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Final days in China

Written by terrya
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Final days in China

I’ve had a great time here in Wuxi, learned lots, met new friends and hopefully helped a class of grad students enlarge their research perspective using design-based research.  I also did two presentations here at Jiangnan University for faculty and students. The first was on Publishing in International Academic Journals and the second on MOOC Possibilities.

The Master’s degree class ended with the First China-Canada Student Poster conference. Each of 8 student groups created (in English) and presented (In Chinese) their proposals for a design based research project. Each project had to have a discussion of the context,

Final Day of Class with Poster Conference

a description of the intervention, the means of assessing learning, answering of research questions and a start at development of design principles from lessons learned.  I’m not sure if any of these projects will actually be enacted, but I think it was useful to explore research designs beyond the positivist paradigm that defines current research study here.  Of course, every good conference ends with a social and I ordered in pizza and pop for all.

I also made time, with a few new friends, to visit Shanghai. We visited the Shanghai Tower which has recently opened and brags of being the second tallest building in the world.  As

Shanghai Tower

expected the view from the 125 floor observation deck was spectacular – but if only the smog didn’t obscure the vista!  I was impressed with the eco-friendliness, the elevators (40 MPH) and the design of the building. The whole building twists 120 degrees as it ascends, making for interesting lines and greatly reducing the wind forces on the tower. Given increasing number of global weather extremes this is important for such enormous structures.  The Tower also gathers and recycles all rainwater and has over 200 wind turbines in the top section of the tower to generate electricity.

We also visited a famous EdTech researcher (Prof Gu) at East China Normal University in Shanghai and talked about her editing of a new journal, distance education woes and the possibility of me making longer visits to that campus.

So what’s to learn?  My visit this time was in the more prosperous and populated parts of China, however, like Canada, there is a much more to see and learn about than visiting in large cities.  The people I met were really hard working, seemed relatively happy and clearly focussed on succeeding and building their own and China’s continued prosperity. Despite the pervasiveness of mobile media, traditional values like respecting elders and those with authority remain firmly entrenched. There seems to be lots of support for the current President and little open discontent with anything -including the air quality.  There is also great complacency with the way the “rules” for everything from travel, to media, to employment regulations seem to arbitrarily change and most I talked to are more concerned with knowing and following whatever the current rules are than in opposing them. Of course, perhaps western ideas of open discontent are sparse because they are clamped down on by authorities. Nonetheless, those waiting for the Chinese to rise up against their ‘undemocratic’ government will likely have a VERY long wait.

By using a VPN, I was able to use all of the Internet tools that I have access to in Canada – and I had more time on my own to get papers, presentations finished ans watch Netflix!   Reading in the  China Daily press (owned of course by the government) I learned that China is enacting new sets of Internet controls and supposedly engaged in public consultations.  The blocking of Google sites and most social media, has resulted in the growth of equivalent Chinese applications – some of which like cell phone payment systems are much more popular (and better?) than those used in Canada. However, China has a national goal to be A (or THE) world leader in technology development by 2050 and is investing appropriately. The recent exit of the US from global climate agreements provides even more incentive and opportunity for China to play a world leading role in this and other tech-enhanced ventures.  Unfortunately, I think the blocking of some educational sites (notably Google Scholar, but also Slideshare, YouTube and others) is counter-productive to China’s aspirations. I hope that “public consultation” (whatever that means) will result in more selective opening of certain sites and especially those with large educational and research value.

My wise older brother commented after my earlier post on my encounters with the Chinese medical system, that I had better be careful about too strong advocacy of pay for service medicine. My experience was minor and paid for easily by my Western income. What impressed me was the speed and efficiency of their system.  But I am also aware that for many, the fees that were ‘pocket change’ for me, are real obstacles for others. I didn’t see a single pan handler or beggar here in China, but I did see a display at a mall of pictures of a very young boy and his Aunt soliciting money  to pay for his cancer treatments. So, despite the challenges we have funding health services in Canada I remain convinced that full, public funding is the best alternative for everyone’s health and well-being.

So home tomorrow and I’ll be glad to see Sue, the ol’ neighbourhood and old friends. Thanks for reading. – comments welcomed.

China, Travel

A trip to Nanjing

Written by terrya
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A trip to Nanjing

Last weekend I accepted an invitation to visit and present a talk at the Jiangsu Open University in Nanjing. Nanjing is one of China’s larger cities strategically located on the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River delta was the centre of both economic power and political power for many hundreds of years and was the first capital of The Republic of China after the abdication of the last Emperor in 1912.

My host (and former PhD Student) Zhijun Wang (and her Mother and 16 month son) boarded

Zhijun Wang, Mother and son

the high speed train for the one hour trip from Wuxi. As most other travellers have noted the High speed train network in China is not only the largest, but arguably the smoothest and fastest train system in the world. We zoomed through the countryside at speeds (displayed on monitors in each car) of well over 300 KM/hour and of course we left within 1 minute of scheduled departure times.

My first “tourist” stop was to visit the Presidential palace complex where the Republic’s founding Father and  first President Sun Yat-Sen and his cabinet  lived and worked.  The tour, through mostly empty office buildings, was a bit sparse on useful stories and the crowds (Chinese are great tourists in their own country) and heat were both a bit oppressive. Nonetheless the compound had some nice gardens and ponds and one got a sense of the optimism and pride of a people first released from autocratic rule of successive dynasties of Emperors.  There was surprisingly little discussion of the civil war that shortened the life of this first republic nor the eventual triumph of the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Tse Tung in 1949.

The next morning our host from Jiangsu took us to two adjoining museums focussed on wars ending with the Allied victory in World War Two.  The first Museum of the War of Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression  covered the global battle against fascism as expressed through aggression by Japan, Germany and Italy. The museum featured lots of photographs, equipment, maps and videos from the

Picture of Norman Bethune at work in China

extended War with, as expected, major coverage of battles that took place on Chinese soil. I of course noted the few mentions of Canadian involvement and the picture and story of Canadian Norman Bethune (pronounced in Chinese as BA-Tu-N). Everyone I have talked to here remembers memorizing Mao’s poem eulogizing  Bethune that is still required study in primary classrooms throughout China. The picture below notes the official stance on China towards peace.

Peace Declaration Plaque

I am aware that China is becoming increasing proactive in global issues, not alike other countries as their wealth has increased, but China’s knows as well as any country the horrors of war and invasion.

The second Museum was dedicated to the infamous “Rape of Nanjing”  in 1937 when Japanese soldiers invaded the City and went on a 30 day spree of murder, rape and theft.

