ELI Day One, Part Two

Here some notes on the sessions for the first day of this year's ELI (Educause Learning Initiative).

The keynote by Bernard Bull, Concordia University in Wisconsin focused on Experiments, Entrepreneurs, and Innovations that are Shaping the Future of Higher Education. As academic transformation remains the leading issue at higher education institutions across the spectrum, his talk reminded us that we are again seeing education in unconventional ways and places. He watches trends and is interested when, for example, a trend jumps out of its domain (eg, health care) and into a different one (eg, education) as it shows that more than one small group of the population value the idea, and he is also very much interested in the concept of self-organized learning, which you may have seen in the amazing Hole in the Wall example.  

He stressed that one piece of the teaching and learning is the choice of educational institution, and if there were better ways for students to choose which institution is a good fit for them, then they could be more successful (he did not address how these students would then go about and pay tuition if they were to be selected for one of the very expensive institutions). This kind of alignment may also lead to more holistic measuring, and he reminded us that measures and algorithms, while more reliable, can either amplify or muzzle values and beliefs.

One of the examples of innovative education was Promazo, a group that connects students with companies for paid internships to solve problems that would be outsourced anyway.  The Wayfinding Academy helps students become clearer in their passions and interests making a traditional higher ed degree more meaningful as it cuts out multiple changes of majors that can extend time students put into a degree.

Finally, he considered that methodological and philosophical pathways can be a useful addition to curricula and programs, giving students additional choices for the path of study, but also giving institutions the chance to rethink their curricula away from simple compliance and accreditation.

 Second session of the day focused on Student Success with two short presentations, one focusing on the importance of stressing growth mindset, the other showcasing the development of a portal to pull together disparate online platforms to create a learning community. The first discussion is grounded in Carol Dweck's research on growth and fixed mindsets, and how clear communication about the two mindsets can already change attitudes and thus improve chances for success.  Students who are exposed to these two mindsets will make better choices in non-cognitive skills. Key takeaway from this session is also how you articulate your praise.  As growth mindset assumes that anyone can improve any skill through practice, feedback needs to focus on the practice and effort part, not create an environment that focuses on innate qualities.

Secret Decoder Ring

Third session of the day focused on the Secret Decoder Ring:  Why Faculty Choose to Pass on Faculty Development.  Three universities presented their approaches to faculty development, Northwestern, Wisconsin-Madison and Purdue, and their findings focused on empathy but also on focusing on culture and influencing change through this awareness.

ELI, Day One, Part One

Sticky note table top

The Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) is meeting this week in New Orleans, and we have two teams from Auburn University presenting about various aspects of learning at the conference.

I am here to see what I can learn about virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and just reality in general.  My Monday morning workshop focused on . VR and AR: Driving Pedagogical Innovation through Vision and Strategy, giving us plenty of food for thought with examples of existing various realities, suggestions on gear, and worksheets to tackle strategic and implementation challenges.
The two presenters, Maya Georgieva and Emory Craig, have been working for years in this field and written a number of Educause pieces discussing various aspects of virtual and augmented reality.

Here some pointers on these different aspects if you have not thought too much about this yet:
1. 360 degree video is probably the easiest to accomplish, filming an existing location in a full 360 degree circle to create a somewhat immersive experience. All you need is a 360 degree camera, a sense of what kind of space makes sense to be captured this way, and some experience in post-production, eg editing, stitching the video together. Panopto now allows for 360 degree video uploads.
Yosemite video is one example of a 360 degree video - note the instructions under the video for best user experience and that you can drag the video inside its window to see different perspectives.

2.  Augmented reality allows for an overlay or embedding of virtual or graphic elements into a real video environment.  Think Pokemon Go as the most obvious popular example. Both Apple and Google have been developing engines that allow for the design of such augmented realities.  Apple's ARKit and Google's ARCore allow all of us to create our own realities to some extent.
ARKit Examples
ARCore Examples

3.  Virtual Reality is the full immersion into a completely design virtual environment.  This tends to be the most complex environment to design, especially as we have been already exposed to very expensive versions of virtual reality, making it potentially difficult to compete with our previous experiences in the gaming world.


Why would this be of interest to us in education? Consider that each of these can do one of the following:
 - Take your students to places they would otherwise not be able to go to because it is too expensive, to time intensive, or too dangerous.
 - Allow your students to interact with an environment that in the real world would be too expensive or dangerous to work in, like a lab, power plant or other workplace experience.
-- Allow your students to learn from their mistakes in this environment before they encounter stressful situations in the real world.
 -- allow your students to be agents in making decisions in this kind of environment
 --  Allow your students an active part in creating such environments, with all the situational factors that need to be considered when creating aa compelling learning situation.

The technology may still be in its toddlerdom (I think we are past infancy), and with the emerging artificial intelligence capabilities, we will be able to give more choices to the users of such situations.

Here some examples of what is already out there, many of the cross-university collaborations with a lot of student input:
Virtually Ulysses - James Joyce's Dublin to bring a complex piece of literature to life and make it potentially easier to understand
1772 Gaspee Affair -- historical event reinvisioned
Visualizing the impossible - architecture students create physically impossible constructions
L.A. Children's Hospital Trauma Training - medical students are immersed into chaotic ER situations to deal with the entire situation not just the immediate medical crisis
Berlin Wall - students play different roles in a very emotional historical situation, allowing for the creation of empathy for different participants
Oregon 3d virtual microscope - moving into the molecular level

and yes, the furniture was also cool with a table top consisting of sticky notes.