Rendleman Math

In order to do Rendleman justice, I needed to make sure it's proportions were correct and measure things out a bit. On my second survey, I wanted to test my theories, but silly me, I forgot any sort of measuring tool. No fear! I used my trusty iPhone, and used that to make crude measurements. I wasn't going for exactness, but correct proportions. However, I think I came pretty darn close to rendering it exactly. The first and second pages of notes reflect this.

Secondly, I needed to build it in world. What helped me most were several video tutorials (YouTube - Second Life Tutorial - How to use the building grid and YouTube - Noob Be Gone - Second Life Building Tutorial by NSS) and a web page by Bob Sutor. His blog, Striking the Right Chord, did just that! He had a simple equation that determined the Y or X or Z of an object if you wanted to position it next to another so that they abutted. Instead of using the in world grid (which helped a little), his equation helped immensely, and I adapted it to situations where two objects needed to be placed parallel, perpendicular, etc. the equation is:

Xobject2 = Xobject1 +/- (Width object1 + Width object2)/2.

Throughout my notes, you'll see me use this extensively. Basically, it's the sum of the width of the two objects divided in half. You then add or subtract (if you look at the prim positioning arrow, if your new object is placed away from the arrow, you subtract, and with the arrow, you add) the position of the original object. After positioning several prims, the "copy" magic wand selection helped out immensely (I got that from the second video tutorial above) because it automatically positioned linked prims along the axis you wanted to create the copy.
Well, with much ado, here's my notes.

Rendleman Math (Cont'd)

Rendleman Math (Cont'd)

Rendleman Math (Cont'd)

Last RL and SL Comparison Pictures.

These views are a bit better....I think I nailed the proportions down pretty well. There were a couple of things I missed when I first surveyed Rendleman, but caught them the second time. For example, I thought the width of the front, center facade was 22 RU's when it was actually 23 (two half windows). Same thing with the third floor interior front windows. There were 9.5RU's and not 9 RU's.

Finish Model with Real Life Rendleman

Not bad, eh?

More Progress

Second Life Vs. Real Life

It's getting closer!!

In World Progress

Well, as you can see, I'm making good in world progress. I've finished the South East Corner (South West in Real Life) of Rendleman Hall! It looks pretty darn close to the real thing!

I've started my assault on rendering Rendleman...

Practicing and testing out my proportion theories have worked very well in sketch-up. Creating a rough draft in SL has been relatively easy. Here is a picture of Rendleman in RL then SL...

Final Sketchups Before Building It in SL

The back of Rendleman...The front left...
The rear, left side near the student center...
Another view of the front...

Well, it's going to be very hard to work within the 10x10 limitations SL has...well, I think the componets (the windows, etc) will be easy, but making sure it's all on the same level will be a challenge....

The Symetry of Rendleman

One thing that's going to make Rendleman easier to render in 3D is its symmetrical design. The windows are going to be my unit of measurement because they're uniform. For example, the front of the building has three sections: the east wing has 18 windows, the west has 12, and the middle has 22. The facade has 12 large windows, but they're actually, twice the width of the normal windows, and the windows on the far left and right are actually 1 Rendleman window unit wide. This seemingly even number of windows is actually an odd number (11 large windows), but in order to place the doors in the middle in a symmetrical fashion, they split the 11th large window into two.
Additionally, we can deduce that the doors' width are two-thirds an RWU, and from the pictures, they're uniform around the building. The door height is equal to the height of the window above them, but the top row of the large windows have a different height: the same height as an RWU. Also observe that these large windows are squares, so 2 times the RWU width equals its height. I could be wrong about this seeing how if each RWU employs the Golden Rectangle (the ratio of height and width would equal 1.618:1), then each "square" would have a width of 2 RWU and a height of 1.68 RWU. But I just don't see that the height is .32 units shorter than the width: You would need three window widths to nearly equal the height if the Golden Rectangle was used (3:3.236). It makes sense architecturally/aesthetically to employ the Golden Rectangle (and the largest windows in the front may just be Golden Rectangles). But it doesn't work...the scheme of this building seem to be of 1:2 and not 1:1.68.
Style: I need my brain to cool down after that last bit. So, I'll make a note on style. Luckily, I'm familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright, and I can't help but see his Praire Style utilized in this building. Horizontal lines are emphasized over the vertical lines giving it a closer to the ground look: it basically matches the flat field in front of it. Although the materials are much more utilitarian and minimalistic than an earthier Wright building. Neo-Praire style?

The Challenge of Rendering Rendleman Hall

Yikes, has this been a challenge seeing how a) my car broke down b) there are very few decent pictures of Rendleman if you google it, c) I've been working late to get to get ready for the new Bodyworlds 3 exhibit at the Science Center (well, it's a convergence of projects). And so, like today, there wasn't enough light out when I left work. But, I do have enough to get something done.

I need to figure a couple things out:
a) I'm thinking that tonight, I'm going to do a rough sketch of Rendleman Hall in Google Sketch-Up (unfortunately, you can't import Sketch-Ups in to SL). But, this will give me a reference in which to work from. I should be getting a second monitor soon so that I can have both SL and Sketch-Up open at the same time (or at least jpg's of my sketches).
b) Scale is an issue as it relates to visual proportions. I don't need to get Rendleman Hall down to the last inch, but the idea is for SIUE SL users to visually get "it." Making sure I get the textures and look are important. At the same time, I want to make sure it's roomy enough for when people add things to it....
c) Rendleman Hall in SL will basically be an empty shell. (A thought just occurred to me, how far can you dig down in SL? It would be great to be able to do more with that space than within the traditional dimensions of the real life Rendleman Hall....) I want to make sure it's high enough and that the doors work (just something I want). I think the entrance is going to be the big challenge with it's transparent textures, geometry, and most of all, it's the most visually recognizable part of the building.