Horrors of Massacre of Nanjing

Estimates place the number of dead at 300,000. The museum was fittingly quite quiet and very sobering – despite the crowd.  Besides showing the effect of this assault on the people of Nanjing, the museum provided many photos, newspaper reports and stories of heroic sanctuary provided  by foreigners who stayed after the Japanese began their occupation. I was pleased to see that Ontario Legislature, just this month,  declared Dec 13 as the official date to honour those who suffered and died during the “Massacre of Nanjing”  the first (but sadly not the last) genocide of the 20th Century.

Finally another huge lunch and we drove to the Nanjing Museum. This is 2nd largest Museum in China and we certainly did not tour all the 70,000 sq metres of displays. I mostly wanted to see the history sections – right back to dinosaurs, early copper and bronze age archeology and to full-sized rooms of Nanjing in the early 20th Century. I left the rooms full of various dynasty pottery for another day.

Later that evening I was treated to a nice banquet by the Dean of the University (who sadly spoke no more English than I speak Chinese) but through Zhijun’s translation I found a bit more about this University. Like other Open Universities in China, Jiangsu is LARGE -over 200,000 students and 8,200 staff.  China’s 5 Open Universities (sadly like other Universities globally) are perceived by their campus colleagues as being inferior in terms of research and student quality (whatever that is). Entrance to China’s University system is perceived as being essential for financial success, yet only around 30% or so of students who write the dreaded 2 day Gougou entrance examinations in Grade 12 are offered a position at a campus University. Thus, the Open Universities, though still having (lower) entrance requirements, offer the only opportunity for postsecondary education for well over a million Chinese students. The main delivery model seems to be television (Jiangsu does 2 hours a day on public networks) and now increasing video delivered via Internet. Students also meet in classes with tutors once a week, but never attend a campus. Examinations are held in local learning Centers. I began to be more than just a bit concerned with the language gaps and knowing just what was expected of me in this visit and beyond.

The next morning we arrived at the University to be greeted with a big welcome sign and

Welcoming Poster at Entrance of University

with much pomp I was welcomed to the Vice President’s conference room (The President was away). After a brief (translated) chat, I was given a tour of the multiple TV studios and massive computer room and then was presented with a Certificate (and major photo op) declaring me to be a Chair Professor of Jiangsu Open University.

I then did my presentation to a crowded room – mostly about Athabasca University and a variety of innovations in Distance Education that I had been involved with at Athabasca (topic chosen by them). I was introduced by the Vice President and heard later,that she had introduced me as the ‘Norman Bethune of Distance Education’!!  I  think that comparison is FAR overrated as Bethune’s trip to and work in China was a world of difference from my mostly luxury trip and minor contributions here. Fortunately, again Zhijung translated from my slides for the audience. I have no idea how many of the audience could understand my English.

Of course, the lecture was video taped and transmitted to a number of their learning Centres.  As normal in China, the ending prompt for questions for comments didn’t result in too much discussion, but a few interesting question. One was from a remote site and maybe mirroring some of my own concerns with video delivery, I couldn’t understand the question! Oh well.

Next, the Vice President and I were chauffeured across the street to another banquet. Finally, we talked about what they wanted from me – which turned to be “as many visits as I could manage” and some lectures.  I think what they want most is association with a ‘big name’ in western distance education.  They also noted they would be happy to discuss with me my requirements for expenses and “lecture fees”. Although everyone was very polite and generous with their time and compliments,  I was reluctant to commit to more than I was prepared to deliver (did I mention the air quality in Nanjing – think BAD!). However, I did promise to return early next spring (hopefully with Susan). I know well how long winter can be in Edmonton.

After a send-off (with the customary envelope full of 100 RMB bills) it was back to the train station and home of Wuxi.

China, Travel

An encounter with the Chinese health system

Written by terrya
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You can tell when a blogger is getting old by the percentage of their posts relating to health issues- and especially their own. This is one of that genre.

About three months ago a painful bump appeared on my heel, and after a couple of weeks of denying its existence, Susan talked me into going to see my family Doc.  He didn’t give me a name but said it was fairly common, suggested some stretching exercises  and booked me with a specialist. Rather miraculously (in Canada) I was able to see the specialist a week later.  The specialist told me it was a case of Achilles Bursitis, and booked for x-rays and an ultrasound. Of course I rushed off for an appointment with Dr. Google and found that indeed I (and you) have a number of cushion pads called bursae that shield the moving tendons from the bones of our joints. When they get inflamed you call it bursitis.  The specialist prescribed some anti-inflammatory cream and I got used to (almost) a dull pain as we trotted around Italy last month.

So landing in China for a month, I thought, why not see what Chinese medicine can do for me.  My first stop was at the hospital conveniently located on the University Campus. A 5 minute wait and a short examination and I had another tube of anti-inflationary cream. (Total cost about $7.00 for the cream and I some small payment via my new Jiangnan University staff card).  I learned from Chinese colleagues that the University hospital used western medicine, so they helped me get an appointment at the major Chinese medicine hospital in the centre of Wuzi.

So this morning we headed downtown for an 8:oo AM appointment. Unfortunately, my colleague had mistakenly made the appointment for the following day, so we decided to just see if we could ‘walk in”. This entailed showing my passport and lining up for 5 minutes to pay a cashier $12 to see the doctor.  2o minutes later we were standing at the open door as the doctor finished a session with an earlier patient (the Chinese don’t bother about patent/Dr privacy the way we do in Canada).  He quickly examined my heel and (through Zhijun’s interpretation) asked about my “western diagnosis” and the Internet gave us a Chinese translation of the afore mentioned malady.

He wanted to see an x-ray, so back we went to the line up at the cashier (waited about 15 minutes) paid $22 and we were on our way to radiology department. Another 10 minute wait and I was on the x-ray table. The equipment and safety of operator looked pretty much the same as my recent experience in Canada – with a much shorter wait time. Then it was back to the doctor (another 10 minute wait) and he was examining the x-ray on his computer. As expected the bones were fine, just the inflamed bursai.

He then punched in 3 prescriptions on his computer, printed them out and we were back in the cashier line (another 10 minute wait). I paid another $12 and went to the dispensary, waited 5 minutes and was given a bag with my prescriptions – a tube of herbal anti-inflammatory cream (made at the hospital), 8 packets of herbs (also made up at the hospital) with which I was to make a tea and soak my foot 3 times a day and a 24 tablets of an internal anti-inflammatory.  I may not take the internal pills as I was able to get a second opinion from Dr Google – who noted the drug  is associated with stomach problems.  The final stop was back to the radiology department to pick up the 11″ by 14″ x-ray.  I think it will be a nice souvenir and I’ve never known anyone else who has their own foot xray!

