Digital Game-Based Problem Solving

College students may greatly benefit from the use of digital game-based problem solving to break the monotony of instructional activities that threaten student engagement in online courses. Many online courses limit student agency to activities that involve reading the course text, participating in a discussion, taking an objective test, and submitting formal and informal papers. The tedium of these activities does not sustain student engagement over the duration of the online course; however, digital game-based problem solving has demonstrated that the routine nature of activities in an online course can be overcome. One strategy that digital game-based problem solving employs to break the monotony of tasks in online courses is to engage students in real-world problem scenarios where the students have a virtual presence and are a charge to solve one or more complex problems. The scenarios compel students to work together, as deriving a viable solution to the problem is directly tied to the student’s capacity to work together.

Another strategy that digital game-based problem solving employs to reduce the monotony experienced by learners in an online is the delivery of frequent and rapid learner feedback. Providing students just-in-time feedback allows students to make informed decisions when altering their learning approaches, particularly when using prior learning approaches that have been shown to be ineffective. Such feedback is not typically available in the vast majority of contemporary online courses but could potentially have a dramatic impact on student engagement since students do not have to wait a significant amount of time to receive feedback. Learning situations where students have to wait for feedback typically has an adverse affect on student engagement.

Providing learners the capacity to customize their environment is a third strategy that digital game-based problem solving uses to minimize the routine nature of common student tasks in an online course. Customization allows the students to make decisions about their learning environment, unlike the typical online course. Students can select a persona, clothing, an environment, and weapons.

Digital game-based problem solving looks quite promising for college students, but educator adoption of this novel framework, like most innovations, will take time.

I would like to suggest a new motto for distance learning: "It goes as it flows."

Now someone who knows state mottos might very well accuse me of plagiarizing New Mexico's motto ("Crescit Eundo"... "It Grows as it goes."), but I would say that such a person doesn't have enough to do on his hands.

By "flow" I'm not referring to streams and rivers but to psychological experiences in connection with distance learning. In the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, author Li-Ting Huang describes "flow" as a person's total involvement and focused attention on something. During which there is no self-consciousness but one is in full control of her own actions. And also during "flow", one does not notice the passage of time.

In other words, time flies while you're having fun.

Huang suggests that achieving "flow" is a worthy goal for designers of distance learning, and it is accomplished through creating experiences that are colorful, vivid, and contain some attractive multimedia presentation. That experience could simply be reading content, such as this, or it could be engaging others in online discussions, or in collaborative initiatives.

When the topic is "multimedia" that could mean just about anything that isn't simply text. Multimedia could arguably involve the inclusion of images, animations, interactive games or assessments, video clips, and even virtual 3D environments, I suppose.

It does indeed include synchronous forms of distance education, such as webinars or web-conferencing, and it does indeed include something that is daunting for some: your video image.

It's not easy to be in front of a camera. Most people I know don't like it, and shun any attempt to appear before the lens. But conversely, most people I know who see the video image of an instructor like it. Does on-camera content do anything for learning? There are some initial findings in research on synchronous distance education that throw doubt on the question. In Taylor's study (2011), many of those surveyed felt uncomfortable with not being able to make eye contact in one-to-one video communications; or surprisingly to me, not being able to read non-verbal expressions. That could be a result of herky-jerky video images caused by low-quality bandwidth, as well as the awkward experience of looking at a camera lens to simulate eye contact. Still, Taylor did note that video conferencing could be a cost-effective alternative to face-to-face discussions and long distance travel.

There are some way-out solutions being offered to improve the awkwardness of one-on-one video communication. (See "VGo" at http://youtu.be/_7JMVEcqieo).

But, being in front of a camera doesn't necessarily mean doing so in a webinar. You can record video clips for availability on-demand, or asynchronous forms of distance learning.

Whatever you do, with video or without video, the main thing is to create a sense of presence, or "telepresence". The definition of that word, varies, but I like the one that Huang uses "a feeling of connectedness and social belonging".

It will no doubt improve the flow of distance education, especially for learners.

Therefore, Incedo cum flumen. ("It goes as it flows"). That's the best translation I can come up with from an online latin dictionary.

Works Cited

Huang, L.-T. e. (2011). A Comparative Study on the Flow Experience in Web-Based and Text-Based Interaction Environments. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking , 14 (1/2), 3-11.

Taylor, T. (2011, Jul). Video conferencing vs talking face-to-face: is video suitable for supportive dialogue? International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation , 392-403.

Below is a video version of this blog, recorded and produced with Adobe Audio Visual Communicator. (Let me know what you think!)

Pinterest Caught My Interest...

The internet is nothing if not a plethora of information. If you want to know something, you go to the internet – it has become our very own, INFORMATION DESK. Well, the net is a big place and full of good as well as mundane knowledge. Sifting through it all can be time consuming and uninteresting. In this case, more individualized topics, like Food and Drink, or Home and Furniture, Kids, Tech, Apparel… can be found on a cool new bulletin board “pinning” site.

