Blogging on the Brain

So remember that time I wrote about how much I love TED? And also the time I wrote about how cool Backyard Brains’ Spiker Box is and how I used it in class?

Well, as it turns out, TED and Backyard Brains seem to get along pretty well…

In other news, what do y’all think of TEDed? Here’s a little primer – it seems like it could be really great! Kind of a crowd-sourced Khan Academy?

As a special treat today, I have a lovely guest post for you from Bryan Blakeley regarding the new iBooks Authoring tool. Bryan is a graduate student in history at Boston College, a graduate assistant in educational technology, and, incidentally, my husband. A big thanks to him for covering this for me, and I hope you all enjoy.

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I recently had the opportunity to visit the Apple headquarters here in Boston. They invited several educational institutions, both higher ed and K-12, to discuss use of the new iBooks Authoring tool. The seminar was designed as both demo and workshop, as we heard from their engineers about use cases they had envisioned as well as viewing a few examples of ebooks created by the educational community. It was clear that they were anxious for feedback from those of us who had started to work with the software.

I really like the idea of ebooks. As I recently wrote, I think the opportunities are spectacular for the integration of rich content in ebooks. Apple’s iBook Author provides this integration in a WYSIWYG fashion. Everything from slideshows to 3d graphics to video can be easily embedded in iBooks with just a few clicks. Importing content from MS Word documents is a snap. A small range of templates provide a simple point of entry for novices, and HTML5 widget support is provided for those looking to integrate customized content presentation (including network-aware content). In short, this is a very user-friendly desktop publishing tool.

There are problems here, however. The first and most glaring issue for me is cross-platform compatibility. Not only does iBooks Author require a Mac running OS X Lion to run (which is not terribly surprising), but the iBooks themselves can only be read on an iPad. Notice I said iPad and not Mac – iBooks produced through the author cannot even be utilized on a Mac! When building an iBook in iBooks Author, there are some widgets that don’t even run in the Author tool, but instead require you to push your book to the iPad to quality check. As at least one person in the workshop mentioned, Apple has already built an iPad emulator for the Mac, so why doesn’t iBooks work on this platform? The Apple engineers were either unsure or invoked Cupertino secrecy to dodge this particular question.

Let me make something absolutely clear: I respect Apple people. Their products are beautifully designed and generally well-executed. Their control over both software and hardware allows them to fine-tune their products in a way that others cannot match. The fact that this integration also presents certain business opportunities is simply a fact of life. The iBooks Authoring tool serves at least two purposes for Apple: attracting content to their distribution network (aka the iBook Store) and selling iPads. Though one would like to see iBooks on other devices, and especially other tablets (especially Android tablets), this makes very little sense from Apple’s perspective.

This leads me to two main observations about the iBooks Authoring platform. First, it cannot realistically serve the publishing needs of a device-agnostic institution. Unless educational institutions mandate purchase of an iPad for certain classes or disciplines (as some are starting to do in Business schools), then the Authoring tool will be of limited usefulness. This leads to my second point: this platform may be more broadly applicable to K-12 models. Some of these institutions have begun to adopt the so-called “One-to-one” model where each student receives an iPad when enrolling in a particular school. In this case the institution mandates device choice and can generate content specifically for students using this device.

In sum, the iBooks tool is a slick desktop publishing app that easily integrates multimedia content, but I think it will have limited usefulness in higher education as long as it remains proprietary and device specific, or as long as institutions stay device-agnostic.

Today I attended BU’s Instructional Innovation Conference, and while I ended up being a little late (thanks, public transportation!), I ended up hearing about a lot of cool things going on around campus and picked up some ideas to integrate into my own teaching. I apologize in advance for the bullet-pointiness of the post.

I was happy to see several sessions on the itinerary that dealt with using technology in the classroom. The first dealt with tablet (Tablet?) technologies in the classroom.

The School of Hospitality has a mobile iPad lab of 65 iPads, and the students can either use an iPad or their own laptop. The main purpose of having the iPads is apparently for polling and course-specific software. Now, as far as I know, clickers can cover the polling, so I guess depending on the “course specific software” in question, I feel like maybe this isn’t really the best use for something like an iPad. It’s no different than just using clickers or individual laptops. Even in a class that was given iPads (as in, they belonged to the students), shouldn’t we be thinking about the things that the iPad (or other tablets) can do that a traditional laptop can’t? Are there things that an iPad can do that a laptop can’t? Discuss.

