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We were virtually visited this week by Professor Curtis Bonk, Professor of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University. He was animated, invigorated, and fun to listen to. Even though he was pixelated, frame jumping, and on a crappy speaker phone. He talked to us about the future of e-learning, and what a bright future it will be. But here we were, talking from two of the finer institutions in higher learning in America and our connection was severely handicapped, so when is this future coming?
More importantly, to my mind, is who is this future of openness coming to? With the exception of point #9 of his WE-ALL-LEARN system, which regarded mobile phones and portability, it seemed to me the rest of that system continues to benefit those with access to computers and time for study and the basic education that allows access. I am not sure how many of those people there are. Perhaps the marginalized cultures of the world will be coming into this digital future at the same rate as the rest of us, but I believe that they will need some assistance from those of us with the willingness to help them.
This is the most dangerous aspect to the culture of innovation that is over taking the industrialized world. Just as there is a large income gap, there is a large technological literacy gap. And the more “innovative” we get, and the more products and forward thinking solutions we come up with, the greater this distance will grow.
Is it possible that Prof. Bonk is overlooking this defect in the system? The world is open to those who can afford it, just like always. What can we do to open the world up all the way? Innovators need to focus on closing the digital divide as did the One Laptop per Child campaign. This campaign, though some question its effectiveness, is exactly the kind of openness we need to be focusing on.
Thanksgiving, instead of putting me in the mode of giving thanks for all that I have, (which is plenty and I thank whomever for allowing me to be so lucky), puts me in the frame of mind of thinking about those who do not have as much, and whether those of us who do have it at the expense of those who go without. The Pilgrims and the Indians writ large. I believe that Prof Bonk would have an answer however, and though I spent much of this post questioning his insights, now I offer a defense. If more doctors can learn their trade online, or though e-conferences or voice over IP chats to save the lives and improve the health of others, then the opening of the world is good. If more teachers can learn better techniques in addressing the needs of underserved communities, than the opening is a benefit to us all. Lets just make sure this is what occurs, instead of just opening the world, like a country club gates, and letting in only those who qualify.

With Professor Kim on philanthropic hiatus in the Middle East, our weekly in vivo seminar took the form of an in silico e-learning session. Fittingly, the message matched the medium, as Dr. Curtis Bonk, Indiana University professor and author of The World is Open, availed of this pedagogical opportunity to relate his thesis that the emergence of the Internet and online sharing technologies have resulted in a world in which "you can have an [educational] impact on anyone anywhere on this planet at any time of day" (Prequil, p. 3). Bonk's refrain, "the world is open!" is not merely a descriptive message. Rather, it is a call to action to utilize collaborative technologies to promote the free and open sharing of ideas for global enrichment.

Message aside, a skeptic may point to this very session as an example of the perils of distance learning, primarily due to inadequate technology: a video-based WebEx conference with accompanying speaker-phone. Although we comprised two invested parties, a combination of poor audio and video fidelity compromised communication. This became immediately apparent when Dr. Bonk began referring to invisible slides, prompting an investigation of the technology itself. This resulted in an agreement wherein we would manually advance the presentation slides at his direction. More critically, we found it particularly difficult to pose inline questions, as most attempts to visually or aurally gain Dr. Bonk's attention were met with failure.

Nonetheless, further reflection suggests that this learning opportunity provided a net positive value, particularly given that we formed a mature, willing, and engaged collective. Despite technical difficulties, Dr. Bonk's message, and, more importantly, his passion, were evident to those of us in the audience. We clearly learned from this exchange, and at least one student walked away with an increased understanding of the state of web-based collaborative technologies and their potential to enlighten the world.

One example of the proliferation of ideas that would not have been possible without this exchange, commenced with Dr. Bonk's casual reference that multiple notable innovators (ranging from Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com to Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google) emerged from Montessori educational systems. This reinforced, in me, the critical role played by creativity in the advancement of society, and caused me to wonder if the Montessori curriculum expressed some of the elusive characteristics of the Creative Domain of Learning (which I proposed in Week 3, and expanded upon in Week 6). As a result of the transmission of a single idea, I commenced a cursory search of the Montessori methodology, and found the following relevant assumptions (source):

• Children are capable of self-directed learning.
• Children learn through discovery to correct their own mistakes instead of relying on a teacher to give them the correct answer.

It is not difficult to conclude that these pedagogical characteristics protect and foster inherent creativity, and likely contributed to the development of the aforementioned exemplars of innovation in our modern society. The codification of these attributes into a Creative Domain of Learning may be the key to affording likewise opportunities to all students.

The world is open;

This week we had the opportunity to interact over video conference with Dr. Curtis Bonk who is a Professor at Indiana University. It was my first remote learning experience and so quite interesting. Tom at SUSE IT set us up with the Cisco Webex system, using which we could connect to Dr.Bonk. I wish there was a better way to split the screens between the slides and the person you are talking to so that you could see them more clearly. I think it might have been very interesting to use something like ViewXtreme to deliver the content and see how that went ! A couple of the other issues we faced was that the slides didn’t move by themselves so Katy had to do those by hand, and the microphone was too far away for most of us to speak with Dr. Bonk.

All the minor issues aside it was an interesting lecture. Dr. Bonk spoke to us about his new book “The World is Open” and we discussed the open learning world With the help of e-learning, Blogs, Wikis, Discussion forums, Webinars, Course websites, learning world has really opened up to all of us. We saw some examples of archaeology blogs, where in sitting here in the United States you could follow the exploits of archaeologists in Afghanistan. The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA offers an interactive research map using which you can easily identify research projects, field programs and internships, and get more information on them. This is really similar to what I envision trying to make for the next iteration of my 391 project, so it was very cool to see an idea that I can build on top of. There are similar programs being run by Earthwatch and Greenpeace which allow you to visualize and follow happenings all around the world from your home.

We also looked up, how we all learn using using different educational websites, online schools, content delivery networks, streaming media etc. Some examples are “cable in the classroom” (, Mahalo, the human powered search and EdTV which guides to to online educational content streams. There is so much information out there, perhaps what we really need is an information processing tool that sorts this for us and gives us what we are looking for.

There is now a massive infusion of e-books on the market, giving us access to reading anytime and anywhere. With open source text books, e-libraries, google book search the global text project, we now have access to an enormous collection of works by different authors and devices that the Sony Reader and the Kindle have really opened up our world and made accessibility much quicker and cheaper. And the Kindle uses a revolutionary E Ink technology which brings us as close to the real world book reading experience as possible.

The existence of open source software and e-learning communities like Moodle and Sourceforge allow us to access, contribute to and customize a host of software and learning solutions out there for our needs. We can add information to websites like wikipedia, customize forums based on Sakai, use open learning initiative programs. And open source does not necessarily mean that the contributors are not making any profits. A lot of the open source projects are supported by larger companies and individual donors, who give them money, and developers who spend the time adding features and fixing bugs, and during the same time learning new skills.

