This Week's
Hot Topic

POTPOURRI

We are covering a variety of topics as we begin winding down the course and start thinking about the beach, the Summertime barbecues, the surf, the sand, the sunburns, the heat, ...!  We have something for everyone this week.  I think everyone will be able to find at least one topic that will apply to them in some way this week.  Many of you will find that all the topics apply to you!

Have Fun!

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGY, & VIRTUAL REALITY

Well, we have a variety of hot topics to cover this week.  I think you may find that there is some common ground across these topics. I have provided a variety of web sites on each of the topics that give you the big picture.  Check these out:

Knowledge Management

• ABCs of Knowledge Management: Great Golf Example
• Knowledge Management Resource Center Links
• Knowledge Management World

Performance Technology

• Performance Technology Links and Resources
• Performance Technology Info from CPT at FSU
• EPSS Central:  lots of great links!
• International Society for Performance Improvement: a professional organization for performance technology people

Virtual Reality

• Virtual reality in the classroom - geography - neat vids
• What is Virtual Reality?

In the past, the topics of knowledge management and performance technology have been most frequently discussed within business management and human resources management environments with little emphasis within the field of K-12 or Instructional Technology.  However, as the tools with which knowledge management and performance technology initiatives are accomplished become increasingly more computer/network based, the role of IT has become more central.  Designing and developing environments such as an EPSS or a KM database that can be easily accessed and used by any employee is a task for which many IT individuals are well-trained. There are also many IT programs for which Performance Technology has become an area of specialization due to its popularity.

Many of the resources listed above or that you may find on your own are focused on the business setting, but do not be fooled.  K-12 environments are also getting into this game.  School districts are integrating management systems across their schools to manage teacher lesson plans and make them accessible to all teachers within the district. Some districts are creating huge databases from which teachers can access anything from school policies and procedures to how to complete an IEP (individualized Education Plan) to techniques for working with an ESOL student to the minutes from the last school board meeting.  A centralized location for all this information available to teachers with a few clicks on their computer instead of 15 calls to the administration office and 2 hours on hold certainly has the potential to create more effective and efficient learning environments for students and work environments for teachers.

The world of virtual reality used to be focused on large simulators most frequently used for learning critical tasks in which life or expensive equipment were at risk if someone was just beginning to learn.  Flight simulators are certainly the clearest example of this. However, video games brought the world of virtual reality to mainstream culture and the competition began for who could make the most lifelike football game, war scenario, or some other event and make the game player "feel" as if they were part of the action.  From these 2 extremes and more contemporary thoughts about how humans learn, virtual reality has come into the classroom.  Why ask a student to read about Ancient Egypt and different pyramids when they could take a virtual tour of the pyramids and see them for themselves?  Which one of these learning experiences will the student gain the most from and remember later? Why ask a student to write a report about the rain forest when they could experience managing one using a program such as SimIsle? In order to be successful they will have to learn more about rainforests and apply that knowledge to problem solving than they would probably ever learn through writing a report using a book from the library.

Another example in the elementary school environment is the Magic School Bus series.  They are books but the videos and software are even better.  For those of you unfamiliar with this - the Magic School Bus takes the kids in the class on virtual field trips in which the kids actually become part of the topic they are learning about.  The most recent one I caught with my kids was on the water cycle - the kids actually became water and experienced the cycle from being evaporated and rising to the sky to make clouds to raining , etc.  They rained in a variety of places showing how water that is in one country eventually makes its way across the globe.  While this does not actually place real kids (it is a cartoon) into the virtual environment it does allow kids to watch the virtual experience of the cartoon characters to learn. The next thing I imagine is for my children to be able to experience this virtually just as these cartoon characters do.

The common ground among these topics for me is the idea that somewhere not far in the future there will be knowledge management systems available for almost anything with the purpose of improving employee performance through virtual reality instruction.  Here is a silly example I just thought of....

Suppose you are a housekeeper in the future (of course I hope not considering the degree you are getting but just go with this for now).  Your company is determined to insure that they have the best housekeepers.  You get assigned a new house to clean.  In this house, you have a note from the owners to please make sure to thoroughly clean the zabgot.  Now, as many houses as you have cleaned you have yet to encounter a zabgot.  You have seen them advertised but do not know anyone with one nor have you ever attempted to clean one.  You have heard that they are very tricky to clean and if you do not do it exactly right you can do some damage. Thank goodness your company believes in Knowledge Management! 

