6328-Overview Group Blog and Present the plan of Assignment1

Overview Group Blog

1. The Layout of Group Blog

In our blog, except weekly activities, I add some gadgets, such as daily calendar, search bar, useful links, and some preview modules. In “Partners”, it links our members’ individual blogs. “Recent Comments” is arranged in order of time of occurrence. The inviters can quickly read our comments. At the right, it is our “Article List”. It records our all activities. Besides, there are links to other groups, RISAL and Moodle.

2. The Article Format in Group Blog

Generally speaking, the article format about our weekly activity is that one member first post the key information about weekly activity, and then every member writes their opinions in the “comment table”. But, in the “comment table”, we can not share video and links other digital information. Therefore, sometimes, in order to embed some video or other digital material, every member would post their own “activity page” and give a clear indication of the author.

Following is my plan about our group assignment.

At first, every one will give a brief introduction about our organizations, including the history, culture, current plan, and employees. In order to compare the similarities and differences, we will choose the key words and fill out a comparing table. It is a quite useful and simple way to compare different data.

In the part two, we will use some models to interpret the specific situation about our organizations. The initial selected models include the “Diffusion of Innovation” model, Fullan’s “framework for leadership”, Senge’s “five principles for Learning Organizations”, and Newhouse et.al. (2002) framework. In this part, we will first make a brief introduction about these modules, and then give four cases about our organizations respectively. After finishing the basic statement, we will give a comparison or summary about our four organizations. I think in this part, we can also use some tables and key words to compare different data. (the basic structure of Assignment http://mainland4.blogspot.com/2011/03/outline-of-group-assignment.html)

After we finished comparison, we will discuss the key “What strategies does your organization have in place to encourage development, change and innovation”. I will answer this question as the implications of the above four models presented. The specific format is that I will itemize the concrete strategies as the displayed four models. I think it is a good way to keep connectivity and consistency.

MITE6024-Activity 7

1- Consider uses of mobile technology in your school or workplace.

2- Present some ideas for uses of mobile technology in your own context

1- Consider uses of mobile technology in your school or workplace.

In my domestic school, the mobile technology I can use is limited in mobile phone and laptop. However, in my domestic campus, there is not covered wireless network. As a result, I had to use dial-up connection. While, there are only three to four network ports in every class, it is so inconvenient. Therefore, students are not willing to take their laptops, and they preferred to using the lab computers or going to Internet bars.

Meanwhile, using mobile phone accessing to Internet is so convenient. Generally speaking, a majority of students like to use mobile service packages, which include basic mobile access fee. No matter where you go, you can easily access to Internet surfing. In fact, I like you using mobile phone to fast browse news, and read e-books. It is a so pleasure thing reading an e-book which avoids the book hard to be taken. Just taking out your mobile phone and selecting the e-book favorites, you can easily read your e-book.

2- Present some ideas for uses of mobile technology in your own context

Recently, there is explosive growth of Microblogs in China. At first, every person can easily have their own account. In fact, many famous enterprisers, movie starts, singers, and sportsmen drive the Microblog spread. Except for individuals, many companies, press and even government departments all create their Microblog account.

Secondly, people can easily access to the Microblogs by their laptop, mobile phone or ipad. Just accessing to the Internet, people can login your Microblog.

Thirdly, although Microblog only send 144 characters, it is influencing people’s daily life. For instance, People can quickly get the newest world affairs, know the latest fashion, acquire all kinds of information what they want to know. In my opinion, one of the most significant point about people loving Microblog is that it shortens the distance among people and world. Therefore, there is a catchword in China, “Are you playing Microblog, today?”

Now, Microblog is not limited in entertainment. In fact, it has created an opportunity for students to embrace technology in a new learning style. In my Microblog, I like some English program. One of my favorite English program in Microblog is called “kaixin English Jam” (Happy English Jam). The hosts are the former Google China president Li Kaifu and the famous writer and presenter Cha kexin. They always record some English daily dialogues and upload Microblog. Besides, they also pointed out some mistakes to other English programs in Microblogs. Besides, they teach the usage of vocabularies. In a word, I like their Microblog so much.

If you search key word in Mircoblog, you can find many similar Microblog accounts which related to educational area. In fact, more people not just the students like these Microblogs, because they can get all kinds of knowledge and interesting information from Microblogs. Indeed, it is a quite wonderful platform for education!

MITE6024- Session6-My opinion of the Experimental Classroom

What do you think of this Experimental Classroom?

Would you like to teach here?

What are the room’s affordances and what are its weaknesses and disadvantages?

At first, the Experimental Classroom is quite spacious and well-equipped. One of my favorite is that there is covered by an excellent wireless network. However, there are only seven laptops. In fact, I like using laptops to take notes at class. Therefore, I have to take my laptop to every class. It is so inconvenient.

