Digital Storytelling; Second Life (Technobiophilia)

My Second Life

More pictures from my second Life.Someone gave me new clothes . 

This is a picture of a party, more people show up in second life at night. 

STEMx

http://www.asce.org/CEMagazine/Article.aspx?id=25769810455#.UqVFGPRDvSg

Technology is changing education and as a result the way we learn has changed and will continue to change. STEMx attempts to make learning and teaching a new experience, inn order for this change to be effective a. HP catalyst program serves to train teachers how to incorporate the use of  new technologies to teach students. I found an interesting example of the use of STEMx in one of our class readings - the creation of an iLab (an online laboratory),  in the iLab students are giving access to laboratory equipment's  that are thousands of miles away from where they are located. An advantage of this is that students don't have to go to the lab everyday, they  also have the opportunity to repeat the experiments as many times as  they want .  

I am also drawn to the growth in STEM jobs , STEM degree holders have been able to secure jobs in both STEM and non-STEM occupations. People with college degree who also hold STEM degrees have also been able to secure better paying jobs. With the rise of the use of technology , STEM jobs are the jobs of the future and people with STEM degrees in addition to other form of educational training will have a better chance of securing employment than other people.

Source

http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/blog_jim_vanides/stem_dead_long_live_stemx

STEMx and Metaliteracy

Photo credit : http://www.hiec.on.ca/ccustem/

        STEM  is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics .The United States is lacking behind in STEM education of its citizens, therefore in January 21, 2006 United States president George W. Bush propose that the federal government should increase funding for STEM education. It has also been noted that STEM based careers are some of the best paying careers. This last mooc talk is about metaliteracy and STEM+  brought to us by Anthony Maddox (USC Rossier ) , Betty Hurley - Dasgupta (SUNY Empire state college , New York), Holly Ludgate  (New Media consortium), Samantha Adams Becker (New media consortium).
         HP catalyst academy was discussed in this mooc talk , it is a professional learning network for STEMx , it encourages collaboration. The HP catalyst academy recognize the gap in quality of STEM teachers in the United States and that the current models of teacher professional development  cannot keep pace with the demand. Anthony Maddox  course, Thinking like an Engineer : Teaching and learning Pre-College Engineering, deals with   Engineering design which focus on problem solving , designs, design features and context in which there are different types of problems such as ,closed problems and open- ended problems. He also identified different designs that teachers can make use of such as Creating multimedia portfolios , Lesson, Unit or Program plans . He also talked about the next generation science which should include science and engineering practices and K-12 engineering standards, inquiry based learning , Project - based learning . The week 2 of his course will deal with STEM interconnectedness and week 3 will deal with the Engineering habits of mind , which involves  Values , Attitudes and Thinking skills. Week 4 will consist of design review and more engineering Habits of mind - this includes Systems of thinking, Communication and Ethics.
         Samantha Becker talked about the use of social media for learning. She talked about  how teachers choose to use Blackboards and Google+ to teach and how she chose to use Facebook because it allows them to humanize the teaching experience Facebook  allows the use of videos and also makes teaching fun. She also talked about how student are told to post their assignments on discussion forums , which allows for a peer review of these assignments and also learn from each other ,thus students are made  producers of knowledge. She talked about the future of E-learning ,  they found out that the best schools are not including the skills of the future in their curriculum, such skills include critical thinking skills , problem solving skills collaboration across the networks, agility and adaptability , initiative and entrepreneurialism , effective oral and written communication skills .
        STEMx  and Metaliteracy share a connection , metaliteracy promotes critical thinking , and production of information which will be made open after lots of peer review .Digital learners for the 21st century need skills for critical thinking, communication , innovation and collaboration, STEMx wants to make sure that teachers encourage students to think critically , utilize open online resources , collaborate online and also produce information.