Open courseware in universities like MIT and Yale allow us to access learning materials, online lectures and tutorials from some of the most prestigious institutions in the world. In addition the National Programme for Technology learning in India, NPTEL, started by the 7 IITs tries to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by developing curriculum based video and web courses. Many more universities are gradually starting to open up the coursework and lectures to people outside the university and around the world.

As discussed above open source projects and developer APIs like the iPhone developer API allow users to contribute and create your own applications. Instant Messaging apps like google talk and skype allow you to communicate with people around the world. Websites like Wikipedia, Blogs and forums encourage collaboration, Learning repositories are created every day, Users can customize the information they get using RSS feeds, digg and delicious, Mobile data phones give us access to information instantly and anywhere in the world.

In all, we are moving towards open learning and social software enabling collaborative, real time learning and teaching, and allowing us to expand our boundaries of access immensely to the outside world.

This week in class, we had Prof. Curis Bonk of Indiana U. lecture us via web conferencing software. His research on the future of e-learning is interesting, and me makes much of it freely available at http://www.publicationshare.com/. I was impressed by Prof. Bonk's ideas, but even more so by his seemingly nearly encyclopedic knowledge of cool learning tools on the web. His presentation covered a lot, and I scribbled down a long list of very useful names to check out.

I thought I'd highlight a few here that struck me as particularly interesting for language learning. One was dotSUB, a site designed as a collaborative "wiki" type environment for subtitling videos. I checked out the site's tanscription and subtitling UI, which aims to make the process easy enough that anyone can do it.

I really like the idea of crowd-sourcing subtitling, a task that theoretically anyone can do--it's just the work of actually getting the subtitles into the video that most people would get stuck on. Still, I think dotSUB has a way to go in some areas--it doesn't seem to have the same rigorous fact-checking ethos as, for example, Wikipedia. Also, the transcription process relies heavily on keyboard shortcuts to start and stop the video, which many causal users may be hesitant to learn. Finally, I wonder who dotSUB believes their audience to be; they don't seem to be particularly targeting language learners. As an English-speaking learner of Spanish, I found I could search for videos in Spanish, videos in English, videos with Spanish translations, and videos with English translations; but I could not specifically search for Spanish videos with English translations. I'm interested in using more video to learn Spanish, but dotSUB didn't make the process as easy for me as I would have liked. Still, all of these problems are correctable, and I'm interested to see how this pretty cool idea develops.

A second interesting website identified by Prof. Bonk was Voxopop, a tool for creating online, asynchronous voice discussion forums. A curious user can just click "Play" and immediately hear each post of a thread played in sequence; some discussions are just a few minutes, some run for hours. Unlike dotSUB, Voxopop did seem to be heavily geared for language learning, and I could see quite a few classes already using the site for this purpose. I didn't try starting my own voice thread, but the potential for meaningful interaction between geographically dispersed learners and teachers is pretty cool. Threads can even be exported to iTunes or as an RSS feed. On the whole, these are some really exciting resources to have been made aware of.

This week, we were introduced to Dr. Curt Bonk from Indiana University and his ideas about open learning. Curt Bonk’s “World is Open explained ten forces that opened the learning world. Abbreviated for “We All Learn,” he expanded on the following concepts;

Web searching

E-learning and blended learning

Availability of open source and free software

Leveraged resources and opencourseware

Learning object repositories and portals such as shared content

Learner participation in open info communities such as youtube

Electronic collaboration and interaction such as synch and asynchronous

Alternate reality learning such as online massive gaming, simulations (second life)
Real time mobility and portability such as the iPhone

Networks of personalized learning such as Blogs and RSS


Prof Bonk’s message builds off the notion that in today’s world, with the popularity and accessibility to technology, it is quite possible for anyone to get some type of education through what is available online. Thus technology has opened up a world of opportunities for people to engage, learn and share ideas in the world. I agree with his assessment and will add that, not only is information more accessible to people, but also, the conventional ways of teaching is being transformed.

Professor Bonk, did a quick survey in the class to find out how many people had taken a class that was based on an e-learning format. Several students offered their experiences. About online experiences of students in our class, people expressed that they haven’t had good experiences with online learning. The failure as many students expressed, was attributed to the fact that the teacher did not know what they were doing or were not efficient in using the technology.

It seems that in order for e-learning to be effective, the instructor has to be efficient not only in using technological tools but garnering student participation and interest in an engaging manner. Some people mentioned that they found e-learning boring and ineffective. This is very interesting especially because it brings up questions of whether e-learning is effective for all students, how technology can supplement learning, and the role of the instructor in e-learning environments.

The fit of technology into our educational systems is a great achievement as Professor Bonk expressed, however it is still evident that there are some issues that may deter students from effective learning using an e-learning environment. Factors such as isolation, boredom and confusion were all mentioned by my colleagues as big problems with e-learning that must be resolved. It will be interesting to see the way in which e-learning evolves in the 21st century.

Curtis J. Bonk, Professor, Indiana University

OVERVIEW:

This week we had a guest speaker via Teleconference. This was a fun session. I enjoyed the enthusiasm surrounding the information that was being presented. It was great to hear and see how innovative people are becoming. I get the Big Idea that people are looking for means to make extreme impact and revolutionize the ways we obtain, process and utilize information, for advancement of a given field. Spending time with Professor Bonk made for a very entertaining experience. He was eating dinner in another state, while presenting to us in real-time and informing us of developments in e learning globally over the course of five years. So I had multiple experiences going on at once, which was stimulating and sent home a powerful message; we are on the brink of transcending educational.

ENGAGING IN CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR BONK:

After the first twenty minutes of listening to our guest speaker, I could understand how Professor Bonk and Professor Kim become good friends; only because they have this enthusiasm surrounding the e learning revolution and both are adimiate about promoting the cause. Professor Bonk has written prequels and sequels surrounding the topic and seeks to use these texts as a means of promoting societal changes in how individuals are educated.

So what is Professor Bonk’s big idea? Capturing Technology and how it is “Changing the World”.

A Few Questions From the Austin Peanut Gallery That I Hope to Have Answered During This Presentation:

-What has made information worth while sharing where we do not exclude the individual?

-How do we hope to benefit as a nation, considering the fact that we are spearheading this development of e learning?

-Who are we really taking into consideration as we are doing this?

-What amount of educational value are we placing on e learning?

-How much time and money is being invested?

-What teaching methodologies are being incorporated and for what audience?

Three Out of Many Things That Have Happened Globally And Have Changed Learning Around the World.

-UCLA Summer Digs Program (Meg Sullivan): Blog posting on their digs.

