Blogging on the Brain

Well, I finally did it. I may have been the last person in the world to do it, but I finally saw Avatar. My overall reaction: very pretty. Because I waited so long to see it, I was primed to think about several different things I’d heard about it over the past months – not the least of which was that it shares pretty much the exact same plot as Disney’s Pocahontas (which, as it turns out, seems pretty true).

The movie also left me with several questions, the first of which is who on the production team was responsible for sneaking so much marine life onto Pandora. I’ll explain – well, first I should mention that, in the pursuit to fulfill my childhood dream of becoming a marine biologist, I took a marine biology course at Wheaton for part of my biology minor. The bulk of the course was covered in a Spring Break trip to Belize, where we stayed on a tiny island a few miles off the coast, and went on several snorkeling dives every day (including one night dive – still one of the most alien experiences I’ve ever had) but anyway, there were a lot of shout-outs to marine life on the planet Pandora that I began to notice pretty early in the film:

Obviously there was a lot of bioluminescence happening throughout the world, which has been well documented in marine life, especially algae, etc. (in Belize, it would sometimes look like patches of water were glowing because of that) but it was something in one of the very first scenes in the forest that tipped me off to the marine life influence – when Jake first takes his avatar into the forest, he encounters some strange, spiral-y looking plants. When I saw them, I leaned over to my husband and excitedly told him that those plants looked exactly like my favorite (gorgeous) little marine critter, the Christmas Tree Worm (Spirobranchus giganteus), which often grows on brain coral (which, of course, I also have an affinity for). You can imagine my surprise, then, when Jake tries to touch the plant, and it sucks itself back down into its hole…exactly what a Christmas Tree Worm does when it feels something approaching in the water! Don’t believe me? Check out this video...and long live the Christmas Tree Worm!

Day 2 of ELI started with a replacement keynote speaker, Gary Marrer, from Glendale Community College. His talk was entitled “Strategic Analysis: A Typical Community College Wondering How to Take Advantage of mLearning.” (For those of you who, like me, aren’t familiar with “mLearning,” it means “mobile learning,” which is different from “e-learning.”) My primary take-away from the presentation was that we need to be sensitive to the demographics and financial restraints of our particular academic setting. For instance, Gary mentioned that very, very few of the students at GCC have smartphones, and if they do, they generally don’t use the internet access because of the cost. On the other hand, here at Baylor, I think I’m about the only person left on campus that doesn’t have an iPhone. Interesting to think about, but I didn’t really get any more than that out of his presentation.

The last presentation I attended was entitled “Mobile Collaboration: Redefining the Classroom,” from William Rankin and Kyle Dickson of Abilene Christian University. They were essentially asking how teaching/learning/formal education would change once every student has a computer in his or her pocket. They went on to talk about some interesting projects they’re starting at ACU, but at this point I started on a mental tangent that unfortunately kept me from paying full attention to their presentation. So I’ll tell you about my little train of thought instead.

So, I get the revolutionary effect of e-learning, that we now have access to way more information than we can ever take in, and communication from wherever, whenever, but I’m really not getting the difference between that and m-learning. Does the learning qualitatively change because I get the info in my pocket instead of at my desk? In a park instead of my home? I guess I don’t understand why the mobile part is so important/revolutionary. In addition, I’m definitely one of those people that likes to check things off my list; when I’m done I’m done. I work at school and relax at home. So what is mobile learning going to do to that type of lifestyle? What if I want to be away from my class/work/etc. (or at least have the right to be)? I’m not saying I think mLearning is a terrible idea, I’m just saying I don’t want my professors texting me. Maybe I’m in the minority, or maybe I just don’t understand why the m- is so different from the e-learning (just to clarify, I’m totally on board with the e-learning), but there it is.

I arrived late for the first session of the ELI Online Spring Focus session, but the portion of the first presentation I caught was very interesting. Judy Brown was addressing the differences between e-learning and mobile learning. Obviously there are a lot of similarities, but from what I caught, the main differences are, obvious, the mobility of the technology available now, and along with that, the sort of all-access all the time approach to learning. She also talked about using a shortened format that would most likely be more useful as a mobile application (she gave the example of hairdressers, who most likely would have access to smart phones, but not computers, and information would be more useful in short, concise bursts).

I missed whatever application this may have in more formal teaching/learning/classroom situations, but the kinds of learning she talked about were really exciting – she mentioned a service called “text4baby.org” which is a free mobile info service. You register by texting in “baby,” then you’ll get free text messages timed to your own pregnancy/birth about nutrition, what’s happening developmentally at that point, etc., which I thought was remarkably cool!