Metaliteracy ,science literacy and the media

Photo credit:  radiantskies

       In the MOOC talk on media news literacy , I was particularly drawn to the second part moderated by  Professor John Delano. He is a distinguished professor and associate dean at the University at Albany (SUNY Albany). He talked about  global challenges of the climate_ the tragedy of commons by Garret Hardin, this seems out of place to me at first cause I was listening to the mooc talk and only wanted a connection between metaliteracy and media , but there was indeed a connection . The word "commons" as used here means unrestricted access. He showed us how unrestricted access has lead to problems over time to which the government will have to step in and take control.

        Take the Yosemite park for example , this park was left in ruins because of unrestricted access to it and the government had to take over . There must be a form of regulation to everything we use , if we are to maintain our civilized society. There must be restriction if we have to maintain our environment and not do things that will damage it, for example excessive carbon emission is threatening us with global warming right now. 

        But I asked myself , will too much restriction not destroy our freedom ? The sole purpose of forming a society , a civil society is too have freedom of trade , freedom of religion, freedom of education and so on. Therefore if the government place all sorts of restriction everything we use , then we will have a situation where people who do not like this kind of government  break away form this kind of society to join other ones. Therefore the government is always very careful in placing restriction on certain things used by the people. 

       Back to science literacy. Science teachers encourage us to develop new theories and to do this we have to disprove the old theories , which means that there would be a lot of people coming up with different theories out there. The social media provides unrestricted access to information and this includes scientific information as well , therefore how do we curb this, how do we distinguish the true information from  false information,how do we make sure that people get information that concerns them ,how do we make sure they know information about there environment and how their daily activities affect our environment . The answer is metalteracy , metaliteracy will serve as the means that will help to promote true information for consumers, it will help to promote consumption of information that matters , such as information about the effect of carbon emission on our environment. With metaliteracy we can all be certain that the information that will help us maintain our environment and also protect our freedom will be made available to consumers.

Technobiophilia

While listening to the mooc talk on technobiophilia , I felt like I would never be able to come up with anything to write about, all I kept seeing was  pictures on the second life and it keeps reminding of the movie Avatar , I looked it up and found out that it is an online virtual world where users of this virtual online world , "second life users" can interact just like we do in the real world.

Picture credit: Google image

I  was still confused about what Technobiophilia meant , all I kept thinking was how tech and bio could combine . I kept on listening to the mooc talk and took notes as well .When Sue was about too close , every point that I had put down now made sense . I now understand the reason for all these pictures.

     First we need to understand what ART means , attention restoration theory , deals with the activities we do to relax our mind, like going away from our home to a different place like the park,  at the park we see different people doing different things . Here our attention has been diverted completely from work ,at the park we are connected with nature and our attention is also engaged with the people in nature. 

            Then what is Biophilia , it is the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelong processes (E.O Wilson)  , it is also the love of life. This is inbuilt , we have the urge to do things that are more connected with how we live our lives. This is an innate tendency, which means we would have an urge to be in connection with nature.

       Technobiophilia is the tendency to focus on life and life long processes as they appear in technology (Sue Thomas) . This is a definition similar to Biophilia but with technology added to it. This is because most of us spend more time using computers and we don't have the time to relax ourselves by going outside. We need to balance the amount of time using technology with our connection with nature. This can be done indoor , this is what Second life intends to do, this provides us with a little bit of visual break, we can also do this  by just looking at the view from the window. It can also be by going outdoor to a botanic garden or to a zoo. 

How do we connect technobiophilia with metaliteracy

Metaliteracy promotes online learning with few traditional classes , thus adding to the number of hours we will be spending indoors on the computer, this will create a major setback for metaliterate learners  because they will be staying indoor for too long. This future problem has been solved by Sue Thomas where she propose the use of Second life teaching space where metaliterate learners will still be able to use their computers and also at the same time connect with nature indoor. I opened an account with second life and met "nany", a second lifer and am about to explore. 

