Mindmaps: The Connections Between Us

Shared Reading-- And Other Important Life Lessons

This post is about reading, and while there are lots of technology tools to support learning to read, there is no substitute for the emotional warmth and intellectual comfort that comes from being read to. This post is about non-digital technology --  books -- and how they serve to develop the parent-child relationship, as well as help teach reading.  

Reading is a difficult skill to master, but like most of what children learn, they can figure it out if they are given half a chance.  Reading is a multi-year process.  When 5-year-olds begin school, they come  with very different experiences with books.  Some are close to independent reading after years of shared reading, others are  many years behind in their process of figuring out literacy.  Often this second group of children find reading difficult and when other students do not, they come to doubt their ability to learn.  This outcome can be avoided by beginning reading very early.   

One might wonder what sense a pre-literate infant makes of reading.  Let's view a 9 month old infant who has been engaged in shared reading with her parents for over 6 months.  Where is she in the process of learning to read?  Let's watch  one nightly reading session with her father.

  

Things to notice as you watch the tape:

• How do you think the infant's relatively new skill at sitting altered the reading process?
• Does she look intentional when she is choosing the book? Why is choice so important?
• Notice the eye gaze of the child.  From what direction do her eyes track?
• Does she anticipate page turning?
• Does she know when there is an expectation of interaction?
• Is she paying attention?
• What do you think she understands? 
• What happens when she makes a move to turn the page in the third story?  What does the father do? What does he say to her when she turns the page?  What happens when she doesn't turn the page?

These small actions make up a larger "going to bed" script. The infant is developing a sense of a pattern that starts with bath time and ends with bedtime. Reading is an everyday part of that sequence.  Now that she can sit, giving her choice of books is much easier. Every child wants to control their world. Children who lack a sense of control are more likely to throw tantrums at the times when parents most want compliance. One way to reduce the likelihood of tantrums is to work hard at giving children choice on small things.  In this case, the child gets to choose the order of the books she reads. She is learning to track from left to right along with her parents who often point at the page or direct her attention to things on the left side. 

Does she know the stories and is she really choosing a book or is she randomly picking up an object?  In this tape there is not enough evidence to know.  However, when her parents add a new book into the three choices, she almost always picks the new book.  This suggests some intentionality and choice.  

Notice that for some time before the infant turns a page, the father has been lifting the next page which helps the infant to anticipate what comes next. When she does reach up and turn the page in the third story you can hear the father thanking her for turning the page.  He quietly expressess  appreciation for her participation. After a few page turnings, she stops and he resumes saying he will take a turn in page turning. These are very subtle interactions but they say a great deal about the relationship that is developing.  He is not "training" his daughter by controlling the rewards and punishments-- he is engaging her in a shared activity in which he provides dynamic support for those parts that she cannot, at this point, do for herself.  But as she makes sense of the patterns and wants to play a larger role, he  moves back and lets her take over.

Eventually she will be doing a part of the storytelling and then finally the reading.  But what is so important about this example, as in many other acts of parenting, is that father and daughter are quietly negotiating control.  The father is readily giving her control over whatever part she signal she is ready to take on--choice of books, interactions with content, page turning.  As this process continues, not just in reading, but in all of the many shared activities of parenting, it will lead to a deeper and more satisfying relationship.   The "terrible twos" is not inevitable, but instead evolves when there is "delayed parental development." Parents who  use the skills that worked so well to care for a infant, on a toddler, will find that they lead to trouble when they try to do too much for the child.  A child is a moving target and has new demands for evolving ever increasing spheres of independence and control.  This example shows how shared reading works at this age, but each week the process will need to evolve with as child and parents develop. 

Peer Editing, Cloud Management, and Screencast Comments

source: bit.ly/x2pms8

Evidence suggest that peer tutoring benefits the tutor because thinking about how to teach content solidifies the knowledge. In a similar way, students editing  the work of others is one of the most efficient way I have seen of developing writing skills.   

I am going to share the technology we used to accomplish this as it  worked reasonable well for us, and others might find that thinking about it inspires them to think of a better way.  

We used a free cloud storage tool called Dropbox but you could use google drive or any other cloud storage application.  The layout and ease of dropbox made it a good tool for us.  

