Twenty-ten: A New Year and opportunity to surround ourselves with all the things that contribute to our better selves. Like many others, I have given much thought to how I would like to improve myself this New Year. I decided that rather than making unrealistic goals for myself, I will commit to surrounding myself with positive people and situations, with the hopes of contributing to the positive experiences of others.

What better way to accompany my intended positive state of mind than with uplifting music?

LOVE, an album released today by Bigg Bix brings back the first feeling that many of us had when we first heard hip-hop music. Having grown up immersed in hip-hop culture through music and dance, I thrive on the positive contribution that this culture continues to make on my life and I too aspire to make a positive impact on others through my own music this year.

LOVE brought me back to the place that I fell in love with hip-hop and it uplifted my spirits for the New Year. I hope that LOVE will also inspire you to think and be positive in 2010. ENJOY!

To follow up on my previous blog post Can Facebook save face? Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart announced a deal last Thursday with Facebook to revise how it protects personal information of over 200 million users worldwide.

In Sarah Schmidt’s Ottawa Citizen article Facebook to comply with privacy recommendations: Commissioner she states that Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart announced that Facebook will add “significant new privacy safeguards” to conform the social networking site to Canada’s private-sector privacy law.

What does this mean for the 12 million Facebook users in Canada?

• Over the next year, Facebook will limit access of outside software developers to personal information of users. This will affect hundreds of thousands of third-party developers creating applications, including games and quizzes, for the social networking site.
• Facebook users adding an application will be advised the application wants specific categories of information and users can control which information they will allow developers to access.
• Facebook will make clear to users the difference between deactivating their account (their personal information will be held in digital storage) and deleting their account (their information will be erased from Facebook servers).

Reassuringly, Dave Morin, Facebook’s senior platform manager stated that privacy changes will permit users to have confidence in the control they have over their information and privacy.

“We truly feel like these improvements to Facebook platform will bring a new privacy standard to the social web,” says Morin.

What do you think Facebook users – will these new privacy measures set the standard for other social networking sites?

To me, Bowen is most importantly advocating freeing up class time more so than eliminating technology from the classroom as he is encouraging a more spontaneous and natural process of learning through interaction. Bowen believes that technology should be regarded as a means to prepare students for class, rather than a means for students to skim through the material during class time. In other words, class time should be used to discuss what the students have learned on their own time. The dean’s goal is to use technology to free students from covering educational content in the classroom and instead encourage faculty and students to use class time to engage in live discussion.

In Teaching Naked: Why Removing Technology from your Classroom Will Improve Student Learning in the National Teaching & Learning Forum, an extended article written by Bowen on Teaching Naked, he states:
“…simple, new technologies can greatly increase your students’ engagement outside of the classroom and thus prepare them for real discussions (even in the very largest classes) by providing content and assessment before class time.”

Bowen is not anti-technology as he acknowledges that “technology will surely be a key component of all future higher education.” Rather, he feels that we must “rethink how we use technology inside [and] outside of the classroom.” He advocates that new technologies can have a “dramatic impact” on student learning with eight key advantages:

1. You can save everything: every experiment serves as the basis for a future trial.

2. Faculty can free themselves from content overload in preparing for class time. Bowen strongly endorses “under-preparing for class,” stating that “it will lead to your best teaching moments though it will feel a bit like teaching naked.”

3. Using email creates more class time. This allows teachers to avoid taking valuable class time to make announcements, such as rescheduling a midterm or making changes to an assignment. Emailing is also an effective way of communicating with students and allows professors to deliver vital information to students after class. In fact, Bowen claims that students appreciate this and it reinforces connecting learning with the entire college and life experience.

4. Teachers can guide students’ time outside of the classroom by providing timely reminders of key themes in the reading or connecting classroom topics to current events. Bowen claims a quick email about an item in the student or national newspaper that relates to a current class topic is the best way to engage students to relate their class to the bigger picture.

5. Facebook is an effective way for professors to reach students. Bowen states that posting an announcement on Facebook may reach students more quickly than other course management software, such as Blackboard.