So, I still have bursitis, but as I write my foot is having a bath and the room smells like a wet autumn woods. The hospital experience cost me about $46 and two hours of my time – without an appointment.  It was, all in all, an interesting experience and I was impressed with the service and brusk but efficient operations of the staff.  However, I am certain that  this would have been an entirely different experience, without the translation services from my good friend and ex-PhD student Zhijung.

Only time (and perhaps a later blog post) will tell if the treatments work.

China, Personal, Travel,

Classical Chinese Dance and Music Concert

Written by terrya

Did I ever tell you about the time I starred in a Classical Chinese Dance and Music presentation?

Last night my host here at Jiangnan University invited to go with her to the annual performance of the students in the classical fine arts program here at the University. We got great seats in the campus performance center, which is a fairly large concert hall seating perhaps 1500 people and it was about ¾ full. The set was of the stone arch bridge and simulated streams that characterize this campus.

The program consisted of a mixture of dance and classical songs each based upon well known Chinese poems. Of course I didn’t understand the language but  Zhijun was able to find English translations of some of the poems. So I got to appreciate the often melancholy but also occasionally joyful emotions, movement and sounds created by the dancers and musicians.

Traditional Chinese Guzheng

I was especially interested in two of the traditional instruments. One, the guzheng was not unlike the hammer dulcimer that I’ve been building and playing the last few years. It had about 20 strings but rather than  being struck with hammers, it was plucked. supposedly “Guzheng’s sound touches the Heavens above and the Gods and spirits below.”

Guqin, China’s oldest instrument.

The second instrument is called a Guqin, not unlike a zither. It too was played horizontally, and plucked or stroked by the musician. It however had a fret board so each of the seven strings could be shortened by the musician to create higher notes and eerie slides. According to TopChinaTravel  “Chinese ancient scholars have to acknowledge four art, including play the Guqin, play Chinese chess, write good calligraphy and draw painting”

A bit surprisingly at the end the audience very briefly clapped and then proceeded to exit the auditorium. Meanwhile the cast was still all on stage, the director accepting a bouquet of flowers and everyone doing a final bow – to the quickly emptying auditorium. My colleague Zhijun asked if I wanted to go up and take a picture of the musical instruments. I thought that was a good idea, so we proceeded up near the front waiting for the photos to be completed and cast to disburse. However, soon the director noticed me standing there and came down and insisted that I come up and get my picture taken with the cast. And not only that, but I was dragged up beside her, right in the center of the cast. Then the official photographer arrived and seemed to take forever  snapping pictures and me looking and feeling pretty goofy as if I was really desperate to get my picture taken.

Crashing the photos take at Jiangnan concert

Likely you won’t have to guess “Where’s Elmo” to see me in the picture. After the photos were finally done, I was able to take my picture of the instruments  and get off that huge stage.

As I look at this photo I realize I don’t exactly blend in with the crowd. Last Sunday I was visiting one of the ‘ancient villages” near Wuzi, and a little 4 year old boy came up and asked my colleague if I was a “real foreigner”. This prompted me to think well maybe I am starting to look just a little bit Chinese, but tonight’s photo proves that I’ve a long way to go.

China, hammer dulcimer, Personal, Travel

Teaching at Jiangnan University, Wuxi China

Written by terrya

My 4 week trip to China is a week done, and I thought I would document the trip to date (you know us old guys have trouble remembering the details!).

Four years I received a request to host and sponsor a PhD student from Bejing Normal School. Zhijun Wang soon worked her way into our hearts and proved to be a very helpful and capable student.  After her thesis on connectivism and her graduation, and a new baby, she accepted a faculty job at Jiangnan University. A year later she invited me to teach her Masters degree students for a month in the Department of Educational Technology, where she has just recently been appointed a very young department chair. The course I am teaching is called Advanced Research Methods – but it isn’t that advanced (which is fine, as neither am I!). We are focussing on the hot methodology of ‘design-based research’.

Satellite shot of Lake Tau with Yangtze river at top, Shanghai at mouth of the river

Wuzi is located about 70 km west of Shanghai and is one of those Chinese cities of 6.2 million people that almost nobody I know had ever heard off.  This is (I think) my 6th trip to China and I have to say that Wuzi is by far the prettiest large city that I have visited. The City is located on the ancient Grand Canal on the edge of Tai Lake one of the largest lakes in China. The relatively new University campus is on the lakeshore on the Western outskirts of the City.  The campus (like the old City Centre is bisected by a number of  canals and small rivers – complete with lily pads, fish and the the odd scenic bridge. The day I arrived the air was pretty thick (not nearly as bad as the Beijing soup, but a bit disconcerting).  However a rain fall the second day cleared away the smog and has been clear skies the rest of this week.

Student residences on the jiangnan campus

I’ve been accommodated in “foreign teacher” apartments that are quite spacious, one bedroom suites. The other teachers here are from all over the place, with maybe the largest component from Australia. Today I enjoyed a United Nations type talk over beers in our courtyard – and yes the Trumper was talked about.

I’ve been met for breakfast and most lunches by grad students who want to practice their English and it is really a treat to get to talk and ask questions about the ‘real China’.  On Thursday four students took me to Three Kingdoms theme park.

You’ve probably noticed how much Chinese people enjoy watching ancient warriors (with or without supernatural powers) battle each other and win princesses. Well, many of those movies were shot on the 86 acre or site built for that purpose and when not actively making films – the tourists descend. However Wuzi is quite far off the international tourist circuit and I think I was the only ‘big nose’ foreign tourist at the park that day. We toured the palaces (all built of stone) on the model of the Forbidden City in Bejing, the parks, castles and docks. We also watched a pitched battle between sword and various other weapon-carrying soldiers galloping around on horses. The speed and acrobats of the horseman was impressive, but the rides for visitors after the performance were pathetic by Calgary cowboy standards – the saddles all had big steel handles to hold onto while an employee took the reins and led the riders (walking) around the arena.

Last night Zhijung and a colleague took for dinner in the “ancient canal zone” which was very impressive. Lots of restaurants and bars and people out for a Friday evening stroll.

Ancient canals of Wuxi

We also saw a group of 20 or so amateur musicians playing  traditional Chinese  instruments and singing opera ballads.  We ended the evening with a 45 minute boat ride through the central part of town and saw the usual spectacular high rise buildings (most lit up) and a new Mosque and a very old Buddhist temple – which still has monks.

