Poseur vs. Impostor syndrom

s1690803/ / Answering comments, Ideas and thoughts, Is that the future?

Thanks for transforming my impostor syndrome to something interesting and worthy to connect with the programme! , I have been thinking about your comment on my “In a rush!” post.

“Perhaps it’s a feature of online and predominantly asynchronous learning, however, I wonder whether it is easier to get the feeling that everyone is more productive? Is it may be the case that you’ll notice other members of the group who are posting more regularly, but without knowing what is happening in their blogs or whether they have circumstances that particularly allow them to do more reading, and so on?”

I made this picture half an hour ago, that is the reality of the majority of the time I am checking the platform. Online user: me and myself! Sometimes there are a couple of people, but I have never interacted. I never thought of opening a direct message and say “hi, how are you doing?” Maybe because the functionality is one to one? It could be cool to have an open general chat where you can comment without sending a direct message?. If we were sharing a physical space I would say something for sure, at least waving everyone being in the space. I cannot imagine myself entering a class or study room and don’t say hello to my classmates. I am sure that we would have started a conversation about the readings, the activities and maybe some personal topic. Is this expected on online learning? Is this something cultural? The fact that we are a cohort based around the world make this interaction more difficult?
“Maybe in the physical campus, it would become apparent through corridor conversation that, in fact, lots of people are in the same position as ourselves? You’ve made me wonder whether there is any existing research around this – the idea that online we are more inclined to inflate or be intimidated by the output or energy of our peers? Fascinating!”Thanks again, what I am finding fascinating the capacity you have to see the potential of a paragraph I wrote when I was tired and overwhelmed after a long week! Maybe you made me see a great example of what a teacher can do and not a simple facilitator ;).

After your comment, I did a quick search about the topic, very quick! I end up finding many articles that talk about the impact of social media in the perception/satisfaction of the students.  I feel this could answer some of the questions are formulated. When I read your comment I connected the context and feeling with something it is a hot topic now: the impact of the social media and how it seems that we live in the era of poseur culture. So, maybe these articles could give us some clues? Saddly, I was not able to read many, because were not free (also, lack of time!) and I got stuck in the abstract. Find some examples underneath.

Overall, what I have seen is that studies talk about the benefits of using social media, and how this improve engagement and communication among students.  Here, though, we can read the summury of the authors and they conclude that: The study finds that: (1) perceived usefulness of social media has positive effect on the use of social media in student learning; (2) perceived risk of using social media discourages the use of the tool, and (3) SMU has positive effect on student satisfaction.

Without reading the full article, I suspect the authors found out that the students are afraid to use social media in terms that usually this expose to much of their personal life, maybe something they don’t want to share and want to keep it private because they are more aware of the consequences?. Maybe we are having a generation of students really aware of the importance of projecting themselves in one direction when they are using social media, or when interacting in a digital environment. Actually, I found some articles, like this one that highlights the idea that “Socially, millennials are indeed more risk-averse than older Americans, perhaps because of the reputation-damaging potential of social media.” Everyday, there are more studies that show the difference between the lack of risks taken by new generation compared with older ones. Also, what are the impact of insatisfaction, lack of realism and depression because of the use of social media. Can this be translated to online learning platforms?

The fact that we have students (and I include myself here) that grow up socialising and having a concrete realitionship with social media, (again, poseur culture, influencers, and all he superficiality that involves social media) maybe we are having the same actitud when we are learning online. Exposing only what we want to show and never show the complete picture…

Is this something that can be prevented? how? the teacher has a responsibility here? (if we narrow our questions to higher education)… Many questions a no answers…. yet!

I love this Ig account, showing all the strategis that advertising and social media use to modify reality and show something that is difficult to achieve!

 

 

 

 

 

References

  • Mahdiuon, R., Salimi, R. and Raeisy, L (2019). Effect of social media on academic engagement and perfomance: Perspective of graduate students. Link here.
  • Waleed Mugahe AL-Rahmi and Mohd Shahizan Othman (2013) Evaluating student’s satisfaction using social media through collaborative learning in higher education. Link here.

 

Bot protype – The cheatBot

s1690803/ / Weekly task

As you read in my last post I was debating myself about what kind of bot would “build”. After some thoughts, I have decided to go for the grammar helper  – The cheatBot. I have to confess that I would like to have had a much better idea, more original, but this is what I have :).