Besides, there are seven tables in the Experimental Classroom. I like the tables in the upstairs, because I can clearly watch the contents from all screens. One day, I attended a lecture and sat in the downstairs. I felt so comfortless and tired, because I need to keep my head up. Sometimes my view was always obstructed, and I had to change the angles in order to watch the PPT. In addition, if teachers do not use microphone, I would miss some information due to its large space.

This night, it is the first time that I experience the strong functions of this Experimental Classroom. Before this class, I do not know there are so good functions. Admittedly, this classroom is well-equipped. However, I think the function is not practical. In fact, these functions can not be used in every class. In other words, not every student could have a chance to experience these advanced functions. Indeed, a majority of students only need a laptop. Therefore, I prefer the traditional classroom, like the Room 104 in Runme Shaw building. I like that room. Although there are not so advanced equipments, the room space is appropriate, and there are enough laptops to use.

In a word, I do not like the Experimental Classroom very much. However, if there could be provided enough laptops and better public address equipments, maybe, I will change above opinions.

MITE6024- Session6: Group work

Session6: Group work:Present a potential research topic that would be useful in providing a solution to an educational issue (should be relevant to IT)

Topic：Paradigm shift of teaching: How IT Application in Education Change Teacher from Sole Knowledge Disseminators to Learning Facilitators

As stepped into information age, all kinds of IT Applications are being created. Recently, there are many IT Applications used in educational area and followed with a series of change in education. One of most outstanding issues is about the changing teachers’ role from a knowledge disseminator to a learning facilitator. In order to better applied these IT applications and adjust to this context, teachers had to make a lager number of change. Besides, there some modulation happened, including adjusting the curriculum- using these applications in classes, transforming the teaching models, introducing more advanced technology and software, as well as equipped a lot of computers or laptops. In my opinions, all efforts aim to get the digitization. Following is some confusion. Are those teachers willing to receive these changes? Is it an opportunity to embrace the advanced pedagogy or just change for the sake of change?

According Lynch (2002), the key role of technology is as the link between teacher and students. It fact, there is a universal phenomenon in many local schools that many schools and teachers do not widely applied these advanced equipments. For example, there are well-equipped computer labs in many primary and secondary schools, which all installed the advanced software. Besides, those schools organized IT lessons to students. However, the impacts and practical application from these lessons are quite limited. The reason is because that the students only know and realize the existence of some software and learn some basic functions, but they do not use them in daily life. Indeed, this is one of the thorniest problems teachers faced currently. In generally, students still keep the traditional learning models, taking notes in the textbooks, submitting their homework in paper. Compared to those teachers, they only regarded teaching IT applications or software as a component of their teaching work, and they also preferred to print some paper-material to students.

However, it is a good beginning that some teachers started to ask students using IT applications in their learning and teaching. In fact, through introducing IT applications, students began to feel the learning is quite interesting. Indeed, the IT applications can motivate students’ interests in maximum. In other words, it promotes students to self-study by applying the IT. At this stage, the role of teacher is not as the lead actor —the one who must carry the show, even though there is allowance for other characters to interact (Lynch, 2002). In contrast, the teachers gradually become the information disseminator (Lynch), who master IT skills and try to introduce to students and inducing students to discovery its advantages in learning(Lynch). As Lynch pointed out, teachers need to present information to assisting students in identifying personal relevance and integrating it into their lives.

Therefore, how to induce students to use IT applications in their daily life and how present the significance of teachers’ role are the most important issue at present.

As the change of teachers’ role, Jenkins stated that “communication and learning has highlighted some significant changes in the teacher's role:

Change in relationship with pupils;

Change in role to facilitators and managers who support learning;

Change in the content and scope of teaching

Changing locus of control, from teacher to learner.”(Jenkins, 1999, p3)

In addition, there are some suggestions provided which try to give a solution and better utilize and develop these IT applications. “Wilson and Ryder (1998) outlined seven ways in which an instructor can create a common pattern of mutually supportive interaction in the class:

Encourage students to articulate their learning needs.

Provide a public forum that promotes group contributions and assistance.

Engage in help consultation, both between the learner and the teacher and among student peers.

Assess learning through a combination of self-assessment and consensual agreement.

Share difficult solutions with the entire class —perhaps through a restatement of the original problem and its solution.

Archive interactions and solutions for future reference.

Repeat this process, or any part, if necessary to support learning.” (Lynch, 2002, p71)

Reference:

Margherita MCVay Lynch (2002). "Developing faculty: the changed role of online instructors". The Online Educator. London: Routledge. Capítulo 4, page. 65-77.

