ADDIE June 5, 2008

• Analyze: determine what skills they have entering your site; analyze how much time they can accomplish in a certain amount of time
• Design: take what you’ve learned from analysis and start to put some elements into concrete terms; objectives you’re trying to get across to them (help them help their students write decent papers). Developing how you think you’re going to go about developing the project. Flowcharts, concept maps; own ideas; discussions with other people 
• Development: CREATE! Taking the design one step further-know the direction you want to go; begin adding details–actually create the thing.
• Implementation: LAUNCH!
• Evaluation: ASSESS. Find out if your site accomplishes what you set out to do.
• revise, revise revise–gotta keep going back to each phase and re-visit.

Theory stuff:

• cognitive information processing: input, output, computer model. working memory and long term memory (7 +-2) 
• zone of proximal development
• constructivism: learners construct knowledge and attempt to make sense of their own experiences 
• you can either have your own theory and prove it or match theories to your tool
• social negotiation-in class; discussion board; chat rooms, etc…this is based on constructivism- want to make sure students are able to discuss what they’ve learned.
• ownership learning–you can literally take things. mashups, etc.
• self awareness of the knowledge construction process. student should be able to understand what they went through in order to get where they are. 

For next class: midterm project

• homepage (include all the links you would see on the site)
• inside page, in HTML
• storyboard is bigger picture (done)-print out
• two pages of learner characteristics done

midterm musings

okay so who is my audience-i have a page with a lesson plan library that teachers can give their studetns. perhaps i have to divide it more-the instructors need to learn this stuff so the students can. instructor tutorials

lesson plans for students. look at spiro’s video site and see how they handle the lesson plan thing. Also, figure out how to give an overview to the instructors. Maybe a lesson orientation for each lesson plan? Like an overview video? 

Maybe do it like ease video thing: http://www.easehistory.org/index2.html where you are providing instruction to the instructor and also providing the lesson plan as a bonus. So re-design based on these properties. 

where their three types of movies show, I should have bib citation management | next video thing would be finding electronic resources, etc….when you go to view you see a larger video and a bunch of more 

storyboard June 5, 2008

• Ugly as sin storyboard
• I’ll be focusing on the teaching library section, and the refworks one in particular
• The site is for instructors teaching composition class or writing workshop classes to undergraduates. The audience therefore is relatively limited which is a good start. Ideally you’d create such sites for faculty/instructors across disciplines but not this time..too broad an audience to include everyone. Also, using writing classes ensures that the tutorial/etc I’ll be creating for class–RefWorks, might provide enough motivation for instructors to actually use the lesson plan stuff….

Site map June 4, 2008

• Here’s my site map for class generated in Dreamweaver. If I actually used this on a regular basis it would be great–sadly, as usual, I did it after the fact–perhaps for the midterm project I’ll use it:
• 

 

• Instead of naming the index file for this site structure index, I named it main, because the index file is my resume and I don’t want to have to change links everywhere.
• Now I just have to mimic this structure on the actual server–right now it’s just the usual dumping ground….maybe this will inspire a cleanup?
• storyboards for my most excellent midterm project coming soon……………..

Anchored Instruction June 2, 2008

  Anchored instruction–example(s)

Example one:

• The best example I found is the online version of the how to build a treehouse page: http://www.tryscience.org/experiments/experiments_treetopwalk_online.html

Example two:

• Another good online learning example is the video embedded below–the google docs in plain english video.  It tells a story; provides context and frames the often confusing issues of portability of online documents. Both great examples, IMHO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqUE6IHTEA

 

A bunch of random thoughts……..

 

 

 

• How could it be more educational? They are explaining the problems with traditional document creation, then giving solutions (which, of course, are based on google solutions). You could modify video so you could ask for solutions, then show their solutions. Another good thing about the video, is it is framed in a story–problem “sam” is having, way to solve it. It’s also put in a larger context that is often not thought of in regards to the web. 

• While searching for google docs on youtube I found teachertube–kinda cool: http://www.teachertube.com/

 

• I tried to mimic google docs type video and create one for SFX: (add link). What i would need to do is frame it with text, i think. Create a story too. Like, blah blah needs a full  text article. She goes to ..does not find it. 

 

• Knowledge on a topic based on production—condition-action pairs that specify that if a certain state occurs, then a particular mental action should take place. (p. 6 of 27)

 

• So must design instruction so it’s acquired in the form of condition-action pairs mediated by appropriate goal-oriented hierarchies rather than isolated facts.(find a site that provides background, goal oriented learning)

 

• In many learning situations students acquire facts but not tools for problem solving. The funny thing is, if this is so universal that it’s become a quote (teach a person to fish..), why don’t more people do it in educational settings? I guess it takes effort to wrap knowledge in a context and create interesting ideas in which to learn and apply that knowledge. Seems people are sooo close but rarely get there..there are cool videos, cool sites, etc. but very few that have it all. 