My course is going well and they ended class on Friday by bringing in a birthday cake for me and singing (with not quite right tune, nor words)

 

I finally got it together to buy a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that allows me to use the Internet and makes the sites visited think I am located in a selection of cities around the world- one of which I choose. This allowed me

First day of Class

to watch a couple of NHL games streamed on CBC (which CBC restricts to Canadian sites). Fortunately the Oilers lost on Thursday, so I do not need to be too compulsive about watching the remainder of the playoffs. More importantly, the VPN allows me to access the numerous sites that are blocked in China – including Google, Google Scholar, Facebook, Twitter YouTube, Netflicks and many more. It is interesting to see the extensive use of WeChat and I am told many other equivalent net applications that are Chinese – no Google and Facebook domination here!

I  have been delivering my classes in English(of course), but I cut and paste Google translation of the text into Chinese characters beside, the English text. And having Zhijung as a ready translator really helps as well.

This morning one of the Faculty took me to visit historic town of Dankou. Near the entrance a little boy asked my Chinese Colleague if I was a ‘real foreigner’ – I guess I must be looking more Chinese now, if he couldn’t tell.  The town was nice to walk through – no cars and lots of boats on the canal. I also saw a man returning from fishing with 4 cormorants in the boat. Each of the birds went fishing with string on their leg and a ring around their neck so as not to swallow the catch.

Next weekend, we are off to China’s old capital of Nanjing for a couple of nights as a tourist and then visiting and giving a talk at Jiangsu Open University. All for now

My Work, Personal, Travel

Our trip to Italy – April 2017

Written by terrya
Our trip to Italy – April 2017

Note: What follows is a 6 page account of the 24 days that Susan and I spent as tourists in Italy in April 2017. Hopefully it can be used by ourselves to recall those names and dates we too easily forget and for others to help plan similar vacations.

Introduction: Despite the numerous personal and business trips that we have made to Europe in the last 25 years, the only major country we have never visited was Italy. Thus, I sort of saved it for a retirement holiday and it did not disappoint!.

We decided to travel in April for two reasons – it is often a terrible month in Edmonton mostly because the expectations (for spring) and the reality (of winter) often do not align. This was borne out this year when we heard of (not sadly) two separate snowfalls of over 20 cm while we were away. We had also heard of the very hot weather and HUGE crowds in Italy during the summer. We were still quite shocked at the number of tourists and we were glad we brought sweaters and jackets, but we concluded that April is a very good month to visit Italy.

We planned the trip to visit the major tourist sights in North and Central Italy – mostly for the art, culture, and scenery. We also wanted to visit Genoa, where I had been invited to do a presentation at the National Institute for Educational Technology. Finally we wanted to try to use AirB&Bs and from previous travels, we knew that one had to book very early to insure good selection and prices. Thus, our itinerary was more or less set, when we booked four AirB&B sites in September 2016.

Venice: We decided to visit Venice first and booked our flight booked with Air Canada and they only fly nonstop from Canada to Rome, when we arrived in Rome. We took a pre-booked (cheaper than getting last-minute) a high-speed train ticket which departed 2 hours after our landing. Although we were a bit concerned with timing, we made the train from the airport directly to Venice. The scenery was great but after an all night flight, Sue mostly slept – my new policy of popping half a sleeping pill on the plane worked wonderfully and so had no problem enjoying the view as we sped along – up to 300 KPH.

Walking out from the main train station onto the Grand Canal is a wonderful experience for all first time visitors.

We bought SIM cards for our IPhones (25Euros which gave us telephone and 4 gigs data (but no text) Sue’s worked fine but mine would not activate – problem with Apple Canada?? This data phones proved extremely valuable for Google maps and for phoning our hosts in the AirB&B – and of course for answering disputes and queries with a brief consult with Mr Google.

We bought a 2 day pass on Vaporetta boat buses (a bit expensive at 30 Euros each) but a great way to explore Venice. After the 2 days we found we could (and did) walk everywhere. Venice is like no other city we have visited because of the lack of cars and roads. Everything from garbage, to ambulances, delivery vehicles to fire engines is a boat! Thus creating a unique and very quiet environment. The Grand Canal is packed with water taxis and tourist gondolas but also with all types of commercial boats. In addition a huge cruise ship briefly blocked the view one night from St Mark’s square.

We did the usual top tourist sights, museums and churches including visits to LIDO and one of the other small islands. We also booked one walking tour with only 6 of us and a charming young Art student as guide. Our AirB&B Campo St Marco was great, full kitchen, a large eating area, bedroom and living room (which we hardly used). The large windows opening onto St Thomas Square afforded us a bird’s eye view of a bit of Venetian life. We also experienced for the first (but certainly not last time) great Italian pasta, fish and pizza. After 4 nights we took the train for a one day visit to Milan.

Milan: We left early for the 2 hour trip to Milan. We found our hotel near the train station and headed to the old town. We tried for a few minutes to buy tickets to visit the famous Douma (Cathedral) but the line up was atrocious, so we opted for a far too expensive hamburger and beer on a terrace overlooking the Doumo Square, and had a great view of a very excited champion soccer team getting photographed for over an hour. We paid the big bucks for an excellent guided walking tour which ended with 15 minutes in front of Da Vinci’s Last Supper in the Rectory of a Dominican Monastory the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie. This was as our first walking tour with ear phones and it make a tremendous difference as the guide can chat away without halting to gather in the 18 tourists on this tour. He was excellent with lots of stories and time for questions. I hadn’t realized how badly the City had been damaged by British bombers during the 2nd world war. We visited the usual tourist haunts – Cathedral, opera house, Gallery, castle etc .and two hours later arrived for our 15 minutes with the last supper. Having the guide interpret the painting and its restoration (it was NOT done as Fresco on wet plaster so immediately began to fad and was re-painted by various authors and finally the Monks cut in a door which cut off Jesus feet!_. Twenty years of restoration in the late 1980-90 revealed some of the original Di Vinci paint and outlines. He also informed us that this very Monastery was the headquarters of the Italian Inquisition and that the fires burned nightly in Milan for many years – YUK!. But the expressions on the faces of the apostles, the effect of lighting in the refractory, the ‘miracle” that 2 sides of the room had been destroyed by bombs in WWII but left the painting intact, were each impressive.

Genoa: The next morning we headed for Genoa – normally a 2 hour (slower) train, which was over an hour late leaving the station in Milan. Thus, we missed a lunch for us put on by the National Ed Tech Centre folks. I did an updated presentation on Interaction modes in 3 generations of distance education pedagogy. There were about 30 people in attendance and one off-site location. They celebrated my visit and the tomorrow’s Easter break with a delicious and complex traditional Italian home made Easter cake and lemoncello – lemon liquor. The day ended with likely our best meal – with our host Francesca Pozzi and her husband Massi at a great sea-side restaurant owned by one of their friends. There was only one other couple at the restaurant and the owner had to show us pictures of the very fish we were eating and how he had caught it earlier that day. The next day they took us for our first-ever sail on a 38 Ft Bavaria sail boat in the Mediterranean. Not much wind but nice to see this largest harbor in Italy.