You whip out your KM Headgear and turn it on.  In a flash you have accessed the database and found the "zabgot" cleaning procedures guide.  You easily read through the directions but are still a bit unsure of yourself due to all the warnings about following everything exactly as it is written.  Virtual Reality to the rescue!  Thankfully, you see the VR button within the cleaning procedures guide.  One click and you are in the virtual world of cleaning a zabgot.  The VR experience takes you through every step and allows you to actually feel as if you are cleaning an actual zabgot.  You mess up a few times and are able to see the disaster that results.  You are thankful you are able to go back and practice again before cleaning the real zabgot. Once you are comfortable with the procedures - you tackle the zabgot in the house and clean it like a pro!  Another happy customer - another glowing performance report - another step closer to housekeeper of the year!

I know this is may be a silly example but most of you could probably relate to it in some way - hopefully in the future though we will all have a Rosie (remember her from the Jetsons?) to clean for us :-)

Drill

Choose one of the hot topics for this week and learn more about it.  Share what you have learned and from where you learned it (give the url) on the listserv.  In addition, provide an example of how this topic applies to your work or personal setting - give us a real (something that you are using right now) or imagined (something you can imagine being designed in the future for use) application. 

Time for Reflection

In the syllabus it states that you will complete 2 reflection papers in this course.  It is about the time to complete your second reflection paper. 

The purpose of reflection papers is for the instructor to learn what ideas are being entertained by participants in the course. They are used as a method to learn more about where individuals are with respect to the course and its connection to life.

You will have almost 2 weeks to complete this paper.  This means it will be due April 22. 

Drill

The minimum length is three pages typed.  You are to attach your reflection paper and send it via email.  Do not forget to save it as a .rtf file.

The following are some guiding questions for your reflection paper..  These are only intended to be a guide for you about the types of "reflections" I would like to see.  Please do not feel as if you must answer each and every question or that you cannot address other relevant issues you are reflecting upon.

• What is in the future for IT?
• What was the most and least valuable skill/knowledge you gained in this course?
• What have you learned about yourself while taking an online course?
• What have you learned about the positive and negative aspects of online courses?
• If you could change one thing about this course what would it be? What aspect of this course would you definitely leave the same?
• When completing assignments related to the hot topics do you prefer posting information to the listserv for sharing or using the threaded discussion format?  Why?
• What hot topics have interested you most and least during the last half of this course?

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful comments on your reflection papers.  I believe they will add to my knowledge and skills related to this course and others that I teach.

FINISH Your Research Table and THAT WEB SITE!

As a final reminder this week I would like to recap your research summary table assignment we began many weeks ago. I hope everyone has been working diligently to identify the 5 empirical articles required for this assignment. If any of you still have questions or concerns about the articles you have identified please feel free to send me an email.

As a review I would like to remind you that the outcome of this assignment is that you create a table with the following columns and rows of information for each article. Ultimately your table will be included as part of your electronic portfolio website so you must ftp it up to the server.

The table headings and content (introduced in Week 4 and reviewed again in Week 9) you will include will be:

• Complete reference in APA 5th edition format
• Description/Procedures - to include bullets associated with the research questions posed, data collected, participants, and other procedures
• Results - to include bullets covering major findings, limitations of the study
• Implications for Practice/Future Research - to include bullets identifying suggestions for implementation, strategies/activities suggested, future research suggestions

The guiding questions you will use (introduced in Week 5) to assist you in analyzing the articles and providing content are:

Research problem/question:

• Is the problem an important/relevant one to your field of study?
• Will this study contribute to our understanding of the problem?
• Do they provide a good rationale for why such a study is important?

Literature review:

• Does the literature review provide definitions of the key constructs they are investigating?
• Do the authors critically evaluate the studies they review?
• Does the literature provide support that this study is needed?

Research questions/hypotheses:

• Are the questions/hypotheses clearly stated?
• Will the answer(s) to the question(s) be applicable to practice in the field?
• Will the answer(s) to the question(s) help us understand the problem better?