Towards the end of her talk (which accelerated quite a bit as she began to run out of time!), she got to a slide that she referred to as her “take home” message. She said that this mobile revolution is not about the devices, it’s about their (and our) capacity; it’s not about the technology, but the experience. I always feel myself relax a little in these settings when people acknowledge that technology is not inherently good, it’s about how we use it.

The second session was given by a Aaron Wasserman, a senior at Stanford University, who was one of the leaders in the “iStanford” project. The project entailed the production of an app for the iphone that does, well, everything a student would need, really. It integrates an interactive campus map (with real-time bus route updates), course information/registration, directories, and even information about sports and other on-campus activities. It looked really, really useful – and it made me wish that either I went to Stanford, or that Aaron Wasserman went to Baylor.

After showing us the app, several questions came up in reference to the use of this app in the classroom. He said that they wanted to start with more basic stuff (which is where they are now) and get that working, but that he saw real potential for this to expand as a teaching/learning tool in the future. At this point, he apparently kept getting questions about it, effectively giving the impression that if it doesn’t directly impact the classroom, why should we care? I got a little irritated at this point for a couple of reasons (not the least of which is that this guy is maybe 22, has come up with a pretty revolutionary program, and you want to judge? Really?). I feel like maybe some of the faculty are missing the bigger picture with something like this. As a student, even the idea that my University was actively trying to integrate those technologies/trying to make my life easier, encourages a feeling of community (generally it feels here like the administration, etc. is trying to get us to do the most work for the fewest benefits/least pay they can) or at the very least, a feeling that the admins might care even a little bit about my time/resources. Too often (especially at large schools) students feel literally and figuratively lost when they arrive, this is a way for them to integrate much more easily into campus life. In addition, it should lead to a huge time-save for both students and administrators, leading to more time for the “important stuff.” So anyway, there’s my gripe for the day. I thought the presentation was great.

I’ll be attending a couple of sessions tomorrow too; stay tuned for more updates!

I’ve found myself struggling recently with something that I haven’t really thought about in a long time – actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about in reference to myself before – curiosity. I’ve always (sort of by default, I guess) considered myself a curious person. I like knowing how things (especially biological things) work, I loved my liberal arts education because I got to take literature classes at the same time as chemistry, etc.

flickr cc by fotologic

Recently, however, I’ve noticed that my interest in most things outside of my discipline has been waning. I find myself making giant lists of great books that I should read and things I should learn how to do (play piano, train my dog, etc.) and then never getting to it. This isn’t, as I first thought, because I was too busy. I am pretty busy, but I’d be embarrassed to admit how many hours I’ve managed to find to watch the Olympics in the last two weeks. I think I have the time, but I just don’t seem to care very much. When I get home after a long day in lab/teaching, I want to grab a glass of wine and pretty much sit as still as possible on my couch for the rest of the evening.

This is worrisome to me. I’m really hoping is no more than a result of graduate school burnout, but what happens if it’s not? Can I purposefully go about re-kindling my own curiosity in things? I still very much enjoy learning about new things/ideas as long as it doesn’t take much effort on my part (for instance, if you sit me down and tell me about something new, I’m generally very happy to know about it), I just can’t seem to find the motivation to go out of my way to pursue new interests even if I think I’ll enjoy it once I do.

I have no idea if this is a common occurrence, or whether it’s a one-time change (I was a curious person, and I am now no longer a curious person) or just a phase (I was a curious person, and I will be once again…someday…when I finish my PhD). And on a bigger scale, if this is common, what can be done to keep this from happening to graduate students? Anything? Or are we just destined to have all our academic vigor sucked out of us by the time we’re in candidacy? I guess only time will tell.

Here’s a recent article from the Washington Post related to some of my dissertation work in autism. The article talks about a study in which autistic adults took the hormone oxytocin (primarily known for its role in pair bonding) in a nasal spray, and on a subsequent test performed better at tasks involving social interaction and facial recognition. Pretty cool stuff.

In the past, oxytocin (OT) has been used to treat another main symptom category in autism spectrum disorders: repetitive movements. So this new study in addition to that information is now strongly pointing us in the OT direction as far as research and clinical trials.

Obviously this is just one study, so cautious optimism is suggested – certainly until we can replicate the study in a larger trial (as well as considering the efficacy in children). But hey, cautious optimism is still optimism, right?

I had heard at some point that one of my favorite books (also the subject of the reading group I’m leading), The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, was adapted into an opera. I suppose this makes some sort of sense, given the connection Dr. P (the subject of the story) feels to music. In a funny twist of  providence, I was looking into seeing an opera at the encouragement of my husband’s great Aunt Mary, who was herself an opera singer in the 1940s and 50s. I began my search at the Austin Lyric Opera – and to my very great surprise, found that they will be performing The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat in July!

