Resources for Seminaries

http://breeze.ats.edu/cco1ch
Go to the link and see how a prof and some instructional technologists build a relationship in order to create a better Christology chart. Let's talk about other ways technology can improve theological teaching and learning. Please join the conversation.

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http://tchlrn.org/ats/ch/newblogtip.pdf
Please comment under Computer Camp Online Extreme Makeover.

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Enter your comments here under Salon 5 Summative Conference followup.

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During April 2006 a group of faculty members from ATS schools are engaging in an online discussion and then reflection on the experience. It is an attempt to simulate a class activity that I regularly use in class. This blog is an alternate place to post reactions. The number of participants was limited. Some of you that are reading this are not participants. I have provided links below to some of the material being used for discussion.

An introduction to the module:
http://www.luthersem.edu/rnysse/ATS_Scripture_Module/Introduction_to_Scripture_Module.htm

Background description of the process (regularly distributed to my students):
http://www.luthersem.edu/rnysse/ATS_Scripture_Module/Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Discussion.htm

The actual prompt used for the discussion:
http://www.luthersem.edu/rnysse/ATS_Scripture_Module/Genesis_34.htm

Comments and questions are welcome. I will monitor this blog throughout April 2006.

Thank you.

Dick Nysse

Or, Why I am finding it hard to produce a static page that has any likelihood of being “vetted”

Richard Nysse


For the last several weeks I have been bothered by my rashly-made promise to my subcommittee to produce a mockup of resources page. I have started several lists but each list has items that are incomplete without reference to other items. In addition, each item has multiple reasons for being on my preliminary list – reasons that my have nothing to do with the specific reasons anyone might interest in a “list of resources.” My lists quickly become interconnected and reinforce the aptness of the term “web.” Secondly, usage is fluid, that is, it is contextual. The issue is not merely that technology – and seemingly most everything else – is changing so rapidly. The issue is not that I have a driving need for the novel, coolest, latest, greatest next new thing. Rather, it seems to me “diving in and swimming” are necessary. Perhaps I should be thinking more about providing a diving board or at least describing which end of the pool to jump in. The diving board, however, will be of little service to readers if the readers do not jump in and begin to swim.

Here is my diving board for today:

Twice a week I receive an email newsletter from George Siemens, an instructor at Red River College (RRC) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The “eLearning Resources and News” newsletter provides several links to content and brief comments by Siemens which underscore, extend, or disagree with the content of the link. The content of this newsletter is also available as a blog [http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/]. More information about Siemens and links to his web publications are available at http://www.elearnspace.org/.

The first item in the January 4, 2006 issue was

Crash Course in Learning Theory - this is an accessible exploration of learning. Creating Passionate Users does a nice job incorporating images in explaining ideas and concepts. A great example of the use of images and emotion to assist in learning. The article explores many commonly understood strategies to motivating and fostering learning (Gagne's 9 events of instruction, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligence, etc.). The author asserts that dry academic writing inhibits learning...where a more conversational tone improves learning. From my experience, I agree. However, I find that writing that appeals highly to emotions and interest, sometimes sacrifices cognitive elements (such as this "bogus research" on reading, seeing, hearing). I'm not sure what it is, but a nice graphic seems to communicate so well that critical thinking takes a back seat...

The “Crash Course in Learning Theory” link [http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/01/crash_course_in.html] took me to a site entitled “Creating Passionate Users.” This was not my first visit to “Creating Passionate Users.” I have come to expect that I will find substantive but not necessarily entirely new information. The topics are topics I have encountered elsewhere, but I would second Siemens “nice job” assessment. The site is actually quite “hip,” even offbeat or irreverent, and consequently helps me “get it” at new levels.

The second link brings the reader to a cautionary article “Bogus Research Uncovered” which questions the validity of common contrast between reading, listening, doing, etc. Siemens, I think, “credentials” himself with this reference. He knows opposing arguments; he is interested in more than his own echo.

But my learning swim had just begun. On the upper left side of the “Creating Passionate Users” site was a link [a “hot” image, to be exact] to “9rules” [http://9rules.com/]. My swimming curiosity led me to click it. At first glance the site appeared to be another “social network” engaged in sharing links. Three categories were given near the top: Random |Recent | My Favorites. I clicked on “Recent” and then on the first link to appear: Links for 2006-01-04 [del.icio.us] by Black Rim Glasses. This lead to list of ten links, the fourth of which caught my eye: A List Apart: Articles: Thinking Outside the Grid. Clicking on that link brought me to Thinking Outside the Grid by Molly E. Holzschlag. She begins by contrasting the layout of Tucson and London and the different resources and skills needed to navigate either city. That becomes a metaphor for her consideration of websites: Tucson is like the tightly controlled and consistent table-driven layouts of many websites. She has been comfortable, even adept at producing such sites. [Her brief bio at the end of the articles says she has written thirty books.] She speaks of using CSS to break out of the rigid grids of tables, but it is clear that for her this in new learning, a new way of inhabiting the web. The metaphor that contrasting Tucson and London provides undergirds her effort to learn anew. It encourages her swimming.