-Michael Perham and Zac Sunderland Summer 2009: youngest sailors to sail around the world solo and use the web to broadcast live. Populations are learning from them online about their experiences.

-David Thomas, Archeologist, La Trobe University, Australia (Discovery News). He has become one of the most famous archeologists.

-Lots of people are using e learning as a means of promoting their learning platform.

AN AMAZING STORY EXAMPLE!! A retired biology professor from Cal enters back into her field of research and by way of conducting a broadcast online; she is turned into a celebrity within hours. Phenomena’s like this are happening all over.

Ten Forces that Opened the Learning World: (as outlined by Curtis Bonk)

Web searching in the World of e-books

E-learning and Blended Learning

Availability of Open Source and Free Software

Leveraged Resources and Open Courseware

Learning Object Repositories and Portals

Learner Participation in Open Info Communities (You Tube)

Electronic Collaboration and Interaction

Alternate Reality Learning, Simulations and Virtual Worlds

Real-Time Mobility and Portability

Networks and personalized Learning

The World is Open.com

(a site based on a book he wrote): maps out how we went from a culture that did not share information, to a culture that extends education, so as to make it accessible to all.

Professor Bonk is watching the progression of digitized knowledge and I get the impression that this is a developmental race. Corporations who invest in these technological advancements seek to do it, do it well and be a master in the field. Everyone wants real estate in this arena and there is extreme pressure to be as innovative as you possibly can. There is a huge demand to provide educational resources, and corporations are ready to supply this demand. It would appear to be an exciting time in technology (this is the feel that I get from the Professor).

For those who are not buying into these technological advancements, E learning is pushing its way into the mainstream by means of mandated usage, as a requirement for completion of a credential, degree or diploma. The reasoning is validated by our nations vested interest in capitalizing global information. Access to large masses of information, in rich detail, create authentic experiences that are considered to be highly desirable (thus valuable) on a global and national level. During times of great depreciation this movement can prove to be a governmental cash cow.

Professor Bonk posed a question to us with regard to online learning. First, had we ever taken an on-line class and how was it? (everyone raised their hand- point taken) Ricardo shared that his entire undergrad was online and while he had one good class the others were poorly instructed, as he didn’t feel that the teachers knew what they were doing. Professor chimed in on supporting his belief that as we move forward, educators will need continued training and exposure so as to optimize the amount of information available to enhance the learning experience. And now, more than ever, teachers are required to take some technology class in order to complete their credential or degree. I personally can recall having to take a tech class before completing my multiple subject credential.

Okay I am going to stop now so I can further engage in the last 60min of the presentation.

Bye!!!

Curtis J. Bonk, Professor, Indiana University

OVERVIEW:

This week we had a guest speaker via Teleconference. This was a fun session. I enjoyed the enthusiasm and surrounding the information that was being presented. I was great to hear and see how innovative people are being with educational topics of interest. I get the message that people are looking for means to make extreme impact and revolutionize the ways we obtain, process and utilize information for advancement within given fields. Spending time with Professor Bonk made for a very entertaining experience. He was eating dinner in another state (with a three hour time difference), while presenting to us in real-time and informing us of developments in e learning globally over the course of five years. So I had multiple experiences going on at once, which was very fun and sent home a powerful message; we are on the brink of transcending barriers to education.

ENGAGING IN CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR BONK:

After the first twenty minutes of listening to our guest speaker, I could see Professor Bonk and Professor Kim being friends; only because they have this enthusiasm surrounding the e learning revolution and both are admiate about promoting the cause. Professor Bonk has written prequels and sequels surrounding the topic and seeks to use these texts as a means of promoting society changes in how individuals are educated.

So what is Professor Bonk’s big idea? Capturing Technology and how it is “Changing the World”.

A Few Questions From the Austin Peanut Gallery That I Hope to Have Answered During This Presentation:

1. What has made information worth while sharing where we do not exclude the individual?

2. How do we hope to benefit as a nation, considering the fact that we are spearheading this evolution of educational technology?

3. Who are we really taking into consideration as we are doing this?

4. What amount of educational value are we placing on e-learning?

5. How much time and money is being invested?

6. What teaching methodologies are being incorporated and for what audience?

Things that have happened globally that have changed the world and learning.

UCLA Summer Digs Program (Meg Sullivan): Blog posting on their digs

Michael Perham and Zac Sunderland Summer 2009: youngest sailors to sail around the world solo and us the web to broadcast live. Learning from them online about their experiences.

David Thomas, Archeologist, La Trobe University, Australia (Discovery News). He has become one of the most famous archeologists.

Ten Forces that Opened the Learning World:

Web searching in the World of e-books

E-learning and Blended Learning

Availability of Open Source and Free Software

Leveraged Resources and Open Courseware

Learning Object Repositories and Portals

Learner Participation in Open Info Communities (You Tube)

Electronic Collaboration and Interaction

Alternate Reality Learning, Simulations and Virtual Worlds

Real-Time Mobility and Portability

Networks and personalized Learning

The World is Open.com (a book he wrote): maps out how we went from a culture that did not share information, to a culture that extends education, so as to make it accessible to all.

He is watching the progression of digitized knowledge and I get the impression that this is a race to conceptualize educational technology, do it, do it well and be a master in the field. Everyone wants real estate in this arena and there is a lot of room to be as innovative as you possibly can. Society as a whole is gravitating to it and is willing to invest mounds of money into the field. It was at one time that tech groups were not serving up enough educational technology and now that there is a huge demand, corporations are ready to supply this demand. It would appear to be an exciting time in technology (this is the feel that I get from Professor Bonk).

For those who are not buying in to these technological advancements. E learning is being mandated for completion of a credential, degree or diploma. The reason is because it has become evident as to wear we are going as a nation and hopefully, globally. Access to large masses of information in rich detail creating what may be close to an authentic experience. This is considered to be just as valuable and relevant as sitting in a classroom, if not more so.

Professor Bonk then posed a question to us with regard to online learning. First had we ever taken an on-line class and how was it? Ricardo shared that his entire undergrad was online and while he had one good class the others were poorly instructed, as he didn’t feel that the teachers knew what they were doing. Professor chimed in on supporting his belief that educators do need training and exposure so as to optimize the amount of information available to enhance the learning experience. And more and more teachers are now; more than ever; being required to take some technology class in order to complete their credential or degree. I personally can recall having to take a tech class before completing my multiple subject credential.

Lots of people use e learning as a means promoting their learning platform.

AN AMAZING STORY EXAMPLE!! A retired biology professor from Cal enters back into her field of research and by way of conducting a broadcast online; she is turned into a celebrity within hours. Phenomena’s like this are happening all over.

Okay I am going to stop now so I can further engage in the last 60min of the presentation.

