Tag: reading

There’s an app for that… [OSX Edition]

It has been a while since I have written about the applications I am using in my day-to-day workflow. With it being the Easter break, I thought this was an excellent opportunity to rectify that.

Today, I am going to focus on the apps that I am using on my MacBook Air and tomorrow I will share what I am using on my iPhone. I hope that some of you find this useful…

apps

Utilities…

Alfred 2 is an app launcher; clipboard; productivity toolbox, if you will, that helps me to exercise my inner control freak. Hazel helps with that too! Between the two apps I can automate searches, workflows, and keep folders tidy and up-to-date. One of the main ways that I use Alfred 2 is to search both the web and my MacBook via the Alfred interface. You can add very specific custom searches that you can action with keywords. I have custom searches for creative commons photos on Flickr, tags in Tumblr, the Mozilla Developer Network and my Delicious bookmarks as well as a host of others.

TextExpander took a while to get used to but now I think I would be lost without it. TE makes writing a lot less painful by allowing you to write in any app using shorthand which it expands into pre-defined full text. I have snippets for email signatures, file naming conventions and phrases/expressions that I use on a regular basis.

Dropbox – The obligatory file syncing app, which also helps me to back up the important stuff.

CloudApp is where I upload images and screen grabs for sharing… I stopped using all other image/upload services in my efforts to reduce the number of accounts that I use, as well as seeking to retain a greater level of ownership of my data.

Time Machine is how I keep my MacBook Air backed up.

Writing…

nvALT – You know I love this app, right!? I have tried many other writing/note-taking apps (TextEdit, Byword, SublimeText) but in the end I always come back to nvALT; writing everything (blog posts, emails, speaker notes) in Markdown. The app’s interface is clean, the CSS customisable and has a useful set of shortcuts that let you use it efficiently in full screen mode. Notes are stored as plain text and synced via a folder in Dropbox. This set up is both simple and liberating.

Google Docs (Drive) might be my most used app at the moment. I write and publish material for my M.Ed. with it; I work collaboratively with colleagues; I work collaboratively with my students… the list goes on. Anything that is of high importance, I periodically download and add to a folder in Dropbox. I am all about redundancies.

Coding…

Brackets is an open source HTML/CSS editor. It does exactly what it says on the tin and has auto pairing of HTML/CSS syntax built in, which is winning in my book.

*FileZilla is not strictly an app that I code with but it doesn’t really fit anywhere else. I make manual edits to my home page/blog and also upload/maintain HTML5 presentations, like this one.

Communicating/Connecting…

Mail – Using a couple of hacks to make GMail and Mail integrate more effectively, I have come to find Apple’s built in inbox perfectly usable.

Tweetbot is a bit pricey for some but I love the iOS version; using it on OSX is just a natural fit. Moreover, considering the value that Twitter has added to my career as an educator through the numerous connections I have made, it is worth every penny.

Google+ – My use of G+ is sporadic. Sometimes I remember to share a post but more often than not I tend to be using it for the Hangouts feature, connecting and chatting with fellow educators.

Organising…

Until Any.DO launches their web version, I have returned to using Wunderlist. It is the app that currently meets my needs the most. Any.DO is almost there but without a web/desktop app it falls a short.

Google Calendar – iCal is a terrible app to use both in terms of UI and UX. I’ve tried a few others, including QuickCal but I continually find myself entering items via the Google Calendar web interface. Until something better comes along, I will be sticking with it.

nvALT – Again!? Well of course… alongside writing blog posts and emails, I also keep snippets, lists and reference materials in nvALT. It is my everything bucket.

Evernote has helped me keep my M.Ed. notes, reading and data analysis organised. I use it for this sole purpose.

Browsing/Reading…

Google Chrome with a few tweaks (DuckDuckGo anyone?) has been my browser of choice for some time now. The UI/UX is cleaner/more user friendly than Firefox and it’s way faster than Safari. I try to keep Chrome as lean as possible, as such I only have four extensions installed. These are AdBlock as I don’t want to see advertisements while I’m browsing, Delicious Tools to bookmark content on the fly, Pocket, to save content for later and nvIt which is a neat little extension that allows me to grab text from a web page and open it as new note in nvALT.

