Blog Smith

Blog Smith is inspired by the myth of Hephaestus in the creation of blacksmith-like, forged materials: ideas. This blog analyzes topics that interest me: IT, politics, technology, history, education, music, and the history of religions.

Friday, November 7, 2014

07 Nov 2014 – Variety Playhouse, Atlanta GA

http://youtu.be/CGbjfx_DGqI http://youtu.be/PjEva00m_Qg http://youtu.be/QZNP4A0Voyk http://youtu.be/HE0z54f8cK

When I'm President

Something to Believe In

I Wish I Was Your Mother

Sweet Jane

http://youtu.be/Ez2wHFXVRB0

Ian Hunter, Variety Playhouse, Atlanta GA on 07 Nov 2014

Variety Playhouse, Atlanta GA on 07 Nov 2014. Tickets go on sale this Friday (22 Aug 2014).

Wealth Creation

Wealth Creation Where Does Wealth Come From?

Video Chats for Gitmo Islamists

Video

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Watters World on the Election

Watters

Obama vs. The Constitution

Troubles

Ian Hunter, 04 Nov 2014 – MOTORCO, RALEIGH NC.

All The Way From Memphis

All The Young Dudes

Elevator Pitch, Week 3

http://vimeo.com/110937257

Elevator Pitch
Content/skills the intervention is targeting (What is it about?)
    I am intervening on behalf of working, adult students, many of whom come from a full day of work to attend four hour classes in the evenings. Over half of the students are African American or Hispanic. The average age of students at the college is approximately 33. Many students receive financial assistance from federal government financial aid programs or education assistance programs operated by the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Format of the intervention (What is it?)
The students require an active, engaging experience after a long day and in order to complete their program of study. The format is the game setting, promoting active learning, and then an application with the Reacting to the Past role-play. The students will be challenged to build their own civilization in the five weeks of the course using Sid Meier's game, Civilization. In the second five weeks of the course the class will transition to "Reacting to the Past," a role-playing game which recreates the threshold of democracy in Athens in 403 B.C.

Theoretical basis (Why is it good for learning?)
It is action-oriented and is engaging for students. The intervention is based on constructionist technologies since the experience will expect the student to be speaking, writing, researching, and using role-play to learn.  Mark C. Carnes, Minds on Fire is an excellent resource.

Product goals (Why should people care about it?)
People should care because there is very little research and a dearth of quality historical games. There is relatively little funding for historical recreations but Civilization is a time and player tested product. The game is the best in terms of offering reliable content and the learning outcomes of traditional survey courses. The advantage for learners is that they are doing, and active, as opposed to simply hearing about the past.

Is the elevator pitch clear and concise? Does it leave you wanting to know more?
Does the write up give you a clear picture of what the product is and how it’s different from other products?

It is different from other products because it is not confined to a limited period in history, as in the case of the Oregon Trail, and 1066 games, but allows a learner to follow a contingent path based on their decisions to build their defenses, promote a sustainable society, or allow a dictator to rule. Students will understand the consequences of their decisions.

References
Minds on fire: how role-immersion games transform college by Mark C. Carnes,Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, [2014].
Reacting to the Past Game Designer's Handbook by Nicolas W Proctor, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, [2013].
Civilization V CIVILOPEDIA Online, http://www.dndjunkie.com/civilopedia/ [Accessed 4 November 2014].

Week 3: The Elevator Pitch

Here is the problem that I am addressing. You know how many people feel that games are tremendously popular but they may not be conducive to education? That is a problem. What I do is to modify the game content to steer it in the direction of learning. In fact, when I have presented the content of the game Civilization my students have gained a greater appreciation for history and solving the problems of society.

Describe your chosen intervention. What is it? How is it used? What do you know about how effective it is?

My chosen intervention is to direct students using Civilization to learn from the content. The game is used as a springboard to learning more about how to build a sustainable society. It is effective as I have used portions of the game in a K-12 setting.

Identify weak points or opportunities for growth. What areas of this design are not working as well as they could?

The areas of design that are not as strong as they could be lay in the area of practice or acting out the results of building a Civilization. Therefore, what I propose is to use the Reacting to the Past series about the threshold of democracy as it arose in Greece.

Present your mods.  Clearly describe and/or show what changes you would make.

Students will present their counter-factual history based on how they fared in Civilization as compared to the textbook and what actually happened. Finally, they will react to the past using the book about the threshold of democracy in Greece.

Explain your thinking.  Provide evidence for why you expect these changes will improve outcomes. What learning theories are you basing them on? What related interventions have proven outcomes?