6328-Activity6-Storytelling in Organizations

Activity6-Storytelling in Organizations

I think in many Chinese companies, there are lack of a clear vision and culture. It is generally believed these are only a conception. Perhaps, the following story represents many Chinese leaders' idea about their organizations.
There are two leaders in café.
One said, “you are so busy, what’s your intend?”
“To expand the business.” The other answered.
“Then, what’s your future plan?”
“Then, to dominate the market.”
“After that, what are you going to do?”
“Then, I hope to be a listed company, and earn much more money. ”
Then, they laughed.
I think this is a universal phenomenon in many Chinese organizations. “Profit , to be a listed company”, is the most important goals. But, are there any others?
I think that it is many Chinese entrepreneurs are facing now.

6328-Activity 5

Activity 5:Applying an online survey in your workplace as an learning organization.

In order to realize the organization and “determine how well is performing with each building block” (Garvin etal., 2008), the survey was used and completed.

My organization-the industrial association belongs to the local governmental department-Industrial and Commercial Bureau. Due to its special status, the organization almost is in a monopolistic circumstance. However, there is a change from 2008. The individual companies could choose to handle their industrial and commercial yearly check, by themselves. This change made the staffs stressful. Although the leaders took some measures to train their staffs and publicized their advantages to do the industrial and commercial yearly check,

the effect was quite a little. Based on on-line survey, the following statement is the survey results and a concrete analysis.

As the figure 1 indicated, the overall scores of my organization are quite low. But, the scores of three building blocks are quite consistent. They are all in the bottom quartile, and at a comparative low place. These results showed that my organization does not function as a good learning organization.

Figure 1： Learning organization Scores Summary of Industrial Association

Following is the concrete analysis of every aspect in each building block. The scores of Figure 2 pointed the five subcomponents situation in the building block of “Concrete Learning Process and Practices”. There are four scores in the bottom quartile, and experimentation gets the lowest score among them. Apparently, my organization does not receive the new ways of working. On the other hand, the score of analysis is comparatively high and in a forward position in the third quartile. It is beyond my imagination, because I always assumed the analysis of my organization being bad. It reveals that the leaders need “to think about the degree to which people test assumptions, engage in productive debate, and seek out dissenting views” (Garvin etal., 2008).

Figure2： Scores of Subcomponents in Concrete Learning Process and Practices

In the third figure, there is an interesting situation. The score of “Openness to new ideals” is below the bottom quartile, while the “Time for reflection” is in the first quartile. Although the “Appreciation of difference” is in the bottom quartile, it is quite close the second quartile. Yet the “Psychological safety” is also in the bottom quartile, at a lower position.

The report by Garvin etal. (2008) pointed that “‘openness to new ideals’ and ‘Education and training’obvious links to organizational improvement and personal development ”. In fact, these two aspects are the most difficult problems my organization faced in currently. The staffs lack enough training and further education, and staffs always feel that they could not get the respects. Indeed, staffs are eager to self-improve.

The “Psychological safety” suggested that “employees must be comfortable expressing their thoughts about the work at hand” (Garvin etal., 2008). It implied that leaders need to create a supportive environment to encourage employees to express their own opinions. The current situation is that the leaders always dislike the different opinion, or seemingly accepted. However, there is a positive sign about that the leaders gradually began to realize the significance of the difference options and appreciate them, which led to the score of “Appreciation of difference” being close to the second quartile.

The score of “Time for reflection” is the highest among the all scores. “Supportive learning environments allow time for a pause in the action and encourage thoughtful review of the organizations’ process” (Garvin etal., 2008). In fact, as a governmental department, the organization has a good schedule and a series of rules about post-audits and reviews, which had a positive function of self-reflection.

Figure 3： Subcomponents of Supportive Learning Environment

In conclusion, it is clearly indicated that my association is not a good learning organization, and there many aspects need to be improved through analysis of the above three building blocks. Admittedly, the subcomponent of “Openness to new ideas” is one of the toughest problems. If the leaders will to receive the new ideas and put into practice, the overall performance may be obviously improved. Four principles from Garvin etal. (2008) are also suitable for my organization. The leaders need to be clearly aware of “leadership alone is insufficient; organizations are not monolithic; comparative performance is the critical scorecard; and learning is multidimensional” (Garvin etal., 2008). If leaders can transfer their working style from leader-orientation to employee-orientation, it is believed that the performance will be more effective, and the organization will gradually become a good learning organization.