It’s my new obsession called Pinterest

Once registered to this magnificent site, which either has to be done as an invitation from a present user, or a request from you, you have the ability to “pin” things on this virtual bulletin board that interest you.  Of course, you can peruse and share other’s interests as well. It's a great way to interact with your friends, and their interests too.  This is a very visual product, and the colors and information just pop out at you. Never again will surfing the net be a boring task. Referring back to this information is easy, be it for a recipe or idea. 

This site has been recognized by TIME Magazine as one of the 50 Best Sites of 2011. Find out more about Pinterest, and read why Pinterest Appeals to Online Collectors.

Online Education May Transform Higher Ed

Can online education be the rock that disturbs the placid waters of American higher education? Several industry experts believe it will have a significant ripple effect on colleges and universities of all sizes in coming years—but only if it's subject to regulation, governed by a common set of accreditation standards, and widely accepted by institutions who have long clung to the traditional face-to-face model of instruction. More ->>

Running Out of Coolness?

Are our leading manufacturers of digital products simply running out of coolness? Some of the upcoming products for 2012 do not appear to be overly impressive. HP recently generated drawings of a razor thin laptop with a virtual keyboard. Now, anything that HP wants to do to improve the virtual keyboard would be welcomed with open arms, but someone needs to inform HP that razor thin laptops with virtual keyboards have been in use for a while. A second product to be released in 2012 is a watch that functions as a wireless hub, allowing laptops, tablets, and androids to talk to one another for the purpose of sharing information. It seems that the tools provided by Google would suffice for information sharing. This product doesn’t seem very intuitive, as individuals are forced to learn a new way of sharing information. The watch is also very unattractive. It is not clear what problem was solved by creating such a product.

The Media Mat represents a third product that will be released in 2012. This product is a screen that functions like an incomplete Apple iPad, rolling up like paper. Reviews on this item suggest images appear in grayscale, and the product has a slow refresh rate. It is difficult to determine why a roll-up mobile computer is needed.

Sometimes, it appears that our manufacturers of digital products are trying to quickly generate products for the marketplace without consideration of the problems that end users face. Such disregard for customer needs will likely make some great companies appear to be marginal. Over the years, our digital gods have produced some great products, but, at the time, it seems they are running out of coolness.

Free Online Media and Storage

I am an educator who loves to put different forms of media in my content. I also love storage space that's accessible and convenient. And because I'm an educator I need to do it on the cheap, budgets being what they are these days (virtually nonexistent).

The near revolutionary growth of free Web-based tools makes it possible as I will describe, by focusing on two free tools: Jing, and Dropbox.

Jing, by its name alone, doesn't tell you much about what it does. Basically, it's a screen capture tool that records both still images and animations and stores them "in the cloud" at screencast.com, which gives you two gigabytes of free storage space. Jing is available at www.techsmith.com/jing as a free download. It installs in a few moments and places itself on your computer screen at the top in the shape of a semi-transparent gold-and-yellow half circle. Move your mouse over the circle, and it exposes a few simple options:



Upon clicking capture, Jing exposes a cross-hair style cursor which you can use to trace a rectangle around a portion of the screen you want to capture, or a whole window. The animation below shows you the process of capturing a portion of the USF home page.

Once captured, you can save the image or a SWF (Flash) video animation, save it to your account at screencast.com, or save it to the other free cloud storage solution I want to discuss: Dropbox.

Go to dropbox.com and you can sign up for 2 gigabytes of free storage space, provided by an application you download that creates a folder on your computer, which looks like just about any other folder you have except that it is characterized with a little green checkmark type icon next to each item in the folder.

The beauty of dropbox is that you can download the app to two or more computers. I have dropbox on two office computers and on my home computer. And with that capability I can upload a document (e.g., a spreadsheet) to my dropbox folder on my work computer, and have it instantly accessible from the dropbox folder on my home computer.

For a nominal fee you can increase your storage space to 50 gigabytes or more, but with the free account you get 2 gigabytes.

One benefit of this is freedom from the flash drive (a/k/a "thumb" drive or "jump" drive). I know the flash drive has been a tremendous convenience for making files portable, but they are prone to carrying infections (viruses), and I've grown wary of them. I have had no such issues with Dropbox, but don't take my word for it. Run your virus protection software against it and see for yourself.

There is but one caveat I have with any free service you get from the web, and that is decline the option to have the program run on startup. Keep that checkbox unselected (see example below).

In other words do not launch on startup. Having too many programs active on startup creates too much memory overhead that slows down your computer. Just run the program(s) when you need them.

By the way, all of the media you've seen on this blog post have been created with the tools that I've described, except the last one.

Shopping for Good Deals for the Holidays -
It’s Never Too Early to Begin!

I know, I know,  it’s only the beginning of November and already we are talking “Holiday Season”. I’m not trying to rush you – I’m trying to help you get some good deals – and plan ahead. The one site I love is Black Friday Ads.  This website  plans for the “big day” – no, not Christmas, but Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which is the busiest shopping day of the year!