As used separately in my classrooms, components of Civilization, and debates about the beginnings of democracy in Greece have worked well. These related interventions have proven the outcomes I desired. Students were more interested in learning first-hand by understanding the game content, and then elsewhere students enjoyed participating in debates about the beginning of democracy in Greece. I based my expected results on important learning theories.

Since I have students write and present their own individual, counter-factual history, as compared to the actual historical events, and then role-play the threshold of democracy these procedures encourage active learning as noted in the readings. The students have to talk, listen, write, read, and of course reflect on their experience. Bonwell and Eison summarize activities that they include in active learning: visual learning, writing in class, problem solving, computer-based instruction, cooperative learning, debates, drama, role playing, simulations, games, and peer teaching. What I am proposing incorporates these techniques.

This is an important area since the simulations are biased towards the sciences and there are few historical re-creations. The 1066 game is an exception as well as of course an early simulation, the Oregon Trail.

References

Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. 1991 ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports. Bonwell, Charles C.; Eison, James A.

http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED336049

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/0-9/1066/game/index.html

Assignment 3.1: Make a Mod

INTRODUCTION

In this assignment you’ll apply what you know about approaches to learning and relevant learning theories. Instead of jumping right in and designing your own educational technology (which you will do soon), you’ll get to practice by first modifying an existing one. This will serve as a stepping stone to help you look critically at the design of a learning experience and come up with ways to improve it.

WHAT TO DO

1. Choose an existing learning intervention

For this week, we’re defining a “learning intervention” as an activity which engages learners with some particular content area. We’ve left this pretty broad because we want to give you a lot of latitude as you do the next part of the assignment. So it could be an educational game, but it could also be a textbook, science lab, set of flash cards, etc. Even a driver’s manual or a learn-to-juggle video. Anything goes!

2. Make a mod of the learning intervention

Identify weak points in the intervention as it exists, or opportunities to improve learning outcomes. These outcomes could be in the form of greater engagement or motivation, increased content knowledge, more authentic skill development, etc. Make modifications or additions to the intervention that would improve these outcomes. Just be sure that those mods are grounded in educational theory or other proven methods.

If your intervention is already technology-based, you might modify either the technology or the way it’s used.  An example of this might be taking a digital representation of a chemical reaction and making it more active and playful, rather than just something to be watched.

If your intervention does not use technology, then your challenge is to think of ways in which adding a technology component would potentially improve outcomes. For instance if you started with a “ball and stick” model of chemistry, you might add uses of technology to pose problems, visualize concepts, facilitate peer interactions, etc.

DELIVERABLE FORMAT

This is another assignment where your actual turn-in may vary from student to student, depending on the intervention you’ve chosen and the format of your mods. Unless your intervention is very easy to actually modify, we imagine that most turn-ins will take the form of a written document, perhaps with illustrative images, describing the mods you have designed. If you would prefer to create a presentation, video, or other multimedia deliverable, that’s great too. Choose the format that you think best conveys what you want to communicate, and that you will have the most fun with.

These are the key areas to cover in your write-up:

Describe your chosen intervention. What is it? How is it used? What do you know about how effective it is?

Identify weak points or opportunities for growth. What areas of this design are not working as well as they could?

Present your mods.

Clearly describe and/or show what changes you would make.

Explain your thinking.

Provide evidence for why you expect these changes will improve outcomes. What learning theories are you basing them on? What related interventions have proven outcomes?

TURN-IN AND EVALUATION

When you’re ready to submit your assignment, go to the next unit in this ribbon, which is the peer assessment. Unfortunately the platform does not allow document uploads so unless your turn-in is text only, you will need to post your work online somewhere then paste the link(s) and any special instructions into the submission form. (Get suggestions of how to post shareable documents online.) Remember to make those documents publicly viewable, and please complete your work in English so that your peers can read it. You’ll be prompted to evaluate some of your classmates’ work, and in turn some of your classmates will also evaluate your work. The evaluation will be based on the criteria in the rubric, which can be found below. So you will want to look through the rubric ahead of time and keep those criteria in mind as you work on your project.

RUBRIC

Incomplete
Adequate
Excellent
Chosen Intervention
Did not describe chosen intervention.
Described chosen intervention.
Clearly described chosen intervention along with identified weak points or opportunities for improvement.
Your Mod
Did not present student-designed mods.
Described proposed mods.
Thoroughly explained proposed mods and provided evidence of reasoning about why the mods would improve outcomes.