Update: 12:45 AM Here are the sketchups of Rendleman....not bad, seeing how I used a campus map pdf file that showed the outline of the building and three lo-res (200x100 at best) pictures:

Second-Life and Getting Acclamated

I've been toiling around Second-Life for the last three weeks (although I've visited SL several times over the last year on whims), and I'm very disoriented. It's not hard to get around. I walk, fly, or teleport to new places. If I need help, there are friendly people who will give me a hand (and I've had encounters with some people who wanted to get too friendly...). I don't think the graphics are great, but they're not bad either. But, I'm still feeling out of sorts, and I think I know why: my other experiences with MMRPGs'.

The biggest MMRPG I played was Star Wars Galaxies, and as far as MMRPGs go, it had a relatively high learning curve (this was before it was dumbed down after the new combat system was introduced and apparently, it was dumbed down even more with fewer character classes, but I digress). However, there were several control differences with SWG: the mouse had more character control than in SL. In SL, you have a mouse cursor and your character kinda follows it. In SWG, the mouse could really whip you point of view around. Oh, and flying wasn't much of an option either (I need to remap the flying keys in SL so that they make more sense).

The control scheme of SL is minor compared to its lack of spatial and experiential organization. True, SL's chaos can be a good thing because it's entirely user driven. There are some truly unique and far out environments in SL. In SWG, on the other hand, the worlds made sense in terms of city and planet layout (SWG had mutliple planets: Tatooine, FTW!). Cities were organized in such a way so that you could follow visual way points to a destination (from signs to roads to a really good HUD map system). Granted, SWG made sense to those who were fans of Star Wars, too. In SL, you're lucky if a square kilometer or even little plot of land has some sort of visual or organizational continuity (there are some, but not many). Plus, in SWG, your experience had some organization to it: were you an Alliance or Imperial supporter? What class was your character? How do you level up your character? This is missing from SL for good reason: it's the ultimate digital sandbox. I find it disorienting, but give me time, and I'll figure it out.

Design Studio 2

I haven't done much with this blog for quite some time, but I thought I would plug my latest design studio project: Sciencecentr.org. It's a social bookmarking website for science and technology centers that uses the open source web app called Pligg!
Here's a link to my project page!

CWC on Thesis writing...my thoughts on it...

I always like showing off the thesis for my M.A. in history. I like the fact that it's bound with a cool, black hardcover and gold lettering. And it's not thin either! I call it "My Book." It really impresses the ladies (well, the ones who haven't had to write their own thesis) and its fun at parties!

I wrote my history thesis on how computer games, that are primarily designed for entertainment, present history. I could go on and on about what I concluded, but that's not what our CWC was about: it's how I wrote it. So...what happened?

I had the idea for quite some time while working on the degree's coursework. I wanted to examine computer games and how history is told through them. I knew my first step would be to do research. But what to research? This is where I didn't do as much planning as I should have in terms of the general concept: what would I be arguing? I hadn't answered this question because I thought all I would do is play a couple history games and do case studies on them. I played games like Colonization, Oregon Trail, and Railroad Tycoon. Therefore, I researched the subjects the games addressed: colonizing the new world, America's westward expansion, and the railroad business.

This strategy was lacking because I knew it wouldn't be a proper thesis: it would be a computer game report (ala book reports) and not worthy of being printed in any scholarly forum (maybe in a computer game magazine though). My next strategy was to examine computer game design, and I found this to be much more rewarding. I also started taking copious notes, but their abundance hid the meat of the subject: what was I trying to argue? By studying game design, I came up with three of the four main topics in my thesis: computer game categories (there are many, many different kinds of games), what makes a computer game good, and the influence of algorithms (mostly AI and random number generation) on a computer games ability to tell (retell) history. I also started to cast a wider net on sources: I trolled computer game magazines for insight into the computer gaming world and what issues they deal with. I also started looking at technical books on game theory, then I moved on to books on programming/designing artificial intelligence and random number generation. All the while taking copious notes. I also formed basic outlines and started to "just write." I would start writing on a topic in my outline and not really care where it was going: it was like brainstorming. Keep the good and delete the bad.

But I had two big problems as a result of this: how did this apply to the telling of history, and what to do with all the notes I took! The first problem I addressed by reading books on historiography: the history of history. Where did computer games fit in the telling of history (this is also where I got my title from: Virtual Historiography)? The second problem was just tedious: I took my notebooks of notes, and wrote each citation on a note card. My only regret of the last strategy was that I should have used color coded note cards! But by putting them on note cards and dividing them into topics and sub-topics, I was able to visually organize my arguments. After this last step, I was able to take my meandering ramblings from my "just write" something phase and re-rewrite them to comply with what I found (and I had to change my own pre-conceptions of history and computer games as a result! I really surprised myself!). So, by following my outline, organizing my note cards, but most importantly, rewriting what I already wrote, I was able to form a cohesive argument about computer games and history!

If I were to do it all over again, I would meditate more on what I wanted the thesis to be, form a crude outline, think more about where and what my sources/research was taking me, take notes directly on note cards from my sources, I would "just write" again, and be more systematic in how I revised my writings. I don't know if I'm a good model for thesis writing, but it was definitely the most generative exercise I've ever encountered!!!

Workshop on Bullying...a trip down memory lane...

