A Picture of Online Education

I recently visited this online learning moodle site and found this picture that was supposed to represent online learning http://elearning.stjulians.com/

This picture speaks volumes to me...literally. Why is it that there are these huge books coming out of the computer? Why is it not a teacher or a peer's outstretched hand? I think that this picture is an accurate description of what online education is today. When students are participating in online education they mostly interact with text. I believe that this image needs to change.

Are Teacher Colleges Producing Mediocre Teachers?

Should we rate schools of education by looking that the quality of teachers they produce?

Standards and Skills

(I didn't see any reflection questions posted so I'm just writing some thoughts that I had)

It seems that both fields of Human Performance Technology and Evaluation and attempting to create standards and guidelines. This is nothing new. Similar things have gone on for hundreds of years. For instance during the Middle Ages it was common for a field or occupation to form guilds. These guilds performed a couple of purposes. First, the guild could set the standards or quality of work. In this way if someone purchased a product from a guild member they knew that they were getting a quality product. Which brings us to the second purpose of a guild, price control. Because the guild could control quality they could also control (to some degree) price.

These two articles talked a lot about what a good evaluation should look like and what a good evaluator or human performance technologist should do. They both fields seemed to list similar desired attributes of their practitioners such as good communication and facilitation skills. Although neither article mentions pay as a reason for setting standards I believe that it is one of the driving forces that has propelled this movement for setting standards. When poor work is performed it hurts the field. People loose respect for the field and in turn are not willing to pay as much for their work. These standards also help the clients to differentiate a a quality product to an inferior one. For instance, when people are able to distinguish a good bottle of wine they are willing to pay significantly more money as compared to an lesser quality bottle.

I know that their is no certification process for becoming an evaluator but I wounder if there is to be a Human Performance Technologists. It mentioned that they come from several different fields so I wounder if you just have to have some experience is one of those fields.

I also found these videos about the Fun Theory. I didn't know that Human Performance Technology could be so FUN!

This is My Final Tour

Here is the final tour that I uploaded to my wiki: Persian Wars

My Virtual Tour

Here is the final tour that I uploaded to my wiki: Persian Wars

Location	Activity Description	Google Earth Content
1. The Battle of Marathon	I want my students learn a little about the history of the Battle of Marathon but I am going to have them focus mostly on Pheidippides' two runs. I will create an overlay showing his run to Sparta and then have the students using the ruler to measure how long his runs were. I will also have them look at the terrain and see how hard it would have been not only to run the distance but also to run the terrain. I will also ask them if they think that it would have been possible for someone to have completed a run like that. To help them with that question I will include two videos that I have found on YouTube. Both are about ultramarathon runners: Video One and Video Two Questions that I will ask my students: How long were Pheidippides' two runs? What do you notice about the terrain that would have made the runs even more difficult? Do you think that it would have been possible?	They will use the ruler, an overlay, and the Terrain Layer. I will also include two videos in the placemarker
2. The Battle of Thermopylae	This is the location of the second battle of the Persian Wars. It was chosen because of it geography. However, that geography has changed in the last 2,500 years. I want the students to discover how it has changed and also why the location would have been chosen by the Greeks. In order to do this I will create another overlay of what the landscape used to look like and I will let them use the terrain layer to see why it was such a good location for the Greeks. I will also include a picture of the statue of Leonidas and using the Panoramio layer the students will be able to find where the statue is actually located. Questions that I will ask my students: How has the terrain changed over the last 2,500 years? Why to think that this location was chosen by the Greeks? Why would the terrain have helped the Greeks? What do you think would have happened if the Greeks would have fought the Persians in an open field?	An image overlay, the terrain layer, and the Panoramio Layer.
3. Athens	Here I want my students to see what the Acropolis looks like today. To do this I will use the 3D Building Layer, 360 Cities Layer, and the Terrain Layer. Also, I want them to see what the Parthenon would have looked like when it was built. I found a great video that will help to show this: Video Questions that I will ask them: Why do you think that it was so expensive to build? Do you think that he should have built the Parthenon or left the Acropolis in ashes? What do you like about the building? Why do you think that many people think that it was the most beautiful building ever built?	3D Building Layer, 360 Cities Layer, the Terrain Layer, and a YouTube video placed in the placemarker.
4. The Battle of Salamis	This was the battle that the Persian King and much of his army home. Similar to The Battle of Thermopylae this location was chosen for geographical reasons. To help them find why I will create an image overlay of the battle. Also, I will include two videos that describe the battle: Video One and Video Two Questions that I will ask my students: Why was this location better for the Greeks to fight the Persians as compared to fighting them in Athens? How is this location similar to that of Thermopylae	An image overlay, the terrain overlay, and two YouTube videos placed in the placemarker.

How Nonsense Sharpens the Intelect

I came across an interesting article in the New York Times. It seems to blend some of the things that we have been talking about in class. Mainly Expectation failure and implicit learning.

Albert Bandura Bobo Doll Experiment

Promethian Instruction

In this October's LDS General Conference one speaker said that teaching is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire. When I heard this I thought of the story of Prometheus. Prometheus was a Titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals. As a punishment he was chained to a rock and every day an eagle would eat his liver which would then grow back for the eagle to eat the next day.

I asked myself the questions, "How can I give my students fire? and What am I willing to sacrifice to do it?"

Google Wave

What will be the educational implications to having a free tool like Google Wave? I would love to try it out but I think that my invite was lost in the mail.

Business Week Article

Explicit, Informal, and Formal Learning

I was mostly interested in the Bransford article. Recently I have been reading a lot about informal and formal learning in relation to Facebook. However, I was less familiar with implicit learning. One form of implicit learning is mimicking others behavior. The article pointed out that we are the most mimicking animals on earth. Children at a very young age begin to mimic peers at daycare. Children also start to mimic television characters. I have seen this behavior in my niece. At about 18 months she began to really like a music video called “How do You Know.” My niece soon began to mimic the main character Gisel dance moves. A recent YouTube video you can see a baby exhibiting similar behavior while watch a Beyonce music video. This form of mimicking behavior can also be seen in the implicit learning in things such as language syntax and cadence or stereotypes of gender and race.



Informal learning normally takes place outside of class. Informal learning is most directed by interest and motivation. Unlike formal learning that happens is setting such as school informal learning lacks set learning objectives. An example that they use in the article is a child who becomes interested in trains and begins reading about them and going to train exhibits.

Adaptive Expertise
The article defines adaptive expertise as expert knowledge that supports continual learning, improvisation, and expansion. In L. Tom Peary conference talk he spoke about Norwegian ship builders who were give the task to build the roof for the Manti Temple. They had never built a roof before and struggled to find a solution to there problem. They soon realized that a roof and ship used the same principles and they simply designed a ship and then turned it upside down. These ship builders certainly continued their learning though improvisation and expansion. An adaptive expert can be high in innovation and efficiency where as a routine expert is simply efficient.

Population Maps

What if maps to show population? What would it the United States look like?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8280657.stm