people out of learning.

Until Part II, let's explore our own teaching, and try to point out to ourselves (at least!) a few habits that might turn students off learning.

"That student is an idiot! I have told him a 100 times and he still doesn't get it!" :)

Wednesday, April 2

A Free Learning Tool for Every Learning Problem?

Let's explore the idea that there is at least one excellent free learning tool (or site) for every learning problem, need or issue!

I want a FREE:

Easy-to-use and secure Internet browser? Firefox
e-Mail system? Gmail
Social bookmarking tool? del.icio.us
Social bookmarking tool with collaborative learning features (groups, forums, etc.)? Diigo
Tool to translate text or a webpage? Google Language Tools
RSS reader? Omea Reader
Online RSS reader? Google Reader
Online Calendar? Google Calendar
Tool to aggregate all my resources, mail, RSS feeds, etc, in one place? iGoogle or Pageflakes
Platform to incorporate all my favorite tools within one environment? Elgg
Learning Management System (LMS)? Easy, Moodle
Hosted LMS? Here are SEVEN!
Tool to assist me in evaluating and selecting a LMS? EduTools
Learning Activity Management System? LAMS
Collaboration tool? Connect with Ning
Social Networking tool? Tricky one! Facebook
3D online virtual world where I can socialize, connect and learn? Second Life
Content Management System (CMS)? Joomla
Tool to create my own website? Webnode
Virtual Classroom? DimDim
Hosted Virtual Classroom? WiZiQ
Tool to broadcast myself to the world? USTREAM
Tool to make calls from my computer? Skype
Videoconferencing chat service? Vawkr
Content authoring tool? How about two? eXe & CourseLab
Alternative to Microsoft Office? OpenOffice
Online suite of office tools? Google Docs or Zoho
Tool that accurately converts my PowerPoint to Flash (including animations)? iSpring Free
Web authoring tool alternative to FrontPage and Dreamweaver? NvU or KompoZer
Personal online notebook? Google Notebook
Blogging tool? WordPress! Why aren't you using WordPress? Good Question!
Blogging tool for educators? Edublogs
Directory of edubloggers from around the world? International Edubloggers Directory
Microblogging tool? Twitter
Wiki tool? PBwiki
Encyclopedia, which I can add to or edit? Wikipedia
Audio recording tool? Audacity
Tool to host my audio recordings? Odeo
Tool to transform media into collaborative spaces with video, voice and text commenting? VoiceThread
Tool for storytelling? Here are 50!
Screencasting (recording) tool? Wink
Hosted screencasting tool? Jing
Mindmapping tool? FreeMind
Tool that lets me brainstorm and create mindmaps online? Bubbl.us
Easy-to-learn 3D authoring software tool? Google SketchUp
Alternative to 3D Studio Max? Blender
Photo/image editing tool? GIMP or Picasa
Online photo/image editing tool? Splashup
Tool to create cool personalized images? Custom Sign Generator Widgets
Image Resizer? Dosize
Watermarking tool? uMark
Screen Color Picker? ColorSchemer
Tool to highlight text in a webpage? The Awesome Highlighter
Tool to create flowcharts, diagrams, technical drawings? Gliffy
Tool to create comics and cartoons? ToonDoo
Tool to make screenshots from different browsers with one click? Browsershots
Tool to create PDFs from any Windows program? PDFCreator
Online file conversion tool (e.g. Word >PDF>PowerPoint)? Zamzar
Tool to share my slides? Too easy man! SlideShare
Tool to share my videos? Come on! YouTube
Online science research sharing portal? SciVee
Online community to share and discuss instructional teacher videos? TeacherTube
Online community to share, discuss and learn about the uses of educational technology? EdTechTalk
Online community to test my big ideas? Big Think
Tool to download videos from any video sharing site (YouTube, Metacafe, etc.)? ClipNabber
Self-publishing tool (books, papers, articles, etc)? Scribd
Tool to share my pictures? Are you joking! Flickr
Space to upload and share my files? eSnips
File hosting solution that allows me to share files up to 250MB each? FileCrunch
Online quiz tool? ClassMarker
Tool to create interactive quizzes and crosswords? Hot Potatoes
Inquiry-oriented lesson tool? WebQuest
Online polling tool with a bit of fizzle? Polldaddy