Oh man, was that a good workshop! It was a walk, a painful walk, down memory lane for me! I've rarely been the bully (yea, I admit picking on smaller kids, but it was definitely a rare occasion that this happened: and if it did, it was with new kids who I didn't know that well...), but there were many times that I have been bullied. I've never been the biggest or smallest kid on the block, but I've always had a laid back, pacificist mentality to person confrontation. If I can avoid confrontation, I usually will!

The two bullies that stand out most in my mind are Pat S. in the seventh grade, and Damon L. in the 10th and 11th grades. The worst of the two was Pat: he had set up a devious routine. If I did something wrong or affront him some how, he would assign punches to it. Let's say, I made fun of him somehow, that was worth 10 punches (unless it was an especially good zing, then I got more). I could either accumulate or eliminate my punch count by being bad/annoying or good to him, respectively. It was all very arbitrary anyway. At a certain point, he would decide to cash in his punches and start hitting my upper arm (usually my right). All through seventh grade I had a bruise on my right arm...it really sucked. I don't know why I never stuck up for myself or fought back. He was more popular than I, and I was afraid of the consequences: I didn't want to get detention, grounded, or suspended. Luckily, he moved away and I didn't have to worry about him anymore. Damon was very different, it was more passive aggressive bullying: he was a big black guy and I was his "Koozbaby." In other words, his bitch: but not in the prison way, but in the, "He pretended to like me and flirt with me" to make me feel uncomfortable. It was very disconcerting. I really couldn't stop him because he was twice my size and I didn't want to really want him to snap and beat me up (It wouldn't have been pretty). But then again, others wouldn't mess with me because they didn't want Damon to kick their ass (although I never really tested that theory).

So what did the workshop teach me? Well, that I need to be a bit more assertive in preventing violence and bullying. I wasn't surprised that bullying wasn't necessarily perpetrated by a loner (as my bullies were very popular). At the Science Center, I don't see any bullying amongst the adults, although I am more aware of what forms it could take, and since I work with kids of all sizes, I know I shouldn't use my size as way to influence a kids impression of me. I know I don't consciously do this, but if it's perceived that way, it would be a problem. I do see other kids make fun of each other, and of course, the bigger kids telling the smaller ones what to do: I make sure to politely correct such behavior, but if it's bad, I know to go to his or her chaperone. I also referee at robotics competitions, and I need to make sure I don't come off as aggressive to the participants or their mentors because that's not in the spirit of the robotics competition. And vice versa, I think I'm more aware of students bullying other students in the competition (as opposed to working together or taking good direction from another team member). Overall, the bullying workshop was fantastic and the people who did it knew what they were talking about!

Chapter 13: Writing

Chapter 13 was probably one of the more fascinating chapters in this book! I agree with Bruning that writing requires that all cognitive functions to work! The Flower and Hayes model of writing could be placed on top of the cognitive function models from one of the first chapters. When we write, we must use our long term memory to recall what we want to write about and it also provides the knowledge of how we are going to write about our topic. Short term/working memory focuses on the words and grammar we will need to express individual ideas and then applying our long term memory's "plan" to generate and organize the flow of ideas. Finally, we have the task environment: this describes the exterior factors that influence our writing. For example, what material do have for research, what is the writing assignment about, how long the assignment is, and what medium we have to write on to name a few. One thing I wish this model would have included, and this is important for young learners, is the dexterity needed to write (or type, as the case may be). It may be that good hand writing translates into good writing in general (and if this is true, I'm in deep trouble). I also wonder if dexterity would fit in the working or long term memory, but maybe, it's a part of both....

What does this model tell me about my own writing? Well, I would make the general observation that I am not a prolific writer: I don't and haven't written as much as I should in order to be good at it. Whether speaking or writing, I've found my working memory to be a limiting factor as I struggle to express what's going on in my head. Constantly forgetting what I'm trying to convey or how I was going to organize it. I know I don't plan nor review my writing enough to become a good writer: Bruning would describe me as a knowledge teller. Although I would hope to say that I can do more than string some ideas together, I really don't take the time to make an abstract road map of what I need to say: well, let me take that back, on longer assignments, I do write outlines, but on shorter writing assignments such as this journal or the items within my outline, I know I organize them sequentially instead of conceptually. Well, I guess I have more work to do on this front!

Chapter 12

Bruning recognizes three different models that describe the reading process: Data-driven, conceptually driven, and interactive processes. As a side note, I'm glad he continues to use computer metaphors!

The data-driven model describes how reading is a mechanical process that can be studied by following a reader's eye movements. Instead of reading word by word, you focus on one or two letters then move on to the next group of letters until you focus on another letter group (it's called the saccade). Meaning is gathered by matching patterns of letters and patterns of words (and sentence patterns) to already known patterns of meaning. It's a very linear process.

The conceptually driven model flips the data-driven model around: instead of patterns driving meaning, knowledge drives meaning. One's schema (knowledge and expectations of the text) drives reading comprehension. Basically, if you have no knowledge of a concept or object, how would you expect to read or comprehend a word that describes said concept or object?! Poor reading is more likely a result of a lack of knowledge (world knowledge is described later in the chapter) than an inability to piece sequential patterns together.

The third model, construction-integration, takes a middle of the road approach, and as a result, it's a much more reasonable model to defend. It takes the pattern recognition of the data-driven model and the application of knowledge in the conceptually driven model, and combines them into macro and micro structures. Microstructures refer to the word by word and sentence by sentence meaning while macrostructures refer to, as Bruning says, "the gist" of the text. We then construct the meaning of the text and then integrate that meaning into our long term knowledge: it's a recursive process that feeds upon itself. This would explain why extensive reading and regurgitating (which is described in the next chapter on writing) are so important to the cognitive development of children and adults.