Reeder is how I keep on top of RSS. It is not dead people and Reeder is due to be updated on OSX to include support for Feedbin which I have signed up to following the announcement from Google that they’re retiring Google Reader.

Pocket is where I put all that stuff I want to read/watch but simply do not have the time. I will get to it someday…

Listening/Watching/Editing…

iTunes is still my music app of choice. My library is housed in an external hard drive as I currently have 112GB of music!

Quicktime with Perian installed allows me to watch most video formats. However, my main use for Quicktime is screen capture, recording and editing video tutorials and lectures.

*YouTube – Not strictly an app but I use it a lot at the moment, uploading weekly video lectures for the open online course I am running.

Preview – Apart from viewing/reading PDF files, I use Preview to edit images. It is perfect for balancing levels, adjusting hue/saturation, as well as cropping and resizing images. When I need to do more robust editing I turn to Gimp. Running something like Photoshop is not really an option on my MacBook Air. Gimp is lighter and open source… which makes me ‘happy, happy, happy’!

And that, as they say, is that. If you would like to know more about how I use a specific app, either add a comment below or get in touch via Twitter. I’ll be back tomorrow to share the apps that I am using on my iPhone.

Becoming an active, critical reader…

Back in September, Jim Groom shared his thoughts on the importance of reading for context. An approach to reading that for me is about becoming a more active, critical reader. As I read his post, I found myself nodding along, each sentiment reflecting what I find myself saying to both my GCSE and A-Level students on a weekly basis…

I’ve taken pains to reinforce how essential it is to read for context. To read for the things that don’t make sense, read for the things you do not know, and read for the ideas that make you stop and think. And in the process take the time to play detective. Look things up. Follow the lead the writer gives you, try and build a context for your reading. What’s more, with the ubiquity of the web the process couldn’t be any easier.

Without an understanding of context…

You miss something in the understanding. And with the web always already right there it makes the excuses of not doing it nothing short of paltry. Contextualizing and augmenting one’s understanding of any book is that much easier, faster, and more powerful—and it should increasingly be expected of students.

Yet I often find that it isn’t or hasn’t been. And as Jim exemplifies in the age of Google there is no excuse.

With my own students I begin at an even more basic level. When they encounter a word they do not know, I encourage them to work to figure it out; to contextualise it. And should that not work, to turn to the dictionary and find the definition. What I won’t do is tell them the answer nor will I allow them to ignore it. Why? Because…

…the act of reading is not to be taken for granted.

Reading is an active, critical process that needs to be cultivated. While it may not seem likely to them at first, I believe that most of my students come to appreciate that rather than taking the pleasure out of reading, stopping and looking things up improves their understanding and their enjoyment with it.

MOOC MOOC – Day Two

Day 2 of MOOC MOOC was very enjoyable. We were given our first formal activity, which involved creating a 1000 word collaborative essay, addressing the following questions:

  • What is a MOOC?
  • What does it do, and what does it not do?

Based on my reading and my familiarity with using Google Docs, I jumped straight in and began to respond. One or two others did likewise. Eventually, we reached a collaborative impasse, realising we needed to do some more reading and take some time to reflect. In particular, I needed to understand better the difference between the two different types of MOOC that were being discussed: cMOOCs (Connectivist – developed by the likes of Stephen Downes, George Siemens and Dave Cormier) and xMOOCs (the Coursera/Udacity model – currently being lauded and vilified, depending on which end of the Media spectrum you choose to read).

cMOOC vs xMOOC

As one of the early developers of cMOOCs, George Siemens writes: “Our MOOC model emphasizes creation, creativity, autonomy, and social networked learning. The Coursera model emphasizes a more traditional learning approach through video presentations and short quizzes and testing. Put another way, cMOOCs focus on knowledge creation and generation whereas xMOOCs focus on knowledge duplication.” Marc Bousquet, sums this up more concisely, writing about cMOOCs that: “Good MOOC’s…foreground and sustain the social dimension of learning and active practices, i.e., knowledge production rather than knowledge consumption.”