NOTE: I was working with adult students and they all gave their permission to have their work read by their peers.  We spent time building up the trust required for people to share their "in-process" thinking.  For more about building trust see Learning circles.  We were also working online as we were located in different cities. 

The students were working in learning circles with four to five students in a circle.  In learning circles, they were each engaged in action research projects but everyone in the circle was part of the design team. Each student had the responsibility of doing the writing  for the project they initiated. The circle had the group responsibility to make each project as successful as possible. Our shared dropbox had the name of the class, then each learning circle had a folder and students each had their folder in the circle folder.  Everyone could read the read the work of everyone else.

NOTE: I find that students often learn as much or more from comments on other people's papers then they do from comments on their own work. They are less defensive and can see the writing issues. By sharing their writing and reviewing, they increase their learning opportunities. 

Dropbox

    Class Name

        Learning Circle 1

              Student 1 Folder

              Student 2 Folder....

 Students placed their work in their folders.  We use common notation which helped

[Name of task][version#] [Initials of writer] [date of draft] for example:      

Litrev V1_MT_Mar4.docx

When it was reviewed initial of the reviewer were added after the date.  In our example, the filename will grow as members of the circle read the paper so that the document might soon be listed as:

Litrev V1_MT_Mar4-GT-RB-MR-AN.docx 

When comments were accepted or rejected and a new draft was ready, the initials of reviewers are removed and the document received a new version number and draft date.

 Lit rev V2 MT_Apr2.docx

We used the document review tools of MSWord  so that whatever changes or comments were added, they were easy to see and easy for the author to accept, reject or modify.  I would generally wait until a few students had added comments before I did my review. More thoughts on what type of review is most helpful can be found on CCAR. 

Once I have gone through and made my suggestions for changes, I then open Jing, a free screencast program that installs in the upper right corner of the computer. I push the plus and get cross-hairs which I place over the student's document and then I talk about changes as I scroll through the paper.  I might also comment on a student suggestion that seemed particularly helpful.

Talking through the document helps students as they hear my positive tone while suggesting  changes to improve the writing.  Students say they find my verbal comments more affirming than only viewing the document with all of the notations from track changes. The "Jing" screencast is limited to five minutes. However for longer papers (or for lots of verbal comments) I divide the review into sections and create more than one screencast.  When I finished talking, the images of the paper and my verbal comments are saved and I post them to the screencast server with a single click.  This takes a few minutes but then  the link is returned in the clipboard ready to be pasted at the top of the document.  This way all of the comments, both from track changes, and from talking about the changes, are in one place.

The students reread their papers with peer comments, and listen and read my review notes and then they are ready for draft two and the process is repeated. 

Students post messages in the class forums to alert the circle when a new document is posted for review. However to keep track of the class, I open all of the folders and look for dated drafts that do not have my initials after them. Then I can see how many drafts need feedback. (During heavy writing periods, I will use command-shift-4 on a MAC to make a printout of the directory and then number the drafts in the order I will review them.)  

Because the "master" version is on the web in "cloud" storage, students do not get confused with multiple copies of the same paper.  We are all working on the "master".  And there is some degree of safety as  dogs don't eat papers stored  in the cloud (smile). And dropbox makes copies.  Feel free to share the tools you use to organize this process. 

                                                  image from: http://thenewsdoctors.com/
  

 

 

Hickies - The Lacing Kind

So how much time do you really save never having to lace your shoes?  It may only be a few minutes but the real gain is not having to retie your shoes.  I hate having to stop at Zumba or running on a treadmill to tie laces that will not stay tied.  In fact, I was looking to replace the laces on my favorite workout shoes as they can even come untied when they are double knotted.  So I have to say that I am thrilled to have found a solution that works so well.  My shoes slip on but stay snug on my feet.  One small annoyance removed from my otherwise happy existence. 

 

 

I bought them at Brookstone where they carry all 16 colors but they charge you $20 ($5 off if you buy two packages).  We got 14 hickies  plus 2 in another color which was enough to connect 2 pairs of shoes.  Amazon also has them in all of the colors for $15.   If you are more traditional and just want the black and white or blue ones, I found that they are $15 at Grommets which I discovered has some other pretty cool gagets.  If you follow the link and buy them there, you will get $10 off your order so you can be throwing your laces away for few dollars a shoe.  