6. Using online tests creates more class time – moving assessments outside of class time frees up class time for something more interesting. Bowen claims that this also provides opportunities for learning at different hours.

7. Peer review allows for students to share and critique their work. Bowen asserts that peer review is also a benefit to the core value of getting students to prepare for class.

8. Allowing for preparation of quizzes before classes to ensure that students are prepared for class. Bowen states that teachers can create brief multiple-choice questions and email a reminder and a deadline to all students to ensure that they will prepare for class.

Bowen finds quizzing students before class especially effective and claims “new technology makes this easier and even more effective.” He refers to an earlier version of this concept – Just in Time Teaching or “JiTT” (Novak, Patterson, Gavrin and Christian, 1999), where students work on an assignment before class and submit it before class – allowing teachers to focus on issues that students found most confusing or compelling.

Furthermore, Bowen advocates that PowerPoint has become “the most abused technology” in classrooms consisting of 20 or more students and he believes in maximizing the experience of human interaction between professors and students in colleges.

In his blog post On What it Would Mean to Really Teach “Naked”, Dave Parry responds to José Bowen’s Teach Naked philosophy, agreeing that “students shouldn’t spend class time looking at boring PowerPoint lectures.”

Parry states “using PowerPoint as an amped up version of chalkboards and old carousel slide projectors is a really bad use of resources.” Interestingly, he argues that the issue is not with technology itself, but is rather a poorly developed tool mimicking old technology without considering how it might change teaching practices. I agree with Parry that Bowen is not anti-technology but rather opposed to the way that it is currently used.

As Bowen uses podcasts and video games to teach, his approach is largely based on technology. Parry states that Bowen’s approach to teaching through using technology is intelligent as Bowen is able to deliver the course material outside of class time and save class time for discussion. Parry states “this is not a story about a luddite professor, but rather about a professor who has developed an effective way to use technology in education.”

Parry also claims that Bowen’s approach is close to the one he advocates: “use tech to generate more discussion and outsource content delivery.” Parry states that technology introduces new ways to engage students, but if they are used to “reproduce old pedagogies and student-teacher hierarchies… then teachers fail as educators.”

As I mentioned in the Power of Discussion, there was some resistance from students towards Bowen’s new learning model who are accustomed to being educated in traditional instructional ways. Parry supports this notion in stating that “[students] will be made uncomfortable by a classroom space where they have to take ownership of their own knowledge production.” Does challenging students indeed lead to more effective learning? Or does challenging students disengage them from taking part in active discussions as they may be accustomed to the traditional lecturing model?

Parry makes a convincing argument when he asserts that any teaching practice requires technology, stating that books, paper, pen, desks, chalkboards, and whiteboards are all technologies. Parry maintains “teaching, communicating, learning are thoroughly technological affairs… there is no learning without technology.”

I especially agree with this point made by Parry: “The issue is not technology but using the technology well to teach our students… teaching without digital technology is an irresponsible pedagogy because the future is digital… To educate students… without developing their digital literacy is to leave them ill prepared for their futures.” I couldn’t agree more.

I strongly agree that digital literacy is imperative for students as they must know how to use these new technologies to function as employees in society. I am intrigued by the point made by Parry that “the problem with PowerPoint pedagogy is that it uncritically uses technology, doesn’t teach students to reflect on how technology shapes ways of knowing and learning.”

Part of learning is critical thinking and I believe there should be more of a focus on discussion about how technology is impacting the delivery of information. I believe that there must be more education about critically assessing the information that we obtain through technology and students must learn more about how to decipher between true and false information – or credible and less credible information. Regardless, I think we can all agree on one point: the information out there is incredible. And hardly manageable. Eliminating PowerPoint and turning off the computers during class time won’t necessarily solve the problem of gaining class time. Students still need to manage the information that is out there and they need guidance from their professors about how to manage it.

