In this post, let's know more about the other remaining activities scaffolded by the Activity Planner.

1. Introducing New Ideas
   This planner contains different types of activities to accompany the introduction of new ideas such as n a lecture or talk.  The activities can be for before, during, or after the presentation of new ideas, or a combination such as both before and during a lecture.  This strategy emphasizes the rationale that helping students to articulate their existing ideas will enhance their subsequent engagement with the lecture/talk.
   
   
   
   Below are the types of activities that can be used to introduce new ideas:
   
   
   • Identifying Misconceptions. These activities ask students to articulate their existing views of an idea, with a focus on trying to elicit misconceptions or misunderstandings.
     
   • Reviewing a Key Resource.  These activities ask students to review a key resource on the new idea such as an article, website or other resource. The focus is on building prior knowledge of the idea before the lecture/talk.
     
   • Personal Reflection.  These activities encourage students to reflect privately on their existing views and ideas, without seeing the ideas of other students or sharing their own views with others.
     
   • Relating to Contemporary Events.  These activities focus on contemporary events that illustrate the new idea.
     
   • Responding to a Provocative Idea.  These activities challenge students with a provocative idea, and ask them to articulate their own views in response.
     
   • Seeing Two Sides.  These activities present two different view of an idea, often opposing view, and ask students to respond to both sides, often by realizing they agree, at least in part, with both views.
     
   • Finding a Hidden Bias.  These activities present a resource about the idea that contains a hidden bias, and asks students to identify and explain this bias.
     
   • Explaining a Striking Statistic.  These activities present surprising or striking statistic and asks students to propose ideas to explain this statistic.
     
   • Brainstorming Ideas.  These activities ask students to brainstorm different ideas in response to a key question.
     
   • Collecting Data.  These activities require students to collect some sort of data so that the teacher can illustrate the new idea using the collated student data.
     
     
2. Topic-based activities
   This provides activities for particular disciplines or topic areas such as Introductory Psychology. 
   
   
   
   Below are some of the typical topics covered in Introductory Psychology;
   
   
   • Introduction and History of Psychology.  Introductory activities and history of psychology activities.
     
   • Research Methods and Statistics.  Activities about the research methods used in Psychology, including the use of statistics.
     
   • The Brain and Nervous System.  Activities about the function of the brain and nervous system.
     
   • Sensation and Perception.  Activities about how we experience sensations from the world around us.
     
   • Learning and Behavior.  Activities about behaviour and how learning takes place.
     
   • Developmental Psychology.  Activities about different types of development (physical, cognitive, emotional) and their stages.
     
   • Intelligence and Individual Differences.  Activities for exploring intelligence and individual differences.
     
   • Social Psychology.  Activities about social interactions of individuals and groups.
     
   • Personality.  Activities exploring human personality and differences.

This presentation will give you an idea how the Activity Planner works.  Going a step further, you may want to already learn how to use the Activity Planner from this quick tutorial.

Some earlier posts tell more about the other new features of LAMS v2.3.  Hope these help!

LAMS 2.3 has a lot of new features in its latest release.  One of these is the Activity Planner:  an alternative way to create educationally solid learning designs.

The LAMS Activity Planner is designed to produce runnable learning activities that can be readily used with students.  It guides authors or teachers through the design process to enable them to add their own content to educationally sound learning activities.  Existing learning designs, resources, and learning objects can be reused, thus, assisting teachers and lecturers in the process without requiring them to become experts in learning design or theory. 

• To share methods used by others;
  
• To inspire teachers to adopt a new teaching strategy and support them in doing so;
  
• To Provide design ideas in a structured way — so that relations between design components are easy to understand;
  
• To Combine a clear description of the learning design, and offer a rationale which bridges pedagogical philosophy, research-based evidence and experiential knowledge; 
  
• As a database of existing learning activities and examples of good practice which can then be adapted and reused for different purposes; 
  
• To encode the designs in such a way that it supports an iterative, fluid, process of design and/or
  
• As a mechanism for abstracting good practice and metamodels for learning.