Below is a snapshot of my second life avatar checking out pictures of wig in the second life

Below is the snapshot of me in second life taking to another second lifer

                                                                                                                                 

Digital storytelling

Digital story telling can be done by using the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Capzles. A digital story can also be told in form of a game, in this form the game tells the story. Some forms of digital storytelling includes, Facebook storytelling, Wiki storytelling, Blog storytelling, Podcast storytelling, Flickr storytelling. Digital story telling can also be done by remixing someone else's story. Here the author adds and takes out from the new story thus producing something that is completely different. Digital story telling makes use of web 2.0 without web 2.0 digital storytelling  would have been impossible .Web 2.0 allows an author of a digital story to upload data, which might be in video format or audio format or picture format and store it on the website, this data can then be viewed by someone else who visits the website. Digital storytelling requires creativity, the metaliterate learner must be  able to create a story that makes sense , is interesting to the viewer or listener. A digital story can make use of different pictures and few words to tell a story example in flickr story telling,  permission must be taken before a picture is used,  free images from open resources like creative common images can also be used. Digital storytelling in form of podcast story telling allows the author to tell the story with his own voice without the use of images . The author can also  add a musical soundtrack so that the listener finds the story interesting and would like to listen to it till the end . You can create your own music or use free  soundtracks from creative commons. A digital story like every other story should  have a purpose, a point of view of the narrator , should have a content, make use of good grammar and proper language.A digital story can be a legacy story - a story told about some one, can be a biography - which talks about the life of someone else or the story tellers life, can be a memoir- this is  more personal and reflexive and  much longer than a typical digital story.
Digital story telling can be used in metaliteracy to explain a process in which the author makes use of different photographs and words.

metaliterac MOOC

Impact of social media on media news

Print media was the main source of news for a long time for everyone. Then the Television and Radio  was invented which was also another  major source of information for a long time. Times Union in Albany started as an outlet for advertising business before it became a major newspaper for producing information to the general public . News production  and delivery has changed and will forever continue to change with the introduction of social media.The  production and dissemination of news is based on a feedback loop involving the ;
                                    the consumer
                                     the mediator
                                      the message

Here consumer influence the message and the mediator playing a central role. With social media consumers constantly send emails to the editors about what they think about a news that was published, they can also comment on the information , this is a big changed. With the social media advertising companies can read  people's comment about a product and make necessary changes based on what they read. Social media has allowed people to share information , thus allowing the endless circulation of information.

The Print media also use social media  
 Social media has also enabled the print media Journalist to check the authenticity of some of the information they are about to disseminate, they also make use of social medias like facebook, twitters , and so on to disseminate information, they use it communicate with their consumers. The print media make also disseminate information via blogs , thus the social media permits the print media to reach a larger audience that they were unable to reach before.

What this generation think about the print media
They think the print media is biased
They think the print media have an agenda
They don't beleive the information that the print media produce and disseminate , they mostly rely on the social media as their major source of information.

Photo credit :www.forbes.com

What is Web 2.0 ?

Web 2.0 site allows users to communicate like they do on social media, it is the sophisticated version of the world wide web that we all know and it continues to develop. It is the type used in social media sites, blogs, and video sharing sites and so on. The image below provides us with the basics of web 2.0

http://www.slideshare.net/prinsp/p-prinsloo-7-october2013-final

Websites using web 2.0 are more advanced compared to websites that are just made up of texts this type is known as web 1.0 . Web 1.0 just presents information on the website, but web 2.0 allows us to interact with the website , it allows us to perform many different functions such as storing information on the website, tagging, blogging and so many others. Here the user is in charge , web 1.0 does not allow these, it only provides information. Web2.0 make use of Ajax and Java Script on the client side  which allows us to download upload data on to the web site while on the server it uses similar technologies as web 1.0. This means we can store a voice recording message on to the website and keep it there. Web 2.0 is what allows us to be able to record our voice and submit it online to be graded by the professor from his own computer. This is a function of Javascript used by the Web 2.0 , imagine what it would be like if we all still use web 1.0 .

