My Passion and Curiosity

What are your passion and curiosity quotients?  Passion quotient (PQ) and curiosity quotient (CQ) are ideas developed by Thomas L. Friedman (2013) and he equates them to our intelligence quotient.  According to Friedman in the 21^st century

“The winners won’t just be those with more I.Q. It will also be those with more P.Q. (passion quotient) and C.Q. (curiosity quotient) to leverage all the new digital tools to not just find a job, but to invent one or reinvent one, and to not just learn but to relearn for a lifetime “

My life’s true passion focuses directly on my most important student, my son Lucas.  How do I develop my passion and help my son to grow? Surprisingly, my educational technology certificate coursework has been helpful! I have been exposed to various techniques, software, technology and tools to help meet my son where he is at in his learning journey. These items also come in helpful at work as I assist instructors in their course design.

My son, much like myself, shows a passion for all things electronic. He is so passionate about technology he often chooses electronics over things like reading books and playing outside.  Therefore, as his father, I am hoping to meet him in the middle and help him find a better balance to his learning.  In an attempt to encourage Lucas to read more and develop the love of playing outside, I developed a simple digital storybook on how to build a snowman.

My hope is that Lucas will enjoy this “book” so much that he will ask for others. I will then develop more books that offer content that is more educational and still a balance of offering learning through various mediums.

So what is your passion?  I would love to know, leave me a reply below.  If you need me, I will be outside making a “snowman out of snow” with my best boy!

Thanks for reading.

Reference

Friedman, T. L.  (2013, January 29). It’s P.Q. and C.Q. as Much as I.Q. The New Your Times.com. Retrieved March 5, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/opinion/friedman-its-pq-and-cq-as-much-as-iq.html?_r=0

Failure as a Learning Mode

Failure is not always a bad thing!  When we fail at something, if we take the time to analyze what happened, make adjustments and try again we actually learn from the failure.  In the words of Henry Ford, “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

How do we transfer this type of learning in to the classroom?

How do we encourage students to be more creative and not be afraid of failure?

These questions are the focus of the report developed by Destiny Moore, Jamie Veld and myself.  Our recommendation to implement this in the classroom is through the use of Project Based Learning (PBL).  We believe that PBL encourages students go through a process of design, implement, analyze, and redesign.  This process can open students up to the  thought that failure is an expected part of the learning process.

Here is a link to our full report.

I look forward your comments and feedback posted below.

References

I fail therefore I am [Online Image]. (2012). Retrieved February, 28 2014  from
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8160/6975534290_1a6086e85a_z.jpg

Wicked Problem Project Preview

Here is a preview of our Wicked Problem Project for the CEP-812 course at Michigan State University.  I am a member of the Failure as a Learning Mode – Group 2.  My other team members include Destiny Moore & Jamie Veld.  Please use the following link to our project draft:

Problem Based Learning & Failure as a Learning Mode

We look forward to your comments!

Community of Practice Survey

This week in CEP-812 we looked at our “Community of Practice”. Lave & Wenger describe a “Community of Practice” as “a set of relations among persons, activity, and the world”. Your community includes your colleagues at work, where you work, and the type of work that you do every day. A person can be involved in more than one community. For instance, you may have a community for your professional career and another for you hobbies.

Our assignment was to survey the technology habits of our educational community of practice. Not being a teacher myself, I had to extend my “Community of Practice”. I reached out to the instructors that I work with, the Kettering University Graduate Program Faculty.

Here is the report on the data collected.

 

References

josephluis. (2012). Extended Community Circle [online image].
 Retrieved February 21, 2014 from URL http://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/170352/ExtendedCommunityCircle.png

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Community of Practice. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved February 21, 2014
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice

Info Diet

What is your info diet?  Are you a healthy info nut, or a junk info junky? Most of us fall somewhere in between. Your info diet is the range of information that you consume every day, and sometimes we consume healthy products like BBC.com, and sometimes we consume junk like TMZ.com. 

This week I went on a diet.  I took a challenge to expand my info diet to include sources that do not line up with my typical personal ”tastes”. Let me take a moment to share the process and outcome.

Let me know what you think or what is in your info diet. Please leave a comment below.

References

BBC News. (n.d.). Home. BBC News. Retrieved February 12, 2014,
From http://www.bbc.com/news/

dpencilpusher (2011). Information Overload [Online image]. Retrieved February 12, 2014
From http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/060/f/7/information_overload_by_dpencilpusher-d3aphgc.jpg

TMZ. (n.d.). Home. TMZ. Retrieved February 12, 2014,
From http://www.tmz.com/

Video Captioning as an Inclusive Tool

The challenge presented to the students in CEP-812 this week was to build our own learning adventure. The focus of this adventure is based on how we can use technology to support students with special learning needs.

The technology that I selected to research is video captioning. In my work at Kettering University, we create many hours of video lectures each week for our graduate program. In my fourteen-year tenure, we have not had any students that require this assistance. When the request does arrive we want to be prepared to handle it, understand how to stay compliant with the applicable laws (Title 2 of The Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of Rehabilitation Act), and most importantly how can we be more inclusive of all our of our students and their needs.

Here are my findings and suggestions.

References

Closed Captioning. (2014) in Wikipedia. Retrieved February 7, 2014,
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captioning

Close Caption Symbol [Online image]. (n.d.).Retrieved February 7, 2014

from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Closed_captioning_symbol.svg

Kettering University (n.d.). Home Page. Kettering University Retrieved February 7, 2014,
from http://www.kettering.edu

US Department of Education-NIDRR (n.d.).  Overview of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Retrieved February 4, 2014,
from http://www.adaportal.org/General/ADA_Overview.html

US Department of Justice (2009). A Guide to Disability Rights Laws. Retrieved February 4, 2014,
from http://www.ada.gov/cguide.htm

Why do smart people do not so smart things?

In week two of CEP-812 we began reading the book The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students through Digital Learning by James Paul Gee.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Anti-Education-Era-Creating-Students/dp/0230342094

The focus of our reading was Part 1 of the book: How To Be Stupid. In these sections, Gee explains why he believes smart people do stupid things. Here are my thoughts and reflections on The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students through Digital Learning, Part 1.

References:

Gee, J. P. (2013). The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students through Digital Learning. New York N.Y.: Palgrave MacMillan.

James Paul Gee. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved January 24, 2004, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Paul_Gee

The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students through Digital Learning [Online Image]. (2013). Retrieved January 24, 2014, from http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71UJjxNLuhL.jpg

The Problems We Face

In the first week of my CEP-812 class at Michigan State, we are being introduced to problems and the different types that we face every day and that we present to our students. Three types of problems are; Well-Structured, Complex (also known as Ill-Structured) and Wicked.

Well-Structured problems are those that have one best way to solve them, an example would be that of a math equation.  Complex problems are challenges where creativity is needed to find a solution; write me a poem, best route from point A to point B on a map, etc.  Finally, Wicked problems are just that wicked; they are very intricate with multiple variables, so a perfect solution is typically not available.

This week’s focus is on Well-Structured and Complex problems.  Below is an example of a Complex problem we recently faced in my work at Kettering University, and the solution we devised.

We now have a solid foundation of problems and how they are categorized.  Next week may not be so easy considering it is time to get “wicked”.