Now, admittedly, CSS is currently beyond me. I did not learn how to work with CSS from this article. Neither did it lead me to place learning CSS high on my to-do list. But I will use the Tucson-London contrast in my teaching and it did provide me with a very vivid illustration of Marc Pensky’s contrast between "digital natives" and "digital immigrants."

Finally, Holzschlag provided me with an understanding of my difficulty in producing the promised mockup of a resource page. I can’t decide between “Tucson” and “London.” There are days when I personally want the easy accessibility that the “Tucson” grid provides. Everything is in its place. Whether going east or west, north or south, it’s a straight road. But so much good material is locked out of the systems that use the “Tucson” approach. There is an irony here. I suspect there are a distinct neighbors and great variety from one street to the next in Tuscon. Real estate values would be one indicator that, despite the logic of the urban planning evident in map of the city, not everything has been regulated into homogeneity.

My route to Holzschlag’s article, however, was much more like navigating London. [Admittedly, I have never been there, but I would guess living in Boston for six years provided a hint.] She celebrates that in the maze of London “wonderful enclaves and interesting areas have emerged and neighborhoods with distinct flavor exist everywhere.” But that suggests another irony for me. Currently, many suburban developments are designed with mazes; there are not easy east-west, north-south routes within the developments. The mazes are designed to keep people out, not create serendipitous discoveries of “neighborhoods with distinct flavor.” My guess is that London natives, to use an expression I derived from John Updike, find their daily rut and pretty much stick to it. Tourist and ex-patriots are the ones most likely to delight in the maze. For the rest, it is probably little more than “just the way things are.” But I like a “London” experience in learning!

Regarding teaching and learning, should our planning emulate Tucson or London? My answer is “Yes.” There are commendable aspects to both and there will be unintended consequences in either. Both include and exclude and consequently there will be moral issues that need to be redressed in either way.

Final comment: Holzschlag’s article appears on the “A List Apart” site that has many other helpful, insightful [you pick your own adjective] articles. The articles have an RSS feed and I have entered it into my Bloglines aggregator. My route to that site's material will now be a bit less “London”-like. I still haven’t produced the promised mockup, but perhaps I have given you a picture of what one diving board might be for learning to use technology in learning.

P.S. My morning diving board experience that started with Siemens’ newsletter lasted less than a half hour, but writing up this reflection on has stretched well beyond an hour. I have learned much more in doing the writing than I have actually written. Is that why we say if you want to learn a subject you should teach it? Is that why it might be more important to have students spend more time writing than listening to us? May it finally is about getting in the pool and swimming.

Here's a helpful web page published on the Minnesota Consortium of Theological Schools website:
http://mncts.net/ats/resources/resources.htm

One way to start reflecting on learning and technology is to read the blogs on the subject. Obvious, right? But blogs are not the equivalent of reading manuals for programs or journal articles on the use of technology in learning. Blogs are closer to conversation. Thoughts are formulated but they do not bear the burden (or presumption) of being final words on a subject. Blogs worth repeated visits are blogs that are serious AND exploratory. The blog writers invite response in one of two forms: 1) add a comment or 2) refer to the blog in your own blog, telling your readers why you think the post is worth noting (with in agreement or disagreement). The comments and cross linking creates a conversation that is retrievable and creates a network of inquirers.

George Siemens is a blogger I would commend to any educator. His essays and annotated references are windows into the world of learning -- online or hybrid or face-to-face. In one recent post (November 9, 2005) he comments: "[T]ools like blogs, wikis, iPods were not developed for learning. They were developed for communication and content creation/sharing. We simply adopted them for learning purposes. As a result, we misread what's really going on if we don't take time to see what people are using for communication and personal learning.... We have also failed to grasp the effectiveness of peer-created content (we focus on learners dialoguing about our content, but we rarely involve them in the creation stage)." There is enough there for a full faculty seminar. What happens when students are content creators in their learning? What would it take for us to center our work on assisting students to create their own content? Perhaps online teaching and learning would not seem to be such a big step if we were less insistent on focusing on our content.