The LAMS Activity Planner provides lecturers with step-by-step guidance that helps them make theoretically informed decisions about the learning activities, tools, and resources they will need to attempt e-learning with some confidence. 

There are two parts of the Activity Planner:

1. Wizard, which helps teachers find the right sequence

   
   

2. The actual Activity Planner editor, which gives teachers a cut-down, simplified version of authoring presenting most of the content for all the activities that are part of the sequence in one page.
   
   

The author or teacher first identifies the type of activity that will be used for a class or group. Then, he/she will be presented with one or more templates available for the selected activity. As soon as the the template has been selected, the editor comes in to guide the author in designing the sequence.

Teachers and authors can choose a planner from one of the following 4 activity categories:

1. Teaching Strategies
   Authors and teachers can explore a variety of effective teaching styles
   
   
   
   The following are the activities included:
   
   
   • Exploring Alternative Perspectives.  A style that provides students with a balanced view of a controversial topic .
     
   • Problem-based Learning which builds a lesson around a central question that requires students to either solve a problem or make a decision.
     
   • Project/Case Study Focus which emphasizes on the creation of a product or artifact.
     
   • Jigsaw
     
   • Predict-Observe_Explain where students predict what they think will happen in a given scenario, then observe what actually happens, and further explain what they see and how it relates to their earlier prediction.
     
   • Role Play which will involve each student playing a role in a given scenario.
     
   • WebQuests which is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that students work with comes from the Web.
     
   • WebDilemma which is more simply structured, less technically demanding to design, but has many of the inquiry learning benefits of a WebQuest.
     
     
2. Teaching for a specific purpose
   This will enable teachers to help their students achieve a particular task. 
   
   
   
   Includes the following activities:
   
   • Action research, an interactive inquiry process.
     
   • Brainstorming, designed to generate a quantity of wide ranging ideas.
     
   • Building consensus.  Techniques designed to allow groups to move forward.
     
   • Debating, which develop the students' ability to argue from both positions of an issue.
     
   • Developing an online discussion, which help make online discussions worthwhile.
   • Evaluating webpage content, which helps students establish the quality and authority of a webpage.
     
   • Icebreakers, which helps a group become comfortable working together.
     
   • Introducing a wiki.  Creating a collaborative writing environment.
     
   • Jamie McKenzie's Slam Dunk Lessons.  Building brief lessons with digital resources that inspire a high level of engagement while challenging students to interpret, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate.
     
   • Large group activities, which include activities that work well with groups of 50+.
     
   • Using online chat in a classroom, which implements class/group conversations via the internet.
     
   • Writing a biography, which teaches students how to comprehensively document someone's life.
     
   • Introducing new concepts, which help students to be able to compile a bibliography and to define a concept.
     
   • Exploring areas of knowledge, which help students to manage, analyse, and critise resources from the Internet

Interesting information? Stay tuned for the 2 remaining activity categories in my next post.

Time Graphs and Charts are among the newest features included in LAMS version 2.3.  Surely, authors/teachers as well as the learners/students will have their share of advantages from these.

In the Monitoring Environment, the graphs show how quickly learners move through the activities in a sequence.  If you're an author or a teacher, you can quickly troubleshoot areas where your students spend a lot of time on particular activities.  You can also easily identify students and learners who are moving at a slower pace than the rest of the class.   The graphs show "live" information as the learners move through the activities in sequence. 

The Time Graphs can be seen on the Learners Tab in the monitoring environment.  Viewing the Time Graph enables the monitor or teacher to see data on any learner in the sequence and compare their time to the class average. 

 

As authors, teachers, or monitors, you are also able to choose the learner from which to get information or statistics.  By viewing the Time Chart on each learner's activity stream, you can see the time they spent on each activity.  

Time Graphs and Charts are beneficial to authors and teachers in the following aspects:

• You understand your learners because you get to see how long it takes at every step

• You understand your curriculum by tracking time at each step

   

Do you want to know more about the other new features in the latest release of LAMS?  My recent posts will tell you more.