I am currently not teaching, and my last job was as a Spanish teacher as a second language, so I used this experience to get inspired and thinking about what I would have liked to have at my disposal when I was teaching. The context then is a bot that would be used by adults, particularly professional adults that are studying Spanish for their personal life or to work. All of them feel comfortable using technology and have smartphones. Class is small, no more than 15 students and all of them are quite motivated to learn (ideal class!), however, classes are late in the day, after their work and the class needs to be dynamic, useful and playful in order to get their attention.

The bot I am imaging would solve small questions about Spanish grammar. For example, when a student gets stuck expressing (oral or writing) a sentence because doesn’t know if a verb is regular or irregular. Or maybe the student wants to check the conjugation of a specific verb. Maybe wants some examples of how the conjugation is being used or wants a quick evaluation of a sentence that they have produced. The bot will give a quick answer and the student will not have the need to ask the question to the general class. Obviously, the chatbot can be used when the student is by themself.

The impact in the role’s teacher is that the class can be focused on general matters, and not specific and individual questions. That way, the teacher can spend the time in class in group activities that involve conversations or listenings. The teacher is able to invest time answering a more complex question. Solving problems that require a further explanation that just a grammar check. (I am imagining explaining the different cases of irregular verbs, or why in Spanish we have to verbs to express “to be”).  That way, the student can solve easy/quick questions with the bot and prioritise the class to solve difficult challenges.

I understand that the student can get this piece of information from different resources, a grammar book, or asking Google directly. However, by using the specific bot that teacher has created (or at least helped to design and create) students and teacher are also having contact. By using this bot the teacher guaranteed the veracity and reliability of the resource that student is checking, and if there is an error/mistake we could say that is “teacher’s fault”. As a student, sometimes, we get lost in the vastness of the internet. There is so much information and resources to check that one can get lost. having this chatbot a student can feel secure that the answer is verified and curated by the teacher and they can rely on it. Teacher and students must trust in it and probably here is where we see the ethical implications. It is necessary to establishing transparency in the bot’s purpose.

Thoughts about my bot

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Trying tools, Weekly task

I have spent too much time deciding what kind of bot I would like to prototype. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was considering different ideas (FQA, math problems, grammar helper…). I realized that I was considering two types of bots, based on two different approaches.

One scenario would be “building” ca bot similar to the ones we have checked on Twitter. These kinds of bots don’t have a real bidirectional interaction. These bots are based on a code that tweets something every X time. For example, the one I talked about in the other post from the museum. We can see how this kind of bots are exposing a topic, publishing tweets with a concrete topic and there is no interaction with people that reads it. The majority of bots we have found as a class are in that direction, probably because the Twitter platform stimulates this particular use of bots.

Considering this approach, I liked the idea of having a bot that tweets problems that students would solve. Maybe instead of mathematical problems itself, the bot would tweet riddles where the knowledge of mathematics is needed, to make it more playful and nicer than a typical mathematical problem. Students could check the message – riddle and use a hashtag to expose their ideas and possible solutions.

 

A second scenario I have been thinking is a more interactive bot, where students can ask and get answers. Maybe this bot is more sophisticated and would need more code knowledge behind, but also are probably richer and can be really considerate a teacher bot*, as we see in the article of Bayne S. (2015). Teacherbot: interventions in automated teaching, and their “botty”. In these bots we see how a student or, the bot itself, can start a short conversation tha will trigger a level of learning.

In my idea of having a grammar helper bot (to support the learning of a second language), we can imagine how a student would ask a question related to a grammar doubt,  for example: Tell me what is the conjugation of past simple for the verb to sign. The chatbot will understand the query and will give a correct answer. Therefore, the bot we could offer a sentence as an example of the use of this conjugation. Also, we can be more ambitious and the student would ask the bot to check the grammar of a short sentence.

 

Considering these two broad types of chatbots I wonder if there is (or it will helpful to have) a categorization that defines the complixity of the bot, how is the interaction between student-teacher-bot, and how this has a real impact o enhanceing the role’s teacher.

 

 

So, peoeple are really following bots, eh?

s1690803/ / Is that the future?, Trying tools, Weekly task

Have to admit that I was quite surprised to see that we should spend some time investigating bots as a teaching tool, I didn’t find the connection at the first, or second thought. Actually, I was surprised that bots are a hot topic still. Even my husband co-founded a start-up based on messaging and chatbots, I never thought bots could be used for people or helping in education. (I know, I know… ignorant alert!)

