TCCHawaii.org

Written by Youxin Zhang (TCC 2017 guest blogger, Instructional Designer for the School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene at the University of Hawaii at Manoa)

Dr. Kumiko Aoki has a cross culture background in education. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin in the USA with her master degree in Communication, and received her doctoral degree in Communication and Information Sciences from the University of Hawaii.

Dr. Aoki served at different higher education institutions in different countries. She previously taught at Rochester Institute of Technology and Boston University. After that, she returned to her home country, Japan, in 2004, for serving as a faculty member at the National Institute of Multimedia Education.

Currently, she is a professor of Informatics department at the Open University of Japan since 2010. Her research interests are revolving around distance education, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education, and sociocultural aspects of digital media. She greatly contributed to the development of online courses at the Open University of Japan with her expertise in instructional design.

The title for Dr. Aoki’s presentation is “MOOCs and Potentials for Personalized Learning Paths.” MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) first appeared in 2008, and then developed rapidly in 2012. It became a worldwide phenomenon and was delivered in a variety of subjects in a number of different languages across the globe. MOOCs provide educational opportunities to the masses for free or at a low cost and possibilities of researching learning behaviors of individuals.

As a beginning, Dr. Aoki provided an overview of MOOCs’ history including the definition of MOOC, different MOOC types, MOOC providers, other MOOC initiatives in non-US areas. Then she shared the current situation of MOOCs in Japan, the business models of xMOOC in particular. Dr. Aoki also addressed the procedures of collecting learner’s personal information via MOOCs, and focused on learning analytics (e.g. MOOC analytical systems, framework). She talked about how these MOOCs can be tailored to the individual’s personalized learning. Lastly, she introduced the personalized learning paths and the integrative learning process.

The most interesting part of the session that I enjoyed a lot was the discussion happened in the chat room while presenting. Participants of this session were super passionate about this topic and initiated a thoughtful discussion to look the MOOC hype into depth. The conversations were really impressive among those people who held different opinions from different perspectives, not just from learners and instructors, but also administrators, policymakers, instructional designers, institutions, MOOC providers. They were not only just identifying the problems that MOOCs may bring to education because critics described MOOCs as a disruptive innovation, but also delving into the possible solutions to make it better.

Another thing I like about this presentation was its layout. The first part of this presentation gave you a full introduction on MOOCs which had a clear and easy flow for those who were new to MOOCs to follow. The second part, Dr. Aoki narrowed down the topic to discuss how we can integrate MOOCs into our personalized learning to achieve our goals. This seemed like she leveled up this topic and make it more universal and practical to everybody, not quite far away from our lives. MOOCs were not just about receiving a certificate from any elite university or getting new skills for advancing your career. It’s more about to hone your higher order thinking skills and promote a life-long education regardless of who you are and where you are.

All in all, I was deeply impressed by the information covered in this lecture and the discussion part. Without any hesitation, I would definitely recommend you to check out this lecture by Dr. Aoki If you are interested in MOOCs or personalized learning.

You can reach Dr. Aoki via her email: kaoki@ouj.ac.jp

Written by Kurt Rutter (TCC 2017 guest blogger)

Dr. Peter Leong is an Associate Professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s College of Education’s Department of Learning Design & Technology (LTEC). Dr. Leong has extensive experience in the development and delivery of online courses and distance education.

The first topic was about the persistent myth of video game addiction. What may appear to be an addiction to online virtual worlds and video games turns out to be unsupported, that is, video games are no more (or less) addictive than any other activity or behavior. I think part of this is a tendency to undervalue social interaction in virtual worlds and to mistake engagement for addiction. That said unsupervised play is, well, unsupervised.

What is evidence does support is the premise that carefully designed games can help learners master psychomotor and critical thinking skills through collaboration and independent learning which involves problem-solving as individuals and in teams.

Examples of gamification in education presented by Dr. Leong demonstrate the potential for engaging learners in a wide variety of disciplines from history to English, ESL, language learning, and math. Another aspect of gamification is the use of virtual worlds to enact simulations that are not possible in the real world such as virtual field trips to locations around the world, famous museums, and historical events.

The structure of gamification can vary from fully immersive to an adjunct that integrates with other classroom work. Games can be semester-long or just a week or two depending on the needs of the class, schedules, and the subject matter. An education course can become a quest for knowledge, with leveling and badges. Students can have avatars and character traits for role-playing. Or a course can be an embedded into the real world.

For example, Windward uses gamification for an introductory college course that first-year college students take. The purpose of the course is to not only orient the student to the campus but to build community and a sense of place at Windward.

My personal favorite was using Minecraft to teach mathematics, planning, budgeting, and environmental science all rolled into one in order to design a zoo. This project, led by Shane Asselstine, demonstrated the power of virtual worlds embodied within a gaming platform. Minecraft.Edu, a derivative of the commercial Minecraft platform, is an educational version of that gives teachers control over the game.

Shane has worked extensively with Minecraft in K-12 education, as well as for graduate students learning to teach with Minecraft. I worked with him briefly in a graduate course and developed a sincere respect for kids who survive and thrive in this virtual world.