I am very happy to inform everyone that the Ajax Photo Album User Interface has been committed to OpenACS CVS.

Following the design pattern we used on Ajax File Storage UI, the Ajax Photo Album UI creates an ajax powered user interface on top of the photo album package using the principle of graceful degradation. Using the ExtJs and Shadowbox javascript libraries, AjaxPA UI v0.1d has the following features :

• The ability to navigate folders and albums using a dhtml tree panel.
• The ability to add, edit and delete folders and albums.
• Move folders and albums using drag and drop on the tree panel.
• Move photos from one album to another using drag and drop.
• Paging support for thumbnailed images.
• Uploading a zip file of photos or one photo at a time.
• Image preview using Shadowbox Media Viewer javacript library.

Interested to try it out ? Grab the code from OpenACS and install the package on your OpenACS instance.

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.openacs.org:/cvsroot co openacs-4/packages/ajax-photoalbum-ui

After installing the package, go to /doc/ (the documentation page for your openacs intall) and click "Ajax Photo Album UI" to view documentation on what you need to do to get the Ui to work with the Photo Album package.

Checkout our demo of AjaxPA UI at

http://solutiongrove.info/companya/photo-album/

I'm going to try to post more about our progress as we get Sugar on a Stick ready for prime time. I'm going to try a sweet and sour formula

Record - http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4081

I played with Record on my iMac today.

The Sweet:

• Video worked on my iMac

The Sour:

• Audio doesn't work yet
• Video quality isn't great - but alsroot thinks he knows how to fix that!

Why should we care?

Lots of people including a teacher in Oregon have told me that Record is one of the most popular activities with kids.  It allows them to create video and audio content and that is the power to communicate in the 21st Century.  I wanted to find out if it would work off the XO and although clearly we need to test more hardware I was pleased that my first test was Yes!

I also played around with local collboration.  I did this by taking the jabber server name out of the network setting.

The Sweet:

• Collaboration works, including sharing activities, when you are physically attached to the same wired hub.
• From FOSSVT I know it works when you are connected to the same wireless hub

The Sour:

• Just being on the same LAN doesn't currently allow collaboration.

Why do we care?

Bandwidth is definitely a concern in schools. Even though the vast majority have internet access the speed is often not what we are used to at home.  As we add more computers and make the computers more useful this is going to be more of an issue.  Last summer I had a school in an urban area turn us down for pilot because they didn't feel there was enough internet bandwidth.

One of the cool things about Sugar is if everyone is connected to the same hub they can collaborate without a jabber server and without even using or having an internet connection. This can be very sweet when you have a lot of people using computers and the internet is a trickle.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 22 /PRNewswire/ --

Sugar Labs(TM) announces the availability for testing of Sugar on a Stick Beta-1. This version of the free open-source Sugar Learning Platform, available at http://www.sugarlabs.org for loading on any 1 Gb or greater USB stick, is designed to facilitate exploration of the award-winning Sugar interface beyond its original platform, the One Laptop per Child XO-1, to such varied hardware as aging PCs and recent Macs to the latest netbooks.

Teachers and parents interested in trying Sugar with children can download the Sugar on a Stick beta-1 file from the Sugar Labs website and load it onto a USB stick by following the instructions at http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick.

Walter Bender, Executive Director of Sugar Labs, said "Sugar is perfectly suited for children in the classroom with its simple, colorful interface, built-in collaboration, and open architecture. Sugar on a Stick lets you start a computer with Sugar and store a child's data on the stick without touching the host computer's hard disk. Sugar's Activities such as Write, a shared word processor, and the recently announced InfoSlicer Activity, which enables teachers to easily collect and package web-based content for the classroom, benefit fully from Sugar's collaboration features."