Until this week, I was not following bot on Twitter, for example, and I was not conscious of using it as a useful tool. Now, I would say that see their potential to encourage learning. I discovered that many museums are using Twitter bots to promote their collections. I can see how this can help people with limited resources and time to know and explore museum objects without leaving you home. Considering how is the world right now, that is very interesting…

But bots are not only useful when we have limited access to hove physically to the museums, for example. They can also play an interesting role when teachers want to introduce a topic, motivate students, and let them get familiar with a subject.  Teachers can use it to introduce a future cultural visit. Using it to introduce new exhibitions related to the topic they are talking about in class, or maybe to spark interest. It was not on my to-do list, but after finding the MNAC (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya) and checking some of their twits, I am looking forward to going.

As I have exposed, I see some interesting uses of having bots in class, but don’t think I am seeing all the potentiality of them… Are bots a basic AI that could substitute or at least transform the task of a teacher? Difficult to see that. I can imagine a chatbot that gives mathematical problems that students need to solve, or maybe a history bot that explains important facts. Maybe a foreign language bot that helps with grammar? After this first week, I definitely can project some opportunities of using bots when teaching. However, for me, this is so far from having a robot or automated teacher.

On the other hand, when I think about bots (or simple AI/robots) in education, I cannot stop myself from connecting the thoughts with collecting data and data analysis.  At the end of the day, AI or an algorithm is using information stored in a specific database. Can we trust the data bots are using? If we begin to trust bots, without fact-checking, there is the potential risk for malicious misuse of information from those with the capability, and desire, to hack official information. We assume that teachers have some bias, but we also trust that if a teacher is in front of a class it is because they passed a trustful test (maybe an interview, exams, recognition from people of the community…). As a society, we have established some mechanisms of quality, control, and trust. Obviously, we can challenge them and question their utility and how they are formulated, but still, there is some QA process there. What is the control for bots? Why we should trust them? or what can be the protocols to make them more trustworthy?

 

 

Many questions, no answers

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Is that the future?

With the level of technology we have nowadays, a reality where teachers are replaced by robots or an AI  seems very close. In the article of Neil Selwyn: Robots in the Classroom? Preparing for the automation of teaching he opens the debate to see if classrooms are ready to incorporate robots.

However, my question is: do teachers need to be replaced? Are teachers actually needed any more? I mean, do we want to use the new technology and automated artificial intelligence to replace the traditional teacher’s role? What is the point of that?

In my opinion, the traditional teacher figure that focuses on delivering content, which is sadly the most common kind of teacher we find, is not actually offering anything interesting in the teaching-learning process. I would say that the teachers that enter into a class and spend their time only explaining a bunch of details, dates, or concepts, are not the “good ones”. We all could agree that this kind of teachers can actually be replaced by books and readings, there is no need for robots or high-level AI. So, what do we want to automate exactly?

In my opinion, the elements that describe a good teacher cannot be replaced by any machine. I think that a good educator is the one that guides the process of learning, not the one who actually delivers anything. I believe that teachers are facilitators. They are responsible for creating an environment where the learning process can be developed, respecting the pace and motivations of each student. Can this be done by a robot?

Also, why would we use AI to teach something in particular? Let’s say, history for example. Why do we want to use the latest technology to explain when an important event happened? This information is already available for the students in seconds, in their hands. Are we actually using the new resources to improve and make a change in the way we learn and what we learn?

Trying to answer these questions, I was happy to read Selwyn’s article (2017) and how he explores the differents Models of how teachers can integrate technology. The first pages of the article helped me to know and organise concepts and ideas.

“ While some teachers are clearly able to effortlessly ‘assimilate’ and incorporate digital technologies into their teaching, others achieve only a  pragmatic ‘accommodation’ of technology into their established modes of working”

As Selwyn’s points out there are some teachers who assimilate tech very well, while others are just using the basics. I guess we should avoid creating the idea that using tech “correctly” makes you a better teacher. After last week readings where we focused on understanding the necessity to have a constructivist and critique view, I think this should not be about if the teachers use it or not and if they are “better” teachers if they do it correctly. As usual, this is a much complex debate about the role of teachers. Then, what is the teacher’s role?

When I visualise a good teacher I see a person willing to improve their practise. Taking time to learn, observe and develop their skills. In that sense getting familiar with technology that will enhance their job, it is necessary, as well as learning new estrategies of communciation, engangement, it is part of the pack. A good teacher will understand that the use of technology will not make their class better or more interesting perse, but it will give them the opportunity to subtitute or transform what is needed in order to improve their job, and help the with the learning process of their students.