A better example (I think) was another classroom that had 6 tables, each with a netbook connected to a projector. There’s also a SMART board (think Minority Report – pretty cool) at the front of the room for the instructor to use – this, I think, would allow for a LOT of collaborative/creative work and because it’s being projected, my guess is that cuts down on the messing-around-online stuff that everyone gets their panties in such a twist about (I’ll talk about my personal thoughts on that issue another time).

Another presentation was by a woman who did a bit of a “flipped” classroom (an idea that I talked about earlier). She put video podcasts up for her students to watch before class, but she never put up anything longer than about 12 minutes. She said that was just about the right amount of extra time in class to add some discussion. She used Echo360 and had a super easy time recording it. (Have any of you used Echo360? To what effect?) She only did 5 or so podcasts for the whole semester, but I’m wondering why you wouldn’t do more?

I also saw a lot of “data” from student evaluations – whether or not they “liked” whatever was done in the class. I wish people would collect data like Eric Mazur! Let’s talk about student outcomes (even looking at the grades between semesters of the same class), or something more than whether or not they liked it.

There was, overall, a very different feel at this conference than others (like ELI) that I have attended. While I applaud the things people are trying here, I thought, overall, that there was a bit of a lack of gutsiness. There was an undercurrent of “yes, but the students will do everything they can to do as little work as possible, they’ll mess around on any technology we give them, and basically they’re a problem to be dealt with.” Which I don’t like so much. I know this is, sometimes, the reality. But there were very few people (that I saw) that seemed really passionate about teaching or fostering curiosity/creativity in their students. Maybe I just went to the wrong sessions.

Edit: There was actually a guy (like an older man, clearly a professor) that said using iTunesU to post lectures or additional materials was nothing more than vain self-promotion. And then he wailed on Sal Khan. No joke. I almost yelled at him across the room. You want to know why Khan is making videos in subjects that he doesn’t have a degree in? It’s because YOU ARE NOT.

Sigh.

I’ve recently decided that one of my life goals is to attend a TED conference. I don’t really remember when I first learned about TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design), I probably just saw a talk or two and then started to realize they were all from the same place. Anyway, I’ve learned a LOT from watching these talks. We even have a TED channel that plays through our netflix streaming device (and we may have even spent a couple of Friday nights alternating who gets to pick the next one. I know. Don’t judge) and we’ve watched a great documentary on the TED conference (available on netflix instant).

So basically I really want to go. Just as an attendee. Just to observe and soak in all the passion and creativity and excitement of that community. Unfortunately, this year’s conference starts on Monday, and it costs, like, $7,500 (the cheapest option), and that’s if they even accept your application. Sigh. Maybe in a couple years when I have a grown up job.

For your viewing pleasure – some of my favorite TED talks:

Oliver Sacks on hallucinations

Temple Grandin on autism

Sal Khan on the Khan Academy (which I wrote about here)

I recently wrote a short post about the fantastic Khan Academy website and linked to a TED talk from Sal Khan. In this TED talk, Khan talks about an elementary school that tried “flipping” classes, so that students watched instructional videos at home, then did their “homework” at school where their teachers could help them. Cool idea, right?

Well (thanks to my husband’s research skills), I have now become aware of a high school in Michigan that has taken that approach for all their classes, and it seems to be going very, very well.

Clintondale High School is located near Detroit, and has had a lot of trouble with, well, a lot of things. The students are mostly from the surrounding poverty-stricken areas and were, let’s say, unmotivated at best. Homework was generally ignored, failure rates were high, and there was a lot of trouble with disruptive behavior – and that was if the students showed up at all.

Clintondale’s Principal, Greg Green, decided there needed to be a change. But it needed to be a change that didn’t really cost any money, and something he could get all his teachers on board with, and something the students might actually participate in. So, they decided to start filming lectures and putting them up online. The students can watch the lectures at school (their computer labs now have extended hours for those (few) students who don’t have internet access at home), at home, or on their commute. This frees up class time for labs, activities, problem-solving, and one-on-one time with teachers.