This site not only lists each store and what specials they will have on Black Friday, but they have the scans of the ads too, in a .pdf format, so it's just as if the original ad is in your  hands. For example, as of this morning, J.C. Penney, Kohls, and Toys R Us are already listed there, just to name a few. By posting these ads so far in advance, it gives you time to plan and price shop so you know ahead of time if you are getting the deal of the century.

 It wasn’t that long ago that people waited many hours outside in the cold, damp, early morning hours for a store to open to get the great “deals” that were only available that day. Well, some people still do that – but me? I’m at my computer at midnight on Thanksgiving, picking up all of the things that some people, already frozen, lining up in front of the stores, are waiting for. And let's not even discuss the insurmountable crowds! Me, my hot chocolate and a computer; won't you join me?  Christmas shopping doesn’t get any better than this…and to all a goodnight!

Top Five Education Innovation Trends for 2011 and 2012

The Gilfus Education Group announced its annual predictions, foreshadowing emerging concepts for encompassing information technology and digital content throughout academic and administrative education applications. More ->>

The Biggest Loser

The reluctance of postsecondary faculty to embrace nontraditional methods of instruction does college students a great disservice. This perspective is particularly evident in the employer expectation that` new workplace entrants should be able to solve emergent and existing problems that may be specific or nonspecific to a particular field. Such an expectation is unlikely to be met among contemporary college students, as the vast majority of students in postsecondary institutions are not engaged in routine collaboration or problem solving. Students are more likely to passively listen to the dissemination of an enormous amount of information that, according to our scientists, the human brain cannot process during class time. Effective communication skills are another employer requirement for new workplace entrants. Students who are entering the workplace must be able to communicate efficaciously in written and oral formats to solve problems and engage in effectual collaboration. The contemporary workplace where worker practices involve the generation, application, and dissemination of information can easily become chaotic and inefficient if workers cannot communicate effectively. A continuation of traditional instructional practices in the postsecondary classroom does not address the need for effective worker communication in the contemporary workplace. Meeting the goal for efficacious communication skills among new workplace entrants demands that students are afforded opportunities for thoughtful interactions with peers across academic settings. Many students are not afforded such opportunities and, consequently, have few conversations about the course material they are learning in class. When such conversations do not occur, students miss valuable opportunities for deep learning. Self-directedness is a third expectation that employers have for new workplace entrants. Workers must be able to set goals for learning and select processes and materials to progress toward those goals. The modern classroom does not prepare students for such goal-oriented behavior. Course goals are most likely to be selected by the course instructor. In some cases, students may be vaguely familiar with the course goals and work toward the fulfillment of course goals with ineffective approaches. If the postsecondary classroom is not meeting the needs of the modern college student, who is the biggest loser?

What’s a Widget?

Have you ever heard the word “widget” and wonder what people are talking about? The dictionary definition of widget is “a small mechanical device, as a knob or switch”. And so it is in the world of computers. A widget is a small “switch” that sits on the desktop of your computer and performs an action for you. For instance, a favorite widget of mine, sitting on my desktop, is an electronic version of the Post-It Note. These can do everything a real post it note can do, but on your computer. I find this to be a product I can’t live without.

But there are many more widgets than these available, thousands actually. Some examples are calendars, clocks, communication, fun, games, and utilities.

See for yourself at Yahoo Widgets and find some that will make your life easier...or just more fun.

9 Ideas for Managing Files and Folders

The tips in this article can help you master file management by supplying some tips to help you better manage and organize computer files. After you’ve decided on a strategy for organizing and managing files and folders, we bet you’ll see improved time management skills and increased productivity. More->>

The Catch 22 in Mobile Learning

The rapid and pervasive implementation of mobile learning in institutions of higher learning may undermine our efforts to determine highly-effective strategies for using technology to support learning. Mobile learning, commonly referred to as “M-learning,” allows learners to combine the attributes of multiple learning contexts into a single session where learners engage in thoughtful agency with their peers. The learning environments are usually connected through smartphone technology, notebooks, and tablets, allowing learners to communicate with peers, manipulate data, and share contextualized observations with learners at remote locations.

M-learning environments move learners beyond the confines of conventional learning venues that feature lecture as the predominant form of instruction. These environments, unlike traditional classrooms, engage learners and challenge the learners to demonstrate their understandings of the phenomena presented in their coursework. The primary concern with M-learning is the rapid migration of individuals and organizations to new mobile learning devices. The hasty gravitation of individuals and organizations toward new mobile devices such as smartphones might result in an abandonment of mobile devices such as computer notebooks and tablets. These devices have been in existence for several years, yet computer notebooks and tablets are in their infancy when one considers the limited established knowledge available on how to use such mobile devices in learning environments effectively.

Abandoning these technologies prematurely might mean that a limited amount of scholarship is being generated to support the generative efforts of different types of organizations that seek to enhance learning among students. This trend is particularly troubling when considering the rapid pace of development of new technologies that are abandoned before sufficient scholarship is generated. Institutions of learning must be diligent in expanding scholarship on existing and new technologies, particularly when the technologies have not reached obsolescence.