Moodle, Google Site, or....? What's the best way to manage a course?

Sorry everyone, I'm just brainstorming here since I can't make up my mind yet even though my fall term classes start tomorrow.


Last year I used a Moodle site for my fall Academic Reading and Writing for functions such as posting documents, discussion forums for students to exchange ideas, wikis, and tutorial sign up (Google Spreadsheet). I also have an interactive Moodle quiz for the readings we do.

That worked mostly well, so I could just fall back on using my Moodle site again. That would be the easiest option.

However, what I don't like about Moodle is that there is no student ownership of the content, like students would have with a blog. I want students interacting with each other, but I also want them to list their ideas, reflections, essay drafts etc. in a portfolio fashion so that they can have a set of ideas that they can "own" and keep in the future (I'm assuming students want to do this--I need to ask them a bit more explicity). They would also own the comments they get. In the future, they can decide whether to take the blog offline, expand it, show it to friends, graduate schools etc. So, I want to do student blogs.

So...what is the solution? Can I combine Moodle with a set of student blogs? Rather than using a forum, can I just post the assignment on Moodle, and then have students write on their blogs, and then click on each other's blogs and leave comments? Hmm...so I just need a page that has links to students blogs...but how will I know when students post an article or comments. For that, I guess I'll need to set up RSS feeds on Google Reader. Each student will have to do that as well if they want to know whether their classmates have posted something. Hmm...there are pros and cons. Can I set up a feed so that their postings are automatically posted on a Class Blog? That may be one solution to help students see all of the ideas that are flying around.

Also, Moodle wikis seem to have trouble, and sometimes I'll want all students to be able to collaborate on documents, so having a Google Group is needed so that I can share documents with the whole class as editors. I tried that a few terms ago and it went mostly well, though some students had trouble becoming Google Group members.

So...Moodle + Blogs + Google Group + RSS Feeds is the solution? Isn't there an easier way to do this?

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (in the US and Japan)

Just finished reading this. It is a quite detailed and ambitious research report trying to establish that US university students are NOT learning what they need to learn, namely the ability to read, think, and write critically and analytically at an advanced level. 

This claim is based on a standardized test called the CLA, or Collegiate Learning Assessment, which has questions like this (click). According to results of the CLA, many college students don't improve in those key abilities from their 1st year to their 2nd or 4th year.

The open ended writing prompts like these seem to assess very practical abilities, and I am happy to see that these are quite similar to the liberal arts core learning that we emphasize in the ELP at ICU where I work.



The following sample question is from this paper on the CLA "Facts and Fantasies" 
 

Figure 3: Example of a 30-Minute Break-An-Argument Prompt
The University of Claria is generally considered one of the best universities in the
world because of its instructors’ reputation, which is based primarily on the
extensive research and publishing record of certain faculty members. In addition,
several faculty members are internationally renowned as leaders in their fields. For
example, many of the English Department’s faculty members are regularly invited
to teach at universities in other countries. Furthermore, two recent graduates of the physics department have gone on to become candidates for the Nobel Prize in
Physics. And 75 percent of the students are able to find employment after
graduating. Therefore, because of the reputation of its faculty, the University of
Claria should be the obvious choice for anyone seeking a quality education.

Hopefully, my ICU students will be able to take this argument apart and critique it successfully in an organized English paragraph that points out the main weaknesses of the claim "obvious choice".

Basically, the book Academically Adrift is a call to universities to boost the quality of their undergraduate programs, especially in terms of challenging students to read, think, and write critically. Professors and professors in training need to learn how to challenge students to engage in rigorous learning, and need to be given support and evaluation systems that encourage them to facilitate learning in an effective way.

I support this. I remember how my University of Washington undergraduate program (and graduate program, actually) rarely ever included any requirement for revising and improving a research paper. I rarely ever got more than a grade and a one line comment such as "Nicely researched but argument needs development. B+"  Being forced to write papers is good, but formative feedback is most likely critical to any substantial improvement in writing skills.  I had one professor, a young guy teaching me applied linguistics, who tore up a paper I wrote and asked me to revise it prior to a second deadline. I really enjoyed that process and learned a lot.