Bye!!!

As in Week 4, our latest course session consisted of participant presentations of custom digital artifacts. Rather than summarize innovative media or projects, our collective mission was to present unique solutions to the education needs of the most vulnerable, underprivileged, or marginalized members of society. Topics included comparative cultural timelines, culturally situated writing projects, language development through comic strips, school creation in rural India, video solutions in biology education, preservation of native languages, de-marginalization of senior citizens and foster children, pedagogical tools to address dyslexia, promotion of multicultural understanding via film, increasing music awareness in urban youth, empowering the homeless, combating ADD, bullying prevention, addressing childhood depression, healthcare resources for the elderly, and culturally appropriate disease prevention.

Following the presentations in Week 4, I utilized this space to evaluate the effectiveness of various media formats for web-based teaching technologies. In this iteration, I wish to investigate the particular concerns of presentations and the prerequisites for their success. Not surprisingly, an effective model in this endeavor is ABCD (described here). For example, an analysis of ABCD in preparation for the presentations of last week may have yielded the following:

• The Audience consists of the EDUC 391 course cohort and instructor. Members are sympathetic to the cause of addressing the needs of marginalized/vulnerable/underprivileged populations, and express a sincere interest in developing novel technological solutions to these needs.
• The desired Behavior is an understanding of the education need, empathy for the target population, basic comprehension of the proposed solution, and assurance that design and cultural principles have been incorporated into artifact creation
• The Conditions consist of an intimate classroom with technological support for a visual projection of a computer-based presentation. The presentation will be given in sequence with 16 others, restricted by a temporal limit of 5-7 minutes.
• The Degree to which behaviors should be achieved is a sufficient understanding and interest to promote at least one informed followup (as opposed to clarification) questions from all audience members (assuming an absence of temporal constraints)

Although these considerations appeared to be generally made by members of the cohort, the distinctive nature of each presentation reflected divergent beliefs in how best to achieve them. The greatest conflict lay between the conditional temporal limitations, and the desire to achieve the basic behavioral outcomes of comprehension, empathy, and assurance of rigor. For example, My approach favored a visual assurance of adherence to design principles, despite the fact that the content could not be adequately covered within the temporal constraints. In contrast, Paul Franz opted for an emotive visual presentation that attempted to inherently reflect a consideration of design and cultural principles. Although an assessment of the relative effectiveness of these two presentations is difficult, given that temporal constraints curbed the potential for questions, my observation is that the latter prompted a greater degree of engagement among the audience.

This exercise is helpful in preparing for the rapidly approaching final project exposition. Although the behavioral objectives for this event will be similar to those of the class presentation, the environmental aspects will differ greatly. To wit, the format will be that of a conference rather than a presentation, the audience will include interested members of the population at large, including socially active members of the entrepreneurial, educational, and corporate communities, and the temporal constraints of presentation time (at least with respect to engaging observers) will be on the scale of seconds. Consequently, the success of my exposition presentation hinges on the creation of an evocative display that conceptually and emotively conveys the problem and the unique solution in a way that will promote queries and deeper conversations with the audience members.

Last week in class we all presented our second digital artifacts. There was a wide range of topics and technologies discussed, but before I get to them, I will talk about my own project. My project took the form of a spaced repetition system for teaching dyslexic children the sounds associated with different letters of the alphabet. I received a ton of great feedback from the class, as well as from a visitor to the class who happened to be dyslexic. Here are some of the suggestions that I got:

-While advertising may be a good way to keep the project economically viable, given the high concurrence of ADD and dyslexia, it is probably a bad thing to have advertising on any page containing a flash card. I should note that the advertising I was thinking of would be for other educational products only, and would not be anything garish that was likely to drive users away.

-It might be useful to have an audio file attached to each flashcard, as the pronunciation of some letters might not be instantly obvious to parents. I hope to add this feature before presenting during the final class session.

-The system could be more effective if it eventually began to incorporate flashcards with more than one letter. I agree completely with this, and, if I were to fully develop my project, I would love it to be a more long-term, comprehensive system. However, for the purposes of presenting for this class, I wanted to keep the artifact both focused and simple, and thus decided only to focus on single letters.

I was excited about pretty much every other project presented. However, it was the two ideas for games that really caught my eye. Catherine’s Zoo Escape game had beautiful concept art, and I wanted to play it myself. Furthermore, Jacob’s idea for a biology video game seemed incredibly viable. Many science teachers I had tried to make science “real” for us through the use of metaphor. Different systems in nature were compared to things we were already familiar with. This both excited us as students and made the concepts easier to learn. The power of Jacob’s idea is that it relies on such comparisons, which are plentiful. The example he brought up was comparing a red blood cell to a spaceship picking up different cargos. This is an easy concept to grasp for any child who has seen a science fiction movie, as well as a pretty apt metaphor. Through the use of such metaphor in a game, I feel as though his game could not only garner an audience, but actually be successful at imparting knowledge. I hope that he develops his idea further and that I see more like it in the future.

We titled our blog MediaConnectingCommunities, but besides our first post, we havent talked much about it. So what are the best modes for creating connections among people? My classmates have proposed websites, mobile phone technologies, computer programs and games. It is hard to say what would work the best, humans are so different in what appeals to them. I submit that any media, or mode of communication can work, but it all depends on the design.
As I am learning in my design class at the Stanford d.school, good design starts with the user. Defining who your user is, and what his or her needs are, and generating insights about them is the beginning of the path the dschool lays out. Insights can be something you find out about the user or his environment that they might not be aware of, or apparent contradictions in what they say and what they do. Good media addresses users needs that they might not have known they had. For example, Facebook, despite all of its add-ons and doodads captured the needs of a computer savvy population at just the right moment with just the right technology. They saw people becoming increasingly disconnected from one another, at their computers working all day, and sending massive amounts of emails back and forth. What if there could be a place where all of this communication could happen easily, and quickly? Facebook designed essentially a new media form, where you could feel as though you were connecting, and not take too much time out of your busy day, either at work or at the zoo, to do so.
What would be the equivalent for learning? What is the best media form for getting students to engage with their learning, and be motivated to dig deeper into their studies? I believe learning truly gets exciting when you find yourself in a class with your peers and everyone feels they are contributing to the discussion and learning together. Is there a way we can augment this or encourage it? I have seen classroom where all of students have access to the white board, or large computer screen, and that may be a start. In my experience however, teachers using this technology are still teaching in their same ways, just having their display larger or fancier. Perhaps there is a way to graphically represent the learning process, as it unfolds in front of our eyes, in a form that includes each student and their individual style of understanding and learning. Then create curricula that are able to refer to the learning occurring concurrently and use this group dynamic to teach more effectively.
Likewise, what would be the best mode for connecting communities? I tried a neighborhood internet radio station, and it showed promise, especially as the barrier to creating or consuming the media was relatively low. However one stumbling block was the inescapable feeling of being one website out of billions. Even though it was our neighborhood’s creation, and specific to our interests, the connection to the medium was not there. There needs to be something physical for the people to rally around. One thought I had is a neighborhood wireless connection. What if each neighborhood had a shared connection, and the home page could show news of the ‘hood? I like the idea, but now, as the dschool has taught me, I must bring it back to the user. So any thoughts?