Parry also believes that simply eliminating PowerPoint is not addressing the main issue. He argues that going back to teaching before technology “will produce a generation of students who don’t know how to critically engage with… these very technologies… Eliminating technology produces not the affect [sic] of a more engaged literate student populous, rather it produces the reverse, an ill informed, uncritical, unengaged student populous who will become at the very best passive consumers of the technology being resisted, and at the worst its willing victims.”

Thomas J. Hanson supports Parry’s arguments about the Teach Naked philosophy. In his blog post Dean Encourages Professors to Teach Naked? he states “[Bowen’s] idea of ‘Teaching Naked,’ either figuratively or literally, simply makes no sense.” Hanson writes that “while the idea of teaching naked initially appears focused on eliminating technology from the classroom, it is clear that the issue is not one related to machines. Instead, it is the lack of skill employed by the professor and the inability to use technology wisely.”

Hanson’s point relates back to my initial point in the Power of Discussion that PowerPoint is a tool for teaching and should not be used as the be-all-end-all. Furthermore, there are many channels that professors can consider in their teaching methods.

In my opinion, every student is a different learner – be it visual, audio, or kinesthetic/tactile. Each student responds differently to lectures, exercises, interaction with their peers or teachers, debates, presenting their perspectives on subjects, or written essays. Considering that each student is a different type of learner, the most effective way to teach students the material is to generally cater to each learning style. I believe that professors can do this by mixing the channels through which the information is delivered to students. I feel that repeating and reinforcing the material through podcasts, readings, and lectures will allow different types of learners to process the material. I think the more channels that are used for teaching – be it discussions mixed with online quizzes and even PowerPoint presentations – the more opportunities professors will give for students to engage and learn in the way that best suits their learning needs. How do you want to learn?

According to Young, Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, as he claims “they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather using it as a creative tool.” The dean maintains that class time should be used for discussion, especially now that students can download lectures and find an abundance of information online.

Bowen’s philosophy is that information should be recorded and delivered to students as podcasts or online videos before class. I believe this is an excellent way to introduce material to students, prepare them to learn, and engage them to participate in class discussions.

I agree with Bowen that “lively interactions” go a long way in terms of allowing students to apply what they have learned. I believe real-life discussion gives students an opportunity to engage with others and form opinions based on new knowledge. Bowen states this exchange of ideas through discourse is currently discouraged by PowerPoint, which has left many students bored and disengaged.

In my opinion, PowerPoint is an excellent tool for presenting one’s ideas and a wonderful means for visual demonstration, especially in the case of presenting statistical data. Although, in the case of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, where the programs range from theatre, to dance, to cinema-television – there isn’t much need for presenting statistical or quantitative data.

Based on my educational experience in sociology and public relations, where I have needed to present statistics and quantitative findings on many occasions, I feel that PowerPoint, just like all other software that I have used in school, should not be regarded as anything more than it is: a tool for students to efficiently accomplish tasks.

Young refers to a study published in the April 2009 issue of British Educational Research Journal, which reveals that “59 percent of students [at a university in England] reported that at least half of their lectures were boring, and that PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw.”

I was intrigued to learn these same students gave low marks not only to PowerPoint, but also to many other computer-based classroom activities. The report states “the least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions.” This is a finding I never thought I would witness in current times, considering how much we now rely on technology. I find it jaw-dropping that students admit they think technology-free classrooms are most engaging!

To me this finding is absolutely fascinating, considering how much emphasis has been placed on learning computer skills over the past 15 years. I learned how to type on the keyboard at a young age and over 15 years I feel that I have mastered my computer knowledge (these skills are all greatly attributed to my education). I can’t remember the last time I handed in an assignment that was written by hand – everything I’ve submitted since grade school has been prepared by computer. To think that the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University is stepping away from the computer for lectures is refreshing, but at the same time arguably challenges the new wave of teaching structure in North America.

Although Young acknowledges that computers have led to some improvement in teaching, he declares that “technology has hardly revolutionized the classroom experience for most college students, despite… early predictions that going digital would force professors to rethink their lectures and would herald a pedagogical renaissance.”

