Multiple Communication Streams

Typically one week a month I fly from California to Wisconsin to meet with our consultants and clients. This week was one of those weeks. One of the things that really stood out this week was the whole concept of communication and all of the multiple forms in which it can occur and how new advances in technology can facilitate this.

On Tuesday, I did a video conference for school principals on how to collect walk-through data in their schools on how technology is being used to enhance teaching and learning. We used Mediasite to stream the meeting to multiple sites. Participants were able to see me on one part of the screen and what was on my screen (i.e. PowerPoints, documents) on the other side. Mediasite also allows you to achieve the meeting, which is nice for administrators who couldn't make the meeting or want to review how to score the walk-through data. Because the other sites did not have microphones, in order to encourage two-way communication we used skype both for voice and for chat. Skype allowed me to keep tabs on how each of the sites was doing, answer participant questions, and keep it interactive.

On Wednesday, I did a presentation for the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) E-Learning SIG Meeting on how Second Life is being used for training in organizations. As part of the presentation, I had a panel of speakers who from different parts of the country who joined me in Second Life to interact with the audience and answer questions. We were able to use the Voice over IP capabilities in Second Life as well as their real time chat feature. I believe that technologies such as Mediasite, Skype and Second Life are going to hit a tipping point in education and the workplace in the next five years because they allow people to cross time and space and meet together.

Some of the participants of the Second Life session invited me to attend the Art of ASL Festival (American Sign Language (ASL) at the Milwaukee Art Museum yesterday. I learned a lot about ASL and new technologies that are being developed around ASL. Jolanta Lapiak, an Ameslan literary artist, media poet, and textual catalyst talked about how ASL is about movement.

I also attended a session by Jason Hurdich, the team leader of Vcom3D Inc.’s Sign Language Division. Vcom3D specializes in creating multi-cultural, context sensitive, avatars for enhanced learning. Avitars communicate through body language (including gesture or sign language), facial expression and lip-synched speech. Their products are used in schools, families, corporations and government agencies in the areas of culture/language familiarization, training, and educational mentoring.
Jason showed us SignSmith Studio . This application allows you to type in text and the avatar will translate this into sign language. Jason explained that up until now most of the ASL resources were 2-D (printed materials) and how much more powerful it is to communicate 3-D as the language was created to be used. He also demonstrated how easy it was to make a change, just by swapping out the text. However, if you were producing a video of someone signing live it would be a lot of work to edit out a word and change it to something else. Another thing that I learned is the importance of facial gestures in ASL. This is referred to as “facial grammar”. When designing these avitars Vcom3D designers have to manipulate 2,500 polygons to get the facial gestures just right. There are even subtle differences in how a woman signs vs. a man and Vcom3D is also working on incorporating these differences into their avatar designs as well. I was amazed at how the addition of facial gestures and slight movements such as leaning back and forth slightly made the avitars much more life-like than the avitars in Second Life. The signing avitars can also be downloaded to iPods and touchtone phones like the iPhone so people can take them anywhere anytime.

What is the essence of Second Life?

Last night at dinner I was asked to explain what Second Life is and how it can be used in organizations. Martin Heildegger (1953), a German Philosopher and author of the book Questioning Technology and Other Essays, advocates questioning the essence of technology. Don Tappscot, author of Wikinomics, talks about how technology is creating participatory platforms. Second Life definitely Tappscot’s description of a participatory platform. I would describe Second Life as an interface that allows global network that is sort of like a the capability to do webinars plus simulation. The non-linear experiential format of Second Life can be quite a bit different from a webinar or teleconference where the connection between participants in often limited to online chatting and communications. Gartner, Inc. warns that companies should not ignore the growing trend as having a virtual world presence will be a significant factor in businesses within the next five years.

The GoodPlay Project

This morning I was doing some surfing and came across a Site called The GoodPlay Project. They study how roles that youth assume online and the ethical issues they face when using digital media.

