Author: joanvinallcox

Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, rabid reader and poet who has taught in both the college and university systems. Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia. She is a widow from a happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter. Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry

Personalizing Web Access

~ joanvinallcox ~ 3 Comments

Sometimes a bunch of experiences mash together and inspiration results. A couple of day ago I received a comment on one of my posts – #2 by Virginia Yonkers where she said “Try working on another’s computer! Just as we have idiosyncrasies in the speech, how we do math, writing (think of handwriting), we develop different patterns for tools and how we use them. If we can see how to modify a tool or how it is used to achieve our goals, we are more motivated to ask for help, persist through problems”. That has been my experience in my own learning.

Later in the day I was working with some people who were not that efficient at using the web and wanted to show them what I regard as an essential web tool, del.icio.us, the social bookmarking application. I reached out to the laptop, not my own, to try to open up my del.icio.us account so I could show them why it was so useful. Two problems:

  1. Although this was the same model as my laptop, the owner doesn’t use a mouse, and I do. I have to think to use the trackpad and that slows me down and klutzes me up;
  2. The owner’s desktop looks different and so do the applications because she has them set larger than I do mine, also disorientating.

Both of these reminded me of Virginia’s comment, and an often overlooked factor in encouraging people to expand their web efficiency. I think knowing how to set up and manipulate our tools is essential to any skilled artisan, knowledge workers included. Which computer we use is important, but knowing how to set up our PLE (Personal Learning Environment) or, the term I prefer, our PLWE (Personal Learning and Working Environment) is foundational. To work efficiently and effectively, you need to streamline your access to the different software and applications you are going to use. You need to fit your tool to your use.

Because I have a laptop, I can travel with it and use it for presentations. Because I am on it for several hours almost every day, and because I am impatient, I have researched and developed my own idiosyncratic setup.

Working SetUp

So let me explain, starting at the top left:

  1. I use Apple and Firefox because experts I know talked about how easy and handy they were, and that has been my experience too; I like them.
  2. I have my applications dock on the left side where I am less likely to “bump” into it. What can I say; it works for me.
  3. Most importantly, I have a personal toolbar, right under the address bar, where I keep all the links I regularly use. I use the Bookmarks feature to put these in the order I want them in, and to shorten their names so I can squeeze more on. I add other links I frequently use too, but allow these to be beyond the “>>” at the right end of my personal toolbar. When I click on the “>>” a long list of these medium important links appears and I can choose from them.
  4. Most of my “Saved for possible future use” bookmarks, I don’t put in the Bookmarks feature of my browser (Firefox) because they are then tied to my computer, and when I get a new one (yum!) or have a crash (the pain! the pain!) or use another computer (awk-ward!), I don’t have access to them. Instead I use an online application for social bookmarking, usually del.icio.us, (although I’m also checking out diigo). I can access my del.icio.us (or diigo) accounts from any online computer, provided I can remember my user name and password. (Not always that easy ;->) So I always have access to the links I’ve saved. Saving to del.icio.us is easy using the (circled) icons (which I dragged onto my address bar from the del.icio.us site) to the left of the URL field. The checkerboard, when clicked, opens my del.icio.us account so I can find previously saved links.  The  tag icon that says “TAG” on it, when click opens a small field in front of the site I’m saving, and allows me to add tags so I can easily re-find the site when I want it.
  5. I have a Google toolbar even though it takes up screen space on my small laptop screen because it has an icon, circled, that allows me to open a new tab with one click. I like having lots of tabs open so I can switch from site to site with ease, which brings me to my final PLWE essential >
  6. When I took the screenshot above, I had seven (count ’em!) tabs open in Firefox. Often I have more because it makes my work easier. When I finish this draft, I will add links, and what I usually do is open the site I want to link to in another tab, copy the link address, return to my draft and add the link. Multiple tabs – I love ’em!

So there you have it, some of my secrets for making my work efficient and easy to manage, for setting up my PLWE, my “tool”. All learned, I’ll add, over years of chatting with others and reading about what the possibilities are in this ever changing web world.