Research Design and Methods (components 4 and 5 combined):

• Is the sample (subjects) they used appropriate for answering the questions?
• Can you generalize findings to a larger population? Will you be able to apply their findings to similar settings?
• Were the instruments or measures they used clearly identified/explained?
• Do the authors convey clearly the procedures used for collecting and analyzing the data?

Results and Discussion:

• Are the analysis techniques they used (whether quantitative or qualitative) clearly explained?
• Do the findings they report seem plausible given the data they analyzed? Do they make sense?
• Do the conclusions they make follow logically from the data analysis findings?
• Do the conclusions they make match the questions they posed at the beginning of the article?
• Do the authors report limitations to their study?
• Do the authors provide important implications for practice?
• Do the authors make suggestions for future research in this topic?

We are coming into the home stretch for finalizing your web site.  Your goal in the next two weeks should be to have the complete web site done on your hard drive and ready to ftp.  As many of you already know, the ftp process is not always as straight forward as we would like and things can get a bit screwy in this process.  Therefore, you should reserve lots of time during your final week to make sure this gets done properly.  If it goes perfect the first time then you will have lots of free time that last week.  The one thing I do not advise anyone to do is to work on your web site up until the last minute and then decide to ftp it on the due date (December 10th).  This is a formula for disaster.  Please HEED these warnings!

The information below was posted last week but I reposted it for this drill as a simple reminder.

If you did not get a chance to review the web design web sites now would be a good time to do this.  Here they are:

• Web Page Design for Designers
• Web Design Tips
• Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design
• Design Guidelines
• Web Pages that Suck
• Fixing your Web Site
• Design Consideration Sites

The following are some pointers I have for you as you embark on this exciting task - as always if you need more specific guidance than what is provided here or in the tutorials I have given you then please feel free to send me an email.

• Get organized - create a folder in your C: drive and name it the topic of your website - put EVERYTHING associated with your web site in this folder - this includes all graphics, pages, etc. - this is the folder you will eventually ftp to the server.

• DO NOT - I REPEAT - DO NOT put spaces in ANY file or folder name you are going to ftp to the server - this will be a life saver! Keep file and folder names short but meaningful.

• Before you add a graphic or other object to your web page, make sure that object is in your folder and then insert it from that folder.

• SAVE OFTEN - I REPEAT - SAVE OFTEN

• DO the basics first - create blank pages and put a title on them - put some navigation buttons on them, ftp them, and see how it all works

• While some of you may want to go through numerous tutorials first, the best strategy for many seems to be to just go ahead and start building a page, fiddle around with the program, see what you can do, when you have a specific question  - go to a tutorial and look up how to do that specific thing

• If you ftp your folder to the server and then find you need to make changes - make those changes using the files on your hard drive - then ftp that folder up again - this will replace your original folder and all the files with the new versions

• If you have a question, see if it has already been answered on the website FAQ page.

• If you need help - ASK :-)

  If you encounter a fire during this drill, click the fire extinguisher.  It links to a Word document that contains information for troubleshooting typical problems.

Below are the tutorials I have given you previously in case you need them.

HTML

• Web Teacher

• HTML Crash Course for Educators

• How Web Pages Work
• HTML Goodies (beginner and advanced stuff)
• HTML: Interactive Tutorial for Beginners
• HTML Tutorials

Netscape Composer

• Web Page Construction Using Composer

• Building Web Pages with Composer

• Netscape Composer Resources

• Creating a Web Page with Composer 7.x

• Netscape Composer Tutorial

• Building Web Pages with Composer 7

FrontPage

• FrontPage in the Classroom

• Front Page 97 Tutorial

• Front Page 98 Tutorials

• Front Page 2000 Tutorial

Drill

• Complete your research table, save it as an html document (this is a simple "save as" commmand in Word, ftp it to your server space and send me your url.
• Work on your web site

• Check the FAQ Page to see if your question has already been answered.
• Email Chief Curda.
• Email EMT Kelly.
• Email the firehouse crew and see if another firefighter knows the answer.

Now let's take a look at the Chief's
Inspection List for this week!