They has some fascinating research posted on their site. Two papers I found really interesting where Developing Minds with Digital Media: Habits of Mind in the YouTube Era and Young People, Ethics and the New Digital Media.

The Developing Minds with Digital Media: Habits of Mind in the YouTube Era paper takes a look at the stages of development of today's youth and the influence digital media in today's culture has on this.

In the paper Young People, Ethics and the New Digital Media the authors explore how digital media is redefining five key areas: identity, privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation.

21st Century Educators

I've been spending a lot of time visiting/thinking about/reflecting and designing learning experiences around the new ISTE NETS Standards for students.

I really like the quote on ISTE's web site made by Don Knezek, the CEO of ISTE because it describes what qualities today's educators need to have to deliver 21st Century learning experiences for our students.

"Teachers must become comfortable as co-learners with their students and with colleagues around the world. Today it is less about staying ahead and more about moving ahead as members of dynamic learning communities. The digital-age teaching professional must demonstrate a vision of technology infusion and develop the technology skills of others. These are the hallmarks of the new education leader".

Free Data Driven Instruction Webinar

You are invited into a free webinar on Data Driven Instruction on Monday, September 29th at 1:00pm PST.

Many organizations purchase student management systems with the hopes of using data to inform decision making at the classroom level. However, sadly this never actually gets to this level in most school systems. This presentation will share assessment strategies that can be used to inform instruction at the classroom level.

Presenters: Dr. Cal Stanley & Dr. Michelle Tubbs

If you are interested in attending email Tammy Stephens at tstephens@thestephensgroup.com and we will send you information for logging into the webinar.

Mind Dancing

One of my friends has the term "mind dancing" in the by-line of her skype account. I love it!

I was curious about this phrase so I Googled it. I found this great blog called a Dancing Mind which is about respect for diversity of learning styles at http://www.adancingmind.com/index.html. One of the quotes I loved on the blog was, "We need dancers in our world—dancers of the mind, of the spirit, dancers willing to move to the passion of being alive and to the patience of finding one’s own rhythms, and those rhythms and content that are needed by the rest of us".

New Communication Patterns for the Neomillennials

Today I was exploring in Second Life getting ready for a presentation. One of the things I like I about Second Life is the multiple ways users can communicate. For example, users can chat with the whole group, instant message individuals, use voice, have their avitars use gestures, distribute movies, and text via note cards. This allows for multiple forms of communication to happen simultaneously.
Challenges ideas of how we have traditionally learned.

Dede(2007) talks about this in his article, Planning for Neomillennial Learning Styles,
“For example, by its nature the Web rewards comparison of multiple sources of information, individually incomplete and collectively inconsistent. This induces learning based on seeking, sieving, and synthesizing, rather than on assimilating a single "validated" source of knowledge as from books, television, or a professor’s lectures” (Dede, 2007).

I also liked what Dede said about these types of learning environments "needing a balance among experiential learning, guided mentoring, and collective reflection". New pedagogy for new tools.

Teaching Internet Safety

Great blog post about teaching students to think about their online identities http://www.utechtips.com/?p=870#comment-143355

The Law of Mobility

The Law of Mobility is a simple observation, made by Russ McGuire, that has significant implications for businesses. The law states that the value of any product or service increases with its mobility, where the value of mobility is realized as availability and contextual relevance.

21st Century Skills for Economic Competiveness

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills released a report about the importance of these skills for our economy.

Wordle

I was playing around with Wordle today. It creates a word cloud for a group of text.
I created one for this blog. I was glad to see the words, technology, literacy, reform,
creativity, leaders, evolve, shared, collective and systems.
Wondering about other words like buttress? hmm....
Created by http://wordle.net/ Creative Commons Licensed

Stephens Group PD Registration Live!

The online registration for The Stephens Group online professional development courses is live. This includes Saturday workshops for credit and online courses.

Visit our web site at http://www.thestephensgroup.com/professional_development.php to learn more.