WebTools For Teachers 06/06/2008

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment

WebTools For Teachers 06/04/2008

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment

  • Innovate: Rhizomatic Education : Community as Curriculum

    Brilliant description of how learning is currently occuring in rapidly changing fields. Must join to access, but free
    “In a sense, the rhizomatic viewpoint returns the concept of knowledge to its earliest roots. Suggesting that a distributed negotiation of knowledge can allow a community of people to legitimize the work they are doing among themselves and for each member of the group, the rhizomatic model dispenses with the need for external validation of knowledge, either by an expert or by a constructed curriculum. Knowledge can again be judged by the old standards of “I can” and “I recognize.” If a given bit of information is recognized as useful to the community or proves itself able to do something, it can be counted as knowledge. The community, then, has the power to create knowledge within a given context and leave that knowledge as a new node connected to the rest of the network.”

    tags: Innovate, learning, learning_tools, metaphor

  • The Rapid eLearning Blog

    Interesting ideas on how (and why) to create a PowerPoint that doesn’t look like a ppt.

    tags: WorkLiteracy, ppt, e-learning

How To Get Efficient at Using Your Computer

~ joanvinallcox ~ 4 Comments

Well, that may be a title for a book rather than a post, but I have many very smart friends who declare themselves Luddites or troglodytes when it comes to anything beyond email. I keep thinking that there must be a way to entice them into learning more about the computer and the web.

I know I don’t help them by whizzing around the screen and doing stuff in front of them (but knowing that doesn’t always stop me from doing it). I know telling them how easy it it just causes the, voiced or unvoiced, response, “For you, maybe” and cynicism. I created my thesis, Following the Thread, as an exploration of how I managed to move from hating and fearing the computer to my current absorption with it. I discovered some things:

Then

  1. I was forced to use the computer as part of my job. Having no choice is very motivating.
  2. I learned from my students. I could make “deals” where I earned my teacher “cred” by coaching students in their writing, and they earned their learner “cred” by showing me how to use wordpro and the web. (It worked in the mid-Nineties but it might not as much now.)
  3. My college had ongoing half-day hands-on tutorials that I could take over and over till I “got” it. I think was especially useful because using the computer and the web required a fundamentally different understanding, and I needed a lot of guided repetition before it started to make sense to me. In a way, it was like learning a new language where it takes a while to “think” in it. Before I could get “fluent”, I had to grasp the pattern, and it was radically new. (I find it interesting that many ADHD sorts “get” this new pattern faster than the more academically inclined. My most helpful students were often dyslexic and really struggled with writing, but they grasped computer and web understandings very quickly.)
  4. Having real-life projects drove my learning. I found weekend courses on creating web sites excruciating, but I was happy to work on material for my teaching all weekend till I figured out how to make stuff work. (I soon discovered a great passion for WYSIWYG, the essence of user-friendliness in my opinion;->)
  5. Having a loose network of friends with expertise in different aspects of using the computer and the web allowed me to ask for help when I was stymied for too long. Joining the committee that created P.D. events to help teachers learn how to use the web for teaching (and volunteering to share what I knew) was a great leap forward for me, because I had a more structured network of experts to get help from.

Because I was one of the pioneering teachers on the web, these approaches helped me learn, however, I think the landscape and culture have changed, and some of the approaches would no longer work.

Now

What changes in this list might work now?

  1. Having a strong reason/desire for having to use the web is essential. If a group decides to use a wiki, or a family decides to set up a Ning network, or friends start using Facebook or Flickr, that might be the kind of pressure that encourages learning. Work demands are always “encouraging”.
  2. Learning for social reasons also creates a situation where you can learn from others; asking questions from your fellow learners or the group’s “experts” works really well. (I remember, when I was learning wordpro, just asking my cubicle neighbour the same question over and over, and she graciously answered me over and over.)
  3. Repetition is highly under-rated as part of academic learning, but dancers, musicians, athletes understand its value. If you want to learn something that’s difficult, repeat it as often as you can. Using Slideshare, you can repeat watching presentation as often as you want.
  4. Agree to take on web projects that stretch you. (Make sure someone can answer your questions; ask either someone you know or make sure you know where the “Help” button is – it might help.)
  5. Having a network of people you work or play with is still very helpful. The biggest change since the early stages of my computer and web learning is all the help that is now available online. Search for sites to learn from and bookmark blogs that offer on-going tips for whatever it is you want to learn. If you follow a few blogs regularly, and comment occasionally, you may find yourself part of a “community” and comfortable asking questions in comments or by email.