Online survey tool? Click here to choose!
Tool to create Flash games (templates)? ClassTools.net
Investment Simulation Game? Virtual Trader
Interactive 3D business simulator? INNOV8
Game to understand cancer better? Re-Mission
Game to understand the scientific method and 21st Century Skills? River City
Game to understand variable manipulations for urban management? SimCity
Game to understand social studies better? Quest Atlantis
Game to understand world hunger and efforts to alleviate it? WFP Foodforce
Game to learn more vocabulary and help hungry people? Seriously! FreeRice
Range of interactive tools to help me understand maths concepts? Shodor Interactivate
Tool to create my own search engine tailored to my needs? Google Custom Search Engine
Human-powered search engine? Mahalo
Metasearch engine with visual display interfaces? What! Here is KartOO!
Search engine that groups the results by topic via automated clustering technology? Vivisimo
Science-specific search engine? Scirus
All-in-one research search tool? Schoolr
Tool to search, discover, rank and compare different sites around the world? Alexa
Tool to search the full text of books? Google Book Search
Tool to search for scholarly literature? Google Scholar
Tool to search for patents? Google Patent Search
Tool that sends me email updates of the latest relevant Google results (e.g. e-Learning)? Google Alerts
Energy saving search engine? Blackle
Online visual dictionary and thesaurus? Visuwords
World digital library? World Digital Library
Tool to build and distribute my own digital library? Greenstone
Site to find and search across all OpenCourseWare (OCW) courses? OpenCourseWare Consortium
Repository and learning network of Open Educational Resources (OER)? OER Commons
Site to get the latest updates on OER and OCW? OER Blogs
Portal to non-formal OER and training resources? Open Training Platform
Encyclopedia of video tutorials to help me learn any software? Wikivid
e-Book to learn more about e-learning 2.0? Learning 2.0 eBook
Site to learn more about rapid e-learning? The Rapid e-Learning Blog
Site to learn more about Online Course Development? Hitchhiker’s Guide to Course Development
Crash course in learning theory? Click here!
Database of Learning Theories? Click here & here!
Tool to help me understand and use learning styles effectively? Learning Styles Online.com
Repository of creative and critical thinking tools? Mycoted to the rescue!
Route to learn more about the 21st century skills? Route 21
Repository of how everything works? HowStuffWorks
Repository of lectures from the world's top scientists? Videolectures.NET
Directory of academic open access repositories? OpenDOAR
Site covering today's top social, political, and tech issues? FORA.tv
Site to improve my learning skills? Study Guides & Strategies
Gaming tool to help me learn ICT? ReviseICT.co.uk
Tool to improve my typing skills? Peter's Online Typing Course
Tool to improve my reading skills? ZAP Reader
Interactive courseware to improve my workplace skills? ALISON
Multimedia site that enhance our understanding of war and its history? Maps-of-War
3D human anatomy visualization tool? Visible Body
Tool to learn languages? Mango
Tool to explore the World? Google Earth
Tool to explore the Universe? WorldWide Telescope
Tool to visualize human development? Gapminder
Tool to answer all my questions? Answer.com
Site with talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers? TED is a good starting point!
Article to reveal the secrets of the super-learners? Click here!
Link to the most innovative web 2.0 (and 3.0) lab in the world? Google Labs
Tool to stumble upon and discover great websites, videos, photos, etc. ? StumbleUpon
Daily newsletter that keeps me updated with the latest news on online learning? Stephen's OLDaily
Site dedicated to tracking the changes occurring in education today? Open Education
Site to update me on the latest free instructional resources for Higher Education? EduResources Weblog & Educational Technology
Site to discover delicious free tools, resources, and sites? ZaidLearn's Del.icio.us Discoveries
Site to make you shut up? About time! Here we go:

