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Exploring Teachers’ Cognitive Processes and Web-Based Actions During a Series of Self-Directed Online Learning Sessions
To be clear, this paper studies teachers as learners. Specifically, "Three elementary teachers were involved in a series of in-depth, one-on-one self-directed online learning (SDOL) sessions where they informally used the Internet for their professional learning." Specifically, the study employs " Thinking aloud (as) a method for generating direct data about the ongoing cognitive processes that occur during learning." I think this is a useful mode of study and have provided examples of my own in my 'Stephen Follows Instructions' video series. I think we learn more in this paper about how to study this kind of data than from the data itself. And I think we see a bit of a Heisenberg effect here, where the fact that their experiences are being voiced aloud actually shapes their experience, and leads to different forms of learning (for example, "teachers in our study also critically evaluated the content and architecture of the online environments"). Note that there's an image missing (from Beach, 2020). Also, I'd have preferred to see a table listing what they said rather than what buttons they clicked. Related: Beach & Willows, Understanding Teachers’ Cognitive Processes during Online Professional Learning: A Methodological Comparison.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Video Surveillance of Online Exam Proctoring: Exam Anxiety and Student Performance
I will credit the authors for their honesty, because as I read this study, pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The study was a decent size but of course not representative of students (consisting of the oft-studied students at a midwestern U.S. university), and involved only one proctoring system (Proctorio). They wanted to ask whether online proctoring made students anxious, and whether this effect was more pronounced for minority or low-income students. They couldn't get Pell grant status information because it was deemed too sensitive, so they relied on a proxy measure of whether students were first generation. On one question, only 22 (6.6%) said they felt anxious about the exam. The authors argue that "being remotely monitored by webcam appears to be a source of anxiety for some students" but we don't have any basis for comparison with (say) being monitored in person. In the conclusion, the authors talk more about the effect on the instructors than the students. Image: Erik Johnson.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Jisc and OCLC agreement to provide libraries with improved access to cataloguing services and records
Jisc and OCLC, a global library organisation, have signed an agreement meaning academic and specialist libraries across the UK will have better access to fit-for-purpose catalogue records and an enhanced ability to share and reuse bibliographic metadata.
Building on the aims of Plan M to streamline the metadata marketplace in the UK, this transitional agreement, which runs until July 2022, will allow subscribing libraries to access OCLC WorldCat cataloguing services - a comprehensive database of information about library services.
It will also enable all users of the Jisc Library Hub Cataloguing service to download full OCLC records. It also increases the global visibility of subscribing libraries by enabling catalogue data to be shared with WorldCat.
Neil Grindley, Jisc’s director of content and discovery, said:
“Aligned with community goals and based on extensive consultation, this first transitional phase of agreement represents an important step towards designing a more open library data ecosystem.”
David Prosser, executive director of Research Libraries UK, said:
“RLUK very much welcomes the agreement that has been reached between Jisc and OCLC. In addition to the benefit it will provide to libraries by making high quality catalogue data more accessible and shareable, it will also facilitate more effective partnership working to explore evolving challenges and emerging opportunities in relation to the data.”
The agreement provides a foundation for Jisc, OCLC and participating libraries to work closely together on shared challenges, towards the goal of more openly shareable data
The partnership will be used to accelerate the shift towards using linked data approaches to empower new research; and to undertake collaborative explorations of bias and misrepresentation in the discovery of resources to ensure diversity and inclusion.
Find out more- Read full details of the agreement (pdf), including the banded pricing arrangements and eligibility criteria
- Subscribe to the agreement via Jisc licence subscriptions manager for the period 1 August 2021 - 31 July 2022
- Jisc members can register for a free webinar on 23 March 2022 about the agreement
OCLC is a global library organization that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large. With thousands of library members in more than 100 countries, OCLC comes together to make information more accessible and more useful.