Week 9: Class Presentations

Today is the dress rehearsal for the big day. Presentation day! Today we get to see how innovative we are with regard to using technology to support marginalized educational populations. I had been working on my assignment for weeks and it turned into a 24hour implementation. I was very satisfied with the results. It allowed the viewers to engage in roll play again and was progressive in its approach to the identity of a child with attention deficit disorder.

Late again, I walked in just having been able to partake in the last 5minutes of Paul’s presentation. He was the first speaker and I was disappointed having missed what appeared to be a really interesting take on literacy.

Up next was Ashley’s project, and she appeared to be promoting the improvement of English skills through the use of sharing stories globally (her current focus students in India). She envisions a website called “TuneItUp!” She foresees continued work with the NGO where she is employed working with high to low resource schools. Comics share stories and encouraging literacy and cultural awareness. She finds her stick designs to be sufficient enough to stay true to the authenticity of the written quality; so much that anyone can partake and feel empowered to share their experiences.

Jacob I noticed has taken a great interest in video games as a teaching aid. When I asked him weeks back, he said that he wasn’t much of a gamer growing up so I find he current interest to be intriguing. He seems to be working off of a perception that video gaming is a motivational aid. He draws correlation with the way that the body works and the possibility in demonstrating the rigor in the curriculum associated within the subject matter demonstratable through games. He discusses how gaming is very common in homes and transferable in use within schools and home. I like that he uses symbolic and metaphoric representation of anatomy tin inanimate objects and how they function. He spoke on the genre of mystery and how it works with science and how media can support a rich learning experience that can draw on sensory and psychomotor skills. He has really done his research on society depicts science in the media and what makes it exciting. He brings up good things to consider in the area of teaching science such as bringing in integrating the scientific methodological practices in meaningful ways. This is something he will continue to explore. He is definitely a filmmaker.

Yaa was next up and is someone I know spent a great deal of time and effort working on her presentation. Her topic addresses the issue of loss of language and the need to archive this information for future generations. The program will train the people of the country on how to use technology in ways that are relevant to their lives, so as to educate outside populations. She draws on her wealth of experience working with the nationals (of which she is one), inferring that the nationals will gravitate towards this project out of a desire to keep their history alive. She maneuvers around common methods of supporting, financing and sustaining by gravitating towards partnering with NGO’s, selling packaged lectures and seminars to educational institutions. There is great interest in seeing this archive draw public interest so as to keep dying languages alive.

Man I am tired of writing…

Mike is up next. Mike has put together a You Tube video that promotes the use of flashcards as a means of promoting letter recognition, which is pivotal in the diagnosis of dyslexia. Parents or practioners are encouraged to use and score their child’s progress in the usage of the flashcards. He has found literature that discusses an algorithm by which to score a child’s response, which is translated in the use of a five-point rubric. Mike wants parents to feel empowered to invest in the skill sets that promote cognitive shaping and literacy over time. His system keeps the usage simple enough for any parent to use. He is going to great efforts to make sure the parent and user is comfortable and will maintain continuous use of the program. This project employs the usage of sensory and cognitive learning modalities. As it repetitive and offers minimal variation or I see it possibly loosing steam overtime. However I do foresee the mass usage of this program for initial diagnosis’ I like Amrita’s suggestion of building upon mastered skill levels (moving towards phonetics- which is the learner’s goal). It was awesome to have a person with dyslexia in the room to offer other interface suggestions dealing with audio and color scale (with regard to distractibility).

Okay I am going to stop now…

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This past week was a great step, I feel, in my understanding and motivation for online learning environments. We all presented our Digital Artifact 2, which was to be our own ideas on the use of technology in learning for a underserved population. As an extension of my work in Digital Artifact 1, I created a product to be used by homeless adults to improve their job skills and get a job.

My project has a few parts to it, because there is a lot more to the need then simply providing training, although that is where it starts. The participants would go through a short assessment of their current skill level so that the training that they receive is relevant to their needs, and then start in on a custom training plan to meet their needs. This could be done similarly to the Edison Learning example, with modular training pieces that can be mixed, matched, and rearranged depending on the assessment.

The training and assessment pieces have built in modules that lead to the 3rd part of the program, building a resume. Those pieces actually gather the critical information for the resume and put it in there for the participant. However, at this stage, the participant can edit and add to their resume as much as they’d like. This gives them a head start on a vital document that they may not have felt comfortable making on their own.

Finally, and probably the lynchpin in the plan, is that the project would partner with local businesses looking to hire, find their desired skill sets, and match potential applicants. The participants would have received training in interviewing skill, and this is their chance to use them. There is even the possibility that local governments or organizations that have an interest in getting homeless people employed could subsidize the wages of the people at these companies, further incentivizing their employment.

I am currently looking at a program in the spring called Launchpad at the d.school. It’d be an opportunity to take these ideas and concepts into fruition as a real company. I plan to redesign the prototype with a better demonstration of the andragogic function pieces, and use the event on Dec 2nd to network for possible funders.

This may very well turn into my master’s project, I feel it has a lot of potential for growth and success, so I will do everything that I can to make the demonstration on the 2nd effective.

I had to let it simmer for a few days to get a good grasp on what it was that I needed to understand about my presentation. After letting it simmer over the weekend I think I have narrowed it down a considerable bit. This was the first time I actually articulated this idea, and though at the time it was crystal clear in my mind it became obvious to me as I presented that the idea was still very raw. I have been reading some articles and visiting some websites, as well as databases and search engines that I believe are going to help with a lit review and to polish my presentation to make a better proposal.

Looking back, I need to work on my delivery a little bit. I need to slow down the pace and not rush through so that I can devote enough time to each component of my proposal. I also need to get a good review of the literature to establish real need as opposed to just talking about a need that could be the offspring of my subjective bias. Is there a real need for this? This is the question I am trying to answer. Based on my conversations during the last few days with some teachers and librarians there is a need, but I need to put a spin on my approach to make a more solid case.

Overall I think last week’s presentation was a success. Not because I delivered an awesome presentation, but rather because by taking the first step early on I might have started on a course that will lead me a to potential master’s project. The hardest thing sometimes is taking the first step. Well, I have taken that first step now. My next steps are to do a good lit review to establish need, and to discuss in more detail and with more eloquence the ABCD’s and the six principles.