The results: exam scores are up (although I know we all hate using standardized tests as our measure of success) and failure rates are way down (33% in the first year), as are disciplinary problems (66%), which I found interesting. Green even said some parents are starting to watch the videos with their kids so they can help them study.

I’ve been attempting to use a version of this model in my high school class as well – I only get two hours with them once a week, and I really want to spend our time doing, not listening. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve had them watch some Khan Academy videos (as well as videos from Interactive Biology, another guy who’s building up a similar series of educational videos), and even if the students don’t come to class fully understanding everything, at least we’re not taking a first pass at it with an hour and 45 minutes left in class. I think having them watch the Khan Academy videos is what allowed for such a successful class when we talked about action potentials.

Other advantages of the “flipped” model:

-Miss a day of school? No big deal. You can watch the videos at home.

-Transferring in from another district and now you’re behind? No big deal. You can catch up at home.

-Don’t understand something on the first pass? No big deal. You can watch the video again.

Here’s a great little video with Green talking about flipping Clintondale.

Have any of you ever used a flipped model? Would you? Can you think of any downsides?

We had a great time in class last week – and while the Spiker Box was a bit of a mixed bag, we did listen to and record action potentials! And if nothing else, the students seemed to get a kick out of using live crickets – although I was a bit less enthusiastic (crickets are jumpy, you guys. and then it feels like they’re ON you)…

So I had tested out the spiker box the day before to make sure everything was working as the demo on the website said it would. This was my recording:

Then, of course, when we tried it in class, we only got very quiet, irregular firing. But at least it was firing!

After listening to some action potentials, we talked through the steps of an action potential. Their homework for this week was to watch several videos on the neuron/action potentials from the Khan Academy website to familiarize them with the vocabulary and basics. While walking through it in class, I was very impressed with how quickly they grasped the whole thing! I’ve taught action potentials a lot of times – to college students – and it generally does NOT go this well.

Sample dialogue:

Me: So what happens when the membrane voltage gets to -50mV?

Them: The sodium channels open.

Me: So what happens to the sodium ions?

Them: They flood into the cell, which makes it more positive.

Me: Good! So what makes the sodium move into the cell?

Them: Electrical and chemical gradients. Sodium is positively charged, so it moves to more negative environments and where the sodium concentration is lower.

Me: …

To finish up, we made some electromyogram (EMG) recordings of several of the students’ forearm/bicep muscles (still using just the spiker box) which I’m going to try to convert to MP3 and post up on our wiki as soon as I can. The students really got a kick out of this too (and I managed NOT to stab any of them with the electrodes…everybody wins!) and I think they may have actually left class understanding the basics of an action potential. Which I consider a HUGE accomplishment on their part.

Way to go, High School Kids. You’re putting these college students to shame!

I just did a search on the ol’ blog here, and realized I have NEVER written anything about Khan Academy! For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a website run by Salman Khan, who started making video tutorials about math for his cousins. Long story short, his site is now home to over 2,200 tutorials on everything from basic arithmetic to vector calculus, biology to art history. All the videos are made by Khan himself, and are really amazing.

For a good introduction, take a look at Khan’s TED talk – it’s awesome, and this type of site is really starting to change the way people think about education. (I seriously just accidentally watched the whole thing again. It’s that good.)

This week I assigned my high schoolers these videos on the action potential, and I’m interested to hear their feedback!

Have any of you used Khan videos before (personally or for class)? I’d love to hear about it!

Note: You may end up spending several hours learning about, you know, astronomy and finance without really meaning to. You have been warned.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with my high school class so far this semester. I have about a dozen kids that show up regularly, and they all seem pretty happy to be there, which is a great place to start for a class (wouldn’t it be nice if our college students felt the same way?). Last week we had the challenge of teaching the scientific method.

Scientific method and objective experimenting is something I have been so deeply engrained with that I really had to stop for a few minutes and think of what there even was to teach. The answer, of course, is everything. The whole concept of hypotheses and variables and even unbiased experiments – not necessarily anything they’ve been exposed to before. So, where to start?

Paper airplanes, obviously.