“In this sense, technology ‘integration’ is perhaps something that teachers achieve through experience and increased mindfulness.”

“As Mishra and Koehler put it, it is not enough to be either a good teacher, or a  subject specialist or a  skilled user of technology –  ‘merely knowing how to use a technology is not the same as knowing how to teach with it’ (p. 1033).”

Considering all of this, as I said in one of my privious posts, if a teacher can be replaced by a robot (or video, AI, book, etc.) it should be.

Critical task – Owston et al (2011)

s1690803/ / Weekly task

Owston et al’s article claim to contribute a better understanding of the correlation between students’ perceptions of lecture capture and their academic performance. The paper focuses its analysis on higher education and the study is made in a single university.

Based on previous studies, the article aims to point out the impact of the lecture recording on the learning of university students, their attendance at face to face classes, and their grades. The study is reinforced by clear figures that are intended to validate their study as well as their conclusions and correlations. I appreciate that even I struggle to highlight the strengths of the article, I recognise that the authors make an effort to recognise their limitations as well as presenting different resources to bolster their conclusions, using previous studies with similar context.

As a reader, I can have a good general idea of the reality of lecturer recording (in 2011), and see some unexpected results of the impact on the students’ performance. I guess that in 2011 the literature about the use of lecture recording was limited and Owston et al were able to find some correlations and ideas associated with the frequency of viewing and their academic performance. In the paper, there is an effort to give value to the lecture recordings beyond the bad or good influence it has on the attendance of the students, or their grades. Although, I found their suggestions quite underwhelming and with a very essentialism ideology, I want to believe that research in this perspective offers some opportunities for learning, or at least, opens new questions for further studies.

I found many methodical errors in the article. First of all, there is a clear ideology toward an instrumentalist outcome. The five questions formulated in the paper are showing a clear essentialism bias, where the main assumption is that lecturer recording will have a good impact, improving academic performance. In this way, giving an enchantment power to the technology without questioning nothing else. Also, there is a lack of critique and questioning about the results and the study itself, that resonates a lot with Bayne article we read last week.

For me, it is difficult to see how the authors can compare two situations where you have many variables changing and not a fixed context. for example, in the article, they mention a comparison between classes with recording and without it. I see many variables here that are not fixed: the subject, the teacher, the difficulty, the classmates, the schedule. Their findings are supported by other articles, however, there is a lack of clear research methods. The figures, correlations, and assumptions made are difficult to swallow. I am missing a clear research question and hypothesis about what the researchers are looking for.

When I started reading the article, I expected to have a clear image of what is understood for lecturer recording and a description of what can be the pedagogical goal. Instead, we find a poor definition and examination of what is a lecturer recording and lack of complexity and critique about it.

For example, when the authors suggest that high achievers, who watched the recordings fewer times, is because they were only reviewing or checking the content. In my opinion, the authors made an arbitrary correlation here. Maybe high achievers have professional/personal background that helps to understand the content better, or maybe they have a study group, or maybe they found a better video that explained the lecturer, or etc. There are so many possible answers, and I found it quite irresponsible to make a suggestion in only one direction.

Furthermore, I think the data used is quite small, also only is used a single university. Probably the study was relevant considering the date of the publication. However, I think the fact students are the ones reporting the majority of the information it losses credibility. I would like to see more reliable data.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy the article because of the lack of gruelling. But as a conclusion, I would say that this article offered me the opportunity to see a clear instrumentalist approach to the use of technology and allowed me to understand better concepts that were discussed last week, and it helped me to fix concepts.

Owston, R., Lupshenyuk, D., and Widemand, H. (2011). Lecture capture in large undergraduate classes: Student perceptions and academic performance. Internet and Higher Education, 14, pp.262-268.

Hamilton, E., and Friesen, N. (2013). Online education: a science and technology studies perspective. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 39(2), pp. 1-21.

Bayne, S. (2015). What’s the matter with ‘technology-enhanced learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, 40(1), pp. 5-20.

Edwards, M., and Clinton M. (2018) A study exploring the impact of lecture capture availability and lecture capture usage on student attendance and attainment, pp. 403–421.

 

 

Contradictions?

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Who I am and what I think

I wanted to do a visual post this week, so I decided to experiment with Canva to create a week mood poster that shows some of the ideas I have been thinking this week after a forum threat that Huw initiated.