25 (must-have free) Tools: Professional Development Programme (Jane Knight)

In short, for every learning problem (or issue) we have today, there is probably a free tool or site out there that enables us to solve it. If not, I am pretty sure some genius out there is constructing it right now. If no one is doing it, perhaps we can do it.

Another challenge is to integrate all our learning tools efficiently and effectively into our learning spaces. On the positive note, more and more tools are creating integration modules to widely used systems like Moodle and Facebook, so it might not be so difficult after all. Also, with OpenID we can increasingly login to all our favorite websites without much hassle. Single-login to all our learning tools! Now that is something we all can appreciate! Remember one password! Tough one!

If you want to experience my learning adventure as I discover, perhaps you should subscribe to my Del.icio.us Learning Adventure! Otherwise, you could always wait a week or two for the updates in this blog. Have fun 'Socratic Tooling' to solve your learning problems and issues :)

Friday, March 28

Crashing the Workshop to Capture a Great Learning Moment!

"In one session, Zaid himself shared that he recorded one session of a professor (if I can remember correctly), just the voice and then he added a powerpoint presentation of the talk which I thought was brilliant and at no extra cost." - Christopher Chew

Sometimes in life you need to be reminded indirectly by others that you have an interesting story to share (on your blog). Thanks to Christopher, I have one (I think)! Let's try to recap what really happened (True story!)...

Once upon a time (August 2005), UNITAR was conducting a facilitation workshop for their academic staff, and I was not officially invited. Did that stop me from crashing the workshop?

NOT INVITED!
Although, I was not an academic, I had great interest in attending this event to learn and get some more ideas on a special project I was working on. At that time I was preparing a proposal on how we could improve our existing teaching and learning approach. Since a few of UNITAR's great educators were also giving talks on how UNITAR should move forward, attending this workshop made a whole lot of sense!

RECORDING
Interestingly, I had just discovered and bought an audio recorder thumb drive (128Mb. 1st generation!), which could record up to eight (8) hours. So, not only was I planning to attend, but I was also thinking about recording the whole event, so that I could recap and reflect it later. Also, UNITAR had a couple months back invested in a rapid e-learning authoring tool called Macromedia Breeze (which today is Adobe Presenter), which I thought was perfect for this learning adventure.

Since the speakers were using microphones, I was hoping that we could record directly to a computer device, but that was not possible thanks to my limited knowledge about Audacity. They did record some of the talks with a video camera, but the video/audio quality was simply a disaster. Luckily, I had my new thumb size audio recorder, but the question was where to place it to get the best possible output. After a bit of non-scientific exploration, I simply placed the audio recorder close to a speaker (which was located out of reach from the audience) and recorded all the four (4) speakers that day.

Although, the audio recordings were not really clear, you could hear what the speaker was saying, and that was positive.

BREEZE
All the four talks were great, but Professor Dato' Dr. Ibrahim Ahmad Bajunid's one was something special worth taking extra efforts to preserve for mankind. Interestingly, he did not prepare any PowerPoint slides, while the other three (3) did. And anyone who knows Prof. Bajunid, knows he will switch on his multiple thinking processor and wonder into multiple dimensions while giving a talk, shooting nuggets of wisdom here and there. I suppose more structured thinkers might find that very annoying, but I am not one of them.

So, for the other three (3) speakers it was simply to beef up their slides a bit, and then synchronize the audio (and delete a few 'ahs' and 'ums' in the audio editor in Breeze) with the slides, and voila we had three Breeze presentations.

However, for Professor Bajunid's talk it was a bit more complicated since I did not have any slides to refer to. So, I had to listen to his great but wondering talk (a few times!) and cook up a few slides to visualize and chunk it. Click here to know what I am talking about.

PERMISSION & FEEDBACK
After completing my little experiment, I shared what I did with all the four speakers, and they were all surprised and happy about it. Interestingly, one of them discovered (speech therapy!) that he kept on repeating a particular word (I think it was 'Right') a lot of times during his 30 minute speech, which he asked me to take out. I did (easy with the audio editor) and discovered that he was right! He managed to say 'Right' more than 60 times in 30 minutes.

LESSONS LEARNED
Alright, with today's technologies you can actually record a lecture (audio/video) and synchronize the slides on-the-fly, which is kind of cool. But for compression/downloading/streaming sake, if all you see is a talking head, you might want to consider simply having a picture of the speaker. Also, a bit of editing might be useful, especially if the lecturer visits the toilet frequently.

If you can't afford commercial tools like Adobe Presenter or Articulate, you could for example use a free tool such as Slideshare, which allows you to add audio, too.

Whatever tool you use, what is important is to capture great learning events such as Professor Bajunid's talk about teaching and learning, and make it conveniently available to anyone around the world (compressed, chunked, engaging and juicy!). Although, Professor Bajunid is no longer with UNITAR (neither am I!), I do hope that UNITAR continue to make his presentation available to mankind (at least for their own branding sake!).

