Seeing Through New Eyes

My advisor thinks I'll be ready to do my comprehensive exams sometime next semester. Sounds absolutely terrifying to me. But I am starting to think about narrowing down my topic for my dissertation, which will inform me better for my comps articles. Big sigh. This is going to be hard. Anyway, there are just too many things to do, and I am having a hard time choosing. But a quite prominent professor here on USU's campus told me that the best dissertation is a finished one. And he is right. I am not going to change the world with my dissertation. So I'm thinking there are several problem-based learning areas I could focus on, online educational resources quality, or institutional repositories. Ah! Way too broad.

For the last while I've been focusing on problem-based learning and the role the tutor plays in student learning. As I finish up with an article examining the research in this area, I have to wonder what other scholars who have worked so many years in this discipline will think. The philosophy in problem-based learning makes sense to me. A teacher should be there to guide and assist a student. That tutor can have content expertise but should be considered as a facilitator of learning and not just giver knowledge. I am especially excited about doing more research in this area and getting the word out on what I find so that I can somehow make a difference for learning.

This last week it was my pleasure to attend the Open Education 2008 Conference . I volunteered as well as presented. The volunteer work at this conference is always fun. It's great to meet people in the Open Education Movement. This year I helped out with some oral history interviews. I loved listening to everyone I interviewed talk about their involvement in the movement as well as what they thought of its future. Being still quite new to all of it, the historical side was fascinating. I also ran across a YouTube video while working on a presentation that I really enjoyed - Worlds Biggest Lesson - it's about education across the world and they mention education being open to everyone. Sustainability was a concept that swirled around this conference this year. We are all struggling with it and I hope we start to see some ideas work.

So much has happened this summer in regards to school and work, that it has had my head spinning at times. I was very excited to learn that ALA has put out a digital copyright slider . It is going to be so helpful for the work we do in the Digital Library at USU . We have been talking a lot about the future of the Digital Library and it is very exciting to me. In conjunction with that I have been working with Sarah G. from the NSDL and receiving a lot of insight into digital libraries and how they function for education. To go along with this I have learned so much this summer in regards to writing proposals for conferences and doing research. It is refreshing to use the things I've learned in my classes, even if I can't remember them completely. I'm still learning and hopefully it will all stick in the end. The people I have been working with have been awesome and I really couldn't be doing this without them. So the future, I feel like the more I do the more things...

After listening to a recent conversation and reflecting back on my educational path, I have realized I need to find a way to help students (and some teachers) realize that education is personal. Yes, a lot of educational opportunities occur in groups; but the group cannot function as a whole without individual efforts. What a student really takes away from a class really depends on what they personally connect with and remember. Problem based learning looks at motivation in students, and I believe that motivation is a form of taking personal control of your education. Personal doesn't necessarily mean that the content relates to some experience you as a student have had, but rather that you own your education and take responsibility for what you do and do not learn.

This is of particular interest to me since I recently did a literature review on Wikipedia. The online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica is moving towards wiki style contributions. Check it out here where I first learned about it.

I've been working on creating a review rubric/quality rubric for online educational resources lately. I did a small study in the spring that helped inform us more on the subject. But I've been thinking about the definition of quality. From our rubric I am thinking quality is relative. It depends on the context and dips into Brown's idea of the teacher knowing what they need and adapting the resources (whether that means changing the resource or padding it) to fit their needs. I think a rubric that helps someone assess whether an online resource is of high quality really is for helping teachers (or anyone) assess the basic pieces of the resource so they can then adapt (as needed) the resource to fit into their classroom; where they put the resource into context so the resource has a quality purpose. Of course, there are going to be some resources that just won't fit into what a teacher wants. So for those I would say they are a bad fit. I don't think that necessaril...

As I think more and more about what direction to go for my dissertation, I am stepping back to look at what I am doing right now and why. As an undergraduate I had the notion that the professors were there to fill me up with all this great information. Once I graduated I realized that the sponge idea is an attitude. A bad attitude. As a student (and student is very broadly defined as anyone in the world willing to learn anything), I need to take control of my own learning. Professors and other teachers are there as experts to guide me in my learning. I tried to approach my masters program with this attitude, but found myself slipping into sponge mode often. Ah, perhaps that is why I am still in school. I just haven't learned yet how to take control of my education and thought I'd have another go at it (laugh, that's a joke). Anyway, as I began my doctoral work, I found an idea that I'd never heard before that answers my question of motivation. Although it can be controv...

Sitting on a search committee in a university setting is an interesting experience. I've had this opportunity in the Library, but recently in the INST Department. They are looking for a couple of new faculty members. Having some new insights into this process is a great learning experience for me and I appreciate the opportunity to be part of it. As I move forward in my program, I find it is becoming easier and easier to have intelligent conversations with members of my committee. I'm sure most of that has to do with me feeling more confident to have these conversations. But I think it also has to do with more opportunities to generate ideas for creating and studying aspects of education. This next year is going to be very exciting as I continue with my course work. We are doing fun and exciting research in the DL Connect group and things at work are starting to move forward in a new direction (which is exciting but a lot of work).