I am happy with the florescent green ones. And I love it that the inventors were just people like us --annoyed at tying shoes --but unlike most of us they solved the problem (instead of just complaining about it). Yea Maker Movement!

Related articles

ResearchGate-- Do we really need another social network?

It is with some reservation that I offer this post about ResearchGate. Like many of you, I suffer from Facebook, Google+, Linked-in, and Twitter fatigue.  They each want to be my number one place to spend time I don't have looking at pictures, posts and plays of my many "friends."  And while I will admit I sometimes enjoy the diversion, I feel amazing guilty that I do not fully participate in the lives of those I care about. 

But even with this weariness, I still find time for a small number of special purpose networks..  For example, GoodReads.com is a great place to record what I read and to get help from my friends for what to read next. And Ancestry.com is working to connect my family into one large community of relatives. I suspect you have your list of special pupose nets.

I am going to suggest one more for the research community-- ResearchGate. Researchers see books and papers are part of an ongoing knowledge-building conversation and ResearchGates wants to support that dialogue. Founded by physicians Dr. Ijad Madisch and Dr. Sören Hofmayer, and computer scientist Horst Fickenscher, the goal is provide a more tangible fluid academic community then that created by citations embedded in written work.   And unlike many other networks, the entry is painless. You sign in, share a image and the rest happens. 

 

The ResearchGate search engine grabs your name and goes looking. Soon you have lists of texts you have written some of which you might have forgotten about. If you claim the text, it appears under your list of publications-- no typing.  To develop the social network, you can  follow and be followed, ask academic questions and link up with those who cite your work or those whose work you cite.  

My online web office has long been in need of a new home but instead of doing this, I am working on getting resources posted on ResearchGate. I wish, though, that the informaiton page would allow you more characters to highlight what is important to you.  You get a short paragraph. I was looking for the more option and ability to say a bit more.  

ReearchGate suggest that II might be interested in the Q & A to "How do you teach graduate students to read and write?"  Maybe it was just a lucky guess but they were right. 

 

I participated in this slow motion discussion with people I don't know and enjoyed what I learned. And I like the idea that I don't have to remain a part of this group. (Or feel any guilt if I never return).  

And like Ancestry.com they entice you back by telling you they may have found somthing else you wrote. Or they found a online source for a paper.  But I do find it odd that you don't seem to be able to generate a citation from a listing.  It seems like this is a simple thing that would help as you review articles.  

On the publication page and half way down on the right side, you are asked to put in authors or titles for an "advanced search.  No matter what you type, it takes you to a place called Publication Search  where you can upload an absract and get recommendations of journals and find other articles that were similar to a pasted abstract.  It is an interesting way to search but the way into it is odd and dysfuctional (and took me time to find again). But is extremely helpful to see a list of possible journals by keywords. 

While ResearchGate  has been around since 2008, the recent infusion of 35 million dollars of startup money from Bill Gates and the recent winning of the 2014  "Digital Innovation of the Year"  award from Focus magazine have increased the size and resources of the network. I suspect that with more funding, it will will be more funcational and I am hopeful that  ResearchGate  will become an important place to build knowledge together. 

Smart Technology we don't talk about...

Fair warning: this blog is about things not generally talked about in polite company. But it scores as my favorite tech purchase of 2012. 

My definition of technology is very wide. Technology is shared minds made visible. This includes all cultural artifacts—everything that humans have created, as each creation generates the next. For example a warm water shower represents generations of problem solving.  Last year on a trip to Japan I encountered some toilet tech that is almost as essential as the shower. So this blog is about the toilet tech.

In Japan the “washing toilet seat” was found everywhere--in our hotel room, in the restrooms of restaurants and even in the toilets on trains. The Japanese apparently expect their toilets to have smart seats. When I raised this topic with my university colleague, she suggested we use the facilities in the medical school.