My blog is aimed at providing helpful information for those who are learning more about using the web. Finally, I suggest you set up a del.icio.us account, if you haven’t already, and an RSS reader, either Bloglines or Google Reader to use the web to help yourself learn about it.

Zemanta Pixie

WebTools For Teachers 06/03/2008

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment

WebTools For Teachers 06/02/2008

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment

  • Video: Social Media in Plain English | Common Craft – Explanations In Plain English

    This video focuses on basics of social media: new technology that makes everyone a producer and tools that give everyone a chance to have a say.

    tags: socialmedia, commoncraft

  • Jumping Over a Mountain | chrisbrogan.com

    “I believe we’re going to shift back to thinking customer service and community management are the core and not the fringe. I believe we’re going to move our communications practices back in-house for lots of what is currently pushed out to agencies and organizations. I believe that integrity, reputation, skills, and personality are going to trump some of our previous measures of professional ability. I believe the web and our devices will continue to move into tighter friendships, and that we will continue to train our devices to interpret more of the world around us on our behalf.

    I believe working remotely will become the rule, not the exception, and that we’ll replace some portion of office-meeting time with video now that it’s free-to-cheap. I believe that our business practices, processes, and output will modularize the way widgets have changed web design.” Yup! I agree.

    tags: chrisbrogan, WorkLiteracy

  • Pop!Tech – The Impact of Technology on People

    “The Pop!Tech Accelerator fosters collaborations across our network on high-impact, multidisciplinary social innovation projects that use new tools and embody new approaches to significant global challenges.” h/t Chris Brogan

    tags: technology, edtech, innovation

  • Work Literacy

    tags: WorkLiteracy

McMaster Reunion

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment

Gargoyle on Hamilton Hall, McMaster UniversityWhen I was an undergrad at McMaster, there were frequent calls for more school spirit, which seemed to mean attending athletic games or residence parties. I was a commuting student, involved with the dramatic society and friends with many of the Silhouette’s writers.  I went to the reunion yesterday, and, of the thousands who graduated in 1968, only 22 showed up. In fact there were more who had died, 82, than those who chose to show up. I wonder why.

Mac was a relatively new university, a former Baptist college that was originally part of U of T. I went because my grandfather had briefly studied at McMaster when it was part of U of T, and because it was the closest university to my parents’ home, so I could commute. Is it because Mac has no long history that none of my year comes back for reunions? The class of ’58 was meeting in the same building, and they had a much bigger crowd, so the short history can’t be the whole answer.

We were students at a time of rapid expansion and I think an increasing proportion of students were commuting. I don’t know if other universities have the same very limited attendance for reunions of classes from the 1960s. ( I’d love to know – if anyone has experience with other reunions from the era.) Maybe it was the times. The much larger, dispersed student body, maybe didn’t have the same sense of belonging to both the academy and to our fellow students. One of the songs popular in the ;60s had the plaintive line, “Why doesn’t anyone stay in the same place anymore?” Maybe as a society we were losing our roots, our sense of being connected to certain places, institutions and surrounding people.

I used to teach with a guy who said Canadians were boring, and that he preferred the campus experience in the States, where people got excited about their teams and their universities. Perhaps that’s part of it. We in Canada were (more so than now) caught between two empires, Great Britain and the United States, belonging to neither, feeling inferior to both. (I took American lit. as part of my English Literature degree, and lots of British lit., but NO Canadian. I was offered one half course in four years, and it was Commonwealth lit., and was only one-quarter Canadian, which everyone “knew” was boring, so I didn’t take it. Many of my profs and the grad student TAs were British or American. There was a subliminal message in that too.) So feeling excited about belonging wasn’t a Canadian trait back then. However, the few times we’ve gone to a Boston University (my husband graduated from there) there wasn’t much of a turnout for his year there.