Besides my observation on what this chapter means, but how does the chapter apply to me? As I mentioned earlier, my teachers didn't really teach many reading strategies after the fourth grade. Now, I'm not blaming them for my reading skills, but I have come to a realization recently: the slower I read, the less I comprehend the overall meaning of the text. As I read slower (at least as I interpret it through the text), my working memory works harder to retain the words I've just read and so "clock cycles" dedicated to overall meaning decline. The faster I read, the less I enjoy it, but I do get more meaning out of it: I understand it better. Last semester, we were reading Dewey's "Democracy and Education" and I found myself being able to discuss chapters, that I read in a fast manner (not quite skimming but not reading word for word), with a much better understanding of what Dewey was trying to say (instead of focusing on exactly what he said). Now I have some confirmation as why this is so...

What I learned about learning how to read....Chapter 11 (part 2)

I remember enjoying learning how to read, and I also believe that I can recall the process that my teachers used to teach me reading. From first and second grade, I definitely remember applying what Bruning calls the "alphabetic principle:" my teachers taught me the sounds the letters make and to identify those sounds in words. A more precise term is given later: the Phonetic-Cue Reading model. Although, our teachers were not as forgiving of misspelling as much as Bruning (or in this case, Bruning describing Ehri's models) would be seem to be. Around third and fourth grade, we started to learn about prefixes and what they could mean: bicycle and biplane are two words that come to mind. By the fourth and fifth grade though, I can't remember any teachers trying to model/demonstrate reading strategies....

As a general metalinguistic observation, I'm not a particularly strong reader (it was my lowest score on the ACT) and yet, I love to read. I actually had a hard time with page 250's decoding of the "Chronicle" passage. Although, I had taken some Russian history in the past and thought it was Cyrillic, I didn't really tackle it until I read a bit further. But once I "got it" decoding it was still a slow process. But going back to my self observation, I figure that I read to get better: I have always tried to make reading as automatic as possible. It also helps that I have a link to an online dictionary: if I'm not maintaining my personal dictionary, then I'm constantly looking words up to make sure their meaning is known and automatic. The automaticity of meaning is especially important for words where nuance or similarity in spelling plays a key role in decoding (like dichotomy and diametric...I've always confused the two).

As for what I do to teach kids how to read, the only child in my life that is really curious about reading is my best friend's daughter, Stella (She's 5). For the last two years, her parents and I have been reading to her...I always use my finger to point to the word I'm currently reading. Why? Well, that's how I remember being read to, I point to get her to realize that what I say comes directly from where my finger is on the page, and I hope she develops a sight recognition of the words. For the last several months, she has been identifying letters with sounds! Although I think I upset her mother when I explained what a question mark and an exclamation point looked like and what it meant. She thought it was too advanced for Stella: I thought I explained it very simply. Oh well, there's always their younger son and my nieces and nephew to see what else I can do to facilitate their journey into the written word.

Learning to Read in a Constructivist Way: Chapter 11 (part one)

I find the concept of metalinguistic awareness to be a wonderful descriptor of our evolution from non-reader to reader. How aware of we of our own journey from non-reader to reader? I certainly can't remember a time of feeling illiterate. I know that before the age of 5 or 6 that I couldn't read, but I don't remember looking at words and not knowing what they meant. But then again, words aren't part of my memory back then: my metalinguistic awareness level prevented me from encoding such tidbits.

Bruning divides language into two conceptual ideas: language use and language structure. Language use or "pragmatics" describes the social and cultural contexts in which we use it. Pragmatics address the when and why of language: why do we communicate (or need to communicate) and when is it appropriate to use language. Language structure focuses on how and what: how do we structure what we say and how do we say it? Bruning focuses on the structure first, and that's what I want to focus on this post.

Of his discussion of language structures (words, syntax, and discourse), only the latter topic would anyone find any sort of controversy. Words and syntax, although fields with controversy in their own right, are given a general overview. He talks about semantics whose study of meaning is important because we need to know what words children learn and what meaning is assigned to those words: vocabulary. More than likely, they might have already formed meaning of a word from observing and modeling adult use of vocabulary. Take what a kid knows about a word and then obliquely measure a kid's awareness of the phonemes and morphemes surrounding the word, then we might be able to measure their metalinguistic ability. We normally do this by first teaching the alphabet, then convincing them that these written letters translate sounds our mouths make, and finally after we convince them, we start a dreaded process: vocabulary lists and (the next concept of Bruning's language structure) grammar/syntax. We all know how much we loved grammar! :P Actually, we had already learned grammar/syntax: but what we needed to learn was standard grammar and not mom's colloquialisms.

The really fascinating part about the first half of the chapter was the bit of discourse on....discourse. How we arrange our thoughts to best express our ideas. Bruning describes two basic discourse structures: narrative and exposition. Narratives are linear progressions on thought: A happened, then B, then C, and it was cool! Expositional discourse efficiently (well, attempts to) organizes concepts in order to explain complex ideas or situations: this organization is rarely linear like a narrative, but rather it depends upon the importance of conveying information with clarity and/or with a certain logic (doesn't have to be rational logic I suppose). I remember when I had to do some creative writing in the fourth grade: my stories were strict narratives. Unfortunately, I tried to be funny, and I failed completely because the continuous use of "and then" didn't have any the comedic impact. Oh well, and then I....

Crisis Intervention

There are three things I want to address in terms of crisis intervention: 1) My impressions of it 2) An overview of the crisis intervention presentation, and 3) Crisis intervention at the Science Center.