The performances are July 9, 10, & 11 and it looks like tickets run anywhere from $20 to $200. I’d love to get a group of people together to go see it (I’ll certainly be going – albeit most likely with a $20 ticket) – hopefully I’ll get some reading-group participants to come as well. If you’re interested (or have seen it) let me know!

Today was the first meeting of my Oliver Sacks reading group, and I actually think it went pretty well! We’re reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which is one of my ALL-TIME favorite books. It was actually recently listed as one of Discovery Magazine’s 25 Greatest Science Books of All Time – a list that includes people like Darwin, Galileo, Einstein, and Aristotle (Freud didn’t even make the list – he was an honorable mention!). Not that we need a list to tell us this book is good, but still. It can’t hurt.

We have a great group of participants (several grad students from the neuroscience program, one from church-state studies, one from sociology, one from English, and the manager of the History department!) and they all seemed to be pretty excited about the book! Most of them had only read the preface and introduction (although several admitted to not being able to keep themselves from reading the first case – a good sign!), but really that’s all it takes to get a feel for the depth and genius of Dr. Sacks.

I’m also trying something brand new (for me) with this group: a wiki! That’s right, I actually set it up myself and invited members and hopefully they’ll get in there soon and start playing around. This is very exciting for me. As with most technology, I’m completely terrified to try it, but when I finally do, I realize it’s really  not all that difficult, and the rewards far outweigh the work it takes to learn it – oh, and thanks to all the super-smart programmers out there that actually make this stuff user-friendly!

So here’s to a semester of wonderful reading and (hopefully) great discussion!

I was recently given the task of writing a summary report for my work this last year at the ATL – a somewhat daunting task, given a 2-page limit. Anyway, I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on my experiences in 2009, helped along greatly by this blog. I think blogging has actually come to be the most useful tool I’ve learned to use in the last year – it serves many purposes for me:

1. I think most importantly, it allows me to organize my thoughts, and forces me to look critically at experiences I’ve had and try to make that into a narrative, or something like it, that another person could follow. This is something that I don’t normally do – especially if the experience happens to be difficult or painful for me (see posts on the NCORE conference). I very much appreciate the sort of therapeutic value of sitting down and making myself think about things.

2. I like the feeling of putting myself out into the electronic abyss – something I was originally terrified of. After doing this for a while, however, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions; first of all, seriously what is the worst that could happen? Someone disagrees with me? Thinks I’m a bad writer? Okay, well, that’s going to happen anyway, so why worry about it here, where at least you aren’t confronted physically to your face? Second, I’ve been very thankful for all the kind and encouraging comments I’ve gotten from readers – they aren’t terribly frequent, but they remind me that at least a few people “out there” think my thoughts are worth reading and considering, which is gratifying and humbling.

3. I love, love, love having a record of the last year! This was a benefit I didn’t even consider when I started, but now, when I’m being asked to write a review of my year with the ATL, I have the perfect place to go to remind me not only what I did, but how I felt about things, how they challenged me, etc. It reminds me of when my grandparents took me and my older sister to Europe after we graduated from High School – they bought us each a journal and told us we should really write in it every night to remember what we did. So, being a good granddaughter, I did as they said, even though I was exhausted most nights and didn’t really enjoy the process of writing that much, and let me tell you, I couldn’t be happier that I did! I wouldn’t have remembered a quarter of what we did that two weeks if I hadn’t written about it! (For instance, I was proposed to by a very friendly waiter in Brussels one evening!) So I’m beginning to feel very much that way about blogging. Often I don’t feel like it’s something I want to do, but I’m always glad once I have.

From my favorite web comic, xkcd - note the "blogipelago" at the bottom left...

The day start off with what turned out to be one of my favorite presentations of the conference – a talk by Steven Greenlaw of University of Mary Washington. He walked us through a course he taught last year on the 2008 financial crisis. The crux of the presentation was challenging us to think about (1) what learning environments should look/be like today, and (2) the possibility that we should be teaching the way we practice our disciplines. He spent this course (a seminar in international finance) teaching only a little bit, and mostly having students read on their own, then come into class to teach, interact, and discuss. Grades were based on engagement and insight, and some of the students agreed to continue the class project through the summer – after they had graduated! – so that they could produce the final outcome of the project (availiable at www.financialcrisis2008.umwblogs.org). Awesome stuff.

So my initial response (other than very much enjoying the presentation) was, as usual, something to the effect of “that’s great, but would it work in the sciences?” I think that it could, if not in the exact same format it was carried out in the economics class. There were several features of this class that I think we’d do well to apply to more of our courses regardless of the content:

1. Working on a current issue in the field (for economics, the recession was great; for neuroscience, maybe we could spend time working on a class project looking into the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of using fMRI “lie detection” as evidence in court cases)

2. Running class more like training for practitioners.

3. Creating a genuine product as the driving force for the class

There are some potential issues as well, including:

1. Assessment

2. Covering course content

3. Varying student motivation (especially in a community college setting)

But overall, this presentation actually gave me something I could consider implementing in my own courses! Yay!