If you ask me (who are you!), this talk is a treasure that can engage our learning minds for another century (at least a decade!). Hmm, I do apologize for some of the grammar bloopers in the slides, but who cares when Professor Bajunid engages your mind to think.

"...Lecturers who know nothing else except their PowerPoint slides...They are just PowerPoint notes, not process. They have no stories, no biographies, no histories..." - Professor Bajunid

If you are wondering what this means, click here :)

Wednesday, March 19

Personal Learning = YouTube Lectures + No Courses + Free Rice

FREE RICE?
Did you know that you can give free rice to hungry people by simply playing a cool word game? FreeRice has two goals:

Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free (Made possible by the sponsors who advertise on the site).

While learning and stimulating your own brain, you are also helping hungry people! What a brilliant idea! Hopefully, it works!

A WORLD WITHOUT COURSES?
George Siemens provides us a glimpse into a potential future world without courses, in a mind stimulating Articulate presentation.

"The function of education - in serving its stakeholders and in how it creates value - can be duplicated in a distributed manner. We're still missing the final piece of accreditation (though we're making progress on that) and we're missing the piece on how we will tie these pieces together. But, I imagine that will be on the horizon shortly. (with tying together, I don't mean tying content together - we can do that with RSS, PageFlakes, etc. I mean a conceptual tying together so we can say, "yes, Susan has achieved those learning targets"). Treat it as a conversation starter, not a declaration of belief ..." (Source)

It wasn't long ago when some learning experts were talking about a world without lectures (or even lecturers! Courseware + Artificial Intelligence = Learning). Today I watch more lectures than ever online (if I had more opportunities offline I would, too)! Whether online or offline, I simply love lectures, if they are interesting, engaging, useful, and relevant to my learning (E.g. George Siemens Articulate presentation). If you ask me to choose between a typical page-clicking courseware (eBook?) over watching a lecture, I would 99 out of 100 times choose a lecture (especially if it allows me to easily navigate and skip the boring/knowing parts). I suppose I prefer watching and listening to subject matter experts (if so!) reflecting-it-out-loud if possible (learning beyond the content)! But then again, everyone has their own preferences, which we should try to cater to one way or the other. If you can blend reading, listening, watching, presenting, sharing, playing, reflecting, individual/group activities, and creating new stuff into a course effectively, I will be inspired!

Although, I like learning whatever I want, anytime I want in an informal way, I do also like learning through courses. So, I hope and envision a world where both can co-exist effectively and that we can increasingly recognize and find ways to measure the value of informal learning (or no-course learning!) before making our judgements about a person's expertise (or competence level) in terms of knowledge, skills, experience and wisdom.

Coming to think of it, the problem might not lie with the 'course model', but how we define, deliver, assess and rigidly package courses (according to credit hours). With a bit of creativity, innovation and flexibility, we might be able to revive to true value of learning through courses! Also, wouldn't it be nice if we could have more flexibility in how we package our degrees (self-directed). We are free to choose courses according to our needs and interests (with prerequisite or warning signs if any!). In such a course learning world, I suppose Steve Jobs would have completed his degree!

UNIVERSITY YOUTUBE COLLECTIONS
Dan Coleman shares on his super smart media blog 50+ Smart Video Collections on YouTube (and growing!), which is simply an amazing collection. Although, YouTube unfortunately makes these collections difficult to find, Dan Coleman comes to the rescue!

Here are a few University YouTube Channels to keep you busy for life:

PERSONAL LEARNING
Stephen Downes is working on a new personal learning tool (soon to be launched, if I am not mistaken), and has some great ideas about what personal learning is all about.

Personal learning (in a nut shell!):

To teach is to MODEL and to DEMONSTRATE
To Learn is to PRACTICE and REFLECT

CLICK HERE to enjoy and reflect his slides :)

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?
Besides learning, I don't have a clue! However, if you want to enjoy my learning as I discover new learning resources and tools, please take advantage and use my growing juicy del.icio.us collection. Currently, I am still trying to index my old super learning discoveries (No time!), and hopefully by early April, I will increasingly focus more on exploring new galaxies of resources and tools.

In the meantime, have fun feeding poor people while playing games, and please dream about a world without courses (and share your reflections with George Siemens). Also, have fun exploring 1000s of YouTube lectures! Hopefully, we can soon use Stephen Downes new personal learning tool to manage our learning more efficiently. We certainly need it now!

I suppose I will be back in a week or two with some more juicy updates from my learning adventures :)