I really looked forward to the "Crisis Intervention" presentation: I would say that I'm not skilled in crisis intervention. My only experience would be to help break up fights at the pub I used to work at. I wouldn't say that I back down from breaking up a fight, it's just that, for some reason, they occur away from me: I'm just not a magnet for trouble! (But then again, as a server, I'm not in the bar area as frequently as the bar staff) And with those bar fights, I would only intervene if and when the bartenders needed help: they're really good at breaking up fights. Due to my experience, I guess my posture would be to leave it up to the experts: the bouncers and bartenders in this case. I also had another impression of crisis intervention that included more personal problems than interpersonal problems. I initially thought about chronic behavior disorders (like eating disorders), drug problems, and deep depression/suicidal tendencies. Since I'm not a licensed teacher/psych major, I'm not sure if I'm right or wrong to include these in the crisis prevention category. I'm fairly certain it is.

However, since the teachers who presented this topic were very well versed in crisis intervention in terms of student outbursts/student conflict, it was very appropriate and informative! Here is what I got out of their presentation: I learned a cool way of handling a hair pulling situation (that was fun!) and it reinforced my former instruction on how to break grips. That would be the "cool" lessons. But what I found really fascinating was the Stress Model of Crisis: it presents the stages of a crisis very well. The concept in the model that shouldn't have surprised me was "baseline behavior." It's one of those common sense concepts that hasn't been conceptualized by or for me (aka "given a name"). A student (or any person) has a natural disposition when doing normal activities under normal situations, but his or her disposition could change in a heart beat due to some sort of "trigger event." Keep in mind, the trigger event may have nothing to do with the underlying problem the person faces, but it's the spark that sets them off. The duty of the teacher is to bring them back down to the baseline: de-escalation that leads to a recovery phase. I thought the group did a great job of explaining this process: especially the de-escalation of a violent out of control student. The advice they gave on maintaining a neutral tone of voice and neutral facial expression was dead on! The I ASSIST mnemonic is very helpful too!

So, what happens at the Science Center in a situation like these teachers find themselves in? Fortunately for me, we get to see the kids on their best day: they're happy to be here and the only behavioral problems are from over exuberance! I do know we are not allowed to touch our visitors unless our safety is at risk: but with this presentation, I have some non-contact strategies to deal with a crisis situation if it does arise here.

Why I love and hate student portfolios

I have a love/hate relationship with portfolios. The workshop on portfolios did a good job of summarizing the positive and negative attributes of portfolios for students. I personally think portfolios maintenance is an important skill for kids to learn in grade school. Here are some positives of portfolios: it allows the child to observe the evolution of their work, it can be a resource to the student in future projects, it allows the parent to view the academic progress of the child, and as I said, it's a good skill to have "in the real world." On the negative side, it does create more work for teachers (this is especially true with teachers of the lower skill and lower grade students), it's hard to grade (if grading is the purpose of it), and not all people are on board (including staff and parents). I think for all students, portfolios are a fantastic thing! I wonder if there are ready made modules for teachers to implement this in their classroom with minimal preparation time?!

But why do I love/hate portfolios? I think they're great, but I misplace my work a lot! And this was especially true of my grade school years: I lost my work all the time! Now, it's all on the computer, but sometimes, I don't know which computer its on! D'oh! I wasn't trained in portfolio maintenance until my senior year in college. I was lucky: I'm a bit of a pack rat, and I saved many of my old papers. But most of all, I don't like the idea of a "graded" portfolio. I think it's something that you do or you don't have. If you're in the latter half, a professor/teacher should guide you into bringing your portfolio up to snuff or better yet, have a peer help you out. Every student should have a different idea of what represents their best work, and I think it's more important that the student "present" their portfolio instead of handing it in and hoping it's adequate. The presentation could be in front of peers, teachers, and/or parents. Of these three groups, I prefer presenting in front of peers because students will form stronger opinions of their work in front their fellow students (although a teacher would need to be present in some way to facilitate this).

As a side note: it also doesn't help that the university only gives you 50 megabytes of space on their server: if I'm going to stay in the IDLT discipline, I think I'll be creating individual files bigger than 50 megabytes! 50 megabytes used to be a lot of space: back in 1993!

The idea of guided participation and my work.

Bruning talks about "guided participation" on page 199 of the text. When I first saw this phrase, I immediately thought about the inquiry based learning that we emphasize at the Science Center. We prefer not to give visitors the answers: we gauge their knowledge by asking certain questions and then evaluate the direction the activity will go afterwards. Even after we've made a quick evaluation, the interaction is still a matter of asking leading questions that provoke the visitor into thinking critically about the exhibit/demonstration in front of them. The terms we use, the length of the question, and possible options within the question (a sort of vocal multiple choice) arise out of the initial and subsequent interaction. Although inquiry dwells in the realm of constructivism, I think Bruner had more in mind when talking about guided participation.

Bruner's guided participation (via Rogoff's work on the subject) encompasses both inquiry based learning, which on the scale of guided participation would be on the formal side of the spectrum, and spontaneous social interactions between adults and children. Our interactions at the Science Center are spontaneous to the learner, but to us, it is not (seeing how we're cognizant of the situation). We have developed strategies to identify these learning opportunities and we take advantage of them as much as possible. The visitors like it (usually: it may come off as condescending if we're attempting to get the adults to learn) and it's very challenging to the gallery staff.