We started by throwing a paper airplane from two heights (standing on the lab bench & standing on the floor). I didn’t say anything about it – we just did it, then I turned to the students and asked “what might have affected the distance that the airplanes traveled?” They, of course, said “height.” This allowed us to enter into a conversation about independent and dependent variables in what (I think) was a much clearer/more concrete than just talking about the ideas of independent and dependent variables.

So we talked about different (independent) variables that could affect the distance the plane travels (dependent variable). Then the students got into groups and decided to test one of the variables (weight of the plane, size, model, height, etc.). They made hypotheses about what would happen, then we went out in the hallway and threw a bunch of paper airplanes, recorded the distances flown (best data collection ever), and graphed our results. Then we were able to have a real discussion about whether or not our hypotheses worked out, what we’d try next (mostly doing a lot more repetitions), and what we learned about how airplanes work in general.

In other words, we actually DID an experiment together.

The students seemed to enjoy it (as did I), and I think by pairing a potentially mind-numbingly boring/theoretical topic with an activity, some of it may have stuck!

Up next: we get to use THIS in class tomorrow!

You guys. Matlab is going to be the end of me.

As much as I enjoy working with data (mostly because it means I have data to work with), learning Matlab is rough. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it – this includes me – it’s a fairly sophisticated statistical analysis tool, which is great…except that it requires some programming experience. Oh, and it also requires that you know what your data means. I have ZERO of the first requirement, and only marginally pass the second. This is making things difficult.

Also making things difficult: I have a mac now, and the scripts and other software that are used in our lab are decidedly not compatible with macs (I know, I know, first-world-problems, right?). So I struggled for a while to get everything to work on the mac – and by “everything,” I mean just getting programs loaded and data imported – and it was not working out. So I (or, more accurately, my wonderful and IT-minded husband) partitioned the ol’ hard drive so I can run things over there. Yet STILL I can’t get things to work.

The moral of the story: I am TERRIBLE with computers. Not only am I generally useless at figuring things out, I get genuinely angry at my computer (possibly overheard in our living room one evening: “why won’t you just DO what I WANT you to DO?”).

As a person who generally likes to be able to figure things out, I get really, really frustrated when I can’t even understand the vocabulary that’s being tossed around in the “help” menus for this stuff. It makes me feel useless and stupid. Googling only takes me further down a road of “huh?” and the wikipedia links keep me spiraling in further and further (that is, until I suddenly realize I’ve ended up on the page for, like, unicorns, as one does).

So after exhausting all my other options (whining, yelling at inanimate electronics, rage blackouts, begging my husband to do it for me, pouting, angry naps, etc.), I’ve made a big step. I signed up for a seminar. That’s right. It’s called “Matlab for beginners,” (hey! that’s me!) and I guess they’re planning on doing something crazy like teaching me how to use Matlab. I figure it’ll either be great and I’ll totally be able to handle it from there, or my head will implode. Either way, at least there’ll be some resolution, right?

EDIT: There is an actual “I hate Matlab” group on facebook! 4,629 “likes!” I’m not alone!

It’s the first day of classes here at BU, and for the first time in a while, I’m sitting in a class listening to an intro lecture. The class: cognitive neuroscience. The reason: I’m helping out with the class by giving a couple of lectures throughout the semester, and I thought I might as well sit in and learn something while I’m at it (also, after doing a few guest lectures for our 101 class last semester, I think that by being around for most of this class it’ll be easier for me to jump in occasionally without overlapping with a bunch of stuff they’ve already covered).

I’ve never taken a cognitive neuro class, although I had a great cognitive psych class in graduate school, and I’m really excited about learning in this kind of format again (although I’m sure that feeling would be dampened a bit if I had to worry about exams, attendance, etc.).

I’m especially interested in seeing things from a student perspective again. It’s been three or four years since I’ve been a student in a class like this, and almost all of my teaching experience has happened since then. I think it’ll be enlightening to see things this way again – what do I enjoy as a learner as opposed to a teacher, what do I really dislike? Hopefully, if I’m careful and observant, being a student again will help inform how I teach, give me some fresh ideas, and help me keep my teaching student-focused.

Happy first day of school!

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