US universities will benefit from having more curriculum design with tasks that force the young writer to re-think and re-articulate the argument, and the same goes for Japanese universities, where the "academically adrift" situation is actually much, much worse.

The FOOOOOOOSBall TABLE: A family project

It was a rainy Saturday and we had nothing to do for a few hours.

My son picked up a broken toy wood xylophone that we were planning to throw away and said,

"Let's make something with this."

"What do you want to make?"

"A soccer game. See Dad, these wood things are the guys."

"OK...and we can use that empty clothing case..."

That got our brain gears turning on what turned out to be a two day project.

Drawing the characters was the easy part. To start off, Mom, Dad, Michael and Mei (with help) each drew one.

But how are we going to connect the guys to the poles?

Off to J-Mart, our local DIY store. We got a bunch of 90mm x 20mm stainless steel plates with 3mm holes (45yen each) to bend around the poles and screw onto the wood players. And we needed green felt for soccer turf...and a 20mm diameter drill bit for the holes...and a pack of 3mm x 10mm screws...and a few more 15mm diameter x 600mm poles and we were in business. About 3000yen altogether.

And 500yen to rent an industrial impact drill with enough torque to open 20mm holes through the plastic box. I tried my own old B&D 12V home use drill and it started spewing black smoke! The motor fried. Oh well, it was almost ten years old and I I needed a new one anyway.

At this point, Megumi kindly pointed out that it may be cheaper to just buy a Foosball Table on Amazon. Yes, this is true, my love, but we are making a special one-of-a-kind foosball table. And J-Mart loves our business. 



Michael did a great job on taping the lines and with decorating the players as well as sawing the board and poles, hammering in nails, drilling the holes, screwing on the metal strips. Mei and Megumi helped by drawing the characters. We have some good nadeshiko members on the field.

The player pieces made from xylophone keys are all different sizes, so the poles can't be spun like real foosball, but it works well enough.

As final touches, we need some nets for the goals and some handles and stoppers on the poles...and a scoreboard. We'll work on those.

















All done! Time for some family foosball!

Seattle Family Trip 2011

For Megumi and the kids, this was a one month stay with my Mom (Grandma) in Seattle. For me, it was two weeks since I was teaching the summer GLS program at ICU.

We weren't sure whether we could come up with the money for airfare etc., but because I got the summer job, it worked out and I'm very glad we decided to go. The kids had a great time hanging out with their cousins and going to local camps at YMCA etc. and Megumi and I were able to enjoy meeting family and friends in the dry, cool, sunny Seattle area.

Below are just a few photo highlights for the record. We have sooooo many good pictures and videos from this month long event that it is very difficult and time consuming to go through and choose the best pictures!

 

Born and evolved to run...barefoot

Interesting NY Times article today. Should I give up on my cushioned Asics and go for a more barefoot-style "foot glove"? I'm curious how that kind of running will feel, and apparently it is the natural way to go, possibly with fewer long term running injuries. Hmm...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/science/23conversation.html?pagewanted=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210

20 Questions: Can Pecha-Kucha 20x20 Help Students Improve Presentation Skills?

1. What is Pecha-Kucha 20x20?
   Pecha-Kucha (PK) 20x20 is a presentation format that asks the speaker to make a presentation using 20 slides shown exactly for 20 seconds each, with slides advancing automatically. Pecha-Kucha is a Japanese onomatopoeic adverb based on the sound of chit-chat and used to describe chattering or jabbering on in an energetic way.
   
   Official website and explanation = http://www.pecha-kucha.org/what
   
   Note: In Japan, the phrase pecha-kucha has a bit of a negative connotation meaning noisy, mindless and even annoying jabber, which may have been lost on the non-Japanese inventors when they chose that name...but oh well, it is the official name and it has stuck to a cool presentation format that I like. My Japanese students find it an awkward name to use for what ends up being a well-prepared presentation and we just use "20x20." Another problem is that most people around the world never know how to pronounce pecha-kucha, so personally I feel PK 20x20 or just "20x20" may be a more practical and informative name to use in the long term. But at the same time Pecha-Kucha is quite a unique sounding and mysterious word for non-Japanese people, and can be fun to try to pronounce, so I guess it may stick.
   