MailGun
No more MailChimp! Last Friday MailChimp lost the ability to read my RSS file I was using to create email newsletters. This was always a dodgy approach at best, but MailChimp has been truly awkward to work with (the fact that it's an advertising platform geared toward 'audiences' and 'campaigns' makes it even more so). So today I learned the MailGun API and wrote a script to send email newsletters directly from gRSShopper. It's a lot easier to work with. I still need to rewrite the subscribe function (unsubscribe is at the bottom of your email and should work, though you can leave the testing to me :) ). If you have any problems with the new version of the email newsletter, please let me know.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Free Webinar will Focus on How to Evaluate High Impact Tutoring Programs
Carolina Biological Launching Certified OpenSciEd Middle School Units and CTE
Research Hub to Explore Safety and Equity in AI
Howard U to Engage Students with Five-Year Sustainability Plan
Veritas Capital to Purchase Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in $2.8B Deal
JsonLogic
JsonLogic applies rules to data. "JsonLogic isn’t a full programming language. It’s a small, safe way to delegate one decision. You could store a rule in a database to decide later. You could send that rule from back-end to front-end so the decision is made immediately from user input. Because the rule is data, you can even build it dynamically from user actions or GUI input." In a case study today I saw it used as a way to help users easily construct queries to a database. Nifty.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]D3
From the cool tools department: "D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG, and CSS. D3’s emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation." I haven't tried it but I've seen it in operation and it looks pretty useful.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies
This is a pretty good paper based on two case studies at the University of Saskatchewan where OER and class-specific, closed-content videos were designed. The first was for a course in veterinary microbiology and the second in music research methods. In addition to the cases, the authors draw out some recommendations and practical considerations for OER video production. The most interesting part was the table of 'highest priority' open video content: at the top were labs and demos, while the least important (for OER) were course-specific information and FAQs. Which makes sense.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Iris.ai and CORE cooperate to build AI Chemist
I've had a mostly inactive account at iris.ai for a couple of years now (it has recently been warning me it will be deleted if I don't do anything) and used it to access a decentralized data architecture service so I have a sense of the capability the AI company is bringing to this project. The focus of this particular project is 'the AI Chemist', which is a nice hook, but the real story is Iris's access to the CORE library: a metadata dataset (title, author, abstract, publishing year, etc.) for some 210 million articles, and a full text dataset of 29.5 million articles. The AI Chemist, meanwhile, was actually introduced back in June, 2020 (something the Jisc article doesn't mention) when Iris had about 18 million articles. So the big change here is the introduction of all that metadata from the millions of closed-access papers. That doesn;t really seem to me to be a great leap forward.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Formando a los futuros profesionales de la construcción en pandemia
Hard Hat Mack es un videojuego publicado en 1983 por Electronic Arts donde un trabajador de la construcción realiza tareas huyendo del supervisor librando obstáculos que caen como pernos y vigas en movimiento. Aunque en retrospectiva no puedo considerar este videojuego como un primer llamado de mi infancia hacia el área de la construcción, es innegable que la emoción por participar en grandes proyectos de ingeniería desde la fase de diseño hasta su materialización sí es un motivador importante para quienes elegimos disciplinas relacionadas con la construcción.
Desde etapas tempranas de la formación de los futuros ingenieros civiles, arquitectos y urbanistas, se hacen visitas a obras y prácticas de campo que les permiten poner sus “botas” sobre el terreno y experimentar de forma práctica su carrera lo más pronto posible. Sin embargo, ante la pandemia esta práctica vivencial no pudo llevarse a cabo por las restricciones de acceso y movilidad establecidas por las autoridades. ¿Cómo podríamos desarrollar las competencias declaradas de forma remota? ¿Cómo obtener la información detallada de un lugar sin poder medir de forma presencial?
“A pesar de las restricciones por la pandemia, los estudiantes lograron obtener una experiencia inmersiva de los espacios físicos estudiados desde cualquier ángulo exterior, utilizando tecnologías como drones, técnicas de fotogrametría y escaneo láser o LIDAR terrestre”.
Ante el crecimiento acelerado de las ciudades los egresados del área de Ambiente Construido enfrentan retos importantes para los cuales es trascendental desarrollar competencias que les permitan analizar de forma sistémica el funcionamiento del territorio y poder proponer soluciones integrales que busquen un desarrollo urbano ordenado, sostenible e incluyente. De esta manera, se vuelve vital que el estudiante comprenda, desde etapas tempranas en su formación, el entorno del proyecto y las interacciones entre las variables que lo definen.
Caracterización del entorno con tecnologíaDebido a las medidas restrictivas y el confinamiento por la pandemia al no poder realizar inspecciones in situ, una alternativa fue utilizar Google Earth y Street View para recorrer las zonas de trabajo. Sin embargo, las imágenes no llegan necesariamente hasta el sitio del proyecto, no están actualizadas o las medidas que se pueden obtener de ellas carecen de la resolución adecuada para su uso en proyectos constructivos. Ante esta realidad, el profesor de cátedra Arnold Pacheco realizó un vuelo con dron y mediante técnicas de fotogrametría obtuvo un modelo tridimensional del Parque Lineal Clouthier, ubicado en Santa Catarina, México, que compartió para usarlo en los cursos programados.
El uso de drones en la documentación de avances de proyectos constructivos y en fotogrametría con la finalidad de generar modelos digitales de elevación, ortofotos, entre otros productos, es una práctica cada vez más recurrente dada la mayor accesibilidad y autonomía de los dispositivos.