I think this is doable, and am feeling good for getting this opportunity early on to start throwing my thoughts down on paper!

M. Ricardo Flores

With the presentations of our digital artifacts this week, it was very interesting to see the many models and ideas that were presented and how each person chose to address social solutions that connected technology to education.

The presentations brought more to life the different contexts through which we are addressing social problems. Looking at marginalized populations across various spectrums, it was even more clear how much considering the context and the culture of the population we are addressing is so important.

When we look at culture and context and how technology can be applied for certain educational purposes, it is evident that there are differences in what might be possible and what might not, depending on the context and the culture. Additionally, when we look at formal and informal education, with formal here referring to classroom education, it appears that informal education models are often proposed for marginalized populations. I especially saw this as the case with the presentations of our digital artifacts. If this is the case, how can we ensure that overall, our proposal of technologies for educational purposes is effective in achieving defined goals, according to the contexts we have specified?

Well, I think we have to visit and revisit culture, look at what works and what doesn’t, and how previous research can inform us on what needs to be done. Research is an important aspect of completing our digital artifact, however we also have to be critical of the research that has been done in order to propose new innovative ways of looking at a social issue. For the type of work that I am interested in, this could mean less technology and more understanding of the culture.

This realization came to me when I recognized that the idea of innovation and technology for empowerment needed to be deconstructed in order to apply it to alternate contexts such as those in the developing world. This is the main reason why I chose to approach my digital artifact using an alternate conceptual framework on the ideas of empowerment, innovation and technology. In this way, even though we are all exploring the same ideas, we can look at them differently, in a way that is justifiable according to the cultures and contexts we are addressing.
I very much enjoyed the presentations I saw last week and I am curious to see how everyone’s ideas develop over the rest of the quarter. I am looking forward to a great exhibit in a few weeks!

I have been collecting literature on the subject of bullying and peer abuse, as I prepare to write my final paper for EDUC391X. This is related to my work for Digital Artifacts 1&2, where I focused on the same topic. It’s really interesting to read about some of the research studies that have been conducted on the subject—how they designed their experiments and formulated their findings.

In one study, Anne-Marie Ambert uses “observations” consisting almost solely of her readings of her unde…

In preparing for presentation of Artifact 2, I was impressed to discover new media tools for filmmaking, available largely free online.

Ning helped me make screen shots of websites so that I could introduce my audience to the delightful and smart Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Website. The service includes a professional access that allows for capturing the movement in a website (ie, videos, pop-open features, etc.) and downloading the captured website into a useful MP3 file. This professional service is available for fifteen dollars, a very fair price, but restrictive password coding through a required intermediary site made it impossible to sign up for.

Gazzump.com, on the other hand was entirely user-friendly. It provides a site that allowed me to take clips of Youtube videos. There I found clips of important films from history that supported my premise, "Children around the world have learned about each other through cinema for decades--acquiring insight as they watch them learn, play, discover and dream."

Voiced over narration was recorded directly into FinalCutPro using a microphone provided by the library when my Sony lavalier mic failed.

I also can't say enough about the lasting benefits of learning through doing, especially when the good staff at the Meyer Library is there to help through the difficult places. They are fonts of information and have introduced me to many ways of finding, often free, means of using the wealth of information available publically on the web. Freeware, is a great place to start.

Finally, I chose Vimeo for delivery. I had used Vimeo (like Youtube doing the very same things)to deliver a d school project and, with five minutes to go, I chose that and the d school codes. Vimeo did not deliver my product in its entirety, sadly, so the video section failed, requiring me to be quick on my feet. I know what to do differently in the future.

On further web learning, I "attended" a webinar presentation, " What Does It Mean to Be Internationally Competitive? How the U.S. Can Learn from Standards/Assessments in High-Achieving Nations" from Linda Darling-Hammond this morning form 8:30 to 9:30 through Edutopia's Gotomeeting.com. I heard the speaker's voice, viewed her powerpoint presentation online, and was able to type in questions afterward. Sadly, my question was not attended to. I asked her to consider the arts, both visual and performance, in preparing students to achieving the goal she presented: allowing students to demonstrate more analytic thinking and "to use their minds."

Digital Artifact 2;

It was Artifact Day this week, when we all got to show our digital artifacts for class.

A few of the ideas that stayed back in my head were Mike's "Flashcards" to help dyslexic children, Ashley's "Tune It Up", the website about learning English through stories, and Catherine's game with "Zoo Animals" to help children tackle issues with depression.

Again, it was really interesting to see how we expanded our ideas from Digital Artifact 1, to build something more concrete in a similar direction. Ricardo's visuals about creating a timeline to preserve information about the cultures that have existed through California, from when it was a part of Mexico, to becoming an independent state to a part of the United States was quite fascinating. Paul introduced us to his summer storytelling class, using collaborative storytelling. I looked this up online and an interesting prototype for this is a website called "Storybird" which uses collaborative storytelling to connect kids and families, and is a good base to build off on.

Jacob introduced us to a prototype of his new game to help middle school students understand and learn more about Biology. The visuals were fascinating, especially for me, because I always have had an inherent aversion to blood and internal organs, and it's amazing how beautifully made these games are, and how much more interactive they make learning because you are fully immersed in the environment.

Ashley's "Tune It Up" is a great idea for a website, to allow children in rural villages in India to practice their English writing using storytelling, and then scanning those stories and uploading them to a website for everyone to read. The stories can be organized by themes, and possibly ages? It’s a really low res way to put the stories out there for everyone to read, and give these children a medium of expressing their creativity and thoughts and learning at the same time. It would be great to have an option that would allow a publisher to buy one or more of these stories and compile them into a book, which could then be sold, and the proceeds sent to the children, to give them access to higher resolution tools to work with, and for the website to sustain.

Yaa spoke to us about Languages of Tanzania. I looked this up online, and found a language map listing about 114 languages in the country, of which Swahili and English are most widely spoken. Creating an archive of would be a wonderful way to preserve these languages and related cultural trappings, for generations to come. In India, there are libraries all across the country, which hold ancient documents and scrolls in forgotten cultures and languages, as a way of preserving them, but accessibility to them is very limited.

Christopher outlined the idea of a website to bring together resources to combat bullying, an extension of his first digital artifact. Keith similarly outlined a website to talk about creating employment opportunities for the homeless, and allowing them to build their resume by using the website to learn basic skills, which I thought was a great concept. Katy spoke about using movies to connect to children in the Lucille Packard children's wing who need this outlet to connect to the world. I would love to learn more about her concept, and see a little more detail about how this works with the children. Tony spoke about creating a website to bring together resources for creating a curriculum for and teaching Hip-Hop with some extremely cool apps that exist in the market.

