Mark Shead – Page 55 – Technical Agile Coach and Trainer

Do iPods help College Students Learn?

Last year Duke gave iPods to all of it’s incoming freshmen. An article came out today that gives a small overview of the program. It sounds like the iPod program wasn’t really studied. They basically just gave everyone iPods to see what would happen. The article has quotes from teachers saying that the iPods helped keep students engaged.

Professors reported that students seemed more engaged in classes where they could use the iPods. They also cited strong student use of the audio capabilities of the iPod in their presentations, and more accuracy in quoting from interviews they did using the iPods.

I guess that is great and everything, but I’m afraid that if iPod’s are what makes the class “engaging” then there is probably something wrong with the class. While I can appreciate the value of being able to record a conversation to reference it later, we’ve had this capability for some time in an obscure device called a tape recorder.

Just for the fun of it, take a look at how the article would look if we replaced the word iPod with tape recorder.

When tape recorders go collegiate
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

When Kenneth Rogerson walked into his newspaper journalism class on the first day of the school year, the professor could barely contain his excitement.

After a quick introduction he broke the big news: “We got the grant,” he told his class. “You all get tape recorders.”

As if on cue, the students exhaled an audible “whoa” and exchanged elated glances. Duke University in Durham, N.C., had already made many a headline as the first school ever to provide all incoming freshmen with their own 20-gigabyte tape recorders – enough space to store up to 5,000 songs.

Ok so now it sound silly. But why? Pretty much all of the uses described in the article are things that can be easily done with older technology. This is a fundamental problem with the way that technology is implemented in education. When the focus is on a new piece of technology instead of new educational processes, we end being excited about mundane capabilities as can be seen by the following (modified) quote:

Professors reported that students seemed more engaged in classes where they could use the tape recorders. They also cited strong student use of the audio capabilities of the tape recorder in their presentations, and more accuracy in quoting from interviews they did using the tape recorders.

It still sounds silly with tape recorders instead of iPods, but the substitution helps clear the head of technology utopia and puts the focus on what is actually being accomplished instead of what devices is being used. So students are using them in their presentations. That is really nice, but I bet if they gave every incoming student a fog machine professors would start to notice the use of fog in some of the student presentations. If it was encouraged, professors would probably even say that there was a “strong use” of fog in the student presentations. This doesn’t mean that the devices are helping education.

I think that technology is extremely underutilized in education, but usually this isn’t because of lack of technology. Duke’s experiement is interesting, but without a solid infrastructure in place I’m not sure what results they were expecting. They weren’t really giving students anything that they couldn’t do with a tape recorder. Technology only becomes wildly beneficial when the infrastructure is in place ahead of time. For example, putting a computer in every dorm room would be beneficial, but it is 100 times more useful if the dorms have network wiring, access to the internet and library databases, and the college puts all of it’s class assignments and resources online. In fact if a university concentrates on the infrastructure, the students will bring their own computers.

I think Duke should concentrate more on creating an infrastructure that provides content for devices like iPods. Here are some of my suggestions:

Record Every Lecture — These could be made available using podcasting tools, so students could “subscribe” to classes and they would be downloaded automatically. They could review it from their computer, iPod, hand held computer, etc. Students could increase the playback speed to review a lecture quickly just to refresh their memory or play it back in their sleep to try to benefit from subconcoius learning. (Ok maybe that is a stretch, but I would have tried it in college.)
If the university made the content available to the general public, you’d have people listening to the lectures on their way to work, while exercising, etc. They could even limit it to alumni which would help keep them connected with the donor base.
Publish Interviews — Record and make available interviews and conversations related to the class. For example say a journalism professor posted a 10 minute telephone interview with a well known journalist for the New York Times discussing ethics. Content like that could provide a wonderful starting point for a class discussion or just as a way to introduce the topic. Over the years the school could build a very large repository of content.
Share Lectures with Other Universities — Imagine that biology students at Duke University are studying how DNA is formed. If they could quickly access a lecture from Princeton covering the same topic it could greatly increase their understanding of the subject just by hearing things in a different way.
Suggested Listening Lists — If a school built up a large repository of audio content and indexed it properly, students could be given suggestions on what to listen to. This could be based on their current classes, but it would be even more interesting if it was based on what questions they missed on quizes and exams. Students could subscribe to their personalized RSS feed with audio enclosures. As the semester progressed they would be given various items to listen to based on areas where they demonstrated a lack of understanding. They could download the items automatically to their computer, iPod, or whatever device they used and listen to them in the evenings, in their car, while exercising, etc.