What we have then in MOOCs is little more than a continuation of the age-old debate between progressive, student-centred learning and traditional transmission-based teaching/learning that has dominated education for a long time. When taking this dichotomy at face value, there is little that is surprising. In that, the institutional model (xMOOCs) is essentially an extension of the pedagogical models practiced within the institutions themselves, while the more progressive model (cMOOCs) built by a ‘connected’ group of ‘individuals’ is relatively free from institutional constraints.

Does this mean that within institutions such as Stanford and MIT no social, creative, networked learning occurs? Certainly not, but like in many educational establishments I would suggest that such models of learning are the exception rather than the norm. Why is this? In my experience, it is not one facet but a combination of factors that result in such situations. Infrastructure, finance, time and leadership all impact on educational practice within educational institutions. I have no doubt that, in the eyes of institutional leaders, xMOOCs represent an opportunity to increase marketing and revenue. When Watters asserts that “the pedagogy – watch videos, take multiple choice quizzes – is an indication that these courses are retreading old practices rather than really rethinking how the technology can transform how we teach/learn”, she is not only right, but also raises the question: why? Is this simply a case of educational practitioners ‘not getting it’? Or is it a case of professors and teachers being asked to produce content for something they have not had time to come to terms with? I am not making excuses, as I sit significantly far to the cMOOC end of the spectrum when it comes to my own pedagogical classroom-practice. However, working within an educational establishment myself, I have witnessed a number of potentially progressive projects and initiatives be delivered very poorly. Why? Usually, because the leadership wants to jump on a bandwagon and little to no time is afforded for professional development or research to develop understanding of the potential pedagogical benefits, let alone best practices.

MOOCs are not about broadcasting education although that is what many xMOOCs appear to be doing. cMOOCs on the other hand have huge potential to be both a disruptive and progressive force within education. They can:

  • Develop and fostering connected, collaborative learning beyond traditional classroom settings
  • Provide learning that does not fit neatly into the curriculum
  • Connect groups of like-minded individuals who share interests
  • Provide a platform for the development of learner independence and resilience

Having developed a better understanding of the cMOOC and xMOOC paradigms, I returned to the Google Doc which had taken further shape. I enjoyed helping to edit and refine it and feel that I was able to make a better contribution having taken some time to step back, allowing my thinking to evolve.

You can read the finished essay here: A Mooc by Any Other Name (4)

Final Thought

In the video interview above, George Siemens expresses that MOOCs are about learners embracing chaos, making sense of it themselves, rather than someone doing it for them. The collaborative essay was a perfect example of this, we began with chaos but through initiative, reflection and connection we were able to make sense of the chaos and produce a piece of succinct writing. Is it the case then, that the online aspect of MOOCs is what is most important? Owing to the fact that, through the use of web-based tools (Google Docs, Canvas, Twitter) we were able to form connections and collaborate effectively.

MOOC MOOC – Day One

Yesterday I enrolled and began participating in MOOC MOOC a week long, Massive Open Online Course about Massive Open Online Courses.

This is the first MOOC that I have participated in although I have been following the development and growth of the MOOC phenomenon for some time; aided by blog posts and tweets from the likes of Stephen Downes, George Siemens, Dave Cormier, Jim Groom and Audrey Watters. My interest in such courses is obvious… just a short perusal of my blog will tell you that I have a vested interest in e-Learning, independent learning and learning pedagogies. I am currently writing up my research proposal as part of the Masters in Education I am undertaking. I am seeking to answer the following question:

To what extent can virtual courses support the development of independent learning beyond ‘real time’ curriculum delivery?

I hope that spending the week participating in MOOC MOOC will provide additional ideas and lines of enquiry, as I continue to develop and refine my thinking around both online learning and learner independence. I am also interested in the role such courses can play within the education landscape and the challenge that they can pose to traditional-systematised models of education. I hold strong beliefs about learner independence and feel that we are currently reaching a point where learning has the potential to be more democratised and available to learners, free from economic and geographical constraints. Moreover, I see potential in MOOCs to be a piece of the puzzle in enabling learners to be autonomous; self-managing their learning pathway. I’m not sure how far this view reflects others’ thinking and that is something I hope to discern over the course of the week.