Mike created a web based Flashcard system to teach alphabets to young children who have dyslexia, which was one of the ideas I really liked. It is such a clean simple interface that gives the dyslexic kids exactly what they need in terms of repetition and looking at an alphabet and listening to what it sounds like. There is also a system which allows the parent to rank the understanding of the child, to see how far they have progressed with learning the alphabet. Looking up online, it seems that most of the software that exists for helping people with dyslexia is targeted more towards reading out material to them, or making existing web pages and the computer easy to navigate through. Again, I really liked Mike's concept of helping the children through a flashcard system. It would be great to see an extension of the alphabets to maybe "2 alphabets" or "3 letter words", and perhaps an iPhone application which can be carried around.

Catherine's webpage about teaching children about depression through an "Animal Zoo" game was very creative and inspirational. Catherine is a wonderful artist and her idea about having the child walk through the zoo, and understand the needs of each animal, and help solve them was something I could completely relate to. Each animal signified a specific issue that a child who has depression deals with, and by helping the animal understand and resolve their issue and make them happy, the child can work through their own depression issues. I kept thinking it would be so cool if the animals could actually talk to the child about how they feel, giving the child a deeper sense of connection and understanding!

We also heard from Janelle about her website to help a child with ADD track his or her day and how to get them through their tasks with encouragement and rewards from their parents and teachers throughout the process using "Cookies". Jaehi spoke to us about creating a user friendly phone for the elderly people, to give them information about their medical and health issues and to allow them to contact the provider in need. This was a great idea, and probably the only device idea that any of us had, which is why it stuck in my head. We finally wrapped up with Tanya and Coram's presentations. Coram spoke about creating a social network to bring the elderly and children in the foster network, two groups of people who really need a strong sense of community. And Tanya's was a cool comic book, about teaching basic first aid to Hispanic children who live on the Mexican side of the US/Mexican Border.

We had our second round of digital artifact presentations this week! As expected, there were some very interesting ideas. A few that that stood as particular highlights for me were a concept for a game that led students on a journey through the human body, a social networking site that matched foster kids with senior citizens, and a hip-hop curriculum. There was so much creativity and dedication on display.

One student presented a prototype for a project to preserve indigenous languages, with a focus on Tanzania (the full presentation is available here). This student and I had happened to meet and speak together about our projects earlier in the week. There was a clear relationship in that both our artifacts are language-focused, but in different ways: my solution was about bringing English language learning into India's rural countryside, whereas my classmate's focused on documenting and promoting local tongues. During our conversation, I laughingly said something like, "Well, I guess my prototype is the opposite of yours."

Is it? I sincerely hope not. I do spend a fair amount of time worrying about whether English language learning programs could be perceived as a form of cultural imperialism. The last thing I want is for local languages to be displaced by English, or local cultures to be replaced by American ways. On the contrary, one of the reasons I'm so interested in English language learning is that I believe it empowers groups to share their beliefs with the world. The Web has made this more than a remote possibility, and in many ways English is the Web's lingua franca: according to Wikipedia, 56.4% of Web content is in English, followed by German at an absurdly distant 7.7%. No doubt non-English content will increase and automated translation tools improve, but in the here-and-now, getting your message out in English gives you the widest audience.

We are also seeing the emerging idea of "Global English"--the notion that British and American English are not necessarily the "correct" Englishes, that dialects spoken around the world are equally valid, and that if there is a standard at all, it should fall somewhere between all these worldwide variations. I love the idea that English can be a tool for someone in, say, Vietnam to chat with someone in, say, Denmark, without a native English speaker even in the picture.

Of course, all this is easy for me to say: I'm a native English speaker! But in the end, I think it's hard to argue with the demand: many, many people around the world want to learn English. I think very few of these people want to give up their native tongue or culture: they simply want English as another avenue for expanding their own understanding and ability to communicate with the world.

My next big step in pursuing the Mo'olelo project is doing a literature review and writing my paper. That process should clarify and deepen the project for me, and should help to ground it in a solid and intelligible background of scholarship. That said, I do know that part of what I am hoping to do is unusual. Exactly how unusual will also, hopefully, come up in my background research.

For now, my immediate concern is fleshing out the ABCDs and six principles, since I was not able to do so in my presentation on Wednesday.

AUDIENCE
The audience for Mo'olelo is high school students. In the long term, my hope is to run the program in Hawaii, but I would like to pilot it here in Palo Alto this summer. Because I am doing an internship at both Sacred Heart and East Palo Alto, I can ensure the kind of meaningful diversity I desire. That's the true key to the audience for me: I believe that keeping economically disadvantaged students apart is not healthy or helpful. By grouping East Palo Alto students with SHS students (by mixing Pearl City kids with Punahou kids), I hope to provide valuable perspective to each, and because I propose to teach writing so differently from what they normally experience, both should be on relatively equal footing.

BEHAVIOR
I want to create creative, critical thinkers who have skill with language. Literacy, broadly, is the behavior I wish to create, but literacy in a much more dynamic way than it is normally meant. Comprehending words, actions, movies, music, and so on is one thing. Being conscious of how and why those media have the affect they do is another.

In Greek mythology, Orpheus loses his wife Eurydice because he is so overwhelmed with the power of his own music that he cannot control himself. As he is leading her out of Hell, he cannot help but look back - the only condition Hades makes upon his rescue attempt is that he not glance at her - and so loses her forever. The reason he cannot help but look is his lyre: his music causes him worry, just as it allowed him to descend to Hell in the first place.

With words as with music (as with flash animations, even), there is tremendous power. Passion is an unstoppable force, when used in an art. It takes mastery, and a different kind of education, to bring natural passion to bare. To make it stronger and more precise whilst making it a tool instead of a tragic flaw. It's a fine line to walk, but it's the line that, once crossed, allows men (and women) to proclaim that they are truly free.

CONDITION
Because of what I call "meaningful diversity," the conditions of my students will vary. Regardless, the one expectation I will have of any student who applies is that they be able to read, and willing to write and speak. In this sense, Mo'olelo is not for everyone, because it expects basic literacy and a desire for conversation. For the short-term, also, I expect that students will be able to make it to wherever the sessions are held (perhaps Stanford? Sacred Heart? This is early on the priority list). Ultimately, the primary condition is that every student must want to be there, because without that, the program will fall apart quickly. This may restrict me to "higher achieving" students, but because Mo'olelo promises to be different from normal school, I believe it can attract students who feel otherwise left behind by traditional education.