I also asked myself if guided participation includes modeling. Upon reading this section carefully, I firmly believe that guided participation is not modeling. Certainly, there's a spontaneous aspect to modeling, but learning how to do something via modeling is different from learning from guided participation. Social interaction separates guided participation from modeling: when an adult helps a child order food from the menu (using the example in the text), that is fundamentally different from a child observing then mimicking the adult. With the adult guidance, the social interaction allows the adult to do more than correct the child, but to lead the child into critically examining the menu then communicating those food/drink decisions to the waiter. This could save the child considerable embarrassment if the child mimicked the adult, and the child did not understand what "A choice of 2 sides" meant or used a tone of voice inappropriate for a child. (As a server for many years, I really encourage parents to do this!) Don't get me wrong, modeling is critical to learning because it happens by default: it puts more burden on the adult because he or she needs to be "on" at all times. A little slip up can create the wrong impression, and because of this, I think adults need to be more aware of opportunities for guided participation: I think it's a much more effective educational tool!

Thoughts on Chapter 9

Constructivism seems to be a highly controversial educational philosophy: at minimum, its methods are disputed amongst academics from traditional pedagogical backgrounds. For example, in my Instructional Systems Design class, I've found that the professor has a bit of disdain for it. Why is there this antipathy towards it? Two reasons off the top of my head. 1) I suspect that A type personalities need more structure and enumerated/clear goals. I find open ended generative activities are more productive than what ISD'ers want us to do: match a verb (from written objectives) to a specific generative activity. In addition, A types are not social beings, and constructivism's emphasis on social interaction as learning tool may make them feel uncomfortable. This could manifest itself at the instructor and/or learner levels. 2) For other teachers/professors, it may be a lack of time and resources to genuinely create a constructivist lesson(s). And related to my second point, teachers/professors may not know enough about constructivism to implement it.

I think this quote on page 195 summarizes the constructivist approach very well: "The aim of teaching, from a constructivist perspective, is not so much to transmit information as to encourage knowledge formation and metacognitive processes for judging, organizing, and acquiring new information" (Bruning, 195) Preach on brother! I really think that to survive in the 21st Century, a student needs to learn how to "judge, organize, and acquire new information" instead of learning "X" as if it were some magic quantity that labels him or her "proficient." Certainly there are skills that do have measured proficiency, but these are base skills that require automaticity (reading, writing, and math, for example). Once a decent level of automaticity is accomplished, the student will need to learn metacognitive skills and cognitive strategies so that information gathering and integration become automatic, too. And with constructivism's emphasis on the social aspect of learning, the learner acquires a certain automaticity in social interactions. I mentioned A types before: this kind of learning, although uncomfortable for them, could help broaden their social horizon and make awkward interactions normal.

I'm a Lego Mindstorm Center Expert!

On page 175, Bruner lists sever characteristics of expert performance. Expertise/An expert ...

1. is domain specific.

2. is able to organize information efficiently.

3. is faster than novices at processing meaningful information because they search and represent problems more efficiently.

4. entails thoughts and actions that are highly automatized.

5. represents problems differently from novices (experts look at the underlying structure)

6. spends more time than novices analyzing the problem at the beginning of the problem-solving process.

7. are better monitors in most situations within their domain of expertise.

According to these seven characteristics, I'm a Lego Mindstorm Center expert! Keep in mind, I am not a Lego Mindstorms expert (although I would say that I am almost proficient) because it's a very complicated system, and I haven't spent that much time building and programming Lego robots. However, what I do is provide kids an introductory experience into Lego Mindstorms that utilizes partially assembled robots and a robot programming interface that's simple and intuitive. My expertise lies in troubleshooting the problems that arise from learner misunderstandings/motivation, robot wear-n-tear, computer errors, and a host of other obscure things that might go wrong in a session. Let's go trough the steps...1) I know a lot about teaching kids to program a Lego robot with the Lego Center's program/tools. 2) I can break down the task/problem at hand into digestible pieces. 3) I can solve 98% of the problems in my venue in a matter of seconds 4) I can remember a kids program with only a cursory glance (this happens a lot: a computer will need to be rebooted, and I usually have to reconstruct the program for them to save time). 5) I can assess a kid's comprehension (or lack of) by looking at their body language and what program commands (or lack of) he or she is giving the robot. 6) If I do come across a problem that I can't solve quickly, I am able to a) redirect the kids/have alternative strategies so that learning still happens b) come to a solution eventually. 7) With just a cursory glance, I can tell if a program will do well or not, and whether a robot is functioning properly (sometimes I have to slow myself down with the latter because the kids don't always understand why I just picked up their robot and fiddled with it). Lastly, all of these things are very automatic to me!
I guess I could also talk about how I'm a Day of Defeat computer game expert (I'm currently ranked 30th out of 17,000 players: I actually worked my way up to 9th ranked at one point), but that would be overkill! BUT, my ability to play the game does reflect the chapter's section on deliberate practice. Although I shouldn't go any further because I might give the impression that I practice my computer game more than I should! ;)

Observations on Chapter 8

Dewey rocks! Ok, I'm not sucking up to Dr. Theodore, but I think it's amazing that his view on problem solving, something that's been around 80-90 years, is still the basis of the "modern model" as put forth by the text. In fact, I like Dewey's model better than the one in the text! Why? Well, as an employee of the Science Center, I like how the text describes Dewey's problem solving model using scientific methodology terms.

"Identifying a problem is one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of problem solving because it requires creativity and persistence yet a willingness to ponder a problem for a long period of time without committing to a solution too early in the process." (Bruner, 164) I think the important, well at least the most provocative, word is "creativity." I've always known that solving a problem might require creativity, but it never occurred to me that you would need it to just identify it (academically, they are too often identified for you)! I have to wonder though if one could become too creative and create a problem. In terms of "importance," I really think persistence is key to problem solving, and combined with the last chapter, it really reinforces the idea that intelligence is mainly a matter of persistence.

