Module 1, 2 & 3

Word for the day: ebullient. The picture to the right is a balloon launch in GPH111 on Valentine's Day. One went to Silly Mountain Road east of Apache Junction and another to east-central Colorado, 632 miles as the balloons fly. The picture mirrors my experience the day I realized my google group "4spheres" had reached critical mass and became a collaborative effort with a life of it's own.

At the start there were several things I knew I wanted to accomplish by creating a hybrid course:

1. A strong sense of community.
2. A digital repository of course materials.
3. An online site for collaborative team research projects.
4. A collection of web references available for future classes.
5. Increased instructor & student interaction using email.

There were some things I hadn't figured out. I knew I wanted students to map their photos, but I didn't know how we were going to do this. I knew I wanted students to link to google documents & photos, but I didn't know how we would do this. I knew I wanted students to make their team projects available for everybody to share, but I was unclear of the design.

Because the course is hybrid, I had the luxury to figure this out as we went along. It's true that some students grumbled because I didn't have all the instructions written out in advance. Finally, Shelley's CIS237 class started and I quickly began learning the technology...except on my brain-dead days when I couldn't swat a fly.

By the luck of gods, I got a student in my class who gets paid $8/hr to be the webmaster for CGC's primary website. Brian T. decided he wanted to create his own google group for his team's project. Other students copied him, as did I. His group's example became the nucleus around which the 4spheres group coalesced. In theory and practice, I should have provided this example myself, but I did not foresee how time intensive creating an online course would be. I also did not foresee how time intensive it becomes to answer email and read online discussions for 50 students. In my utter exhaustion I had to let go of the outcome and resolved to show compassion to the students and myself for whatever came of my sincere and honest effort to teach my students real-world career skills in environmental sustainability.

In addition to Brian, I had two other guardian angels: Shelley R. & Elijah S. Shelley's course wiki brought me up to speed about what was needed for a successful online course. Elijah S's "Active Learning Professional Learning Community" helped me develop the teams, team feedback and team review. By asking students to review each other's work, they not only learned from each other but started competing with each other for the best looking group site. Even the team at the bottom of the heap who had gone on a sit-down strike changed their tune when they clued-in these projects were examples of real-world career skills when it came time for recommendations.

The last and most unexpected twist occurred when it came time for me to share my group site with the CIS237 class. Suddenly I had student team sites that looked better than my own. This put me in the uncomfortable predicament of competing with my own students for best looking group site. I must say, in fifteen years of teaching it was a first. But it was also ebullient.

Here's a link to video content provided by one of my students: NGC's "Inside the Tornado," (YouTube; 6 minutes).

OMG! It's the first week!

This is a funny picture of a "guy in the headlights" from afraidtotrade.com . There is no digital copyright on the picture. Anyway, it really captures how I feel about designing course activities for the first week of class.

Like, what's the problem dude? I've already done it and things were fine--at least in a hybrid course. I mean, sure there was some confusion but all in all nothing too bad. But now that I'm becoming educated on the expectations and pitfalls--I'm frozen, totally drawing a blank.

Plus, two weeks ago I got my first experience of my online course site not working. It was the day after my cavalier remark "well, if somebody thinks I'm misappropriating their copyright they can ask me to take it down!" Then it dawned on me, nobody asks, they just pull the plug on you. It's like coming to class to find the door locked and only a sticky note "sorry for the inconvenience."

The first week of class is where the chaos creeps in. No matter how perfectly a person has it planned, some unforeseen detail throws a monkey wrench into your solar plexus. Especially if it's something totally obvious, a complete no-brainer. There's always a handful of students drawn to those invisible pitfalls like bees to honey.

What else is there to do? Pretend you planned it that way! "Oh! I was wondering how long it would take you to find that. Ten bonus points for being the first student to get there!" And get ready for some sleepless nights...

Anyway, here's some short & interesting podcasts from Earth Watch radio, suitable for a geography class. Enjoy! And good luck on your 1st week of activities!