Our Genoa AirBnB was right downtown and turned out to be the most luxurious accommodation that we enjoyed on the trip. It was a large apartment with marble and hardwood everywhere , very modern kitchen and a great king sized bed!

We spent the following day exploring Genoa. I went to the Maritime museum while Susan got lost trying to go shopping and wound up in an interesting museum! The old town was great and quite amusing to see the faithful gathered around and praying at a full sized body of the dead Jesus on Easter Saturday – waiting for resurrection tomorrow I guess. Also heard a great guitar player outside the Cathedral, who told us he had played the Bach Cello suite just for us, as he saw us watching!

Cinque Terre: We had, from most visitors we knew, heard to Italy of the wonders of the 5 villages along the Italian Riviera that make up the CinqTerre. We had an Air B&B for 3 nights (2 days) at Manorola. It was Easter weekend and even without the cruise ships it was PACKED with mostly Italian tourists. Anyways we arrived at Manorla by train about 8:30 PM and had a bit of a time finding the AirBnB – thank goodness Manorola only has one road!!

We spent the first morning relaxing and enjoying the balcony view of the town and listening to the bells tolling for Easter morning in the Church next door. They even enticed Susan to attend Mass.  In the afternoon we headed down to wade through huge crowds at the Manorola Beach. We knew the sea trail to Riomaggiore was closed but our map showed the village was only about 3km away. What we didn’t know was that those 3 km were horizontal and didn’t count nearly an equal distance of vertical steps.  We really were not prepared for the roughness of the trail, the zillion steps and many loose rocks. But we made it!! We certainly were glad to end with Bruschetta and craft beer in Riomaggiore.  We took the 3 minute train ride back- the ticket machine was broken and the train packed so it didn’t matter much, and then hiked another km back up to our peaceful airB n B to relax and enjoy the view. We got a taste of why so many Italians are in such good physical condition

Our second and last full day in Manorola we decided to be smarter and took the local bus up 300 meters to a little town (nice church) on the ridge overlooking the sea. Then it was a still-challenging but easier walk down to the next village. The weather was nearly perfect – high of 19 degrees. There were quite a few people we passed in both directions, but it was interesting seeing the gradual rebuilding and planting of vines in the once abandoned terraces. We also looked carefully at the only mechanism used in these vineyards – the monorails that took the farmers up and grapes and olives down. We had a great lunch overlooking the sea at Corniglia and then headed along the trail to Vernazza. We enjoyed a beer overlooking the harbour and castle and then took the train home.

Florence and Tuscany: Next morning we were off to Florence and rented car so we could see some of Tuscony where we had our only one un-booked night of this trip. Two days earlier I went on Expedia and found a “members sale” for a “country hotel” for $66 Canadian near Sienna. We’ve had some less than positive experience at really cheap hotels before, so we crossed our fingers for this one. We had booked a rental car and fortunately bought our GPS with European maps. We had a wonderful drive through Tuscanny – absolutely the most stunning scenery we have seen thus far. We stopped at the mountain top town of San Gimignano. We enjoyed listening to a busker (and bought a CD) of a musician playing an new Swiss steel drum-like instrument called a Hang. The “country hotel” turned out to be a fabulous 200 year old 4 star hotel (see view from our bedroom window at Borgo San Luigi 

– a lot like Jasper Park lodge. They upgraded us (I guess they didn’t see how little we had paid) to a Junior Suite, that had a list price on the door of 350 Euros. We spent way too much on the hotel restaurant dinner but it turned out to be a wonderful night, and the breakfast the next morning turned out to be no charge.  We wish we had booked the place for another night or two. The following day we drove through Tuscany stopping at a couple of hill top towns including San Miniato and then visited the Leonardo de Vinci museum, in you guessed it – in Vinci!

Back to Florence and dropped off the car sans incident – thank goodness for GPS and found our Monastery – which seemed pretty Spartan after 4 stars last night!!

As others have noted Florence is an amazing City with a very rich Renaissance history. It is amazing that this landlocked town became the world centre for both Art and Banking – perhaps mostly due to the leadership of the Medici family leadership? Our stay at the Monastery was the worst accommodation of our trip. Susan had insisted on it based on one previous Monastery Stay and some latent fantasies of religious life. The room was (as expected very plain) but it was annoying to listen to the Italians arguing, or were they as Sue suggested just talking vivaciously next door late into the night and then again at 6:00 AM! We ‘ve noticed that besides extensive arm movements Italians tend to talk to each other very loudly. We also had trouble getting Internet, but Sue did do a couple of very early morning counseling sessions from the common room downstairs. Our two visiting days were spent at most of the big art galleries. We paid for “Skip the line” tickets for the Academia Gallery and were awed by the size and grace of Michelangelo’s David. The next day we visited the largest Art Gallery in Italy the Uffizi Palace and saw the sculptures and paintings accrued by generations of Medici rulers. We ended the day by enjoying the Sunset after a half hour climb up to Michelangelo Square overlooking the City.

Rome: For the final week of our visit we took the train from Florence to Rome. We had some trouble finding the AirB&B as we got mixed up between municipal trains and the Metro. I also had a very close brush with a pickpocket as during the rush and push to get into a very crowded Metro train I reached and noticed my wallet was missing. I swept my hand down and it was dangling, waiting to fall or be plucked at the waist line of my jacket – yikes – that would have put a damper on our holiday.

We did find the AirBnB and it lived up to its reputation and the reason we booked it, by a very large terrace (5th floor with elevator!) full of plants that overlooked St Paul’s Cathedral and the Vatican. It was a stunning view during the day and lit at night. We had 8 nights here and spent many a slow morning enjoying breakfast on this terrace.

We planned a more or less unplanned visit and spent the first day exploring our neighborhood and finding a delightful neighborhood restaurant with the owners with a huge smile, great food and not a word of English! The next afternoon we braced ourselves for the crowds and visited at Peter’s Square and Basilica. We were told it is the largest Church in Christendom – and it was impressive. We also wondered through the crypt to see all the dead popes and one lonely female – a deposed Princess who had sought refuge in the Vatican in 17th century.