It’s interesting to me that at one point in time, technological inventions spearheaded a renaissance (to use Young’s term) in teaching structure. Presently, the new renaissance that is taking place in Bowen’s school seems more like a revolution to go back in time to traditional teaching methods of practical application and group discussions. What’s even more interesting is that Bowen’s students have complained about needing to be more active in discussion during class periods!

Young refers to Glenn Platt, a professor of marketing at Miami University, in Ohio, where Bowen worked before coming to Southern Methodist. Platt states “The first response from students [to Bowen’s teaching philosophy] is typically, ‘I paid for a college education and you’re not going to lecture?’”

Could it be that students have become too comfortable with the common lecture model despite technological advancements? Have students indeed been socialized to regard the educational process as passive?

I’m inspired and in support of Bowen’s philosophy that students should be engaged in class discussions. I find this example that he gives in Young’s article intriguing:

“If you say to a student, we have this problem in Mayan archaeology: we don’t know if the answer is A or B. We used to all think it was A, now we think it’s B. If the lecture is ‘Here’s the answer, it’s B,’ that’s not very interesting. But if the student believes they can contribute, they’re a whole lot more motivated to enter the discourse, and to enter the discipline.”

I strongly agree with Bowen that students are likely to remember live discussions, based on my own educational experience. I will never forget the day my teacher Stephen Heckbert in the public relations program at Algonquin College walked into class one morning and asked us all to turn off our computers and group in the middle of the room. He asked each of us what our future career plans were and encouraged us to start thinking about where we want to be so we can start working towards our goals. And this all took place in a computer lab!

An interesting last point made in Young’s article is that students who claim to be frequently bored are more likely to score lower on tests, based on Sandi Mann’s studies of student attitudes towards teaching. I feel that Bowen’s teaching model might be the tipping point for students to regain their desire for learning and to feel passionately about the material.

Young concludes his article by stating that now with a solid infrastructure of online delivery, the challenge will be what takes place in the classroom.

To me, one important question remains: are computers disengaging us from learning?

Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart is fighting for the privacy of Canadians on Facebook, claiming that the social-networking site is too open with users’ personal data. According to Metro News, Stoddart claims “Facebook breaches the law by keeping users’ personal information indefinitely – even after members close their accounts…the popular social networking site should hang on to the data only for as long as truly necessary.”

Yesterday Stoddart released a report revealing that Facebook breaks Canadian privacy laws in four areas, and she gave the site 30 days to improve its procedures.

The Privacy Commissioner stated that she wants “Facebook to remove the information in deactivated accounts after a reasonable length of time.” If the progress to fix the privacy shortfalls does not meet her satisfaction after 30 days, Stoddart said she can force compliance by taking the case to Federal Court.

Stoddart also raised her concern about the sharing of users’ personal information with nearly one million third-party developers around the world who create Facebook applications such as games and quizzes. With 250 million users across the globe and approximately 12 million in Canada, Facebook Inc. has vowed to work with Canada to improve its privacy settings.

Facebook agreed to share information about account deletion in its privacy policy, but refused to introduce a policy on retention of former accounts.

Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer for Facebook, stated “we’re going to continue the dialogue… [and] we have every confidence that we’ll come to an acceptable conclusion.”

Kelly also stated “any improvements made to respond to federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart’s concerns will apply to Facebook operations worldwide.”

My wake-up call with privacy on Facebook came in a class last year when my teacher informed me that potential employers are often “checking you out” on the site by simply asking the developers for access to your account. What’s more, they can access information you have “deleted” – be it embarrassing photos, unwanted wall posts, or secret messages you shared with others. The more I thought about this invasion of privacy, the more I came to realize that there is no privacy on the Internet. Facebook is like giving a total stranger control of your history and I have set limits with the information that I share on it. I encourage you to think about the information that you are sharing and decide if it’s something you would want others – especially potential employers – to know about you.

No matter how “private” Facebook gets, it ultimately intends to allow users to share their insights, rekindle their friendships, and develop new relationships on a virtual basis. However, Stoddart’s call for more transparency on Facebook’s policies will hopefully result in more awareness among Canadian and international users about the importance of protecting their “secret” information on the Internet.