Archive for the ‘learning’ Category

Technologies versus Skills

Posted on the September 15th, 2009 under activity theory, education, learning, technology by Keith Morneau

Marc Prensky in July blogged about verbs versus nouns (http://www.marcprensky.com/blog/archives/2009_07.html) when talking about lasting skills versus technology. From my doctoral work in the studying of Activity Theory, I came to the understanding that technologies are just tools for a subject uses to work towards a goal. In activity theory language, these are called mediating artifacts. They are a means to an end and not an end in itself. In Prensky’s language, he calls the technology the “nouns”. “Nouns” change all the time. We know that the technologies change every six months or so. But, “verbs” or the skills such as “doing presentations” do not change as often. The tools, or the nouns, change but the actual skill does not. So, when we are developing programs we need to think about the “verbs” or skills that we need to be teaching the next generation of technologists versus just focusing on the tools. Prensky’s post was a good explanation of a topic which is interest of mine. I will be honest that I was focused too much on the “nouns” in the past but now I look at this a little differently now. The challenge we have as educators is that students look at the “nouns” when they are looking into programs. They care about whether or not we are up to date in our technologies when we know that the skills are more important because those will be portable and last when the technologies change before our eyes. Students need to realize that the “nouns” will change more than a few times while they are in school and so they need to stay up to date on the changes but master the skills that use those technologies mediating to accomplish the goal. So, technologies are a means to an end. The skills are the end in themselves. The skills use the technologies to get things done and yes students need to make sure they can use the tools and stay current with them.

Updated: Learning through Experience

Posted on the August 14th, 2009 under activity theory, community of practice, education, innovation, learning by Keith Morneau

I’m back. Sorry for the long delay in blog posts. I am now going to provide a concept map of learning through experience. Learning is more than just sitting in a classroom, taking tests, and getting degree. It is about becoming a professional. Becoming a professional is about being immersed into the activities of a community of professionals. Immersive activities is about the learning experience. Learning takes place through experience. The learning experience consists of practice fields and real fields. Think about how different sports get ready for games, the real field. They practice. They are put into simulated experiences and also do deliberate practice. Simulated experiences are like scrimmages. Deliberate practice is like practicing techniques over and over again until they are mastered. Simulated experiences and real fields consists of a coach, activity, and a learner. The biggest difference between a simulated experience and a real field is about identity. Practice allows learners to practice a professional identity but it is the real field where becoming a professional takes places under real world conditions. Nothing can replace the actual experience but simulated experiences are good to help learners practice skills under a controlled environment. The coach is the teacher in this model and their provide just in time teaching and assess performance during practice and real fields. There are many ways to assess the experience of a learner through performance assessments. We will review different kinds of activities in a later blog post. We will also explore the role of a coach in a later blog post.



Innovation skills

Posted on the August 29th, 2008 under education, innovation, learning, technology, tools by Keith Morneau

Since we are now in a Creative Economy where creativity and innovation is king. What are some of the skills needed for innovators. The 21st century skills (www.21stcenturyskills.org) web site is where we will begin the exploration of skill sets in creativity and innovation. These lists are useful to begin a dialogue and not an end in itself. I say this because someone will want to take these skills and create a curriculum based on traditional teaching methods which will not work for these kinds of behavioral skills. You must learn from experience and not from listening to lectures and taking tests.

So, from Partnership for 21st Century Skills web site -

Creativity and Innovation

* Demonstrating originality and inventiveness in work
* Developing, implementing and communicating new ideas to others
* Being open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives
* Acting on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution to the domain in which the innovation occurs

If you look at these points, you will see most of them being behavioral in nature. The key aspect of innovation is being able to take ideas from conception to production whether it is a physical product or a software product or a process. I believe that you can apply innovation to people, processes, and technology.

Invention is different from innovation. Just because you invent something does not make you an innovator. An example of this is the operating system. Bill Gates did not invent DOS but he was able to innovate to bring DOS to the masses. This is something to keep in the back of your mind.

The Creative Economy

Posted on the August 28th, 2008 under community of practice, education, innovation, learning, technology by Keith Morneau

Sorry, I have not posted in a while. I have been a big fan of Killer Innovations (www.killerinnovations.com).

I have been very concerned about the future of technological work. Part of my doctoral research I wanted to figure out where the future is going.

We have entered a creative economy that is very focused on ideas and innovation. I have suggested in the past that we are entering a new renaissance. Today, left and right brain thinkers is what is needed. Form and function is important. One is not important over another. A good example is the Apple iPhone and iPod.

What are the implications of this thinking? Traditional disciplines and educational models are quickly becoming commodities. The world is about how to generate ideas and bring them quickly to market. Innovation is the key to the future. To me, this means we need to educate and train new technological workers in a different way with creativity and innovation as important goals in education. This is not a focus in most programs.

Slowly but surely, the Hollywood model of creating movies is coming to the technological workforce. Everyone will be a consultant in the future. The Hollywood model is about bringing the talent together to create a movie and then the team is disbanded at the end. This is increasing happening in technology.

There are two kinds of companies…you have the big companies and the small companies. The employees in a big company has a corporate entity to be able to move between projects. Employees are somewhat isolated from the risk that small companies The small companies live on a project by project basis and may have multiple customers at one time.

Between the move to the Creative Economy and the change in the employment contract, technological professionals need to stay on their toes and stay current.

My History

Posted on the April 5th, 2008 under Other, activity theory, community of practice, education, education technology, innovation, learning, technology by Keith Morneau


I published this on my web site a while ago and I need to post it here for everyone to understand the context of my passion for transforming technological education. Here is my original post -

My History

My College Days

My interest and research in educating the future technology professional goes back to college when I was a student at Florida Tech in Melbourne, FL. I always knew that hands-on experience was critical in securing a good high paying job in this economy. I experienced that as a student at Florida Tech when I knew to be competitive that I needed to gain work experience. So, throughout my college experience, I always tried to find work in technology. My first experience came at Harris Corporation as a computer operator during the third shift. I took this job because I knew that I needed experience. About a year after that, I was hired by Rockwell International as a computer operator and I ran the department on weekends.

Also, I worked on creating a student foundation at Florida Tech and I took a role in helping secure real world capstone experiences for my fellow students. I knew that was the key to success along with a four year degree. I graduated with a BS in Computer Engineering at Florida Tech.

My First Job

I landed my first full time job at E-Systems, Melpar Division, in Falls Church, VA. I had an opportunity during my spring break in my senior year to interview with three places – E-Systems in Texas, E-Systems in Falls Church, VA, and the Navy in Connecticut. I ended getting an offer from E-Systems, Falls Church, VA. I got this job based on my summer internship experience with Dictaphone Corporation where I was a technical writer. E-Systems hired me as a Systems Engineer. During the interview, I did have my portfolio of my senior design project that I showed to people who interviewd me. Even at this point in my life, I was convinced that I needed experience to land a good job. I brought my
experiences to the interview because of this.

My Teaching

I was hired by Northern Virginia Community College as an Adjunct around 1994 in the electronics department to teach computer repair. I took a full time teaching job with Computer Learning Center (CLC) in Alexandria where I started in the Electronics department and moved to the client/server programming department which I started as Lead Instructor. I then was hired full time by NOVA in 1998 once I secured my Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from George Mason U.

My Interests and Research

While I was at NOVA, I was program head for about 5.5 years. I decided that I would be a voice for change in the Information Systems Technology department. I became very interested in workplace experiences for my students. I piloted a capstone course, worked on Internships and partnerships. I was able to secure partnerships with Intel, Teligent, and others. I often interviewed students and reviewed resumes. I got resumes that were pitiful. One resume was a quarter of a page. I would interview students who had no clue about the concepts they had learned in their courses. Students would tell me that ‘I took that class six
months ago’. Yikes! I thought. From this experience and the minimal research I was doing, I knew that we needed to transform what we were
doing in our IT program. We need graduates who could hit the ground running and that obviously was not happening from what I was observing.

Finally, I worked with the Commonwealth of Virginia to write a proposal to the NSF ATE program about a hunch I had about teaching and learning which needed to be transformed in 2002. This work transformed my thoughts on how we educate and train students in technical programs.

My Interests and Research

While I was at NOVA, I was program head for about 5.5 years. I decided that I would be a voice for change in the Information Systems Technology department. I became very interested in workplace experiences for my students. I piloted a capstone course, worked on Internships and partnerships. I was able to secure partnerships with Intel, Teligent, and others. I often interviewed students and reviewed resumes. I got resumes that were pitiful. One resume was a quarter of a page. I would interview students who had no clue about the concepts they had learned in their courses. Students would tell me that ‘I took that class six months ago’. Yikes! I thought. From this experience and the minimal research I was doing, I knew that we needed to transform what we were doing in our IT program. We need graduates who could hit the ground running and that obviously was not happening from what I was observing.

Finally, I worked with the Commonwealth of Virginia to write a proposal to the NSF ATE program about a hunch I had about teaching and learning which needed to be transformed in 2002. This work transformed my thoughts on how we educate and train students in technical programs.

The more I worked with our students the more I became aware of workplace readiness issues that needed to be addressed. I met Scott Brainard, who at the time was project manager of the SCANS 2000 Center at John Hopkins University. I met him at the announcement of the voluntary partnership between NWCET, NCTT, and National Skills Standards Board at NVCC, Annandale Campus. I believe this was in 2002. I talked to him about our NSF ATE grant proposal we submitted and we started a partnership. The SCANS report was published in 1992 that talks about the key workplace skills that were missing. We started a partnership with them and learned from them how they ‘teach’ these skills in their local high schools. I knew that college students also needed these skills too.

We were awarded an NSF grant in Summer 2002 to look at what we called value-delivery skills and creating a consortium of IT education iVirginia. We setup the SCANS 2000 center as a partner in the grant. We had several meetings to discuss the whole issue with them. As part of this grant, we help several focus groups in No VA. The first focus group used emotional intelligence skills as a foundation to talk about the value-delivery skills needed to be successful. I felt that the first focus group was a success and now we had a second focus group that looked at how we could teach this skills in the classroom.

Well, most of the skills were behavioral. How do you teach behavioral skills? In the past, I would have looked at teaching a teamwork course or the like. But, today, I realize that you can not teach behavioral skills. You can only experience them. This causes you to look at this in whole new light. Now, I need to design activities that allow students to practice these skills in the classroom. So, this means assigning group projects where students work in teams and evaluating their performance during the project. Then, evaluating the outcomes of the project whatever the artifact may be. One big outcome of the second focus group was what are coined ‘curveballs’. Now, when we teach projects the complaints that the projects were not realistic enough. We need to introduce curveballs to simulate the real world projects. Some examples of curveballs are change team members, change requirements, etc. Here is a paper I wrote before this focus group and one after this focus group.

Value-Delivery_Skills_-_An_Essential_Component_in_IT_Education_8_26_02.pdf

Oh yea! Before I forget, I wrote a white paper on my vision for the educational system in VA as we were funded by NSF. I attached that to this entry. To continue, the work on the NSF continued my research interest in Workforce Development and actually moved my ideas forward. My partnership with Mike
Peterson, who was the Executive Dir of Institute of Excellence in Information Technology, was a great partner in moving my ideas for workforce development forward. Also, I decided to enroll at Pepperdine University in the Educational Technology Doctoral Program to further my education in this area of learning and technology. I have research interests in educating the future
technology professional, learning theory, learning technology, along with technology’s impact on today’s workforce. The last focus group caused me to contact Case Files (http://www.thecasefiles.org) and I partnered with them because they had a way to design activities that require an authentic business problem. I ended up partnering with Dr Ruth Loring and she became a mentor of mine as I went through the doctoral program and also as we worked on our NSF grant. I attribute a lot to her in helping me understand Case Files and I was invited to every major event that they had. I also worked at them also.

My_Vision_for_Information_Technology_Education_in_Virginia.pdf

The Case Files

Why did the Case Files work interest me? There are actually two projects. One project comes out of CITE at http://www.cite-tn.org/pbcb.htm and the other is Case Files at http://www.thecasefiles.org. Both projects come under the heading of Problem-based Case-based learning.

From my research, each of these projects has merit. The goal of becoming a technology professional requires an apprenticeship in a community of practice of technology professionals. Learners become members of the community through participation in the community’s activities. Learning is about participation in a community. This allows an apprentice to under the culture, tools, and technologies of the community. The CSS projects in CITE are what the literature calls ‘real fields’ and they provide a real authentic problem solved in real time with a sponsoring business. This type of project allows learners/apprentices the opportunities to develop a professional identity.

Now, a Case File is what the literature calls a ‘practice field’. A Case File is a real world problem but it is not done in real time. Typically, a CSS project becomes a Case File once the the project is complete. This type of project provides a context that allows for learners to practice their skills in a safe environment but it is not a real field and learners can not develop a professional identity in a community. These problems are isolated from the real world because they are not solved in real time. But, they do have merit. I believe that a combination of real fields and practice field are needed in an technology program. Actually, if we take sports as an example, a team is formed and practices occur to help the team prepare for a game. Then, games provide a context for the team to compete with other teams and also when statistics are kept. Also, team members develop a professional identity in the community of sports players.

Story Centered Curriculm

There is another project that is of interest to me. It is at http://elc.fhda.edu/index.html. While Case Files is based on John Bransford’s work at Vanderbilt, SCC is based on the work of Roger Schank. I become a student of both of them. Socratic Arts is Dr Schank’s organization that promotes SCC. It is at http://socraticarts.com/aboutscc.html. I recommend you read the pdf there. It is very cool. Also, an implementation of SCC is at Carnegie Mellon West at http://west.cmu.edu. Now, SCC is a simulation of an organization where the faculty are mentors to the learner teams. The simulated organization has projects they do with tasks. Learners are put into teams to work on the tasks in the virtual organization. To do this correctly, the whole environment appears to the learner as a real organization. There is merit to this work. I struggle with whether to call this a practice field or a real field. I tend to favor practice field since this is not done in the real world but in a virtual world.

The projects are not real projects for a real customer. It appears that CMU also has a internship requirement which adds the real field to the equation. I am no longer active with this project as I used to be. I am still active with Case Files.

Implications for Programs

From looking at the different approaches that exist, I strongly believe in the need to develop a balance of practice fields and real fields in developing learners to become technology professionals. I have attached two white papers that talk to learning to become. This work was influenced by working on both projects.

knowledge_work_v2.pdf