10-Rep Learning ~ Teague's Tech Treks

Learning Technology & Tech Observations by Dr. Helen Teague

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My Morning Coffee Break with the Emoji Makers

My Morning Coffee Break with the Emoji Makers Learning with Fun and Purpose using Emoji Generators

Personalized Emojis with the Assistance of AI
Technology wizard Miguel Guhlin once again combines that latest technology interest with reliable sources to spark educators’ instructional creativity!!

In Guhlin’s post on the TCEA Technotes blog titled “Create Emoji Mashups in Seconds with these Emogi Makers” educators are invited into the virtual sandbox of designing personalized emojis.

My Morning Coffee Break with the Emoji Makers:

Four emoji makers were each described with specific purposes. Some resources have pay features that kick in after 3-4 emoji-creating renditions. All emoji-makers were guided by typed prompts from the human user. There did not seem to be a voice command option. Response time after each command was 8-12 seconds. One outlier of 20-seconds occured when I fashioned a long-ish prompt in three languages (Spanish, English, Latin).
Successful design was achieved following three or four interations. Over twenty educational and design applications with a curricular focus were also shared. The comments section of the blog post also included recommendations for instructional practice.

Application to Graduate Curriculum in Education, STEAM/STEM, Engineering Design

The Emoji makers in Guhlin’s post with catlayst my graduate students concept-building and imprinting for the following learning technology, curriculum, and instructional design concepts:

  • Iterative design
  • Specificity of directional conversations for new technology integrationwith colleagues, instructional coaching cohorts, parent groups, etc…
  • Conversational assumptions and biases in communication (Law, 2020) with AI and its antecedent experience with humans
  • Assumptions and biases in written, directions mediated by communication with AI and its antecedent experience with humans
  • Applications of the Makers’ Mindset (Green, et al., 2020) in instructional learning environments (face-to-face, hybrid, online, independent).
  • Informational text

Success for me was found with increasingly specific and descriptive prompts. The process for each emoji rendered was about 4 tries. This brought up a third activity addressing the assumptions made in communication (even AI does not work with assumptions and biases. For example, one of my prompts was “emojji holding tennis racket with Christmas decorations.” The result was a Telly Salvalas-looking dude holding a metal racket with Christmas decorations surrounding him. Four prompts later with increasing specificity on my part resulted in success for me, according to my pre-conceived idea! Interestingly, I also like emoji.is’s third rendering but it was not exactly correct (for me) until prompt #4.

Guiding AI with increasing specificity

Here is the iterative design aspect achieved through a series of increasingly specific prompts using the Emoji Generator emoji.is 
The goal was generation of a tennis racket with holiday decoration (key words in the request are also displayed).

1st Try:

TellySTry1

2nd Try (First iteration):

TellyS 3rd try

3rd Try (2nd iteration):  tennis racket with Christmas decorations on racket strings

red decorated tennis racket

4th Try (3rd iteration) – emphasizing preferred wooden racket

3rd tr

5th Try (4th iteration) – emphasizing single wooden racket with Christmas decorations

Final5thTry

 

Suggestions for Continued Fun in Learning and PLN support:
Join TCEA today to connect with educators, learn through timely webinars, and collaborate in personalized digital groups! Oh, and TCEA hosts a hugely popular annual technology conference in Austin, Texas every year! Click here to learn more!

**Thank you, Miguel Guhlin and TCEA for sharing these resources!!!

 

                                                                                                  References

Green, T. D., Donovan, L. C., & Green, J. P. (2020). Making technology work in schools: How PK-12 educators can foster digital-age learning.
      Routledge.

Guhlin, M. (2023). Create emoji mashups in seconds with these emoji makers. TCEA TechNotes. https://blog.tcea.org/emoji-makers/

Law, N. (2020). “Equity challenges associated with distance learning.” [VideoFile]. In Fisher, et al., The distance learning playbook, grades K-12:
Teaching for engagement and impact in any setting
. Corwin Press. p. 7

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Quantifying Instructional Practices: an informal timeline

For my graduate students….

The innovative work of John Hattie first in Visible Learning and next in The distance learning playbook, grades K-12: Teaching for engagement and impact in any setting, is the quantifying of instructional practices, especially involving a technological affordance.

The scope of the work of quantifying innovative instructional practices seemed stalled in the 1960’s -1970’s. In 1962, Dr. Everett Rogers published a groundbreaking book, Diffusion of Innovation, which addressed how ideas are transmitted through communication channels. Now in its fifth reprinting, Diffusion of Innovation is often linked with technological innovations and advances. During the 1970’s the work of Hall, Loucks, Rutherford, and Newlove produced a framework called “Levels of Use of the Innovation: A Framework for Analyzing Innovation Adoption,” addressed innovative processes.