In my foreign language class, we had  to record our voice  to answer some of the assigned homework.We all had to download java and also update it regularly. This is possible because  web 2.0 make use of Java  to store data on the website. It will also allow the  Professor download it from the website listen to the recordings and grade them.

How to become an effective learner

How do we use previous skills and knowledge to analyze  newly consumed information which will involve comparing and contrasting the new information with what we know. This learning process is explained by metacognitive theories.
                           
Components of metacognitive theories:
1. Metacognitive knowledge
2. Metacognitive regulation

                                                        Metacognitive knowledge
What do we know about our cognition?

 Declarative knowledge
         We know we are learners , we use our memory to analyze the  different information we consume. Therefore what makes us good learners is how much we know about our cognition.Good learners have more knowledge about their memory.

Procedural knowledge
       Involves using skills to solve different problems. People that possess better problem solving skills learn faster.

Conditional knowledge
   This is knowing how and when to use the skills that have been acquired over time to solve a problem.

                                                 Metacognitive regulation
How do we control our thinking?

Planning
This involves strategies that makes us to learn better , like asking questions before reading an article.

Monitoring
This involves testing our knowledge while learning , people who are able to effectively utilize this form of metacognitive regulation are good at declarative i.e. they are able to effectively access their memory on the subject  and perform a test while learning.

Evaluation
This requires an ability to be able to uncover some details that are not present in the information we are consuming. This will require us to align our thinking to what the author was thinking when he produced the text we are consuming.

All these components are required in order for us to be an effective learner.




  

http://www.slideshare.net/hjl12141/7-powerpointmy-literacy-learners

Open Pedagogy

http://cimsbschool.org/pedagogy/


Pedagogy is the art of teaching , it is the way and method that an instructor use to transfer knowledge to  consumer. Open pedagogy therefore involves the transfer of information form the producer to the consumer freely, in open pedagogy barriers placed on learning have been removed enabling consumers to learn freely. A pedagogue is anyone that produce information in such away that it can be learned easily by a consumer, in some countries in order to be a pedagogue you will need a Bachelors in Education , or go through a training in  an institute for educators.
Steps used in open pedagogy

                        Make your consumers trust you
                        Provide some information to your consumers or students
                        Let the students consume and translate the information you provide
                        Allow the students the to teach the  newly translated information to another student
                        Provide the students with how their work will be graded
                        Provide students with different methods that can be employed in other to do well
                       Give them a feedback on the work done by the students
                       Allow the students to try this form of teaching


Why do we then need a permission or license in open pedagogy ?
This is because the work by a student that will be effective in teaching other students and also be in accordance with the free access policy of open educational resources and also the 4R permissions.




                      
             http://www.fno.org/sept03/pedagogy2.jpg                    

visual literacy

Visual literacy , enables us to send information like coded messages so that they can convey the same meaning that written words will convey. This will require that the consumer also understand how to read visual information. Knowing how to read visual information is very important when symbols are be used to convey the message.

Visual literacy is important in order to participate in open education which seeks to connect people from different parts of the world, because different  people have different languages. The ability to understand the meaning of visual images will enable messages to be conveyed easily between people in different  parts of the world.

The following are used in conveying visual information effectively

Symbols
This is used to convey an idea, it can be inform of a name or an object. Symbols can be seen on a map , where different symbols convey different meaning.

http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0027-map-key-and-scale.php



Sign

This is used as a notice to inform people , most likely warn them about something. Below is a no smoking sign

 

 

 

http://www.canstockphoto.com/sign-no-smoking-0065326.html


Icon
This is a form of visual information that comes from our world. Icons are universally understood , it can be an image of a popular monarch .People are expected to understand the meaning of an icon without learning them unlike symbols.


Some terms in visual literacy

Information
Set of facts conveyed by a producer that can be consumed by someone , it sends a message to the consumer. We have different sources of information such as websites , newspapers, and lectures.

Information design
This is used to build information in order to present in a other that it will be manageable and also convey all the information that the producer intends to convey to the consumer.