I remember it being generally accepted by the people I hung out with, the counter culture crowd, that it wasn’t “cool” to be involved with the school spirit stuff. It was, the feeling was, empty of meaning. And I think we might have resented the relatively little attention that was paid to our extra-curricular activities. Our extra-curric. activities led to some very high- profile careers. Eugene Levy, Martin Short, and Ivan Reitman were all part of Mac drama scene of that time, and Peter Calamai and Laurence Martin were part of the Silhouette, the student paper.  All these, and others, started their crafts and careers at Mac. None of them attended, and to be frank, I only went because I had a friend from our year who agreed to go with me.

So would I go to another if I can? Probably, if only out of curiosity. I did chat with some people I knew from back then, and it was interesting. The organizers put our grad pictures on our name tags, which helped a lot, but the people I knew best who attended, had the same faces and mannerism, even if their hair had changed colour, style, and thickness. I still don’t like “ra-ra” stuff, but I loved my years at Mac. I loved what I was learning, both in class and in extracurric. and social activites. I also loved becoming my own person, finding out what I liked and what I was good at. It was a time of personal exploration and, as they say now, personal growth.

I guess I’ll never really know it was some of these reasons, or a combination of all of them that explain why so many people weren’t interested in attending. I wonder if the new pattern of connecting with our pasts is reuniting on with select individuals Facebook rather than by attending reunions where you don’t know who will show up.

The Impact of a Caring Teacher

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment

I received an email from my grade six teacher a little while ago. It was a response sadly delayed by the death of his son, but coming through an accidentally shared bus ride to the airport, a conversation discovering connections, and a business card.

While traveling on a Park’nShare bus a year ago, excited by our approaching trip, Jim and I chatted with another, also excited, couple. We discovered our shared backgrounds as teachers, and our shared familiarity with the Stoney Creek area. Then we discovered that the other teacher had worked with the principal who was my grade six teacher. As we arrived at the airport, I gave the other teacher my business card, then flew away to Italy and forgot about the conversation.

So, just over a week ago, I got an email from Mr. ______, whom I have trouble thinking of by his first name. It was a lovely email, telling me what had inspired him to write it now – the upcoming principals’ BBQ – and why he hadn’t written earlier – the sad events around his son’s death.

Now you have to understand that I was in grade six in the mid Fifties, a long time ago, and my teacher has been retired for over 20 years. So what I’m quoting below from his email (with permission) is remarkable for at least two reasons: his memory from so long ago, and the privilege I have of seeing how a teacher saw me when I was young.

Here’s what my long ago grade 6 teacher said about me:

I had never forgotten you for various reasons. I’ll share only one with you at this time: When you arrived at Green Acres in my grade six class you were a real misfit because all the other kids knew each other from the year before and besides you could run faster than most. You may remember that I would on occasion take all of you outside to play some games. Before long the other children began to realize that you were an asset to have on their side – you could run fast and especially in playing prisoners’ base you outshone all the rest. Within weeks you were completely accepted and worked as hard as all the rest.

From my memory, I am pretty sure my teacher’s definition of me as a “misfit” is accurate. I had attended three different schools before arriving at Green Acres; my parents had only moved once but the post-War Baby Boom was causing lots of new schools to be built, so I had been transferred twice. I don’t remember all that much from my public schools days, but I remember being bullied (as it is now being called).

I also suspect another aspect of my being a “misfit” arose from my being “learning disabled” (as it is now being called). When my daughter was diagnosed in the summer between her grades five and six, I read all kinds of books about ADD. I found them puzzling, because what was described as a learning problem was “normal” as I understood it. And one of the aspects that was very familiar to me, was the descriptions of how socially inept many ADDers are. I remember clearly being berated by my playmates for my weak baseball skills because I didn’t swing at the balls thrown past me. I had undiagnosed seeing problems and I didn’t know how to respond to problems with my playmates. I don’t remember being seen as a good runner, but I do remember snippets of other activities that would probably confirm that.

What I do see in my teacher’s description, is a teacher who recognized my isolation, the possible negative reaction from the other students to my “skill” – running faster than them – and who, quite consciously I’m sure, set up situations where they could see the benefit of my being on their team. He made me part of the class, and I’m grateful. No wonder I remember him with such affection and admiration! And no wonder he remembers and describes my parents’ gratitude at the parent teacher meeting.

I was very lucky, very blessed, to land in the class of such a caring teacher.

More about his comments and my memories in a future post.

WebTools For Teachers 05/29/2008

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment