Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Category: Learning

  • Burma Bound

    MyanmarSchool3A friend of the family has wrangled me into volunteering as a teacher trainer for a week next January in Myanmar. The group is small, and works through a travel agent and has connections to the Education Network, founded by the National League for Democracy (NLD), the political party founded by Aung San Suu Kyi.

    At first, I was a bit apprehensive. I had to raise funding to get there, and stay there, and also find someone else to match that. I was extremely fortunate to ask Frank Berberich, longtime friend, who has recently retired. He immediately signed on, saying he had been looking for something exactly like this.

    We are in the process of raising funds now, and getting visas. It looks like we will be training about 100 high school teachers in the Yangon (Rangoon) area. These teachers are part of a network of schools that teach the poorest and most disadvantaged children in Myanmar.

    MyanmarSchool2So here I am, an expert in using computers to teach adults languages, and I am going to try to train teachers on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Instead of polite Japanese school girls as students, we will have harried teachers, trying to add to their arsenal of teaching tools, so as to open up Myanmar to the world.

    As we approach deadlines and prepare for the training, Frank and I are getting more and more excited. We are going along with 6 others on the trip, and will meet them in Yangon shortly after the new year. I will keep you updated on events as they happen.

  • #ETMOOC, baby steps, students

    I have always figured I am about 3 years ahead of my students, at least in adoption of technology for learning. But with this MOOC thing, I have leapt way, way ahead. The way universities are set up, the education system so entrenched and ossified here in Japan, I fear for the 2020’s (and figure not much will happen until then).

    Japan’s Ministry of Education is promoting the idea of applying the “Plan-Do-Check-Act” cycle to learning. Never mind that this was developed to improve assembly lines for Toyota in the 1960’s by W. Edwards Deming who has reached mythical status over the years. Teachers tell me it can be used for anything. Sure it can. But should it?

    So how do we get from here to there? Baby steps? A gradual evolution? Or a revolution? Will digital citizens rise up and man the barricades, voting electronically to…do what? MOOCs of the Connectivist variety will require a lot of nurturing, and will get splashed with the backlash that is sure to come in the next few years of the emerging technologies hype cycle.

    My students are woefully unprepared for autonomous learning. They have been instructed and directed down to the minute in a very efficient system for developing instruction followers. I am guessing they will become the engine for whoever will lead them. I teach one day a week at the leader’s school. The ones who will go into the bureaucracy to push Japan forward in the next few years. They leave me hope. They are willing to experiment, but only so far. Tiny tiny groups are allowed to do things differently, such as take a gap year. Are these baby steps enough? Should I try to foment a revolution? They say the best leaders are adept at spotting a crowd going somewhere and getting in front of it. I don’t see much movement right now. Hopefully it is just me.

  • MOOC Participation: See it twice and Click

    Et MOOC LogoOver at the #ETMOOC things are humming along nicely. So far, I would call this the Google MOOC, because a lot of the tools have migrated over to Google (calendar, G+), and I like it. I live in Google, just bought myself a ChromeBook and can’t put it down.

    But as we tease out threads in the first couple of weeks, I have met a few new people, which is the best part of any MOOC (or conference, or trip, or meeting). This will help sustain. And sustenance is the key here.

    Because this is already looking like the best cMOOC that I have had the opportunity to be a part of. CCK08 was nice and centralized, I think that was the one using Moodle. Then the short one in 2010, which left me in the dirt more because life got in the way than anything. I really liked Change11, mostly because it was stretched out over 9 months, and I could look ahead, pick and choose, and participate based on a longer term strategy.

    Here at the #ETMOOC I see a balance being approached. The term is shorter, the interaction both more organized (on the macro level) and less organized (micro level opportunities for serendipity), and a huge amount of interaction (again, we will see if it goes beyond the third week swoon). Kudos to those who set up evening sessions, which are morning here in Tokyo. The lunchtime ones are smack dab in the middle of the night. 

    So I just want to share a new way I have found to follow threads. I read quickly, skimming, with some scanning in for terms related to linguistics, my field. If I see something mentioned twice, especially a link, I will follow up on it (catalog, and or curate it). This allows me to wander just enough that I can get back and cover most of the stuff to winnow out my nuggets. Like a news reporter, get a verifying source, and then follow up on it.

    That is how I found Catherine Cronin’s Digital Identity post.  Good stuff.

     

  • Homework. Does it do any good?

    I don’t think so. If you consider what is traditionally considered homework (exercises to drill into memory some point taught in class), there is controversy. Andrew Sullivan over at the Daily Dish points us to Louis Menand over at the New Yorker.  In it he tells us about a prominent researcher who

    According to the leading authority in the field, Harris Cooper, of Duke University, homework correlates positively—although the effect is not large—with success in school.

    Homework in Holland

    Of course students who do more homework are more successful. But you could also say that students who are successful tend to do more homework. It could be that the successful students are doing something else that is causing their success, and the homework just happens to be a coincidence. Thin about the kids in your class who do the homework. They do a lot of other things, like show up early for class, talk to the teacher more, ask questions more, have parents who make them do their homework, talk about homework at dinner, or just talk about other things at dinner. I could go on, but you see the point. I am not convinced that homework helps very much.

    What I AM convinced of is that students who do work on their own outside of class because they are curious or want to solve a problem are headed for success, no matter what their grades show.

     

  • Madoka wins Speech Contest with Open Education

    Madoka
    Madoka

    Madoka, a student in our department at Showa Women’s University, won a week-long trip to Boston in the  Hitomi Cup Speech Contest yesterday. In “Wonder brings a lifelong love of learning” she advocated for open education ideas she learned at the exploratorium and as a volunteer at the children’s museum when she was studying at our campus in Boston. It was gratifying to see her win. She was so excited.

    When I talked to her on the judging break before she won, she said she was also inspired by the workshop style class I taught last semester. In Culture Today we brought our laptops to class and worked in small groups most of the time, with a weekly “menu” of activities to choose from. Freedom and exploration were purposely part of the course, which I pointed out was a bridge to self-learning, as that would be the last course they would take in English before graduation.I am so happy that Madoka gets it. She understands about learning, how it is all about discovery, and choice, and work and asking questions. This is why I am a teacher.