Imagen 1: Modelo de nube de puntos 2020 del Parque Lineal Clouthier (izq.) y plano de alumnos (der.)
La experiencia fue gratificante para profesores y estudiantes. La nube de puntos permitió a los alumnos una visualización en tercera dimensión de la mayoría del espacio físico, su navegación utilizando software para el manejo de nubes de puntos con licencias estudiantiles como Recap de Autodesk que utilizaron desde casa, y la medición del entorno para generar planos topográficos y de conjunto. Habíamos sobrevivido al primer embate de la pandemia, sin embargo, necesitábamos actuar si la situación persistía.
De la experiencia descrita observamos también que el modelo tenía sus limitaciones. Dependiendo de las características del dron y de los parámetros del vuelo, típicamente la fotogrametría entrega una perspectiva desde una vista aérea o en planta del proyecto donde las instalaciones o construcciones bajo zonas arboladas, puentes, etc., quedan ocultas impidiendo su identificación.
Imagen 2: Zonas bajo árboles con información faltante en nube de puntos de fotogrametría con dron del Parque Lineal Clouthier 2020 (izq.) y vista integrada con nube con fotogrametría con dron y escaneo terrestre del Parque Valle Primavera 2021(der.). Elaboración propia.
Para solventar esta limitación, recurrimos a un segundo sensor. El uso de escaneo láser o LIDAR terrestre para el levantamiento de fachadas de monumentos arqueológicos, instalaciones industriales y otras aplicaciones. Esto ha cobrado relevancia por la rapidez con la que se adquieren millones de puntos detallando las superficies, además de la facilidad de uso de la tecnología. Con esa idea, formamos un equipo de trabajo multidisciplinario con profesores del Tec de Monterrey Campus Monterrey y Guadalajara y profesionistas del LabSIG aplicando a la convocatoria Novus 2020 para el financiamiento del proyecto.
Construcción e implementación de modelos virtuales en claseDe septiembre de 2020 a febrero de 2021, nos dimos a la tarea de planear, ejecutar y procesar los levantamientos fotogramétricos con dron y el escaneo terrestre de varios edificios en los campus, además de un parque y la iglesia de San Juan Bosco ubicada en Distrito Tec, cuyo párroco el Pbro. Alejandro Beltrán Garza amablemente nos permitió el acceso para el ejercicio con interiores cuando todos los espacios públicos estaban cerrados.
Imagen 3: Levantamiento en campo 2021. Vuelo de dron Edificio Arizona (izq.) y escaneo terrestre Edificio LAD (der.).
La integración de las nubes de puntos obtenida por ambos sensores permitió ofrecer a más de 260 estudiantes una experiencia inmersiva de los espacios de trabajo, logrando visualizar el espacio físico desde cualquier ángulo exterior, e interior en el caso del modelo de la iglesia, así como identificar los sistemas de refrigeración en las azoteas, las válvulas de riego, alcantarillas y demás elementos que se encuentran a nivel de piso bajo las copas de los árboles. De igual manera que con el modelo anterior, al realizarse los levantamientos en apego a procesos topográficos, se conservó también la capacidad para extraer información de posición geográfica, dimensiones y elevaciones con la precisión apropiada para la elaboración de planos topográficos y de conjunto.
Imagen 4: Modelo de Parroquia San Juan Bosco 2021 exterior (izq.) e interior (der.)
Imagen 5: Modelo del Edificio Arizona 2021 (izq.) y plano realizado por alumnos (der.)
Imagen 6: Modelo de Rectoría 2021 (izq.) y extracto de plano realizado por alumnos (der.)
El resultado de este trabajo hizo posible el desarrollo de competencias en los estudiantes bajo las restricciones de la pandemia. Aunque el uso de los modelos no sustituye el proceso de aprendizaje concerniente al manejo de equipo de topografía y las actividades de campo, sí enriquecen de forma significativa la información que puede ser representada como resultado del levantamiento virtual, además de mostrar al estudiante cómo la revolución tecnológica forma parte de la práctica en la industria de la construcción. Así es como Hard Hat Mack se vuelve virtual en tiempos de pandemia y seguramente seguirá evolucionando.
Estos resultados fueron obtenidos en el marco del fondo Novus ID-N2020-194 Modelos virtuales: Integración de nubes de puntos de múltiples sensores para el desarrollo de competencias en Ambiente Construido.
Invito a los profesores que se desempeñan en áreas relacionadas a la construcción a compartir sus experiencias de aprendizaje a través del Observatorio del Instituto para el Futuro de la Educación del Tec de Monterrey.