This is actually something that has been bugging me forever (well, at least since I was in uni and working in the education system). What is education for? What is the role of the school as an educational institution? Why do we need a structured education? Can we compare what is education for primary/elementary school or high education?

I have to admit, that since I am a mother this question resonates even more than before. Maybe because of my personal experience with structured education, or maybe because of my professional background, or maybe because my studies… every day I am more convinced that the education given by school is not necessary. I believe that what children need is play and experiment with their real life, not living in an artificial bubble of learning where they “only” interact with their peers (aged group) and have a curated random content that needs to learn in some specific path. Sorry, I know I can be very critical and pessimist with structured education, but I am being very general and taking a very radical side here – just to make the exercise -.

In that way, my first quick answer when asking what is education for? (elementary ed.) is saying that basically, is a place where parents can leave their children while they are working. That way children can learn what is needed to become future workers that will maintain the (wheel) system. If I have to answer what is higher education for? I would say that is the place where a tame citizen will go in order to learn more specific skills and get a certificate of course! it will allow developing their professional life.  Is this pure instrumentalism,  isn’t it?

 

If I consider myself as a feminist anti-capitalism activist, can I be part of this (educational) system that collaborates to perpetuate this system that I don’t believe? This is a very short post about all my contradictions and internal dilemmas.

  • Being an outsider of the structured system (practicing unschooling) is a true way to battle the instrumentalism of the education?
  • The constructivist that Hamilton & Friesen (2013) propose, can be implemented in the current system? degrees/evaluations/tests/structure, etc.
  • Are these thoughts coming from privilege? I know I can afford to unschool my son, I have the resources/knowledge to give him the skills he will need in the future. Is a school, then, the only way to offer equality? Equality means homogenization?

Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) has to date

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Weekly task

Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), has to date, been limited by perspectives employed by various research studies in the field.  As we have seen in the Hamilton and Freisen’s (2013) article, essentialism and instrumentalism are critiqued as problematic because they pass over the social aspect of learning. We see the same tendency on Bayne’s article (2015) where is highlighted the fact that relation between education and tech tools are not well defined. Definition of technology is poorly and leads to a digital “black box”. I found interesting that in the forum it has been a conversation about what is considered technology, and how should be described. Clearly there is on going issue when defining technology.

Both articles claim for more critical understanding of TEL. Assuming that technology develops and evolves in response to a social and educational needs. Education,  is also about the social context and experience, like Baynes points out (p. 10). It is an outcome and enjoyment of, networks and relationships (p. 11). We don’t necessarily want or need to ‘remove human limitations’ (p. 13).

For Bayne is important to define “enhancement”, what is the real meaning? I found this very important and the key question. First of all we need a definition agreement, if not discussion is quite useless.  I found common to start a discussion where the subject of the discussion is not well defined and people have different understanding. What do we mean when we are talking of enhancement education? Making it better? what’s better? Better as a definition of making easier for more people? or faster? more equitable? better in terms that everyone can achieve similar goals?

From a Transhumanist perspective we can understand better as a synonym of improving the human body and brain. We could just upload a system to our brain or maybe take a pill and be able to speak another language in a few seconds. Or at least have more potential in our brain to learn everything we can faster. That is another question for me, Is “enhancement” the obtaining the max potentially of our brain? or is adding an extra plus of capacity?

I want to think that the main of education is not getting a particularly result. Of course, there are exams, tests, degree and titles, but this is another story. I like to think that the main goal of education is learning, that is the goal by itself. Each individual has their own path and riches their own learning achievements. I want to think that education is more than just having some knowledge and specific skill, otherwise is pure instrumental view, isn’t it?

As it has been raised in the forum and also the collaboration session, maybe we need more real world examples in order to make a clear idea. I have tried to think in real world exemples, but my mind goes directly to movies and books, I actually found that there is a wikipedia page dedicate to Transhumanist literature )

Enchancment means better performance? Are these the correct questions? We should be discussing about good/bad or better? As Bayen pointed there is a need to go farther, where transhumanism search for making humans and humanity better and more dominant, critical posthumanism asks us to think again about what is problematic in essentialising and what it means to be human and how we understand the world.

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Hamilton, C.E. & Friesen, N. (2013). Online Education: A Science and Technology Studies Perspective. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology. 39 (2): 1 – 21

Bayne, S. (2015). What’s the matter with ‘technology-enhanced learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, 40(1), pp. 5-20.

Peach, H.G. Jr & Bieber, J.P. (2015). Faculty and Online Education as a Mechanism of Power. Distance Learning.