   
2. When, how and why did it start?
   PK 20x20 was invented by two architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham in Tokyo in 2003 as a format for young architects and artists to showcase their recent work in a concise, visual way. Given a microphone on stage, some speakers can get a little too carried away and take too much time explaining their concepts, so 20x20 was devised to help "liberate" the speaker (and the audience even more) from that type of over-explanation and force the presentation to be highly visual and to the point. That's the genius of 20x20. My own experience made me a fan. When I tried creating and delivering a 20x20 myself as a pilot and sample to show my students, I found the constraints of the format very helpful and fun to work with.
   
   
3. Who does 20x20s today?
   Today PK 20x20 presentations are made at events called PK Nights in hundreds of cities around the world. See pecha-kucha.org for event details and many examples of voiced over slideshows in the 20x20 format. After we did 20x20s in my ICU class, some students decided to go check out a PK night in Roppongi and said it was a cool experience.
   This video here doubles as an example of a 20x20 and an invitation to a PK Night sponsored by Speakers.org (click to see video).
   
   
4. What are people saying about it?
   Scott Gross of Forbes.com (Dec. 10, 2010) has called it "An amazing cure for death by PowerPoint" and Garr Reynolds, professor of Kansai Gaidai, presentation consultant, and author of the best-selling Presentation Zen books has labelled it an "art of liberating constraints" that helps presenters keep their talk focused and concise, much to the pleasure of the audience (Sep. 28, 2007). See also Wired Magazine Aug. 21, 2007 and www.pecha-kucha.org for what people think about 20x20 presentations.
   
   
5. How long have you (Mark) used it in your classes and in what ways?
   In January 2011, I was introduced to the concept by my highly artistic and innovative colleague Sylvan Payne (See/listen to his cool PK night presentation here) when we team-taught a presentation skills course at ICU . This year I have used it for a total of 100 students in two different English language courses at ICU and in one course in the engineering faculty of a national university called TAT where I teach part-time. I'm going to focus on describing the results from my core ICU class.
   
   
6. What did the ICU students present on?
   In Feb. this year, I used PK for academic research paper summary presentations at International Christian University (ICU) in my Academic Reading and Writing (ARW) course. 1st year ELP students finishing up their academic year presented their 1000 word research paper results in PK 20x20 format. Each student had 10 minutes including the 6 min. 40 sec. for the 20x20 and Q&A time. Topics = Death penalty, suicide, commercial surrogacy, child labor etc.
   
   
7. Did the ICU students like it? What do your surveys show?
   Almost all of my ICU ARW students (n = 32 survey respondents) rated it very positively both for being:
   "enjoyable" (31% Strongly Agree, 56% Agree, 9% Disagree, 3% Strongly Disagree) and "good as a format for improving presentation skills (69% Strongly Agree, 22% Agree, 3% Disagree, 6% Strongly Disagree).
   Judging from the comments, 3 students out of the 32 seemed to have had a negative reaction due to struggling with the PowerPoint requirement and the demands for preparation and rehearsal.
   
   
8. What did the TAT students present on and how did they react?
   My 2nd year TAT engineering/biology students did "Team 20x20s" in teams of three for a final presentation on a social issue (problem/analysis/possible solutions) at the end of a required English Communication course. Each student spoke for 6 or 7 slides, or a little over a minute. Topics included the need for volunteers in Tohoku, child abuse, food poisoning etc.
   
   Student reactions at TAT were mixed--one of my classes really liked it and did a fabulous job on their team 20x20s. In my other class, several groups had difficulty with team work and energy level and really struggled to make it work. I'm still tabulating those (n = 60) and may present them at an upcoming conference. 20x20 is a quite challenging speaking task and imposing the format as a requirement may not be ideal for some types of students or presentation projects.
   