The space fit my normal scheme for a public restroom: white tiles, small cubicles and a sink with automated water flow. But when I opened the door to the cubicle, some serious accommodation to my schema was necessary. The door movement “caused” classical music to play, which is there to mask any noise that might not be concert worthy. The closed toilet seat cover slowly lifts inviting you to take a seat. As skin contact is made, there is a rush of warmth as you settle into the experience. When you are ready, there is a flight deck of buttons to push that will provide warm water targeted to where you desire with the force and warmth you select. Once clean, there is a burst of warm air that has been lightly scented to complete the experience. You stand and the toilet flushes and the lid quietly closes.

When I got home and stared at my dumb seat, I knew it would not work for me any more.  I was pleasantly surprised to find on the internet a large selection of smarter toilet seats with costs that ranged from less than $100 (non-electric) to more money than a whole new toilet should cost. After careful comparison of features vs. cost, I settled on the IntelliSeat as it had the best mix of features for what I came to see as a very reasonable price. And I could tell from the diagram that it would fit my toilet. (You also have to factor in the cost of bringing electricity to the back of the toilet, not a place you normally find an outlet). Installation was easy.  It has been almost a year and mine, and the one I bought for my parent,  has worked flawlessly and my aging parents could both master the remote with some help. It doesn’t play classical music and I have to raise and lower the seat myself, but the mini-showers should be up there in the list of very smart inventions. 

 

Goodreads

Recently  columnist  Danny Heitman, was interviewd on Here and Now, an NPR program.  He was talking about the loss of a lovely librarian aunt at 94. He enjoyed reviewing and receiving some of her many books. The books, he said were a bit of her "intellectual DNA."   He went on to complain that ebooks do not pass anything tangible on when we die.  He expressed a concern about the loss of something very precious.

As I listened to the Heitman interview, I reflected on a recent session I had exloring GOODREADS.  It is yet another social netowrk----that helps you interact with friends around the books they read and what they think of them.  I don't know if this is --tapping into their "intellectual DNA"- but it is an interesting way to relate to friends.  I can see what people I care about have read, are reading, and want to read. And I could read which books they liked and why.  It is a different way to know a person.

It is not easy to find the link that lets you compare books with friends, in fact, it is not easy to find your list of friends. It was not surprising to find that my reading buddy and I have a 91% overlap in ratings of the books that we have in common.  We have been trading reading recommendations for a number of years.  These exchanges have taken place in email and are often hard to find when I need to order the next book.  Now I can not only follow what he reads but look through what many others are reading and see where there is overlap.  

One of the things that I discovered  that I did not know was that one of my sisters (I have 4) rates book in almost the same way that I do (95% overlap).  This has helped me find some more great reads as I confident that any book she rates with 5 stars, I will like.  And it made me a feel a bit closer to her to discover that we like the same books. 

And I find it interesting that other friends who have read large numbers of books hardly have any that overlap with ones that I read. 

Sharing reading expereinces on GOODREADS is oddly private and social at the same time. I can quietly go and see what is on the book shelves of lots of people I know.  And I can see what they say about books that I have either liked or passed over. This intrigues me as I constrantly reflect on why I read a book.  Why do I enjoy some stories and not others?  What directs me to read what I do read?  What do I want from a book or story?  When I look at what other choose to read, and in face my own list of over time,  it helps me see patterns that I might not otherwise see. Of course this comes at a cost...I give up some information about myself when I share both what I read and what I think of the books with friends. 

But to return to the NPR story,  I  think services like GOODREADS are an answer to the wistful comments like the ones that Heitman and others often make when "tools shift." As  mediums change, we lose some opportunities while others open up.  While Heitman is worried that with e-book we will lose the ability to inherit treasured books, I am grateful that with tools that come with e-reading, I don't have to wait til my friends are gone to enjoy sharing their intellectual DNA. 

Tablets and Keyboards

Tablet for Seniors

When my Dad had a stroke and could  not manage his keyboard and computer, I thought a ipad tablet would be perfect for him.  But I was wrong. It was so frustrating that I had to take it away.  He would want to hold it and when he did the screen would shift it, he would point to things to talk about them, and the image would disappear. The commands were not clear and  so many things happen when he let his fingers rested on the screen. It was not fun for him.  