• Anchored instruction designed to help students develop useful knowledge rather than inert knowledge. Requires an anchor to generate interest and create a focus (like Indiana Jones movie, which is an example in the article. I was thinking Nancy Drew or something, for those of us who grew up with her.) Interestingly enough I didn’t find much online using fun movies as examples. The closest I got to was the antarctica example at education world that gave examples of how teachers could use travel sites for education: http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson042.shtm

• The “how technology can help” title seems to refer largely to videos and how they can be used to effectively scaffold an educational experience. The best videos I’ve seen that do that by framing the lesson in a broader context are the google videos. For example, google docs. Rather than just saying, google docs is great, use it for this, they use really basic graphics to show the context in why / how to use google docs:

 

• Educational games for scaffolding-unfortunately, educational games have largely failed to be successful. 

About me May 27, 2008

trying to get the about me page to match my current index. page at: homepages.nyu.edu/~ntk2 so used the card catalog theme and used complementary colors, for the most part-the card catalog color (yellow/brown), and then red as a color around it, and then olive, which is also kinda/sorta close on color wheel-who knows…..

homepages.nyu.edu/~ntk2/about.html

I’d like to CSS the whole thing and round the corners on the table on right. I sketched out the design of the site and it kinda made my head spin……

web design color palettes May 23, 2008

complimentary: using two colors that are opposite on the color wheel.

• caterpillar.com:monochromatic
• jetblue: complimentary
• www.intel.com: monchromatic (look at this for my site)
• www.nfl.com: monochromatic
• www.sephora.com: analagous

Brainstorming:

Because it’s an online portfolio, I want to use colors that are interesting but not too far out there. I might use the jetblue colors, or some monochromatic theme, though there is a lot of blue and grey out there. I’d like to use something a little bit different…..

blue, lighter blue, even lighter, white and black (monochromatic)

• http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.olivedesign.com/images/portfolio_photo.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.olivedesign.com/portfolio/case_studies/&h=345&w=345&sz=38&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=scAPjKBgIGA_TM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dportfolio%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
• ttp://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.olivedesign.com/images/portfolio_photo.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.olivedesign.com/portfolio/case_studies/&h=345&w=345&sz=38&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=scAPjKBgIGA_TM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dportfolio%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Evaluating a website May 21, 2008

http://www.rga.com

I like a number of things about this site.  I like how clean and uncluttered it appears, though there is a lot of information presented-one is not assaulted with it, however. I like how the examples of products created are across a section of the page with textual rollovers providing further information. I think providing more information via text before the user has to commit to clicking on the graphic and entering a more robust example is a good instructional design practice. When you click on any of the examples, I like the flash slide-show type application that the product is displayed in. I also like the prominent X option at the top right of the screen allowing you to close the application and have the previous screen visible again. This reduces navigational issues, because it doesn’t require the user to navigate back and forth across pages.  I would provide a “skip” option alongside the splash page-I don’t think users, on the whole, like flash splash screens that they are unable to opt out of, and while it’s brief, I think providing an option to skip it altogether would be a useful addition.

ornaments January 7, 2008

Anthropologie has a sale on their ornaments. I used a few that I bought full-prize b4 Christmas as a pattern model to make my own. Now you can buy them for 75 % off and use them for patterns for next years felt tree. Several of them are not even Christmas specific–like the peacock: 

and the windmill:

 

I also picked up Creative Visualization, on sale. A GREAT book. 

cookin(g) January 7, 2008

My resolution is to make one meal from a new recipe every week. I started today with vegetarian pea soup. The recipe was taken from Laurel’s Kitchen and from How to Cook Everything (I used parts from both). It was good! It was more like stew once I put the barley in-I actually used Trader Joe’s Harvest Grain Blend, which includes couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans, and red quinoa. I like soups that are filling though, so am very happy with the consistency.  My recipe:

• fry onion
• add 2 cups split peas, and
• 6 cups chicken broth, and
• a bay leaf 
• cook till peas are soft-an hour or so
• then in food processor blend 1/2 or so of the peas
• add diced potato
• one carrot, and
• basil and thyme (1/2 tsp each)  
• simmer for another 1/2 hour or so 
• meanwhile, cook the harvest grains blend as directed but don’t cook completely
• Dump into soup
• Cook for another five minutes or so (add water if you want to change the consistency) 
• If you use low sodium chicken broth, add salt.  

 We’ll see if I can keep it up……the resolution that is. 

• Speaking of Trader Joe’s, this site: http://www.traderjoesfan.com has recipes from TJ products, and rates products, etc..kind of cool

 

NYRRC races-the perks December 9, 2007

 Garbage can post NYRRC Joe Kleinerman 10 km race–carbo loading for squirrels.Some would say the perks of New York Road Runners club races include:

• well organized
• nice speeches by celebrities (Joan Rivers was last week, doing the same “is there a single jewish doctor in the crowd”)  speech she did last year
• lots of porta potties
• the predictability of slow people lining up at five mile pace marker only to be bulldozed by faster people who are in danger of crashing into them from behind
• volunteers telling people to stay to the left so anyone else who happens to want to be in central park during a race has a tiny path carved for them 

Having done many NYRRC races though, I have other reasons for loving these races:

• stocking up on french toast bagels ( I don’t know where they buy them, but french toast flavoured bagels are strangely delicious) at the finish line.
• giving said french toast bagels to the homeless man on the subway post race. They never really want food-they want money, but…..today the guy I gave one too was decidedly unhappy with my donation–at least, judging by the yelling at me
•  snow day races–when they cancel the chip timing and make it a fun race.
• having a bath afterwards