   
9. How do students make a PK 20x20? What's the most difficult part?
   If I have enough time in the course, the 10 steps are 1) topic selection/goal-setting, 2) background research, 3) outline, 4) draft of script/visuals in 20x20 format, 5) creation of visuals with timed slides, 6) rehearsal, 7) delivery, 8) peer feedback, 9) criterion-based self-assessment and self-grading after watching one's own video on YouTube, 10) instructor feedback. If time is limited, I make some steps optional.
   
   The most challenging part of a 20x20 is adjusting one's content to fit the 20x20 format - Showing 20 slides 20 seconds each. To help students, I give two types of documents:
   1) A 20x20 .doc planning outline (Click to Download)
   2) A 20x20 .ppt template (Click to Download)
   
   Credit due: The original forms of both of these documents were created by my cool, innovative colleague Sylvan Payne.
   
   
10. Overall, what are the main benefits as perceived by students?
    The three biggest benefits seem to be that PK 20x20 forces students to
    1) focus on what they really want to say,
    2) use visuals effectively, and
    3) prepare/rehearse well
    and as a result of those, end up making a more interesting presentation for the audience. Some other benefits are easier time-management because speakers cannot go over their time limit, and no problem with speakers rushing to finish their conclusions. Rehearsing with the timer forces the speaker to prepare a just-right amount of ideas for each slide.
    
    
11. Benefit 1: Forces students to have more focused and organized points - Really?
    Student Comments (in their own English):
    "In PK, the number of words are strictly limited, so my skill to sift the content and focus on what is the most important and to summarize the contents was improved."
    "I liked that I need to create or present as simple as I can. By that way, I need to focus on only the most important thing, so it helped me to understand what I want to say most too."
    "Because each slide only takes 20 seconds, I could say only the main key point so that it was good to organize the presentation."
    
    
12. Benefit 2 Better use of visuals = more interesting to create / watch ?
    Survey Results:
    
    "PK helped me make a more visually attractive presentation"
    50% Strongly Agree, 28% Agree, 13% Disagree, 6% Strongly Disagree
    
    "PK helped me make a better presentation than a free style presentation"
    38% Strongly Agree, 41% Agree, 16% Disagree, 6% Strongly Disagree
    
    "PK presentations (of classmates) are more interesting to listen to than regular presentations."
    50% Strongly Agree, 34% Agree, 9% Disagree, 6% Strongly Disagree
    
    Of course, we have to consider that not all of the students have extensive presentation experience, and so their ability to compare to other types of presentations may be limited.
    
    Student Comments (in their own English):
    "Creating slides was enjoyable, because PK made us to use images to communicate with the listeners."
    "First of all, doing/listening to this kind of presentation was not boring! I think it is very efficient to keep audience's attention during presentation because of many images."
    "As for the listener, I was never bored because the tempo was good and easy to understand."
    
    
13. Benefit 3 Forces more preparation and rehearsal?
    Survey:
    
    "I had to practice harder than regular presentations to prepare for PK"
    Strongly Agree 41%, Agree 34%, Disagree 16%, Strongly Disagree 9%
    
    "PK helped me speak with more rhythm"
    Strongly Agree 41%, Agree 38%, Disagree 13%, Strongly Disagree 6%
    
    Student Comments (in their own English):
    "It made me practice more, but it was effective because I could find easily what I had to practice on"
    "The first few practices were hard because I couldn't keep up with the time limit, but it was easy to practice once you got the hang of it. I felt i could speak more smoothly when I did the PK than when I did a regular presentation."
    "The PK is demanding, so I like this. To make good presentations in the PK Style, students have to think, think, and think, and practice, practice, and practice."
    
    
14. What are the drawbacks or issues that came up? What did students want to change about their PK assignment?
    Students mainly mentioned problems with
    1) the demand of preparation and practice being heavy within the tight schedule we had,
    2) the format being too inflexible for what they wanted to communicate, and
    3) discomfort and a feeling of being rushed with having a timer to worry about during their presentation.
    Let's look at these one by one below.
    
    
15. Drawback 1: High demand for preparation and practice
    "To create the content and slides suitable for and effective for 20x20 slides, we need a little bit long time."
    "There should be more class time to rehearse the PK. Also, I wanted to start preparing much earlier in the term" (We had one month, but it was not enough because I chose a new topic different from my essay.)
    "There were some technical defects creating PK; for example, the counter doesn't work or the visual effects animations cannot be used."
    