I also base this on my experience at the Science Center: it surprises me how quickly kids give up on a problem. For example, we have a "hamster wheel" where the kids have to figure out how to get a very large, heavy wheel moving. It's mainly a matter of figuring out where to place your feet/weight to get it to go. You can tell by where the kid's eyes go and how the parents' distance from the wheel to see how persistent the kid will be. The further the parent is away and the more the kid looks forward/down at the wheel the odds of success go up. If they cannot figure it out, then they'll either reflect/pause, and/or they'll ask me for help. The ones that give up easily, usually have a parent telling them how to do it, and/or they look at you or the parent without putting much effort into solving the problem. To be fair to these kids who might not have built the appropriate schema (low self-efficacy for hamster wheels), I, according to the text, guide them along the process without giving them the answer. Although, since there's a line to try out the wheel, I sometimes need to tell them outright how to do it, but I make sure I represent the problem, tell them why the strategy worked so well as they power the wheel, ask them if there could be a better technique, and invite them to come back again to try something different!

Stages of Reflective Judgement

Reflective judgment is “one's ability to analyze critically multiple facets of a problem, reach an informed conclusion, and justify one's response as systematically as possible.” (Bruning, 148) Man, that quotes packs quite a punch when combined with the assertion by researchers Kitchener and King that this ability is measurable! If I were qualified to assess this ability, could I go up to my friend and say, “Yea, sorry dude, but you're level of reflective judgment is only a 1.1, and listening to you lowers my own reflective judgment score!” (But then again, do I lower my own score by saying such a thing!? This meta thinking can really bake your noodle!)

Ok, what the heck am I talking about? According the Kitchener and King, reflective judgment is a measurable attribute based on three criterion: certainty, process by which we acquire knowledge, and type of evidence. A person who thinks that knowledge is absolute, unchangeable, and doesn't scrutinize new information would score lower (this is referred to as “stage 1”) whereas some who thinks that knowledge is relative, constructed, and scrutinizes evidence would score higher (a level 6 or 7). In th middle, you would have someone who thinks knowledge is “uncertain” and “idiosyncratic:” someone in the middle is a bit wishy-washy about knowledge. Here, why don't I just list them from page 149.

1. Knowledge is unchanging, absolute, and accessible

2. Knowledge is certain but may not be accessible to everyone

3. Knowledge is certain, though it may be accessible to anyone

4. Knowledge is uncertain and idiosyncratic

5. Knowledge is uncertain, though contextually interpretable

6. Knowledge is relative yet justifiable on the basis of rational arguments

7. Knowledge is relative, though some interpretations have greater truth.

As I read this section of the chapter, I found myself saying, “Ooo, I think Person X is a stage 2 person!” or “I think Person Y is a stage 5!” I base this from my observations and reflection on past conversations with them. Of course, I turned it on myself, and I would say that I'm around a 5.5 to 6.5. Why? Is my ego that big? It might be..but it's all relative! (See! I do think knowledge is relative! Ha!) I can tell you that I have progressed through some of the earlier stages, but then again, are these stages contextual in of themselves?

Let me give an example of the former: I used to be very religious! Although I feel it was an important part of my development, I no longer am. My outlook on life was very stage 1-3 (I would say on the 2-3 side) because I believed the only relevant information for making choices in my life stemmed from the writings in the Bible. By the way, I don't equate all religious people as being “stuck” in stages 1-3, as I've known religious people to be in the latter stages. But I was stuck. When I was an upperclassman and came into contact with more diverse crowds, and exposed myself to new ideas, that I started to come out of my shell. It was not until my second year of grad school that I really embraced a stage 4 through 6 outlook: I guess all of those discussions about how an author supported their arguments by considering his or her sources really raised my consciousness.

However, are there certain things in my reflective judgment ability that are contextual (i.e. Lower?). For example, I really do have a habit of believing people in authority in certain situations/contexts that I'm unfamiliar with. When I listen to classroom teachers in class, I soak it up because I do not have their experiences! I'm wondering if I take what they say and not processing it enough to evaluate/read between the lines of what they're trying to convey. It's a thought that's worth pondering....

Chapter 7 and my beliefs about Intelligence

As I started to read chapter 7, I asked myself what I thought intelligence meant. If I were to write this properly, I would have stopped reading and wrote this post write away. But seeing how I read the chapter several weeks ago, that wasn't going to happen. Now I have to write about my beliefs on intelligence post-chapter and I hope it doesn't shade this post too much.

So, what are my beliefs on intelligence? I guess it would start with an evaluation of my own intelligence. I've never had a proper intelligence test...or at least, I don't recall taking one nor do I recall any "score" given. But then again, I'm assuming that IQ is a measure of intelligence. I've definitely done well academically and scored decently on entrance exams. I have always thought of myself as "smart" although I do recognize, that sometimes, I don't have as much common sense as others: I would definitely say that I'm "book smart." And sometimes, I struggle to find words to express myself.
How do I recognize that others are intelligent? Someone who can "think on their feet" and can recite facts/figures off the top of their head impresses me: someone who can do both is especially intelligent in my book. Improvisational speaking ability is another attribute of intelligence. Although, I know some people who aren't very eloquent yet are very intelligent: the book smart crowd. One thing that I've recently concluded as a sign of intelligence is empathatic capacity. My guess: I think intelligence entails a combination of attributes I possess and that I wish I possessed.