Info graphics
This is used to produce information in such a way that it can be easily consumed. It simplifies information that would have been very difficult to understand.



http://www.wired.com/design/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/infographic_of_infographics.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                       

 

 

 

A global perspective on metaiteracy; Metaliteracy in Beta

This discourse information and its neutrality , that is information can be seen from different perspective and different, it is not just limited to one direction. There we can all be a producer of information because no matter what our previous knowledge was , our information will still be useful to someone who might not be in our immediate environment.
A new place where people can seek information Web 2.0 , this is a large storage of information it is like an online library where we can all sorts of information , and the best of it is that it is free to use , free is important here because metaliteracy MOOC serves to enable students to have unlimited access to different academic resources and at no cost unlike the traditional books we have that have been made expensive by publishers and make education seem less attractive because of the cost of buying the books which keeps going up as new edition of different books keep springing up.

Critical conscious has been  identified as the foundation of metaliteracy.
It involves using the appropriate delivery system to disseminate information. Produce information in multiple media formats to enable access to this information to be easy. Monitoring feedback responses, this will also enable the producer of the information to learn from peoples responses. Understand personal privacy, licensing issues and citing appropriately.

Understanding metaliteracy involves understanding this world , that is being aware of what is going on around us, this will allow us to disseminate relevant information, information that will be of use. It will also enable us to know that different religion and different cultures exist therefore when we are producing information we have to know the kind of participatory environment and not disseminate an information that will be offensive to a particular group of people.

Metaliteracy field theory perspective requires enables us to understand people capabilities based on their individual skills, the environment where they grow up , the laws of their society on types and the kind of information to be produced. The field perspective theory also requires capital . Capital is needed to achieve the necessary skills one desires, capital is needed to acquire the resources for learning one skills .

Openness and metaliteracy

This involves different ways through which educational  resources can be made accessible to the public  and also free,  we will also talk about how to verify the authenticity of the materials made available . Key terms in this blog includes , OERs, Creative Commons , MLA commons,  Gifted Commons



OERs- Open Educational Resources

These includes any kind of teaching material like textbooks , full courses, course materials, syllabi, modules, lesson plan, videos, exams and techniques, that are made available to the public for free. Here the public can review the article or book that is about to be published and also work on it by adding to it or removing from it, they can also share with other people. The purpose of OERs is to make materials needed for education free because of the rising cost books. There have  been issues with regards to  the licensing of materials made open such as  the violation of copyright laws that protect most of the traditional books that we all use. Therefore not all books can be made available to the general public for free. This takes us to our next key term creative commons .




Creative commons
 Creative commons is an organization that deals with the issues of licensing by ensuring the provision of more licensing to avoid the issue of violating copyright laws. The allows creativity allowing people to worry less about issues of violation.   They give out licenses known as creative common licenses, Wikipedia uses one of such licenses. Creative commons give out six major licenses which is derived from four major conditions:  Attribution, Share alike, Non  Commercial and No Derivative. Creative commons ensures that ownership of materials stays with the author unlike  when the publishers take over ownership rights of books they publish from the authors. Creative commons is sponsored by a lot of different software companies this includes big names like  Google and Microsoft. Creative commons has also been plagued with issues of violation of some rights.

MLA Commons
MLA stands for modern language association.  Here people would present on this platform different articles .The article , material or book presented will then  be reviewed by peers. The community  will have the opportunity to contribute and decide if the material should be made available to everyone or if it should be taken down.

Gifted commons
Example of this is You Tube. Gifted commons is a place where expertise is given freely. On YouTube , you can watch videos on how to cook, how to fix you home , how to paint , how to download a document for free.

These are different steps that have been taking in order to take education to a different level and  ensure open learning which is the peak of higher education.  The success of this new way of learning will allow  everyone all over the world the opportunity  to obtain resources for learning at a very cheap rate , it will  allow people to be able to contribute  to the different books available to the general public, it will also allow us to control what is being published. Thus the high cost publishers place on different books will not be a barrier to learning anymore  and the loss of creativity due to restrictions place by different copyright laws will no longer occur and people will be able to create freely.