I am also interested to see how a MOOC is/can be different from any other online course? What is the balance/relationship between pedagogy and technology? What is most important within the ‘Massive Open Online Course’? Scale? Openness? Online? Or something else? I have many questions and I don’t expect to necessarily come out the other end with answers but I do expect my thinking to have moved forwards.

Day One: Orientation

What follows here is a collection of my thoughts after the first day of MOOC MOOC

Having enrolled, participants were invited to edit their profile, sort notification preferences and introduce themselves, all within the confines of the Canvas LMS. While I understand the decision to use such a platform to structure the course, it immediately raised questions. Canvas certainly looks nice but is no way different to Blackboard or Moodle in its infrastructure and approach. Does the use of such platforms limit MOOCs? Are our perceptions of what a MOOC is/can be being defined by previous experiences of online courses that have and continue to be delivered within such platforms? How is MOOC MOOC different from any other online course? I don’t have an answer yet but as with all learning, I believe it’s imperative to look beyond the technology. If we do that then, what we are left with is a discussion and a selection of articles to read. Not particularly ground breaking but then it is only day one. I tried to engage with the forum discussion, introducing myself and responding to one/two other people’s posts. However, I found myself becoming irked by the platform; the threaded structure and limited functionality made the process cumbersome. Furthermore, given that a Twitter social was scheduled for 6pm, I have to ask what the point of using the forum was? I am reminded of a discussion I had a while ago about the value of distribution and multiple platforms. However, I remain unconvinced. For each activity I feel it is best to pick one medium (hopefully the one that is best suited to the task).

Finding myself a little underwhelmed, I decided to spend some time reading. A number of articles were posted, several of which I had not encountered before and others that I had. In this process, what a MOOC is began to reveal itself; not only in terms of varying definitions, which I plan to explore as the course continues, but also in terms of my role as participant/independent learner. Writing this on day two, I have already had a number of discussions on Twitter and via a Google Doc about the difference between cMOOCs and xMOOCs. There is clearly a history to be understood and a lot of information to be digested however it’s becoming clear that connecting, discussing, and debating is an integral feature of MOOCs. Dave Cormier says as much in the following video.

Now, a day and a half in, I have oriented, declared and sprinted head first into sharing, collaborating and debating with the network. Like I have experienced during my M.Ed studies, and with my own students, it is the dialogue that is most important. Perhaps then, a MOOC is nothing more than a beginning, a platform to jump off of? Each article, each activity a way to evolve thinking and generate further discussion?

21st Century Literacy: Two Words

There are no films, TV programmes, advertisements, books, paintings or radio shows. Nor do we watch, observe, gaze, inspect, listen or study. There are only ‘texts’ which we ‘read’.

Sometimes the language we use in the classroom is peripheral, complicating meaning and/or understanding. After all, words such as ‘film’ and ‘advert’ are only generic terms, used to classify texts, in our dumbed down world, where we clamour to have everything fitted neatly into little boxes. Words such as ‘watch’ and ‘gaze’ do nothing more than describe states of being.

None of these terms are helpful in preparing young people to be literate in the 21st century. The values placed on texts such as ‘films’ and ‘TV programmes’, when combined with words such as ‘watch’ or ‘listen’, are predominantly negative. The implication being: ‘no reading is required’. However, any student of Media Studies, Communication Studies or Linguistics will tell you that, this is not true.

Moreover, children are being born into, and are growing up in a “media-saturated society” (Strinati, 1992) where the boundaries between high and low culture have been eroded almost entirely. This is a dangerous world in which young people are growing up. That is, if we don’t begin to treat supposed ‘lowbrow’ texts with the same critical reverence as we have paid to fine works of art, classical music and plays.

It is my contention, that we can take steps towards achieving this, by redefining (and using) just two words. Those words are ‘text’ and ‘reading’.

With my semiotic hat on, I would suggest:

  • Text: Any work containing one or more sign.
  • Reading: To decode the meaning within a text through the understanding of signs.

If we reduce our classroom language to these two terms and help our students to appreciate the above definitions then we can change the way they look at the world; opening their eyes to the depth of meaning that can be found within a Shakespeare play and Call of Duty. Moreover, we can remove hierarchal precepts and establish a level of equality, in which both (highbrow and lowbrow) texts are read (critically) not watched or played.