Recently we tried again this time with my Mom who has never really mastered the computer. But this time my sister found a solution that worked.  It is a touch screen tablet designed for seniors called Telikin  that is set up like a computer.  

It is super simple with clear buttons and functions that fit the needs of a seniors who might be getting their first computer, or losing their memory or eyesight.  My mother loves it.  She finds it much easier than the phon.  It draws photos directly from facebook she makes it easy for the rest of the family to keep her in the loop when posting to facebook.  Too bad we were not able to use it with my Dad, it might have made his last months more pleasant. 

Keyboards...

And finally, a solution to typing on a an ipad. The value of the ipad is it's size, adding a bulky keyboard defeats the purpose.  When I saw the projected magic cube keyboard, I thought I found the solution, but unfortunately, it was hard to position it in a way that worked for me.  And my fingers longed for the tactile sense of a keyboard.  So when I saw the ad for a transparant Touchfire membrane keyboard, I was hopeful and willing to take a risk.

   

And I liked that it was funded by kickstarter, a way for people to fund the development of good ideas.   And I am happy to report that I found it to be just want I was looking for.  I can see through it, or flip it up with small magnets and it attaches to the folding Apple ipad cover.  It is small enough to move out of the way, but easy enough to use.  So I am happy to have my really portable keyboard. 

 

 

Learning Circles-- Innovative Form of Collaboration

I was recently asked to write a blog on learning circles for MicroSoft's Partners in Learning.  I am going to include some of that blog  here.  I have been involved with learning circles for most of my career.  I started with learning circles for organizing cross-classroom collaboration in the 80's as networking was just beginning to be possible.  Jim Levin had figured out that a military network, The Source, could be used during the night hours at a relatively low rate.  So this was our first network of computers.  We started connecting classrooms where we had research colleagues.  So Naomi Miyaki connected us with a classroom in Japan, Moshe Cohen had connections in Israel, Ron Scollins knew about networked classrooms in Alaska and we found some connections to classrooms across the border in Tia Juana and Mexico City.  It was during this initial project - The Intercultural Learning Network- that the ideas for learning circles emerged. I have since used learning circles in many different contexts.  IEARN Global Learning Circles and Global Teenager Progject connects primary and secondary classrooms around the world, Jim Skelly connects collage studens in global conversations with learning circles and I use learning circles to connect researchers as they conduct their studies. So here is a brief overview of learning circles. 

 

So here is the first of a series of blogs that will focus on learning circles…

The Online Learning Circles Model is an innovative structure for group collaboration. Online Learning Circles are being used effectively in cross-classroom collaborations by many thousands of students around the world at all levels from primary to graduate school. This short video draws a contrast between two approaches to group work: committee teamwork and facilitated small group process. In committee teamwork, a task is divided among participants each doing a part of the work. In facilitated small group process, the leader collects different perspectives and summarizes to create the report. This contrast is used to show how learning circles combine these two approaches to maximize strengths while minimizing drawbacks. The result creates a form of collaboration based on distributed leadership.

 

This online learning circle model has six dimensions.

• Diversity of participants
• Centrality of project-based work sponsored by participants
• Distributed leadership and collective responsibility for projects
• Phase structure for interaction from opening to closing the circle
• Knowledge building dialogue
• Final group shared product

The goal of learning circles is to bring together people or classrooms with a wide variance in perspectives around a theme-based inquiry. Learning circles participants include whole classes in cross-classroom collaborations and individual learners in university and professional development learning circles. In each learning circle, participants sponsor projects around a theme. The circle projects are participant-lead through a process of distributed leadership. Learning circle interaction proceeds through a set of phases from opening to closing. The outcome of knowledge building dialogue leads to a shared product.

The norms and expectations, the implicit rules that guide learning circle interaction are trust, respect, flexible thinking, responsibility and reciprocity. It is important to design activities that surface issues that result in norm setting by the group.

In future blogs, I will describe how learning circles are organizing learning in different virtual learning environments from primary to university graduate classrooms.