Assignment 3.2: The Elevator Pitch INTRODUCTION This assignment is where you’ll start to really develop your pitch for a new innovative educational technology. By now you’ve thought about what learning challenge you want to address, and you’ve gotten some feedback and ideas from your peers. So you’re ready to decide how you will address the challenge, and what will make it great! WHAT TO DO You may or may not already have some idea of what the thing actually is that you’re designing. Either way, it’s useful to ground the problem and the solution in some theoretical basis. What models do we have about learning which inform or influence your design? What specific elements of the design build on those models to make a quality educational product? If you’ve started with a product idea, make sure you have underlying theories or frameworks that fit well to form the foundation of your product. If you’ve started with the theory or framework, decide what type of technology will provide the best experience to help students explore the topic. Keep in mind all that you’ve seen this week about active learning and be sure to incorporate those principles as well. Begin to flesh out your product. At this stage you don’t have to have a lot of detail, but you should know something about the content, the format, the theories, and the project goals. Imagine someone in an elevator asks what your product is. You have maybe 30 seconds to tell them what it is and they should be able to imagine it. You don’t have to be able to field all their questions just yet, but they should be able to understand what you’re trying to do. For example, one student might design a constructivist role-playing video game to teach about ant colonies. Another might work on a mobile app about colonial India based on a Teaching for Understanding framework. And someone else could create a transmedia property promoting prosocial skills in kindergarteners through active learning. Whatever it is you want to make, it should have clear goals and a theoretical basis to support it. RESOURCES Here are a couple of page with tips on crafting an elevator pitch. They are not geared towards ed tech specifically but you may find the context and process useful. Resource from MindTools Resource from SuccessWise DELIVERY FORMAT For this assignment, we’d like you to record a video of yourself giving your 30-60 second elevator pitch, along with a slightly longer (less than a page) explanation of your project. The Video: Imagine you have run into Professor Klopfer in an elevator and you want to get his attention with your genius ed tech idea. You only have a few floors to wow him! The video doesn’t have to be shot in an elevator, though you get bonus points if it is! If you aren’t able to record a video, please consider at least recording audio, or a video with a static image. If you really don’t have multimedia capabilities, then plain text is okay too. The benefit of recording yourself is that you get a clearer idea of whether your pitch is confusing, too wordy, redundant, etc. and you can revise it accordingly. The Writeup: Now that you have intrigued Professor Klopfer with your innovative idea, he has asked to see more! So this one-pager should include everything you said in your elevator pitch video. Plus it should also provide some more explanation of the theoretical underpinnings, the goals of the project, and how you plan to accomplish them.
  • Describe your chosen intervention. What is it? How is it used? What do you know about how effective it is?
  • Identify weak points or opportunities for growth. What areas of this design are not working as well as they could?
  • Present your mods.  Clearly describe and/or show what changes you would make.
  • Explain your thinking.  Provide evidence for why you expect these changes will improve outcomes. What learning theories are you basing them on? What related interventions have proven outcomes?

Assignment 3.1: Make a Mod

INTRODUCTION

In this assignment you’ll apply what you know about approaches to learning and relevant learning theories. Instead of jumping right in and designing your own educational technology (which you will do soon), you’ll get to practice by first modifying an existing one. This will serve as a stepping stone to help you look critically at the design of a learning experience and come up with ways to improve it.

WHAT TO DO

1. Choose an existing learning intervention
For this week, we’re defining a “learning intervention” as an activity which engages learners with some particular content area. We’ve left this pretty broad because we want to give you a lot of latitude as you do the next part of the assignment. So it could be an educational game, but it could also be a textbook, science lab, set of flash cards, etc. Even a driver’s manual or a learn-to-juggle video. Anything goes!
2. Make a mod of the learning intervention
Identify weak points in the intervention as it exists, or opportunities to improve learning outcomes. These outcomes could be in the form of greater engagement or motivation, increased content knowledge, more authentic skill development, etc. Make modifications or additions to the intervention that would improve these outcomes. Just be sure that those mods are grounded in educational theory or other proven methods.
  • If your intervention is already technology-based, you might modify either the technology or the way it’s used.  An example of this might be taking a digital representation of a chemical reaction and making it more active and playful, rather than just something to be watched.
  • If your intervention does not use technology, then your challenge is to think of ways in which adding a technology component would potentially improve outcomes. For instance if you started with a “ball and stick” model of chemistry, you might add uses of technology to pose problems, visualize concepts, facilitate peer interactions, etc.

DELIVERABLE FORMAT

This is another assignment where your actual turn-in may vary from student to student, depending on the intervention you’ve chosen and the format of your mods. Unless your intervention is very easy to actually modify, we imagine that most turn-ins will take the form of a written document, perhaps with illustrative images, describing the mods you have designed. If you would prefer to create a presentation, video, or other multimedia deliverable, that’s great too. Choose the format that you think best conveys what you want to communicate, and that you will have the most fun with.
These are the key areas to cover in your write-up:
  • Describe your chosen intervention. What is it? How is it used? What do you know about how effective it is?
  • Identify weak points or opportunities for growth. What areas of this design are not working as well as they could?
  • Present your mods.  Clearly describe and/or show what changes you would make.
  • Explain your thinking.  Provide evidence for why you expect these changes will improve outcomes. What learning theories are you basing them on? What related interventions have proven outcomes?