DEGREE
It is difficult to assess what Mo'olelo strives to do. That said, I expect every student to attend the whole five weeks of the program, and to produce - alone or in groups - a meaningful and high-quality piece of writing. My hope is to reach between 10 and 50 students in this pilot, with numbers depending almost entirely on the amount of funding and the facilities use I can secure. While not central to the Mo'olelo mission, students should be able to transfer the writing, reading, and conversation skills they develop at Mo'olelo to college applications and interviews, as well as traditional coursework when they return to high school the following year.

Now for the six principles:
SITUATION
I am not convinced that the "problems" with education are what mainstream media and research claims they are. I know that's a controversial and difficult path to take, but to me the situation that is most in need of remediation is not, in fact, the loss of STEM students, but the loss of meaningful study in the humanities. Is education a vehicle for producing citizens, or employees? Is it more important that we have highly-skilled, non-critical cogs for a corporate machine, or that we have less-skilled, but more creative and more analytical individuals who will act according to conscience and reason, and who can have a debate without the profound anger that we see every election cycle? I believe that citizens are more important than employees, and that the humanities are the key to true education. I also believe that the humanities - increasingly called the "social sciences" - are in an ongoing crisis. As the emphasis on assessment continues to increase, so too does the "irrelevance" of humanities education to policymakers, teachers, principals, and students. That is a sure way to destroy an already fragile democracy.

CULTURE
Culture is at the heart of what Mo'olelo does, because culture is at the heart of the humanities. It is not my aim to create a curriculum that integrates cultures seamlessly, or that advocates a singular culture over another. Rather, culture is a process of deepening and becoming aware of contradictions. Students should learn about their own histories, and the histories of the places they are from. They should see that writing - in one form or another - traverses all cultures, and that what it is to be human has something to do with language.

USABILITY
Mo'olelo's lessons are portable to every walk of life. There are many situations where perhaps reading, writing, or conversation will not be immediately useful, but there are few people who do not use those skills regularly. The usability of Mo'olelo is, ultimately, the foundational usability of foundational human skills.

THEORIES
There are a variety of theories at work in my thinking about Mo'olelo, but there are a couple that are particularly prominent.

Connectivism - The idea that making connections is more important than having "knowledge." In an age where there is an increasing amount of available information, it is less and less useful or practical to try to hold all of that knowledge in one's head. Instead, where and how to find pertinent information, how to connect it to other information, and how to analyze, share, and discuss that information takes priority.

New Literacy - Writing and reading is no longer constrained to written words on a piece of paper. Increasingly our literacy is and will be measured by our ability to understand digital artifacts of various kinds.

Cognitive Apprenticeship - One well-educated man is worth far less than ten well-taught men. Students from Mo'olelo will be naturally collaborative, and will strive to share what they have learned humbly and effectively.

Metacognition - This is a direct result, to my mind, of a discussion-based and Great Works based curriculum. That said, instructors will be specifically informed about and trained in the metacognitive goals of the program, because without metacognition, there is no learning of the kind Mo'olelo strives for.

St. John's College model - Not so much a theory as an effective practice with which I have much experience. Under-researched, from what I have found, because it self-consciously refuses to produce "assessable outcomes" merely for the sake of being assessed. The intangible outcomes, however, are profound in the level of critical thinking, self-consciousness, metacognitive ability, and adaptability of St. John's graduates. Consider: students with the same curriculum, degree, and undergraduate experience go into and are successful in education, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, business, music, law, movie production, philosophy, writing, mathematics, engineering, and so on. Why not port that to high schoolers?

SCALABILITY
For the short term, this is limited, but ultimately it need not be. The primary limiting factor is availability of teachers comfortable enough with true student-driven, discussion-based classrooms. Because there are so few people trained in the St. John's model, there is a misunderstanding of what "discussion-based," as I mean it, is. Assuming, however, that teachers with natural propensity for classroom discussion (and there are plenty) could be trained in the specifics of what Mo'olelo strives to do for a few days before the course starts, then scalability is essentially infinite. Because Mo'olelo adapts to the cultures of the places it finds itself, it can operate under the same fundamental model in any number of locations. It will never be for all students, of course, but with sufficient expansion, modular lessons and units could be ported into traditional school environments, giving all students a chance to be exposed to a different style of learning.

SUSTAINABILITY
As with any educational non-profit, grants and donations are likely to make up a significant portion of the long-term funding for Mo'olelo. That said, my rough estimates suggest that this program could be significantly cheaper to run than programs I am familiar with in Hawaii (like He'e Nalu), with a decreasing per-student cost as the program gets larger. That said, the primary cost will always be the high-quality teachers and staff necessary to make the program work as it should. Perhaps some of that can come from a small tuition required of students who can afford it. Alternatively, the products that students make could be published and sold as a source of additional revenue for the program (or, perhaps, allowing for a tuition reimbursement to students). Finally, the possible development of modular lessons suggests a way to raise funds through consulting. During the regular school year, Mo'olelo could visit area schools and do one or two day events which would bring in immediate funds and would serve as good recruiting tools for the coming summer.

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On Wednesday, we had our dry-run of our final projects. Many of the projects were extremely impressive, but what surprised me more than anything else was the wide range of topics that everyone chose to focus on. Not only were all of the project topics distinct from one another, but most were also in different forms of media. Of course this only lent the question of what were some of the remaining media formats that were not covered by the presentations given in class. In searching through Google, I found this interesting site that identified some of the different types of basic mediums for educational instruction:

Text

Out of all of the elements, text has the most impact on the quality of the multimedia interaction. Generally, text provides the important information. Text acts as the keystone tying all of the other media elements together. It is well written text that makes a multimedia communication wonderful.

Sound

Sound is used to provide emphasis or highlight a transition from one page to another. Sound synchronized to screen display, enables teachers to present lots of information at once. This approach is used in a variety of ways, all based on visual display of a complex image paired with a spoken explanation

Video

The representation of information by using the visualization capabilities of video can be immediate and powerful. While this is not in doubt, it is the ability to choose how we view, and interact, with the content of digital video that provides new and exciting possibilities for the use of digital video in education.

Animation

Animation is used to show changes in state over time, or to present information slowly to students so they have time to assimilate it in smaller chunks. Animations, when combined with user input, enable students to view different versions of change over time depending on different variables.

Graphics

Graphics provide the most creative possibilities for a learning session. They can be photographs, drawings, graphs from a spreadsheet, pictures from CD-ROM, or something pulled from the Internet. The reason for this is that images make use of a massive range of cortical skills: color, form, line, dimension, texture, visual rhythm, and especially imagination.

Interestingly enough, most of our projects integrated more than just one of these basic media formats and as many of the descriptions above indicate many of these are most effective when used in conjunction with another basic medium, as with audio and graphics.

Further research (which will certainly be done with completion of our final papers) will give more insight into the benefits of using one media format over another. I am completely excited about showcasing my project as well as understanding some of the shortcomings of why some of the projects were better teaching and learning tools.