Acerca de la autora
Laura M. Yeomans (lyeomans@tec.mx) es profesora del Departamento de Tecnologías Sostenibles y Civil desde el 2001 donde ha impartido cursos a nivel profesional y maestría en las áreas de Hidrología, Geomática, Sistemas de Información Geográfica e Ingeniería Ambiental. Desde el 2008 coordina el Laboratorio de Geomática y recientemente el Laboratorio de Uso Sustentable del Agua. Ha participado en proyectos de consultoría del Tec de Monterrey relacionados con el diagnóstico y tratamiento de aguas residuales industriales y el análisis y modelación hidrológica de cuencas, además de fungir por un período como directora del programa académico de Ingeniería Civil dentro de la misma institución.
Edición por Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) - Observatorio de Innovación Educativa
Novus es una iniciativa del Instituto para el Futuro de la Educación que busca fortalecer la cultura de innovación educativa basada en evidencia, en los profesores del Tecnológico de Monterrey. Para ello, proveemos fondos para la implementación de innovaciones educativas y su medición del impacto. Buscamos divulgar, transferir y escalar los proyectos, así como su internacionalización a través de publicaciones arbitradas, congresos y competencias internacionales.
Nuestro propósito es fomentar la experimentación y la investigación en innovación educativa como medio para el desarrollo profesional de la facultad, la mejora continua de su práctica docente y la construcción del futuro de la educación.
Para más información visita https://novus.itesm.mx/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/novusitesm
Twitter https://twitter.com/novustec_
I made an EdTech Conference Proposal title generator. Any terms/tech missing?
Here it is: the ed tech conference proposal generator. The adjectives don't really work but the titles are otherwise realistic. It would be a fun conference game to challenge people to give a two-minute impromptu talk based on generaled proposal titles.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Seems like the peer review system has given up the ghost
There's value in this post, but also especially in the lengthy comment thread that follows. The premise here is that the associate editor of an academic journal writes, "it is my strong suspicion that the peer review system is finally broken beyond reasonable repair." So what can be done? Suggestions range from overhauling the system to something called slow philosophy. These days, though I am frequently asked, I rarely complete reviews. At first, I didn't want to support subscription-based journals. Also, journals stopped caring whether I was qualified. Then they treated it as an obligation after I've published a paper. But you know, we don't need a review system any more, at least, not in the sense of two blind reviewers deciding whether a paper deserves to see the light of day.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]NFT in Edu: What Does the Future Hold?
OK, here's the slightly simplified explanation of what a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) is. Take any digital content, and run it through an encryption function known as a hashing algorithm. This produces a unique identifier for that content. Next, create a unique identifier for a person (typically the address of their digital wallet). Write a statement saying the first belongs to the second. Embed this statement into a blockchain so that it cannot be altered. You have created an NFT. To the extent that this is useful in education, you can now define the future of NFT in Edu (your results may vary, but this article takes you through some of the possibilities).
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Personal Computational Environments: From Pedagogy to Technics
Mark Johnson looks at the various tools he has over the years thought might lead to a personal learning environment (PLE) - "an idea that really came to nothing." Some of the tools for using AI are the latest candidate. "AI has the property of being able to return more variety than it is given." And this was basically what was true of the other tools. The idea was always to be able to begin with something relatively straightforward and easy to master, and to use it to open up a world of possibilities. I think that's a good insight. "The motivation to learn technical skill comes about through our hunger for greater variety. We need to design our pedagogy from this principle."
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Leaderless leading: How the pandemic has unleashed a collective impetus to ‘rethink’ further education
This post in the BERA Blog is intended to introduce us to the inaugural edition of #JoyFE newspaper, "a group of further education (FE) professionals who want to ‘rethink education and take action’", and more to the point, to frame it as an example of "an example of ‘unleadership’ an embodiment, experienced and practised, rather than a theoretical construct." I'm not sure the language of 'leadership' really fits here, one way or another, and whatever I may think of the content of JoyFE or why this publication merits mention in BERA, I applaud the idea of practitioners taking to virtual pen and virtual paper to get their ideas out there and start sharing them.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]Cloud Caper
One common experience with commercial online services is that they will eventually turn the screw, reducing services and increasing costs. Thus is the case with cloud storage, including DropBox, which has reduced services recently. So maybe you want to host your own cloud storage service. "Having spent time trying to do this for a little while," writes Ernie Smith, "I’ve started to realize why normal people don’t do this." He looks at a variety of services, including NextCloud, which I've also tried, but concludes, "it’s not for everyone, especially if you don’t want to spend your weekends hunting down bugs." Other tools included Syncthing for file sync across a variety of machines and Backblaze for long-term cloud file storage. But for now, he writes, "the average person is probably better off with something like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive, at least at this juncture." Via Aaron Davis.
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