6024-Session5-Examples of Learing Objects-By Angie Fu

The learning object I chose is called “PH Scale”, from the web PhET. It is an interactive simulation, and belongs to simulation objects. As the definition of simulation object, “simulation objects represent some real system or process, and allow a learner to explore, usually by trial and error, operational aspects of a system, carry on a task that the system supports, and develop a mind model of that system’s functionalities”(Churchill, 2006). Besides, Churchill (2006) pointed that “a simulation might also involve dynamic processes”. From this case “PH Scale”, every user could choose different parameters (materials) to manage the different PH Scale.
Following is the detail explanation. At first, the interface is made up of three parts. On the left, the learners can choose different materials to measure its PH Scale, such as milk, coffee, beer, and so on. In the middle, it is a PH Scale related to the selected material. On the right, the learners could know the different quantity of molecular, which influenced the PH Scale of this material. In this interface, there is some different description to choose, like “Molecule count”, “ratio”, “Logarithmic scale”, “Linear scale”, “Concentration”, and “Number of moles”, which aim to better understand the meaning of PH Scale. Besides, the main goals of this simulation is to “determine concentration of hydroxide, hydronium and water at a given pH, relate liquid color to pH and predict (qualitatively and quantitatively) how dilution and volume will effect the pH and concentration of hydroxide, hydronium and water”(University of Colorado, 2011).
Overall, it is an interesting and vivid interactive simulation object. It contains many outstanding characteristics of a learning object. For details, it is a digital entity for technology-supported learning (IEEE, 2001), and used to support learning (Wiley, 2000). As a reusable digital resource, this example also can be built in a lesson (McGreal, 2004). Besides, it could be regarded as a small, stand-alone unit of instruction (E-learning Competency Center, 2003). Moreover, it is an interactive visual representation (Churchill, 2005). In a word, this simulation facilitates the complex concepts, and makes them more interesting. Through the visual interface and manipulation, the learners can understand its theory better.

Click to Run

6024-Session5 Group Work:Re-purposing Web 2.0 applications-By Angie

Select one ( or more) Web 2.0 applications and complete the following tasks:
What is the application designed to do?
How could it be re-purposed as a learning tool?
What are the actual and potential affordances of this application?
How would you justify your choice of this application?
Consider how you might use some Web 2.0 applications to enhance the way information, ideas and concepts are presented on your Blog

My Opinions:
1.What is the application designed to do?
“Google Sites started out as JotSpot which is a software company and offered enterprise social software. It was targeted mainly at small-sized and medium-sized businesses.”(From Wiki, Google_Sites) Then, on May 21, 2008, Google Sites became available for free separately from Google Apps.( "Google Sites Help Group", 2008). As the Google Sites Overview (From Google), “Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people. In other words, Google Sites is a good and easy platform to create, edit, and share all kinds of information. In fact, people can post and upload everything they liked and publish to all people on earth.

2. How could it be re-purposed as a learning tool?
At first, every people’s Google Sites is customized by individuals. Meanwhile, the basic functions contain editing, searching, uploading, storage, inserting and sharing all kinds of information, such as documents, audio or visual contents, photographs and even e-books. Besides, it can also link different web pages, and give the publishers some comments and reflections. In addition, one of the most outstanding features is that people can cooperate in their work together.
As the Google Site widely used, especially in educational area, it becomes a wonderful learning tool. More professionals, teachers, and students use Google Sites to collect and share information. Take our homework for instance, some classmates choose Google Sites to post their homework. At first, they create a share-account. Then, every week they would paste their articles to their share Google Sites. Apparently, it is an individual and collaborative process. The classmates not only do their homework, but also share their collective opinions. Sometimes, they also add attachments to the Google Sites, if they reference others’ contents. It is a quite wonderful function which provides the originals to every reader.
In a word, Google Sites as a digital resource, supports learning (Wiley, 2000), is used to mediate learning (Wiley & Edwards, 2002) and built in a lesson (McGreal, 2004). Besides, it can be regarded as “stand-alone unit of instruction” (E-learning Competency Center, 2003). Overall, Google Sites as a presentation tool, could “direct instruction and presentation resources designed with the intention to transmit specific subject matter” (Churchill, 2006).

3. What are the actual and potential affordances of this application?
At first, many people use it, because people have the need to access different information as quick as possible. Google Sites provides a useful platform to access and share information. Besides, Google Sites as a presentation object, “attempts to transmit knowledge to learners by displaying messages representing chunks of subject matter”(Churchill, 2006). The widely used formats in Google Sites are sharing documents; publish slide presentations, embedding videoed or audio-recorded segments which rise to people’s meet for accessing information and knowledge.

4. How would you justify your choice of this application?
Before this, I have no similar experience. Using Google Sites for group work and activities is a new experience. By using Google Sites, I can easily search some educational and instructional documents, PPT, e-books, and anything others. Moreover, I can share my experience, my photos, and anything I liked, such as video, software. Therefore, from my experience, I deeply feel that Google Sites as a specific application of presentation objects is mostly developed to support traditional pedagogical approaches, and also support more contemporary pedagogies and activities (Churchill, 2006).