All in all I think it is an interesting experiment. It is always interesting to give people technology and see what creative things they do with it. If Duke comes back next year with a solid plan for creating a better infrastructure to support portable media devices to help facilitate learning, then I’d say the experiment was a success. If not I’d say that they are chasing shiny objects instead of focusing on real improvements to the educational process.

Regardless, the iPod experiement was probably well worth it. The publicity they recieved with their target audience was worth a lot more than the cost of the iPods. If that was their intention, then the program was a great success.

Why Google will Buy Amazon.

While I don’t anticipate Amazon selling out to Google anytime soon, much of the work done at Google is being duplicated by Amazon and vice versa. Google’s mission is to organize all of the content in the world and make it easy to find. This basically what Amazon has done for shopping. As both companies expand they are going to find themselves doing more and more work that is similiar–even if their end products are very different.

Here are a few examples of areas where there may be overlap:

Restaurant Menu’s — This seems like something in Google’s domain, but Amazon is the one implementing this.
Locate a Taxi — Given that Amazon is doing restaurant menus, this seems like it would be something similar, but Google is doing this one.
Search inside books — This seems like a perfect match for Amazon, but both Google and Amazon are providing this service. Google is currently working on scanning in Harvard’s library so the books show up in their search results. They will only let you view a few pages due to copyright issues.
Website Traffic Rankings — Amazon is providing this service through Alexa. The data is coming from Google though.
Directory of Websites — Amazon and Google both provide this, but they both pull their information from dmoz.org.
Access to Scholarly Papers — Google is doing this through Google Scholar. Most of the time it gives you links to websites where you can buy or subscribe to the information. However if you are part of a university that is working with Google, they can pass you right through to the information without needing to go back to your university library logon.

Much work being done at both companies is similiar. Both Amazon and Google are scanning in books, providing a way to search the book, and presenting the information in a way that protects copyrights. Both companies are trying to provide better ways of categorizing information on the web. Both companies gather information about movies. It seems like only a matter of time before someone realizes that a good portion of the “grunt” work being done at both companies could be done once and used in both places.

Watching Distance Education Videos

While taking classes through Harvard’s Extension school, I ran across a very helpful product from Enounce. They make a plug in that gives you variable speed control of Real Media streams. This means you can play lecture videos back faster or slower than they were originally recorded.

Enounce uses some special technology that increases the speed without changing the pitch. This means that small changes in the speed aren’t noticeable. Playing a file back rapidly doesn’t sound like a chipmunk, it just sounds like the professor is talking very quickly.

I found that by changing the settings depending on the content, I could get a lot more out of the classes. Some professors seemed to go over things very slowly and I found that by speeding things up I was able to concentrate better. When I played things at regular speed I would get distracted too easily. Other times I would slow things down when a professor was covering topics with which I was unfamiliar. I also found it useful to speed things up when I was reviewing a lecture, or trying to find a specific part of it.

Enounce has an interesting study posted on their site about how variable speed technology makes it easier to learn. If you are careful how you use it, I think it can be very helpful. It is important to use it to first improve your comprehension and make speed secondary.

Overall I found that I was able to listen to 60 minutes in 45 minutes without things going to fast for subjects that I didn’t have much experience (theory of computation class).