A literacy of awareness

Our ability to learn depend on so many different factors, these includes.
Developmental factors
   This is based on development of the brain, which varies in different people. It is said that we do not make use of our brain at the full capacity to which it can function, therefore almost everyone can be said to possess enough brain capacity to learn.
Cultural factor
   The environment we live in affects our learning process. A child born and bred in the United States will be more advanced technologically than some other child in other countries that is less technologically advanced. The environment where you raise a child also matters a lot ,if a child is raised by an educated family , there is a high possibility that the child will get to college level of education but a child raised by a non educated parents will most likely drop out of school. With exceptions there has been a wide gap in the SAT scores of students raised by educated parents as compared to those raised by non educated parents.
Social factors
  Our learning is also affected by the people around us. This is mostly due to peer pressure and competition .

Meta cognitive knowledge and meta cognitive experience are two broad categories used in describing metacognition. Metacognitive knowledge involves our ability decide if something is easy or difficult and our we plan on approaching it, we decide if an information is worth spending time on, we decide if the information is going to be of use to us . The more information we gather , the more our knowledge expands . Metacogintive experience on the other hand is based on our previous encounter with a similar information that we are trying analyse. We use the previous information that we have gathered to define the unknown , this will then enable us to add on to previous information from the new one we just encountered.

Padlet

Padlet is an online learning tool used by teachers to share information with  students and at the same time get a feed back from the student. Padlet used to be know as wall wisher before but just recently the name was changed to padlet.
Scribblar
A website that does a similar thing to what padlet does is scibblar, it enables the sharing of audio, images, and provides a whiteboard to write on.
Twiddla
This provides a white board where people can meet, chat , write and share visual and audio information in real time.
Scriblink
Also a white board that allows users to share information in real time

Metaliteracy Welcome and Plenary

The first MOOC talk deals with the introduction to metaliteracy. Metaliteracy encompass four domains  Metacognition, Cognitive, Behavior and Affective. The Behaviour domain of metaliteracy is what people need to learn , the Cognitive domain is what people need to think about and the Affective domain is involves how the information being consumed is affecting the learner or effecting a change in the learner,  the Metacognitive domain is what people need to think about their learning and how they learn.Metaliteracy is not only useful in formal setting but also used in informal settings. In a formal setting a teacher will be a producer of information but the teacher is also a consumer who will use the information gathered on the internet to produce more information, at the same time a teacher is also a translator of information.Metaliteracy brings learners and concumers of information from different parts of the world together . It provides the basis for which gatherers of information need to be involved on the internet. Metaliteracy goals includes; understanding the format of information , evaluate dynamic context critically, produce original content in multiple media formats, share information in participatory environments.   
 

What is metaliteracy

Metaliteracy involves thinking and exchange of information on the social media like twitter , facebook and different other sources of information on the internet. It makes use of modern technologies to redefine the way we gather information  (consume) and use information (translate and produce ) that is different from the way information has been used in the past. It was developed after years of research on how we have been using information. It provides learners with different ways of sharing and redistributing information. Information exchanged on metaliteracy can be visual, digital , news. e.t.c.
 

Aim of  metaliteracy

     We all have the capabilities to be  metaliterate.Almost everyone that use internet and have at least an email account or a facebook account or a twitter account has taken part in the first step towards metaliteracy- this is called consuming information from different sources academic or non academic. Then if we are able to digest the information consumed , then we are ready to proceed to the next stage which is translation.
  Just like our DNA have the capacity to translate information received to produce proteins that are needed by the body we also need to translate the information we get from different sources.

Thus we translate the information based on our skills or our previous knowledge. Then we can go to the next step of being a producer of information.  We all translate information differently because we all have different perspectives on the same topic. Thus metaliteracy if well utilized will serve the world on a different level because it will drive creativity to the highest level as people will come up with different views one subject.