The rest of the week we leisurely did the main tourists sites of Rome. All were crowded with tourists, but still retained the grandeur of past ages and great art. We did our one and only hop-on hop-off bus tour – never sure is they are worth the 30 Euros each, but did get a good overview. In turn we visited the Vatican Museum, numerous churches, Spanish steps, Trevi Fountain, the Forum and Coliseum – with lots of time for relaxing in our apartment. We also really liked the winding streets, ambience, buskers and restaurants of the Travestere area (on the right bank of the Tiber.) Also took in a Saturday morning combination baroque concert/tour in the Art museum Palazzo Doria Pamphilj (30 Euros) which was really excellent. To our surprise we saw the original painting from Dutch painter Brugel of skaters on a canal – we have had a larger print of that picture hanging in our house for nearly 20 years, and didn’t really know where the original was. As compulsory, we also toured the ruins of the Roman Forum and coliseum. Both worth the visit but hordes of other tourists and a bit of a tragedy that so much of these temples and the Coliseum was recycled by later popes and the wealthy into Churches and palaces. Ironically the only temples that did survive renaissance-age savaging were the ones that had already been converted to Churches. Visiting the 2,000 year old Pantheon temple was a definite highlight, and one of the most impressive spherical works of architecture we have ever seen.

Conclusion: I’ll end with a few lessons and hints:

  1. April is likely a good month to visit Italy as we had only one day of rain, but I did wear my sweater at least part of every day. Susan admitted that she brought too many warm weather items. I can’t image the hordes of tourists when it gets busy in the summer, as there were more than I liked in the Spring.
  2. Getting a sim card with data for google maps, downloading tickets, contacting AirB&B hosts and other conveniences – is a must. We likely could have gotten by without our GPS by using Google Maps, but it was nice to have a backup.
  3. AirB&B is a great way to travel. The price of accommodations are similar to hotels (see below). The size of accommodations, kitchens, appliances and balconies are MUCH better and 3 of our 4 AirBnB’s could have slept 4 people. But you are charged a cleaning fee and making contact with host is more challenging than walking into a hotel- so they are best for stays of 3 or more nights. With AirBnBs book VERY early to get best selection and prices. Our experience booking that 4 star country hotel in Tuscony through Expedia at $66 Cdn was a real bonus but hard to repeat!.
  4. Total Costs. We ate out at least once every day at medium priced restaurants average maybe 40 Euros/meal with wine, paid around $120/night for accommodations, usually used public transportation, but did grab a taxi when really needed or desired, and didn’t skimp on museums – but also didn’t do things like 80 Euros for a half hour Gondola ride in Venice. A nice way to enjoy these once of a lifetime experiences is to delude yourself that a Euro is equivalent to $1 Canadian even though in 2017 it costs $1.50 Can for a Euro!
Airfare $2373 (Can.) Average/day
Accommodation
     AirBnB $2373 $131
   Hotel $212 $106
   Monastery $315 $105
Concerts, restaurants, tours, museum, transportation, etc. $3074 $128
Total (2 persons) $8357 $348 – $249 minus airfare

These totals compare quite favourably with costs of 3 week cruise, but one shouldn’t underestimate the time and worry of booking everything oneself – and then resolving the challenges when you get lost or show up for a train at the wrong time or the wrong station!

 

 

Personal, Travel

What the FOLC is new in this article?

Written by terrya
4 Comments
What the FOLC is new in this article?

Sorry, but I couldn’t resist spoofing, in the post title,  the unfortunate sound of the acronym for the “new” model proposed in this article. Now,  I’ve got it out of the way and can only suggest that if this “divergent fork of the Community of Inquiry model” is to survive, it needs a new English acronym.

This post is a critical review of  Democratizing digital learning: theorizing the fully online learning community model Todd J. B. Blayone, Roland van Oostveen, Wendy Barber, Maurice DiGiuseppe and Elizabeth Childs. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education 2017 14:13
DOI: 10.1186/s41239-017-0051-4

First, let me get out the good things about this article stated. I love the fact that the authors published this in a peer reviewed,  Open Access journal (thanks to Roland van Oostveen for noting an error in my original post) . Second I love articles about the now venerable Community of Inquiry model because it is flattering to see this work live on, nicely adds to our citation rating indices and  because I share with Randy Garrison and Walter Archer an ongoing interest in constructivist models for online and blended education. And finally, as always conceptual arguments and calls for research are welcomed – especially if they follow with real research results!

First in a number of concerns with the paper. The basic claim is that the Fully Online Learning Community (FOLC) is a “divergent fork of the Community of Inquiry model”.  It seems the divergent claim is made on the basis that the revision is for FULLY online courses.  In fact no divergence is needed or called for as the original COI model was always based on fully online courses – blended courses – or at last the name hadn’t been invented in the 1990’s when we developed the COI model.  The authors may argue that the divergence stems from the integration of synchronous and asynchronous discussions. The original COI model was grounded in asynchronous threaded discussion, as the Internet did not support synchronous interaction in those days. However, Randy and I had been working since 1989 on synchronous delivery models based on group teleconferencing, (see  for example Anderson, T., & Garrison, D. R. (1995). Transactional issues in distance education: The impact of design in audio teleconferencing. American Journal of Distance Education, 9(2), 27-45.). We certainly thought the constructivist underpinnings of the COI could and would support synchronous communciations as well.

Second, is the claim that FOLC “responds to the limitations of distance learning and MOOCs (e.g., student isolation, low completion rates, etc.)”  and “the needs of transformative and emancipatory learning” and “responds to requests from some international partners for new models of learning aligned with democratic and socio-economic reforms. Both Randy and I had long argued and published about the need for distance education to use technologies to get beyond distance education, as perceived as one-way content dissemination to “education at a distance” based on social construction. Thus, the ‘new’ FOLC adds nothing new to our initial claims and desire to supplant individualistic models of correspondence models of distance education.  MOOCs and especially cMOOCs are much more than mere content dissemination as decried by these authors. Finally, the COI was and is a response to the need for new models of learning and the needs for emancipatory learning.  The only claim that is true is that the COI didn’t directly respond to the need for 21st Century learning competencies -mostly because these hadn’t been invented when we developed the COI model. Moreover, these newer ideas certainly fit within the original COI and its development and support by thousands of researchers in the past two decades.

The authors present a “revised model” as below

I can’t see anything new here beyond the original three presence Venn diagram of the COI model.  Both note the collaborative learning environment, both have social and cognitive presence and teaching presence is assumed in the organization and management of the digital space as the FOLC model (like the COI) is based on formal, institutionalized education.

The paper then goes on to provide conceptual scaffolding for a number of tending educational related theories or ideas – digital space; democratized learning and collective identity and responsibility, community and authenticity.  I don’t have any problems with these conceptual arguments and they could each be used to update and strengthen the original COI model. I really don’t see anything new here except for the inclusion of references and arguments that have developed since the COI model was first introduced.