Caroline Meeks of Solution Grove (http://www.solutiongrove.com), the Sugar on a Stick project manager, commented: "We're counting on teachers to help us improve Sugar on a Stick as we work towards our Version-1 release scheduled for Q3 2009. We just presented Sugar on a Stick at the FOSS VT conference (http://www.ncose.org/node/47) where it generated great interest, and our real-world tests at local sites with varied aging PCs have been very encouraging."

Sugar testers are invited to send bug information and constructive criticism to feedback@sugarlabs.org. "We won't be able to reply to every message," continued Ms. Meeks, "but we will read every one in order to make Sugar on a Stick a reliable learning tool in budget-stretched classrooms by the fall."

image: http://www.sugarlabs.org/press/sugar-on-a-stick.jpg

    For more information, please contact:
Sean Daly, Marketing Coordinator
website: http://www.sugarlabs.org
e-mail: pr@sugarlabs.org
telephone: +1-857-254-1100

Mailing address:
Sugar Labs
c/o Software Freedom Conservancy
1995 Broadway, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10023-5882
USA

About Sugar Labs

Sugar Labs, a volunteer-driven, nonprofit organization, is a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy (http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org). Originally part of the One Laptop Per Child project (http://www.laptop.org), Sugar Labs coordinates volunteers around the world passionate about providing educational opportunities to children through the Sugar Learning Platform. Sugar Labs is supported by donations and is seeking funding to accelerate development. For more information, please visit http://www.sugarlabs.org.

Sugar Labs is a registered trademark of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Other names are trademarks of their respective owners.

LAMS v2.3 will include 5 new tools:

• Video Audio Recording. LAMS Video Recorder Tool lets authors/teachers record their instructions for the learners or students. These video recordings can be embedded into their sequence.
  
  The Video Recorder, which comes as a separate activity, lets learners or students upload their own videos, too.  Students may also leave comments and rate other learners/students recordings.  

  The Video Audio Recording tool also comes with a FCKEditor plugin, which lets teachers/authors record a videos and insert these videos into any activitiy of their liking.
  
  Teachers and students may also export all recording on Export Portfolio.
  

  

• Pixlr Tool.  Pixlr, a powerful online image editor based on Flash, can be included as a LAMS activity.  The Pixlr editor includes image creation and editing features.  Its interface is similar to that of Paint, Photoshop, GIMP, or any advanced image editor.  Thus, anyone who is familiar with the mentioned editors will find it easy to user Pixlr.

• Image Gallery Tool lets teachers/authors and learners/students upload images or a series of images to LAMS.  This tool also lets them review and rate the images.

• New Assessment Tool with Gradebook Integration.  This new assessment tool is heavily based on Moodle's Quiz tool.  This tool allows teachers to create questions that will measure the skills or knowledge of the students.  Moreover, this tool will let teachers view the marks achieved by each of the students.  Also, teachers are able to modify or change these marks that a student obtained manually.  In addition, teachers are also able to create assessments and then later on add questions to these assessments.

• Mindmap Tool, which allows teachers to set up a topic or topics so that learners or students can brainstorm.  This tool can either be Individual, where each student in the lesson brainstorm about the proposed teacher topics on his/her own, or Collaboratively, where all students in the lesson can participate in the same brainstorm.
  
  This tool is based on Flash, thus, students can take advantage of the funky interactive interface.

In the May issue of Innovate magazine Marie Sontag proposes "A Learning Theory for 21st-Century Students." I especially like her "Link, Lurk and Lunge" alliteration for describing 21st Century learning.

 I'm going to define the stages slightly differently then she does.

Link - Learners look at links, collect them as bookmarks and find both the digital people and on-line places that have the knowledge they are studying. Indeed its interesting how people and online places blur. Is finding a good blog finding a place or a person? What about a mailing list where experts are conversing on the subject?

Lurk - Learners watch these people and places without contributing much.

Lunge - Learners dive into a task or project.  I especially like the "Lunge" because it takes us away from the old world of heirarcial learning and content where you couldn't do a task until you had mastered all the "lower" level skills necessary.  I don't think this was ever true, but it certainly does not describe 21st Century learning. Learners follow their passion and find a task they care about and dive deeply into a subject, gathering the supporting knowledge as they work.

