Top 5 Things I Learned from my Mastectomy

Image courtesy of the National Breast Cancer Foundation

October is breast cancer awareness month. I am not a survivor of breast cancer. I am not a victim of breast cancer. I am a breast cancer conqueror. In honor of this month, my October blogs are sharing lessons I learned from my mastectomy.

If you are a woman who has never had a mammogram, please visit http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/breast-cancer-awareness-month to create your early detection plan. A mammogram saved my life. A mammogram may save yours.

Spring 2014 Blog Recap

(Microsoft, 2014)

“Foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy – Philadephia!!” from the musical 1776 sums up my current weather situation. So it’s nice to look back to Pennsylvania’s two memorable weeks of spring by gazing at the picture of this lovely daisy. And, of course, we’ll look back at Spring 2014 blogs (more than 2 weeks worth!). I am taking a break from blogging to enjoy the rest of the summer. Thanks for reading! Talk to you again in September!

REFERENCES

Microsoft. (2014). A yellow daisy [Digital Image]. Used with permission from Microsoft. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=spring&ex=1#ai:MP900448619|mt:2|

Cognitive Events and ApprenNet

(Microsoft, 2014)

In March there was a discussion of how ApprenNet (http://info.apprennet.com/) is a great tool for motivating learners, something that all learning professionals need to address. Today’s post is an infographic of how ApprenNet fulfills each cognitive presence events of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model described by Garrison, Anderson, & Archer (2000).  CoI events are listed in the blue tags ApprenNet functions are indicated by the red tags:

CogntiveApprenNet

REFERENCES

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Retrieved from http://communitiesofinquiry.com/sites/communityofinquiry.com/files/Critical_Inquiry_model.pdf

Microsoft. (2014). Puzzled people standing on a large question mark [Digital Image]. Used with permission from Microsoft. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=question&ex=1#ai:MP900390083|mt:2|

More images, less words

(Microsoft, 2014)

A recurring theme about images keeps coming up in conversation and sticking in my mind. This week, a colleague who attended a workshop shared about the fact that images play an important role in educational content. A few months ago, I attended a talk about social media trends were it was shared that images are fast becoming the new social media currency, not text. Look at the evolution of online education, computer mediated communication (that is posting threads similar to what you do on Facebook or email) appears as dated or antiquated while video chat is more 2014.

Otto Peters (2010) commented on our hunger for digital images: “We accept and even demand this type of visual support because the influence of television has greatly altered our visual habits” (p. 144).

So what can you do to bring the “audiovisual land of milk and honey” (Peters, 2010, p. 143) to your learning solutions?

Here are some thoughts to start your brainstorming:

  • In PowerPoint, use SmartArt to replace bullets points to better express concepts that include elements of direction or hierarchy
  • Add a small image to each page of an upcoming project
  • To introduce a new topic in the learning, use a page with relevant images to intrigue your audience rather than explicitly spelling out the topic
  • Check out the concept of PechaKucha of 20 images shared with 20 seconds of audio for each page at http://www.pechakucha.org/

The printed word will still be an important part of learning solutions. However, with awareness of the impact images can have and a willingness to try something new, we can deliver even more to our clients.

REFERENCES

Microsoft. (2014). Remote control pointing at TV [Digital Image]. Used with permission from Microsoft. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=tv&ex=1#ai:MP900442472|mt:2|

Peters, O. (2010). Digitized learning environments: New chances and opportunities. In O. Peters, Distance education in transition: Developments and issues Vol. 5 (5th edition, pp. 141-153) [Adobe Digital Edition]. Retrieved from Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg website: http://www.box.com/shared/ktx7ipccetotqrr11mct

Winter 2014 Blog Recap

It’s 60 degrees here in PA.  If you missed any of our winter blogs, check out this 5 minute Pecha Kucha to catch up.  Happy Spring!

REFERENCES

Microsoft. (2014). Winter [Digital Image]. Used with permission from Microsoft. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=winter&ex=1#ai:MP900425259|mt:2|

Learning and Doing?