The article then goes onto to propose a research agenda which is little more than a wish list of things that could or should be researched. We criticized this type of rather adhoc model of research agenda development in our Stöter, J., Bullen, M., Zawacki-Richter, O., & von Prümmer, C. (2014).  From the back door into the mainstream: The characteristics of lifelong learners.  In O. Zawacki-Richter & T. Anderson (Eds.), Online distance education: Towards a research agenda (pp. 421-457). Athabasca: Athabasca University Press. But again, nothing wrong with this list of things to do, but nothing new either.  Finally, the authors invite others to join them in this research process – all good stuff but….

I don’t think there is enough new here to claim a “divergent fork” merely by strengthening the original argument.

Community of Inquiry, Distance Education

Two Canadian Movies – Two Canadian Narratives

Written by terrya
Two Canadian Movies – Two Canadian Narratives

I’ve just finished watching two films about, paid for and watched – with interest, by many Canadians.

The first film, TransCanada Summer takes the viewer across the country in 1958. Throughout the trip the film celebrates the industrialization and progress resulting from the construction of the Trans Canada Highway – the longest highway in the world at that time. The second film critically looks at these roads – first the railroads then the highways, from the perspective of the First Canadians – the aboriginal natives. These Canadians were largely ignored as these same roads brought to them an invasive of settlers, profiteers and religious evangelists.

I grew up in Calgary Alberta, which was then and is now the most “American” of Canadian cities. It was settled in large part by American ranchers and farmers moving north and west for “open spaces” By either luck or design, oil was first discovered and commercially exploited in Turner Valley south of Calgary. Soon networks with American oil companies made Calgary the centre of one the major oil producing regions in North America.

Given this personal culture history, I was not much prepared for my first summer in University when I lived 450 miles north of Calgary in the Northern bush. I was a member of the Alberta Service Corp, doing a Peace Core-type immersion in Cree Country. The community of Loon Lake Alberta had, two years before my arrival, first connected to the “colonial roads” built by government and oil money. Thus, these Cree peoples were coming to terms with easy access –  both to and from their communities. Arriving were evangelical missionaries, mobile stores selling cheap trinkets and underwear and a host of new government officials in charge of everything from forests, to hospitals, to schools and to Indians. In the opposite direction, cars and taxi’s emerged from these formally isolated communities to allow a day or weekend shopping trip, booze run or an opportunity for the young people to explore beyond their traditional lands.
The first film, TransCanada Summer, by Ronald Dick (1958) is narrated by celebrated Canadian historian and broadcaster Pierre Burton. The film is a cross country road trip (with a few diversions) along the recently completed Trans Canada Highway. As in chronological stories, common in this type of North American film, the action starts in the east and proceeds West. The narrative commences with the hardy fishermen of Newfoundland building the first road across their province. It then travels across each province in turn, showing famous landmarks of mid 20 Century Canada – both natrual and human created. The narrative is decidedly pro “industrialization”. The word itself is used frequently to describe big and powerful buildings and machines with an occasional explosion as the highway is carved through mountains and over waterways. The narrator shows us giant smelters, industrial slag exiting blast furnaces and mighty shovels lifting and transporting.

I confess that I really enjoyed the 60 minute video.  Trans Canada Summer is the type of movie I would have enjoyed as a kid as my Jr High School teacher found a way to pass a Friday afternoon with bored students. Given that I was 8 years old when the film was made, I saw many of the scenes and especially the beautiful old cars I came to know (and own) as a teenager in Western Canada. The short hair cuts, long dresses and corny midway shows reminded me of the way life used to be. I also enjoyed identifying the famous landscapes – most of which I have had opportunity to visit in travels across the country.

Screen Shoot from Transcanada Summer

What was most shocking in this movie was the complete absence of any mention or footage of Canada’s First Nations – they were invisible across Canada. There was one very short shot of the famous French voyager and explorer Pierre La Vérendrye with a native at his feet pointing the direction – but that was it. No commentary of the critical roles played by the First Nations in the very survival of the earliest French and English settlements.

Sign on the Railroad bridge in Garden River Ontario. Shot from Transcanada Highway

There was no mention of the pivotal role played by First Nations people in not only supplying product, but transporting the fur trade throughout Rupert’s Land – the name given to Canada by its first commercial owners the Hudson’s Bay Company from London England. It seems as if the First Nations population was totally invisible in 1958 Canada. And of course there was no visits to First Nations communities despite the fact that the TransCanada  passes through dozens of First Nations communities and reserves.

I recall that upon my return to university in Calgary, after my Service Corps summer, I was asked by a social worker if I would ‘befriend’ a First Nations student from the Blackfoot reserve near Calgary. It is almost unbelievable today, but he was one of only two registered Indian students in the whole University in 1970. So it perhaps no real surprise that First Nations were invisible, both to filmmakers and to the general population in the middle of the last century.
The second film, Colonization Road was shot in 2016 and tells quite a different story of the roads and railroads that “built” Canada. To set the context it is important to note that Canada as a government and as a people are struggling to come to terms with its colonial history and most especially the past and current role of First Nations peoples in this history. A national attempt at reinterpretation and re-engagement was triggered by the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which researched, produced documents and held public meeting across Canada from 2008 to 2015. The TRC was officially struck to examine and reconcile with the tens of thousands of First Nation’s children who were legally abducted from the care of their parents and forced to live in mostly Church-run residential schools. The Commission brought to the public eye horrific stories of sexual, physical and cultural abuse as the missionaries attempted to take the Indian out of their young charges. Native language, clothing, spirituality, songs and attitudes were ruthlessly supplanted by Christian and capitalist ideas of correct behavior. These schools left a legacy of parents bringing up kids today who had never been properly parented themselves with resulting chaos and generations of suffering. The Commission ended in 2015 with a list of recommendations – some for governments but many for individuals and communities to begin the process of reconciliation based upon an accurate understanding of the truth of these first Canadians.

The second contextual factor to set the current Canadian scene is the huge increase in First Nations populations from around 200,000 in 1960 to around 1,600,000 in 2016 . Thus, both increase of knowledge of our colonial past plus rapidly increasing populations are forcing Canadians to come to know, appreciate and work together with these first citizens of Canada.
In Colonization Road comedian and narrator Ryan McMahon visits some of communities across Ontario where they still have roads named Colonization Road. Governments of the day thought that if they pushed a road through the ‘empty wilderness’ then immigrant settlers would take the opportunity to buy cheap land, create villages and towns, build churches and schools and civilize the extensive Canadian bush. In total over 160,000 km of Colonization roads were built across mostly Northern Ontario land in the 1850’s. And it largely worked. Except they forgot one thing – the ‘empty’ land was already occupied by First Nations peoples living sometimes on smaller reserves but always using the land as traditional hunting grounds. Michelle St. John, director of Colonization Road writes “I think we’ve all been raised here in Canada with the settler narrative as one of triumph and a patriotic Canadian identity, but there is a flip-side to that story — and that story is ongoing.”