Tracking the Cycles of Life

Time is divided into cycles that are exist beyond us, the spinning of the earth the path of the moon and the planet's path around the sun. But there are are also personal cycles.  A birthday is a personal marker of the passage of a yearly cycle, we have individual sleep, work and activity cycles.  Technology has helped us track a number of cycles and that is the topic of this blog. 

SLEEP CYCLES

I will start with one my favorite  phone apps called Sleep Cycles by Maciek Drejak Labs. For 99 cents you can learn a good deal about what goes on when you are alseep. 

My interests in sleep cycles stems from my college years where one way to earn money was sleeping in the Dream Lab.  My head covered with electrodes and wires, I would sleep while complex machines tracking my patterns.  It was this experience where I learned that we sleep in cycles, normatively of about an hour and half.   We move from awake to light sleep moving gradually to a deep sleep with very little movement  where when the body repairs and regenerates tissues, builds bone and muscle, and overall strengthen the bodies ability to deal with challenges.  Following deep sleep, there is more restless cycle of Rapid Eye Movement or REM sleep where the person experiences dreaming.  And then we start over again with light sleep on the way to another cycle of deep sleeping.  If you are waken during a REM period you will remember your dream. If you wake up during the light phases that begin and end a cycle, you will be rested.  However if you wake during a deep sleep, you will feel miserablely sleep-deprived all day.  If you have regular hours in the same time zone, your body is pretty good at figuring how to adjust your sleep cycles to the hours of sleep you have.  But if your time comittments vary, now your smart phone can help you. 

Sleep cycles is a smart alarm that will track your sleep cycles and help wake you when you are in a light sleep.  You give the program a time range (30 minutes before you need to be up works well) and you will be waken in the lightest period of sleep during this period. This is vital when you change time zones.  But aside from the alarm function, I look forward to seeing a picture of how I slept each night.  At night my phone sits off the edge of the bed tracking my movement.  In the morning I judge my sense of my quality of sleep and then see what the phone app thinks of my night of rest.  You can also keep sleep notes to help connect activities and eating patterns to sleep cyles. I am begining to understand more about my particular sleep cycles-- which vary widely each night.

Tracking Cycles of Daily Activity

Another tech toy for tracking cycles of activity is the FitBIT-- which by the way is going to be my birthday present. Here you wear a small device that tracks your activity day and night.  And like the sleep cycles will send data to your computer to track your progress.  But more than just track your cycles of activity and nonactivity it will share this infomation with your friends so you can compete to climb the most stairs or take the more steps.  I have been trying to complete with my daugher with problem soving games that rely on speed of processing. Try as I might, my older mind is not as nimble as hers and no amount of hours seem to erase the effect of age.  However, I might be able to more active than her--  or at least I can try.

 

LIFE CYCLES--Timeliners... 

Larger cycles of life..the stages of one's life might be tracked on a time line software  and there are number of programs for creating timelines.  Microsoft word has a time line template for the PC, but I could not find one for the Mac.  I made a quick timeline called A Century Cycle on xtimeline --a free text based timeline program.  I am planning on a 100 years of life and my DNA  says I have a better than average shot at long life. 

Then for comparison, I put the same information in Tiki Toki  and made this timeline. 

The point was really to mark a personal transition for me.  I am transitioning from parenting & working to retiring& parent care.  (And, hopefully I will be adding the  role of grandparenting soonl.

I have been supporting new action researchers through cycles of research at Pepperdine University for over a decade.  It is my hope that the students I have taught will continue to learn through these cycles of personal, professional and scholarly innovations.  But I will be ending my formal role in supporting these efforts when I retire in July 2013. I do however plan to continue to be active in writing and supporing  Learning Circles and in developing organizations  that support action research (Center for Collaborative Action Research, Action Research Network of the Americas, and American Education Reseach Association Action Reserach Special Interest Group.  These are structure that support personal cycles of change. 

 

Trends- Political and Technical

My son shared this link of this representation of the history of political ideology. I think it is important to see the differences of our two party system over time. It seem that over time, there is movement to correct the imbalance that happens when on party moves too away from the center. I really enjoyed this one page history of our nation. It is too large to include certainly worth exploring. 

http://xkcd.com/1127/large/

 

Another interesting view for educational trends is show in graphic design.