But the Hattie team’s work guides educators (and all who instruct) in a quantitative pathway for the use of best practices. This is one of the many reasons, why I gently guide (i.e. push) for all of us to read and include the course textbook, which, as you will note is in its first edition.

Glad to learn along with you all and have the opportunity to provide an informal timeline!

 

 

References

Fisher, D., Frey, N., and Hattie, J. (2020). The distance learning playbook, grades K-12: Teaching for engagement and impact in any setting (1st ed.). Corwin. ISBN-13: 9781071828922

Hall, G. E., Loucks, S. F., Rutherford, W. L., & Newlove, B. W. (1975). Levels of use of the innovation: A framework for analyzing innovation adoption. Journal of teacher education26(1), 52-56. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.869.5531&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. Routledge.

Rogers, E. M. (1962). Diffusion of Innovation. Macmillan Publishing

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Jane Hart’s Top Tools for Learning 2021 released!

Jane Hart’s Top Tools for Learning 2021 has been released!!

Jane Hart posted in LinkedIn that 2021 was the YEAR OF DISRUPTION. So many new tools were nominated that I have extended this year’s list to 300 tools https://lnkd.in/gvu4bKK .
Further analysis/observations of this year’s list appear on that page too. I have also extended the Top Tools for Personal Learning to 150 tools – https://lnkd.in/dAeFHFxc and the Top Tools for Workplace Learning has 150 tools- https://lnkd.in/dbDacHv9 and the Top Tools for Education https://lnkd.in/ddTP6Nvb

 

Jane Hart’s Top Tools for Learning 2021 – https://lnkd.in/gvu4bKK

Top Tools for Personal Learning to 150 tools – https://lnkd.in/dAeFHFxc

Top Tools for Workplace Learning – https://lnkd.in/dbDacHv9

Top Tools for Education – https://lnkd.in/ddTP6Nvb

Want to see the Top 300 tools categorized? You’ll find that here https://lnkd.in/dneMUhQh

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Edorble WebVR Launches!

The innovative folks at Edorble have something fun to announce! There is a new alpha of Edorble WebVR, a cross-platform, browser-based multiplayer Edorble experience. Edorble WebVR works on Android, iOS, Mac, PC, Google Cardboard, Daydream, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Gear VR. If curious to hear more, check out what you can in Edorble WebVR on their blog post announcing the launch. You can also just jump right in at https://edorble.com/webvr. Edorble will be building on this foundation in the weeks and months to come, and with participatory help from users, they will keep shaping it into something special for teachers and students around the world.

Edorble VR

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New Favorite App – Clio Shows History Where You Are

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Internet History Lesson

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Happy Birthday Michael Minovitch

While we were celebrating the new year yesterday, Michael Minovitch celebrated his birthday.

I hope he had an out of this world birthday because he is the reason we know so much about the outer planets of the solar system. Dr. Minovitch proposed the solution to the “three body problem” that would propel the Voyager spacecrafts from one planet to the next using that planet’s gravitational power. Voyager 1 launched in September, 1977 and Voyager 2 launched in August, 1977. The Voyagers contain gold disks with “The Sounds of Earth” an idea from Carl Sagan. Click the link from “the Sounds of the Earth” to hear them.

Traveling at 50,000 miles an hour, over 10 miles a second. Voyager 1 is out in deep space is now over 11 billion miles from Earth and passed most of the power of Sun’s gravitational grasp (see the real-time distance measurement at this link.) Its twin, Voyager 2, has flown past all the outer giant planets, of Saturn, Uranus, and within 3,000 miles of Neptune in 1989.

The maths required for Voyager 2 to fly over Neptune required mathematical accuracy within one second and weather forecasting on a planet 3 billion miles away from Earth. Both Voyagers have flown farther than Pluto into interstellar space.

Now in a mission over 35 years, data from the Voyager transmiter, takes over 15 hours to arrive back to scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. And it all began with Dr. Michael Minovitch’s math of the “three body problem.”

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Weekend Ed. Quote ~ July 1

“About 30,000 of those meetings could have been shorter or not held at all.” ~Simon Ramo, founder of TRW, 1913-June 27, 2016

and

“Engineers make the best engineers.” ~Simon Ramo, founder of TRW, 1913-June 27, 2016

In 2013, at age 100, Simon Ramo received Patent  No. 8606170B2 for a computer-based learning invention — becoming the oldest person at the time to receive a patent. He wrote and co-wrote 62 books on diverse subjects, including a guide to playing tennis. In 2012, he wrote a book about drones and other battle bots titled “Let the Robots Do the Dying.”

 

 

~~~

More Weekend Ed. Quotes

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Innovator Simon Ramo, RIP

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See the Videos Now! NSF 2016 STEM for All Video Showcase Ends Tomorrow

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