TURN-IN AND EVALUATION

When you’re ready to submit your assignment, go to the next unit in this ribbon, which is the peer assessment. Unfortunately the platform does not allow document uploads so unless your turn-in is text only, you will need to post your work online somewhere then paste the link(s) and any special instructions into the submission form. (Get suggestions of how to post shareable documents online.) Remember to make those documents publicly viewable, and please complete your work in English so that your peers can read it. You’ll be prompted to evaluate some of your classmates’ work, and in turn some of your classmates will also evaluate your work. The evaluation will be based on the criteria in the rubric, which can be found below. So you will want to look through the rubric ahead of time and keep those criteria in mind as you work on your project.

RUBRIC

Incomplete
Adequate
Excellent
Chosen Intervention
Did not describe chosen intervention.
Described chosen intervention.
Clearly described chosen intervention along with identified weak points or opportunities for improvement.
Your Mod
Did not present student-designed mods.
Described proposed mods.
Thoroughly explained proposed mods and provided evidence of reasoning about why the mods would improve outcomes.

Assignment 3.2: The Elevator Pitch INTRODUCTION This assignment is where you’ll start to really develop your pitch for a new innovative educational technology. By now you’ve thought about what learning challenge you want to address, and you’ve gotten some feedback and ideas from your peers. So you’re ready to decide how you will address the challenge, and what will make it great! WHAT TO DO You may or may not already have some idea of what the thing actually is that you’re designing. Either way, it’s useful to ground the problem and the solution in some theoretical basis. What models do we have about learning which inform or influence your design? What specific elements of the design build on those models to make a quality educational product? If you’ve started with a product idea, make sure you have underlying theories or frameworks that fit well to form the foundation of your product. If you’ve started with the theory or framework, decide what type of technology will provide the best experience to help students explore the topic. Keep in mind all that you’ve seen this week about active learning and be sure to incorporate those principles as well. Begin to flesh out your product. At this stage you don’t have to have a lot of detail, but you should know something about the content, the format, the theories, and the project goals. Imagine someone in an elevator asks what your product is. You have maybe 30 seconds to tell them what it is and they should be able to imagine it. You don’t have to be able to field all their questions just yet, but they should be able to understand what you’re trying to do. For example, one student might design a constructivist role-playing video game to teach about ant colonies. Another might work on a mobile app about colonial India based on a Teaching for Understanding framework. And someone else could create a transmedia property promoting prosocial skills in kindergarteners through active learning. Whatever it is you want to make, it should have clear goals and a theoretical basis to support it. RESOURCES Here are a couple of page with tips on crafting an elevator pitch. They are not geared towards ed tech specifically but you may find the context and process useful. Resource from MindTools Resource from SuccessWise DELIVERY FORMAT For this assignment, we’d like you to record a video of yourself giving your 30-60 second elevator pitch, along with a slightly longer (less than a page) explanation of your project. The Video: Imagine you have run into Professor Klopfer in an elevator and you want to get his attention with your genius ed tech idea. You only have a few floors to wow him! The video doesn’t have to be shot in an elevator, though you get bonus points if it is! If you aren’t able to record a video, please consider at least recording audio, or a video with a static image. If you really don’t have multimedia capabilities, then plain text is okay too. The benefit of recording yourself is that you get a clearer idea of whether your pitch is confusing, too wordy, redundant, etc. and you can revise it accordingly. The Writeup: Now that you have intrigued Professor Klopfer with your innovative idea, he has asked to see more! So this one-pager should include everything you said in your elevator pitch video. Plus it should also provide some more explanation of the theoretical underpinnings, the goals of the project, and how you plan to accomplish them.

White Teacher Wins Discrimination Award Against Black Principal

http://eagnews.org/white-teacher-wins-350k-discrimination-award-against-suburban-dc-school-district/

Monday, November 3, 2014

Islamist Common Core

Dubai

Australian Army Chief: Fight Islam for a Hundred Years

http://pamelageller.com/2014/08/australian-ex-army-chief-well-fight-islam-100-years.html/

Churches Dare the IRS to Sue

Defy the regime

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Ian Hunter, The Hamilton, Washington, D.C.

Ian Hunter and the Rant Band The Hamilton Washington DC 02 Nov 2014

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Boy

Sweet Jane

Review

Tickets go on sale Friday, 22 August 23014 http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/667221

Conservative-Liberal Cities

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/05/mesa-arizona-most-conservative-big-city/13641061/
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