    
16. Drawback 2: A lack of flexibility in making and delivering
    "Not every slides have the same importance, so 20 second for 20 slides are not so effective sometimes. "
    "In the PK presentation, speakers can hardly tell deep contents."
    "It was uncomfortable for me to make 20 slides. I want to make slides more few. This method didn't fit my want to improve my presentation."
    "Once I failed to mention some key information, but I do not have chance to retry because of time restriction."
    "I thought presenters should be in control of the timing to switch the screens because changing screens at the right time is also an important skill for presenters to make their presentation look smooth."
    
    
17. Drawback 3: A sense of discomfort with the timer
    "I very worried about whether I could finish speaking in 20 seconds, so I was hasty during the presentation. It was hard for me to relax!"
    "
    
    
18. Is it better than other types of presentation requirements? Does it help students MORE? Is it worth trying?
    This is the ultimate question, but I think it depends on what level the students are at and what their needs are. I imagine that trying to get empirical comparison results to other types of presentations (with no timer, no slide number constraint) would be a complex study to design and am not setting up anything at this point. What I can say at this point is: Give it a try yourself (for a conference presentation or class lecture to explain something) and consider it as one way to push your students to develop good habits to make better presentations (focused, visual, rehearsed). For motivated students who have some experience with trying to make an English presentation, PK 20x20 will probably work well. For students who do not have much to say or do not care enough to prepare well, or have never made a presentation in English before, PK 20x20 may not be ideal or modifications of the format may be needed. Also, for fairly advanced or experienced presenters (like myself), some of the constraints can be a bit frustrating, too, but it is still enjoyable to try to design a message within 20x20 specs.
    
    
19. Will you continue to use it in classes or research it in the future?
    Use in classes? Yes. Research? Still seeking future directions. My main research interest is identifying the stages that Japanese college and professional ELLs go through toward developing a sense of confidence in their ability to communicate orally in an effective way, and I believe that using PK 20x20 is beneficial training for emphasizing good habits in making a presentation using slides and avoiding death by PowerPoint. At the same time, I think I will use it in a flexible manner with an aim to squeeze out only the real essence that makes 20x20 work. For example, 20 seconds may not need be an exact time. The essence is to help students speak shortly on a focused point, so it probably makes more sense to require the use of a timer, but say "No more than 20 seconds per slide" just in case students want to speak more shortly on one image. The timer can be easily shortened (or lengthed a bit, perhaps) in the PowerPoint template by deleting some of the dots. As a result, 20 slides becomes a minimum number to encourage students to not overload slides and keep key words and images focused on one point. I want to try with those new flexible guidelines.
    
    It may also be interesting to act like the requirements are strict until just one day before the presentation and then relax them suddenly to allow some degree of flexibility in the style of delivery such as: 1) It will be OK to stop the timer or even go back to a slide to clarify a point, 2) It is OK to change the timer a little by adding or taking off dots, and 3) It is OK to not have exactly 20 slides. Plus or minus a few is no problem. Too flexible for Pecha-Kucha purists? I want to try it and see how it goes.
    
    
20. Can we see samples? Can we ask you questions about it?
    Samples of my materials and student work such as slides, photos, handouts, and video clips will be presented at JACET 50 in Fukuoka next week. Also, feel free to send me questions or comments through this blog. -Mark
    

The Rite (2011) with Anthony Hopkins, Directed by Mikael Håfström

IMDB Link

You will either find it "OK" for one of two reasons or hate it.

Those who hate it would be those who can't stomach scenes of demonic possession to begin with or those believers who abhor any attempt to portray exorcisms in a semi-secular, semi-fictional film like this that many people will simply watch for thrills and entertainment and not really take as a message to become a believer.

If you are not in the group above, you will find the film interesting whether you believe in demons and exorcisms or are basically skeptical.