From the perspective of many of those interviewed the Colonization Roads were the conduit for not only white farmers, but for miners, loggers, gamblers and missionaries to enter and quickly usurp their land. This same strategy was used by later governments in Western Canada but then using the railroad to colonize and civilize Western Canada. Colonization Road visits communities that and more importantly tells the stories and reactions to First Nations citizens today and the stories from their parents about live both before and after colonization – and much of it is not pretty.
Both of these movies are worth watching – TransCanada Summer for a look at the natural beauty, the value of mid-century white Canadians and the narrative that both sets and reflects the noninvolvement of Canada’s First Nations in the economic development of the country then and continuing today. Colonization Road is both funny (thanks to First Nations comedian Ryan McMahon) and inspiring, as it gives voice to some of those people who experienced and suffered from the colonization of our great country.

The complete version of TransCanada Summer can be streamed
Here is the 2 minute trailer from Colonization Road.

Colonization Road Trailer from Frog Girl Films on Vimeo.

 

Uncategorized

Is Google Scholar a Filter Bubble?

Written by terrya
2 Comments
Is Google Scholar a Filter Bubble?

A major  goal of net-based  mass media is to customize the feed that is delivered to each viewer received a unique screen that matches their interest and more importantly their likelihood of purchasing some product or viewing some paid for message.  This phenomenon was labeled as “filter bubble” by author Eli Pariser – meaning that certain results are filtered out creating a bubble of unawareness that surrounds each of us.

I remember my first vivid encounter with these covert filters when I was building a web site some years ago for the Westwood Unitarian Congregation. I was flattered when I noticed that a Google Search started turning my site up not only on the first page of search returns but increasingly in first or second place. I naively imagined that our site was becoming the most popular Unitarian destination in Canada.  Sadly,  I came to realize that this top end response  was only being enjoyed by myself. Google searches filters had determined that I really liked that site (based on my subsequent keystrokes) and thus presented a filtered result of searches for Canada and Unitarian.  Obviously the search engine had established a personal profile for me and was feeding me what it thought would be of most interest to me.

More recently, the use of filters by Facebook to provide customized news feeds to individual users has raised both technical and ethical issues. The diagram below by TechCrunch demonstrates a small part of the filter system used by Facebook and other media outlets.

Facebook Filter bubbles

One can argue the value of these filters (how many ads for women’s perfume do I really need or want to see?) but they come a cost of reducing the variability that exists throughout societies and may leave us blind to ideas or events that we may  have both interest and expertise.

This is no more critical a problem than in academic research.  When doing any quality work and especially that associated with PhD study, the candidate as an obligation to purview all of the relevant literature.  Long gone are the days when this could be accomplished by a few afternoons in the periodical section of the library. Today this means searching through the academic databases – extracting and reading everything relevant to the topic.  This can be done using proprietary search indexes such as Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) or rival product Scopius, however I have long argued that these indexes discriminate against both new Journals in the discipline and especially those that are Open Access.

Google Scholar is my first choice for such searches for a number of reasons. First it providing broader coverage than its competitors that includes documents from the grey literature (conference papers, reports, white papers etc.). Second it indexes far more journals in the educational discipline than either Scopius or SSCI. Third, empirical tests have shown that the results are not significantly different when using any of these indexes (see Harzing, A.-W. K., & Van der Wal, R. (2008). Google Scholar as a new source for citation analysis. Ethics in science and environmental politics, 8(1), 61-73.)  Finally, and critically importance for scholars in developing countries and those non affiliated with a relatively rich university, is that access to Google Scholar search is free of charge (unlike SSCI).

So tying these two threads together (choice of search engine and covert filtering), leads to an obvious and important question. Does Google Scholar filter results?  Or can one expect different search results to arise when different scholars with different experiences, interests and use profiles?

I was pleased to hear that has question has been addressed and the results did not displease me (ie they made it past my filtering to be presented to you, in this blog!!). The study:

Yu, K., Mustapha, N., & Oozeer, N. (2016). Google Scholar’s Filter Bubble: An Inflated Actuality? Research 2.0 and the Impact of Digital Technologies on Scholarly Inquiry, 211.

compared Google Scholar research results using variety of default and advanced settings  (see abstarct below) and it concluded “that the filter bubble phenomenon does not warrant concern.” Unfortunately the chapter and the book are not open access however the main points can be seen from the Google Book abstract or the publishers preview.

Thus, my faith in and appreciation for the service provided by Google Scholar has increased.

 

 

 

ABSTRACT:

This chapter investigates the allegation that popular online search engine Google applies algorithms to personalise search results therefore yielding different results for the exact same search terms. It specifically examines whether the same alleged filter bubble applies to Google’s academic product: Google Scholar. It reports the results from an exploratory experiment of nine keywords carried out for this purpose, varying variables such as disciplines (Natural Science, Social Science and Humanities), geographic locations (north/south), and levels (senior/junior researchers). It also reports a short survey on academic search behaviour. The finding suggests that while Google Scholar, together with Google, has emerged as THE dominant search engine among the participants of this study, the alleged filter bubble is only mildly observable. The Jaccard similarity of search results for all nine keywords is strikingly high, with only one keyword that exhibits a localized bubble at 95% level. This chapter therefore concludes that the filter bubble phenomenon does not warrant concern.

 

My Work, Open Scholarship, Unitarian,

Quality in Online Learning Presentation

Written by terrya

I was asked to do a video conferencing talk to a meeting of three Mexican Universities yesterday. They are attempting to come up with a common set of criteria to define and measure the quality of their online courses.

QualityPerhaps I was not the best person to ask, as I have very mixed feelings about quality control systems dealing with emerging  technologies and pedagogies.  In particular, I hate it when quality standards impeded innovation and opportunity for experimentation. I hope I got across the complexity- if not a solution!   I illustrated the challenges of defining quality by presenting the different quality measures associated with each of the Three Generations of Distance Education pedagogy from a 2011 article by Jon Dron and myself.

I did however end with a plug for one of the most respected non-profit quality consortia Quality Matters, but I fear I didn’t clearly answer my own title question – Quality Online Teaching and Learning – Is it really different than campus-based education?  It Depends! – not least of which depends on the pedgaogy employed

Here are the slides I used:

Distance Education, My Work