(Microsoft, 2014)

This is a story from my husband, Dennis, that perfectly illustrates the learning-doing gap.  My husband was working as a janitor in the 1980s for medium sized printing press which is no longer in business.  Press operators would feed massive rolls of paper into the machines.  There were sharp blades coming down under high pressure to slice & dice massive quantities of paper that were whizzing through the press.  A lot of people would disable the safety devices, allowing them to put their hand on the plating allowing the machine an opportunity to sever off digits.  This was done in a false “Spirit of Efficiency.”

One day, Dennis was thrown on a printing press because he was another warm body and they needed to keep the printing press running while the trained press operator was rushed to the hospital to reattach his thumb.  The first thing that Dennis did was enable all the safety devices.  When a supervisor asked him why, Dennis held up his hand and wiggled his fingers and said, “Because I like these a lot.” He still has all four fingers and his thumbs because he respected the power of slicing and dicing machines.

With no other information, logic would suggest that Dennis would end up in the hospital while the trained press operator wouldn’t.  Yet, the trained operator was the one who cut his thumb off while my husband with no formal training, just by enabling the safety devices, kept his fingers.  Now, my husband did have informal training with slicers and other dangerous machinery during his earlier apprenticeship as a restauranteur.  However, both Dennis and his injured co-worker saw numerous other industrial accidents during their tenure at the same company (his co-worker was actually there longer than Dennis).

Why the learning-doing gap then?  Exposure from an early age about the dangers of slicing and dicing machines?  A larger quantity of exposure? An unhealthy absence of fear? An ego that that says “This couldn’t happen to me?!?”

REFERENCES

Microsoft. (2014). Bryce Canyon in Utah in winter [Digital Image]. Used with permission from Microsoft. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=canyon&ex=1#ai:MP900442251|

 

Motivating “Mistakes”

(Microsoft, 2014)

Have you ever learned from a mistake?  I sure have.  Now your learners can, too.

I was at the March PADLA meeting (http://www.padla.org//) this past week and saw an amazing product, ApprenNet (http://info.apprennet.com/).  The general method is Try It, Share It, Learn It.  In the Try It phase, the learner is presented with a challenge.  They record a video response.  In the Share It phase, they see responses from other learners and have an opportunity to comment.  Learners have an opportunity to “vote” on which cohort response was the best from a small pool of responses.  Finally, they Learn It, by watching a short tutorial or seeing an expert response.  A dashboard shows learners which responses the teacher thought were innovative in addition to those that got the most votes from learning peers.

The gating is excellent, the learner CANNOT skip around, they MUST Try It before they can Share It before they can deepen their learning.  This approach beats the heck out of didactic teaching and then having learners answer multiple guess…I mean… multiple choice questions.

Adults are motivated to devote energy to learn something to the extent that they perceive that it will help them perform tasks or deal with problems that they confront in their life situations.  Furthermore, they learn new knowledge understandings, skills, values, and attitudes most effectively when they are presented in the context of application to real-life situations (Knowles, 1984, p. 59)

If a teacher designs their exercises to reflect real-life situations, the illusive solution to learner motivation (which I feel can be more problematic even more in online environments) can be more than solved through the use of ApprenNet.

ApprenNet also helps set the learning climate.  When speaking of how to set the climate for learners, Knowles (1975) talks of how the teacher “respect[s] the experience and creativity you [the learner] bring to this inquiry” (p. 9).  The climate should also allow learners to “participate actively in this inquiry … raising questions about what I say and supplying your own answers” (Knowles, 1975, p. 10).   This is built into the DNA of ApprenNet in the Try It and Share It phases.

Learning theories other than Andragogy from the academy definitely support this approach.  A full discussion of this topic may be in an upcoming post.

If you can spare another 90 seconds, check out a customer testimonial.  Click http://info.apprennet.com/, scroll down until you see What People Are Saying.  Then click on the smiling woman in the center of the page.  Pay special attention to the end of the video where a grateful client verbalizes in her own words what distance, experiential learning is all about.  Motivating “Mistakes”, indeed!

REFERENCES

Knowles, M. (1975). Self-directed learning. New York, NY: Cambridge.

Knowles, M. (1984). The adult learner: A neglected species. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing Company.

Microsoft. (2014). Smiling young girl pointing to bandage on elbow [Digital Image]. Used with permission from Microsoft. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=bandage&ex=1#ai:MP900426458|mt:2|