The final project discussed was a community development project to bring homeless children and their caregivers together to learn to collaborate and learn together.

The presentation demonstrated that a wide array of options exist in gamifying a classroom, a week in the semester, or a community outreach project. Far from video games being addicting, the evidence points to the use of well-structured gaming as a valuable educational tool that engages learners. Careful design is critical to ensuring that the rich environment provided by virtual worlds enhances the embodied learning experience as or more effectively than real world face to face environments.

Written by Mae Dorado (TCC 2017 guest blogger, online LTEC Masters Student)

Lucky we live in Hawaii! LTEC student, Kim Mah captivated the audience with her usability study and power point presentation featuring beautiful landscapes, lush scenery and a place she frequents because of her passion for her work.
As the session began, Kim started with an engaging activity featuring three beautiful scenic pictures, she asked the audience to identify which picture represented the Kawai Nui Marsh. Unknowingly, many in the audience did not realize that all three pictures displayed were all representative of the Kawai Nui Marsh, the largest wetland in Hawaii.
As a social studies teacher in Kailua, Windward Oahu, Kim aligned her project to the implementation of social studies performance standards to teach her 4th grade students about the culture and history of Hawaii, understand change, continuity and causality. A truly engaging experience, Kim’s mobile gaming project is called, “Kualii’s Journey: A Search for Hauwahine”.
Through the use of a virtual reality web-based game, Kim uses Aris (an open source tool for creating mobile learning games) to capture the story of a young chief named Kualii who sees the future and his search for a guardian goddess, Hauwahine.
In Kim’s Journey…She sought to implement an enriching and culturally sensitive experience for students to understand and appreciate Hawaii’s history through the beautiful scenic areas of Na Pohaku O Hauwahine, Ulupo Heiau, and Kawai Nui Marsh found right in their backyard.
Kim continued to engage the audience with polls about their personal experiences in Social Studies and explained about her personal motivation to sharing the culture of Hawaii’s history with her students.
What she wanted the students to get out of their experience?

• Na Pohaku O Hauwahine; unique geology and culture where native plants of the Hawaiian Islands flourish,
• Ulupo Heiau; ancient and historic site with beautiful landscape and plush greenery, and
• Kawai Nui Marsh; also known as, ‘The big water’ with a rich habitat of plants and animals is very significant to the history of earlier chief, kings and wars.

Primarily providing a means for her students to capture and record their experience, have hands-on learning, find a connection to their beautiful community in Kailua, would help to make the experience meaningful, by gaining knowledge to develop confidence in their lives. Lucky we live in Hawaii! To learn and admire this beautiful scenery in a game is amazing…and seeing this makes one appreciate the beauty that is Hawaii.
Kim Mah can be reached at kimmah@hawaii.edu.

written by Yahna Kawa’a (TCC 2017 guest blogger)

A worthwhile session for teachers and parents of elementary through high school students, administrators anyone interested in technology-facilitated learning in the 21st century classroom, Kristel de Leon’s research project is proof that necessity is indeed the mother of invention. This enthusiastic public school teacher observed that her fifth grade students consistently struggled with one particular math concept: multiplying fractions. Think back to your fifth grade class. Do you remember learning how to multiply fractions? If the words numerator and denominator sound familiar, good for you!! But, if you’re like me, then math class was kind of a blur. Had my math teacher incorporated innovative teaching practices like the one described in this session, perhaps I would have developed a fondness for the subject. Kristel’s action research project described how she “flipped” her classroom and evaluated how interactive video instruction impacted attention and learning of fraction multiplication. Using videos that she located or created herself using play posit, Kristel turned passive video instruction into a responsive learning environment for her students. The flipped classroom (FC) model is a relatively new practice. Traditional teacher centered instruction (e.g., lecture) is flipped so that instead of passive listening in the classroom, students view pre-recorded video lectures for homework then the following day participate in classroom activities linked to the video instruction. Students spend time working collaboratively to solve a problem related to the content in the video lecture at school while the teacher observes and facilitates the learning and discussion. In an FC model classroom teachers are no longer the sage on the stage, but instead serve as the guide on the side.

Kristel highlights some of the features of the FC model including, student feedback, data to drive instruction and creating a collaborative problem solving environment. “Students found the new form of learning entertaining and the embedded questions helped to keep their attention, provided positive reinforcement making them more accountable for their learning.” Kristel revealed how difficult it was to “release responsibility to my students and let them teach and learn from each other”. She said that it was more valuable though to give them wait time, because they came up with strategies that were different. It is important to “praise the process not the end product”. Her students learned valuable skills through the FC model including, critical thinking, communication, and creativity. “Letting go of the reins giving students more freedom to practice these skills” was so important. Kristel intends to share her video lessons with her colleagues and plans to apply the model to her language arts lessons in the future. Kristel de Leon is a Master’s student in the Department of Learning Design and Technology at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and is a 5th grade teacher on Maui. She is passionate about her subject matter and dedicated to helping her students learn and succeed by incorporating innovative practices into her math classes.