Next up was the session I thought I’d like the best, entitled Computational Thinking, by Jeannette Wing, the asst. director of CISE and NSF, as well as faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. First of all, for a person as smart as she is, she was remarkably personable and clear, and, even better, she spoke with a lot of enthusiasm about a topic that could certainly have turned out to be dull as toast. Anyway, her “grand vision” is that by the end of the 21st century, essentially everyone will be engaged in what she refers to as “computational thinking.” She went on to (thankfully) give us some definitions; she defined “computing” as the automation of abstractions, and “computational thinking” as “the process of abstraction.” This all sounded, well, very abstract to me, but after lots of examples about computational thinking in other disciplines, I felt like I was getting it. Unfortunately, when I was asked about it later that evening, I found I had sort of lost it. Oh well.

So overall – favorite session of Wednesday: the Card Sort task (which I’ll most likely try to use/write about again in more detail at some point); favorite session of Thursday: Steven Greenlaw’s presentation I talked about above. I really enjoyed the time I was able to spend down there and all the lovely people I met!

My first day at EDUCAUSE 2010 was informative and illuminating, if a bit overwhelming. There was a LOT happening, and a lot of new information for someone like me – a relative newbie in the world of technology and education.

The day began with a session entitled “Born Digital” from John Palfrey of Stanford Law. The basic concept behind the presentation was what is happening with the up-and-coming cohort of kids that have literally been exposed to digital media/tools from birth. I thought John did a great job of noting the benefits as well as the potential problems for this generation – things like privacy concerns, intellectual property, and credibility. He also had some surprising stats to share – did you know the incidence of sexual predation has not increased with the widespread advent of social networking sites? Apparently rates have actually gone down a little (he made the point that online “public” places have replaces actual public parks, etc. as the main forum for predators). One negative area that has seen an increase – bullying. This, however, could just be because of the visibility/permanence of online bullying versus your typical playground scenario. Anyway, he did a great job talking about things like what kids don’t know about how they’re allowed to use downloaded material legally and our responsibility to teach them (although it seems from the litigation surrounding the HOPE Obama poster, we’re not so sure yet ourselves). The good news: these “born digital” students won’t have to deal with the (sometimes prohibitive) learning curve us old folks have to deal with. They’re already equipped to jump right in!

Next I went to a presentation on Stanford’s Wallenberg Hall (http://wallenberg.stanford.edu/about.html) – a completely gutted/renovated building now equipped with all the makings of an ideal learning space. My favorite part about their plan (the project began in 1999 and was completed in 2002) was that they weren’t trying to get the most advanced technology of the day and cement it into the walls, they actually tried to install technology (and tables, chairs, etc.) that would provide the most flexibility for the classes – whether that meant using the dual plasma screen displays and laptops for each student, or markers, whiteboards, and glass walls (sweet). I appreciated that they tried to build the infrastructure, not just that top-of-the-line 2002 technology.

The third presentation for the morning was on students’ mental models of information and using Card Sort to determine whether or not they’re learning information in the way you’re trying to teach it. It was pretty cool, as I was completely unfamiliar with the technique (students take cards with terms on them, sort them into piles that make sense to them, and label the piles). Not sure yet how I might be able to utilize it, but for more info I’ll direct you to the website the presenters provided. http://mentalmodelassessment.org/

After lunch I attended a relatively lackluster presentation on, well, using technology in education, I guess. It wasn’t really anything new. The day of presentations wrapped up with a new system Seattle Pacific University is using to help maximize class time. They’re doing what they call “flipping” lectures – they pre-record lectures and put them online for students to watch before class. The lectures are chopped up into topical chunks (about 15-20 min), so they students can watch all of them first, or just review particular topics they need help with. This obviously leaves much more class time for discussion, group work, or more advanced ideas. Unfortunately, the rest of the session was a sales pitch for the specific software they use, but I did think this was a good idea, especially depending on the class it’s being used in. My first thought was perhaps doing something like this for the BIC Natural World course that I’m going to be working with this semester. One of the major problems they face is when students come in with wildly variable backgrounds in science, so they end up teaching to the lowest common denominator. So what if they could post background lectures online so the students could all come in on even footing and they’d actually be able to get to more interesting topics? It’s something to think about anyway.

Well, that’s it for today (man, am I tired!). Had a lovely dinner complete with good food and good conversation, and just got back here to Waco to sleep for a few hours, then I” be heading back down in the morning! More tomorrow…

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