Evaluating Distance Education Programs

Distance education and on-line learning opportunities are starting to show up at most universities and colleges. Here are a few things to consider when looking into taking classes over the Internet. I’m going to break this into two categories. The first covers things that you need to know about yourself, the second covers things you should find out about potential programs you are looking into.

Know yourself

Distance education isn’t necessarily right for everyone. Here are somethings to consider.

Do you work well independently? Distance education programs require a higher level of self motivation than their classroom counter parts. Many people find that facing a professor motivates them to complete homework. Distance classes have some degree of anonymity and that can make it easier to put off work if you aren’t self motivated.
Do you have enough time to take classes? You have to be realistic about how much time you can dedicate each week. Most professors should be able to give you an idea of how much time is involved before you sign up. At Harvard’s Extension school many of the professors put the expected time commitment directly in the syllabus.
Do you have the proper equipment? If a class uses the Internet for streaming video’s you need to make sure you have a decent connection to handle the bandwidth. Also make sure you have any hardware or software necessary. Make sure your software is the same version that your teacher will be using.

Know your university

The quality and experience of distance education programs can vary greatly. Here are a few things to think about when evaluating various programs.

How are the classes conducted? Some classes are basically correspondence classes. You are assigned books to read and papers to write. Other classes involve listening to a lecture and participating in discussion boards and on-line tests. Personally I prefer on-line classes where they are following an actual physical class. Most of Harvard’s classes are done like this. You watch videos of a class that takes place on campus.
Are there any specific time commitments? Some on-line classes require that you be at your computer during certain hours for chats or to watch live web broadcasts. Make sure you understand what will be expected up front. If a chat that impacts your grade is regularly schedule at a time that you can’t make it you could end up failing the class.
How are tests conducted? Some on-line classes only give you projects to complete. Others have open book tests. Still others require you to find a proctor to administer the test. There are usually specific requirements that the proctor must meet in order to qualify. The Harvard Extension school uses proctored tests for many of their classes. You select your proctor ahead of time and they sent a copy of the test materials a day before you take the test. Once you complete the test, the proctor seals the materials in an envelope and overnights them back to Harvard for grading.
Is there a residency requirement? Many institutions require some type of residency if you are pursuing a degree through their distance education department. (Harvard requires that you spend one semester physically in Cambridge.) If you are pursuing a degree, it is important to understand these requirements at the beginning so you can choose an appropriate school.

Why Java Won’t Get It Right

Why Java Won’t Get It Right is an interesting entry about some of the problems with Java technology. The best part is that it is written by someone who actually knows Java. A part that I particularly liked was:

They over-architect everything. I’ve actually used a Java framework (I’m not gonna say which) that had XML config files that configured more XML config files! That’s just silly.

The author makes comparisons to Ruby on Rails and talks about how he doesn’t think Java will ever have anything like Rails.

I’ve seen a few demos of Rails and it is impressive, but much of the functionality it gives you has been available in WebObjects for some time. ~~In fact I’ve met several Ruby developers that started with Rails and switched to WebObjects as their application got bigger.~~ (Update: It turns out I was mistaken. They switched from Ruby to Webobjects, but they were using a different web framework instead of Rails.)

There is an interesting comparison between a Ruby project and a Java project posted on the Ruby on Rails site. The code comparison is interesting because it shows how much Ruby does for you automatically if you know how to use it. A lot of what Ruby is doing is giving you automatic setters and getters.

It would be interesting to see a comparison between the amount of code necessary to write a Ruby application and the same app in WebObjects, but when it comes down to actual productivity the language being used is rarely the bottleneck. The skills of the programmer are by far the most important factor. The tools available in the language are second and the language ranks third or lower.

Good tools have a huge impact on productivity. Simple things like auto-complete and real time syntax checking cumulatively make a large difference in productivity. One of the areas where WebObjects really shines is in giving you the ability to graphically connect your data with the view. You can still do everything manually in code, but the graphical tools give you the ability to really think about the problem on a level that is much closer to the user experience.