The chapter's beginning discusses the difference between the implicit belief of changeable or static intelligence. Does the belief that intelligence is static or changeable affect academic performance? The assertion put forth by the text correlates a belief in changeable intelligence to higher academic achievement. Belief in static intelligence indicates a belief in "performance goals learning" and this leads to a student who measures success by academic performance (or lack of) to learning: although, just because one has done well in a class, is only a superficial indication that learning occurred! I tend to agree with this, and to be honest, I think I've fallen on the performance goal side of the spectrum, but reading this chapter provoked me to re-evaluate this.

Of Erikson and Bandura

Bandura and Erikson seem to be the epicenter of social cognitive theory: especially, Bandura. Self efficacy, the belief (or lack of) in ones ability to cognitively succeed, should not be confused with self-esteem (although having a good self image does not hurt self-efficacy). Take myself for example, I have a fairly sizable ego: I feel good about myself! Yet, lately, my self-efficacy, especially in terms of school, has been lower than I anticipated. (Don't worry, I don't feel this for my Ed Psych class: I just plain procrastinated with this journal! ha!.). Part of it is that I've have tons to do, have many distractions, and I get these "I just can't do it" thoughts. What does this mean in terms of the text?

Bandura's model has three interdependent sections: Personal judgments, behavioral, and Environmental (there is a fourth factor, physical/psychological state in reference to health: you're efficacy goes down when you're sick). We have aspects that we can and can't control. So what are the factors that I can't control in my situation? Bandura cited behavioral factors like task difficulty as something as possibly beyond one's control (and that's not necessarily a bad thing). There's also an environmental aspect: I really can't control the fact that there's a poor environment in my other class which is the mandatory use of Blackboard discussion groups. I LOATHE Blackboard's discussion boards. It should be a primary example of poor interface design! I also can't control projects that are given to me at work and so I have to prioritize between getting paid and doing something for an "A." I'll choose getting paid first (and subsequently, "not fired")!

What I can control is how much time I dedicate to the class in question: if I absolutely need to use Blackboard, I should use it in short spurts. I could also do my classwork away from my main computer (which has all of my games on it!) and do it in an environment with less distractions. I could also post discussions that I find interesting (although, I'm not to fond of the subject). I can also control and important factor that Bandura cited: persistence. I may not like it, but I need to "suck it up." I can also do my work earlier in the day (not midnight!).

I think that's a good overview of my own efficacy. Now, self-concept is another issue! That's where Erikson comes in. Self-conceptualization is built over time, and it refers more to your feelings about yourself. Self-efficacy is a "Can I do" while self-concept is "How do I feel about.." (I borrowed the last idea from Frank Pajares and Dale H. Schunk's article on "Self-beliefs and School Success" (a wonderful monograph!). Erikson divided our life stages into self-conceptual stages: our self-concept changes over time and it can be matched to certain physiological/age phases. Since I'm 31, I'm somewhere in the "Intimacy vs. Loneliness" and "Generativety vs. Stagnation" stages (young adult and middle age stages). My self-concept is still in flux because I'm a) single b) trying to be productive/generate meaningful work. If I feel I'm not succeeding, then my concept of myself will change for the worse. Does this affect my self-efficacy? It could if I make judgments and behavioral choices based on not being able to find meaningful relationships or I feel I can not produce anything meaningful. However, I don't think that will happen. I guess we'll see how it turns out!

Reconstruction of Memory

I was at a robotics competition this last weekend for the FIRST Robotics St. Louis Regional and tomorrow I'm going to Chicago for FIRST Midwest regional robotics competition. At both events, I'm the the head referee and so there's a bit of pressure to perform: I need to make split second decisions when I perceive an infraction has occurred. Many times, I need to reconstruct events in my head rather quickly if the participants (who are high school aged students) have questions about my calls. Sometimes, my referee crew needs to reconstruct events (usually out loud) so that we can make the best decision as possible. I had a scorekeeper (who was keeping tract of balls the robots scored in a goal) who may have mistakenly reconstructed an event in her head (or she may have been distracted) and scored less balls in a goal for one team (apparently there is video of the robot scoring more). It was curious how she reconstructed the event because she was very verbal about it: not only did she recall scoring the balls going in, she remembered counting the balls in the can in which scored balls landed. Good enough for me and it would have probably been good enough for a jury! (The team lost the match by that one ball!)

In the book and in class, reconstructive memory, as its name implies, consists of smaller memories and impressions that are connected by an event: we use these memories and their connections to recall a memory. Now for the example I gave, it may also be called a flashbulb memory: although the event was probably not significant/emotionally charged enough to be considered "flashbulb." For education and for my scorekeeper, the reconstruction of memory is aided by engaging something that's meaningful. My scorekeeper, who did a great job, probably didn't feel connected to that moment like the students who designed and drove that robot. She saw many matches that day while the kids paid attention to their matches (30+ vs. 3-5 matches). I bet those students will be able to reconstruct that moment in their head for many, many years to come because it was the moment that lost them the game (although, realistically, they had plenty of other opportunities to "put it away."

And to go on a tangent, child led conferences, the CWC for another week, also reminds me of my robotics competition. In the competition, if the team has a problem with the refereeing, only the students may come to me to ask questions. I'm very impressed by how eloquent and assertive these kids can be! Several of them "know" me from the previous years and so I might be more approachable, but I don't feel any reluctance to approach me (ok, I can be curt at times, but I'm refereeing! I've got lots on my mind!). If more students were as outspoken and assertive as the teens who do FIRST Robotics, then we're definitely "on to something." From this, I would wholeheartedly support child led conferences!