It worked on the eeePCs, it worked on the Dells big and small, it worked on the think pads, it worked on the classmate.  It worked on the HP tablet, including the touchscreen! It didn't work on one of the little HP netbooks but that was our only complete fail.  We had problems with accessing wireless on a few models.  One laptop needed the boot helper CD.

We had a room full of people doing Turtle Art!  It was wonderful.

Meanwhile, 3000 miles away, in Washington State, it was working on Dell laptops and desktops in a third grade classroom.  Teacher Mark Ahlness has 5 XO laptops, 2 Dell GX270’s, w/1GB Ram, nice big flat panels and 5 Dell latitudes.  Here is my favorite quote from one of his emails:

"When I showed my third grade class SoaS on an XO, the first question one girl asked was if she could put that stick in her computer at home… They are ready, if the technology is ready."

I've had many frustrating conversations with people in the last year, who couldn't understand why anyone would want their operating system on a USB. Its nice that this kid got it.  All the educators at FOSS VT got it too. 

Next Saturday I will be at Healthy Kids Day at the Waltham Y, trying it with kids; this was planned to be the first trial of the Sugar on a Stick beta with kids, but Mark may beat me too it!

http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/mahlness/2009/04/shifting-gears-finding-encouraging.html

LAMS v2.3 was initially planned to be released at the start of July.  Good news is the latest version of LAMS is aimed to be released in May with a whole bunch of massive improvements, new features, and fixes. 

Teachers and students will definitely get their share of advantages from the new features that make this latest version so much better than the earlier ones.

Let's look at some of the cool stuff in this new version:

• With its increased performance, users will not have to wait long.  LAMS v2.3 will boot 75% faster and run 375% faster compared to the previous versions.  To add to that, LAMS v2.3 will use only a quarter of RAM memory.

• With the New and Simplified Adding Lesson Wizard, teachers can create a lesson in just 3 clicks.
  
  
  

• Through the Activity Planner, teachers are guided through the design process, adding their own content to educationally sound learning activities.  Teachers are able to find the right sequence they need through the help of the Wizard.  The Activity/Pedagogical Planner gives teachers a cut-down and simplified version of authoring, presenting most of the content for all the activities that are part of the sequence in just one page through the help of the editor.
  
  LAMS Activity Planner produces runnable learning activities that students can readily use.
  
  Click here to see more of the Activity Planner in action. (source: LAMS Foundation)

• Integration with the LAMS Community.  The new version allows the import of sequences directly into LAMS Author from the LAMS Community.  Teachers/authors get to share their best sequences with everyone in the LAMS Community.

• Public shared folder gives authors a chance to share their designs with each other.

• Teachers and learners are able to communicate while they are working on a LAMS lesson through the Instant Messaging.
  
  
  
  
  
• A simple yet fully functional Gradebook lets teachers see all the marks that the students get in their lessons.

• Export Activity.  Activity results can be exported to other Gradebooks such as Moodle, Sakai, .LRN and other integrations.

• Students can access support activities at any given time, for additional reference.  These support activities are part of the learning design, but not necessarily part of the sequence of activities.
  
  
  
  

• Upgrade to fastest HTML online editor.  LAMS v2.3 will use FCK Editor version 2.6.4.  The updates include increases in speed and better rendering of content as well as as in-built media player.

• Graphs and charts to monitor learner's time in activities.  In the Monitoring Environment, graphs show how quickly learners move through the sequence of activities.  These graphs make it easy for authors to troubleshoot areas where learners spend a lot of time on particular activities.  It is also easy to identify the learners who are moving at a slow pace than the rest of the class. 
  
  The graphs and charts show "live" information and will give precise information about the amount of time students are spending in a lesson.
  
  
  
  
  
  

In my next post, find out about the 5 new tools in LAMS v2.3.  

Is LAMS new to you?  Do you want to know more about the wonders of LAMS?  Perhaps, an introduction to LAMS  and a demo will help.