First, those who believe in the God vs. Satan conflict and demonic possession will probably approve of the approach of this film to allegedly base it on a true events that happened to a practicing Catholic exorcist Father Gary Thomas. However, apparently Father Gary Thomas feels that "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" (2005) is more accurate. I haven't seen that one, so I assume what Anthony Hopkins does in this film is basically what happens in actual exorcisms. Taken seriously, the message of the film is that the Devil is real, and those who do not believe in the Bible and pray to Jesus are in danger of being possessed. I can see this fairly serious message working for many people who are already believers and want to affirm what they believe or try to convince others.

Another group who will find the film interesting in a different way are those who basically don't believe or are not sure what to make of all this (like myself) but are fascinated by the concept and the idea that rites and rituals to cast out "demons" may go down like this. The film succeeds in terms of being real enough (no spinning heads or pea soup, for example, like The Exorcist) like making you wonder about many things. Does this really happen? How does this all work? What happens in non-Christian cultures and how does that relate to what happens in the Christian ones?

So...my main burning question ends up being that, if all this does really happen (very frequently, all over the world, ostensibly), why wouldn't the Vatican or other church groups show it publicly a bit more often on an official basis to people to stoke more fear of the devil? As the doubting, skeptical priest in training Michael, realizes in the end, the devil and demons are the strongest evidence of God, especially if those demons confirm they are scared of God/Jesus/Holy Water etc. and can be successfully fought with faith, prayer, symbols and rituals. From my high school days, for example, when I was attending a evangelical Christian organization for missionary kids in Japan, the only spiritual talk that got me close to really overcoming my skeptical stance was the stories of a guest speaker of a pastor called Greg Speck who told us in length how he cast a demon out of a girl he met in a summer Bible camp. Freaky stuff, just like this movie. If the churches have evidence on video, or can stand up to skeptical inquiry on this, it seems logical to release it a bit more, no? Why withhold it?

In the film, Michael (who is based on the real priest Gary Thomas) becomes a believer after becoming unable to explain away the phenomena he witnesses in the exorcisms in terms of psychosis or ESP any more--there is just no explanation any more for how the possessed know know so much about him or how the possessed react to holy rites conducted by the eccentric, half crazy Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins). In this film, it is actually really weird how, in fact, the demon itself works so hard to make Michael believe in the Devil and therefore God...It is strange because, if I were the demon and hoping to lead Michael away from God and remain a skeptic and quit the priesthood and all, I would just stay quiet or try to act like it is a psychosis. The bumbling demon, however, has to show his supernatural devilish powers again and again and push Michael over the edge into faith. Uh-Oh. The consequence? Now the devil and his legions have to fight against an active Father Gary Thomas who is a very famous exorcist. Damn. I would bet that demon's superiors gave him a good tongue lashing on that blunder in the war against the forces of good. Or maybe that is part of a greater long-term strategy?

That inexplicable part aside, I recommend the film because it makes you ask some fascinating, and possibly unanswerable? questions about the nature of our world and the possible existence of supernatural phenomenon. I consider myself a faithful believer in many Christian ideas such as humility, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice, and do my best to practice them, but still feel the "jury is out" as the main character Michael put it, on this spiritual battle stuff. I am keeping an open mind and am willing to go where the evidence leads.

In real life, maybe this is related to why we never see possession or exorcisms on real video; the demons probably are coached to shut up and never get filmed in a way that would convince people they are real because a series of convincing, scientist and journalist observed YouTube videos that show demons are really possessing people and can only be fought with rites would get more faithful Christian believers than a century of sermons. It is mind-boggling to consider how this all works, if it actually does happen. So far, I haven't seen anything convincing.

Further Reading:

1. http://www.skepdic.com/exorcism.html

2. An Interview of Father Gary Thomas on his exorcism work - apparently he only has one possessed person he is working with as of January this year. He admits most people who ask for help need a doctor or psychologist, not an exorcist, and that most exorcisms are low key affairs that are done several times on the same person. But at the same time he claims to have witnessed dramatic, violent events like those in the film that made him find his faith. Curious.

3. Ebert on the film. "eerie...evocative...grant its assumptions and it has something to say"

4. The book by Matt Baglio that the movie is based on seems to have gotten good reviews on Amazon.