1. Dust storms in Africa might shape the weather over the Atlantic Ocean. By Adam Hinterthuer ; Earthwatch Radio.

2. Weather systems in Alaska can break up icebergs in Antarctica. By Adam Hinterthuer ; Earthwatch Radio.

3. The western prairies of Canada might be in for a very long dry spell. By Bradford Lystra ; Earthwatch Radio.

Is it Spring Break Yet?

This image comes from the lifehacker.com blog entitled "Tens ways to beat brain drain" and there is no copyright on it--at least according to photoshop.


It seems one's ability to "borrow" others' digital images & work is dependent on how deep your pockets are. After all, google has no problem posting copyrighted movies on YouTube. Apple iTunes has no problem "borrowing" graphics from the Beatles. And Microsoft is very comfortable hiding what they borrow in millions of lines of "proprietary code."


So, should educators run everything through General Counsel before posting? I would say the best policy is to be discrete and if asked to remove an image, do so.


Oh yeah, and what's the best treatment for brain exhaustion for the seriously over-committed? Take a break! I just got a phone call from a friend who's stopping by to talk over a cup of coffee. Until next week, keep on clickin'!

Earth As Art: Mississippi River Delta

Musings on internet communications.

Rather than bore you with an encyclopedic review of internet communications, let me give a few examples of pros & cons.

Pros:
1. Shelley's weekly podcast (here). It's comforting. It grounds & focuses me. It connects me to a sense of participating with real people. Had I not experienced it for myself as a participant in class I wouldn't have known the importance of the human voice in learning.
2. Email: I love it. At it's best it's succinct, focused and I can engage when I'm ready. I much prefer it to phone calls, most of the time. Oh, and there's a record of what was said later.
3. Discussion groups: I prefer them to short essays on class movies and term papers. They let students get inspiration from others. They make a good venue for sharing resources but Wikis might be better.
4. Shared photos: Terrific! Geographers & meteorologists deal with imagery. We think in pictures. Other physical scientists look down their noses at us, but thinking in pictures is how Einstein figured out the universe. Later he added the math to explain it to the physicists. Nevertheless, NASA's physicist's still refuse to put a North arrow on any of their photos of Earth.
5. Annotated maps, such as google's "My Maps". Wow, have you seen "Our Earth as Art?" Google is way out in front on this and people say "they have a nice search engine." I see a revolution in maps in progress. The final outcome may transform how we think and share information & knowledge.

Cons:
1. YouTube movies: I hate 'em. They take up bandwidth and harddrive resources. Plus they're slow and I can speed read. Why watch a 15 minute movie when I can read 6 pages in 4 minutes?
2. Email: Spammers, warrantless wiretapping by Bush & Cheney, and people who don't take time to edit what they write. Dreadful stuff.
3. Online courses in which the teacher only grades and doesn't teach. I'm NOT talking about Shelley. Rather I'm thinking of some math and CIS courses with which I've had experience, but it could apply to just about any class. However, there is something to be learned in what NOT to do from these people.

Jury still out:
1. Blogging: It seems to me we should all write private journals. Am I really so needy that I have to publish all the blather of my mind? I know they're great for getting a person to the top of the dogpile in a Google search. And it does seem more structured than an online discussion group, for those who dislike chaos. I guess I'll hold off judging until the end of class.

Welcome

On Earth, our weather can be described as "chaos in order" because no matter how small of change made, the outcome is not totally predictable. On Jupiter, the atmosphere is understood as "order in chaos" because even though it's incredibly turbulent, the "eye" has persisted for at least 300 years.

Teaching has an element of chaos as well. No matter how carefully laid the plans, the outcome is not totally predictable. Sometimes something said that seems inconsequential becomes a big deal. Other times the whole focus of the course turns out to be not as important as we first thought.

With this in mind, I'm embarking on creating online courses for my meteorology and physical geography courses at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. May the muses of good fortune and creativity smile on my endeavor!

--Dr.C