The Facebook Blog
Does creativity come with a price
I am interested in creativity and creative learning, and so it would be interesting to understand how these would be associated with creative people and how we could provide education to nurture one’s creativity. In this post on Creativity – Does Creativity come with a price, it was found that writers were more likely to suffer from mental disorders: Writers were a whopping 121% more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder than the general population. Moreover, Simon Kyaga, the study’s lead researcher, says that authors had a “statistically significant increase” in anxiety disorders–38% to be exact. Rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide also increased among writers. Researches relating creativity and mental illnesses found that “genius may occur in appreciably introverted persons – Newton, for instance – and Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and James Joyce are all said to have had near relatives with schizophrenia. What are the characteristics of Creative people? Like this:
#CFHE12 #Oped12 A reflection of MOOCs Part 4:The number one challenge in education – Cheating
I was appalled by what this post tells us about – stories of cheating. Test taking by others is a cheating scandal that would damage education’s reputation. Cheating in research is also on the rise. In this post on MOOC cheating: Frankly, why anyone who do this in a course that focuses on learning and offers no credentials, beats me. Cheating could be the number one biggest problem for MOOCs as I have shared in my posts here and here. I reckon there aren’t many formal researches (at or above PhD level) done on this cheating and plagiarism as yet, as it could be both sensitive and overly “destructive” for educators and institutions to realize. However, if this cheating is allowed in MOOCs, then how could we be confident in giving credits to those who have done the MOOCs? Isn’t cheating and plagiarism a WICKED PROBLEM? What do you think about cheating and plagiarism? What are some of your suggestions and solutions to these problems? Postscript: A good reference paper here. Like this:
Does creativity come with a price? Part 2
This is part 2 on creativity. In this creativity closely entwined with mental illness: As a group, those in the creative professions were no more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders than other people.But they were more likely to have a close relative with a disorder, including anorexia and, to some extent, autism, the Journal of Psychiatric Research reports. There has been studies about creativity and mental illness. I have copied them here as reference: Creativity is known to be associated with an increased risk of depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The thalamus channels thoughtsSimilarly, people who have mental illness in their family have a higher chance of being creative. Creative people, like those with psychotic illnesses, tend to see the world differently to most. In an earlier review on Creativity and mental illness, however the Conclusions: There is limited scientific evidence to associate creativity with mental illness. I found these findings fascinating.
Connections: Deconstruction and Connectivism
I haven’t really spent much time with modern French philosophers. They vex me and use many words to say few, but ambiguous, things. However, I’ll spend time revisiting Derrida and others (notably Latour, but he is a sociologist, so I have more tolerance), especially after a student in the MDDE622 course that Rory McGreal and I taught at Athabasca University, posted an interesting learning module on Deconstruction and Connectivism. Stella Bastone agreed to share the module. From the module: According to Derrida, all Western thought is based on the idea of a center…Deconstruction challenges this. Stella obviously reviewed a significan amount of online resources and includes extracted audio/video clips from various discussions and presentations on connectivism.
MOOCs for K-12 – Are you ready
Are we ready to adopt MOOC in K-12 education? No, I don’t think we are ready yet. I have posted here in 2008 on the application of Connectivism in K-12 and Higher Education, based on an institutional approach. I have left with more questions than answers: Surely with the CCK08, if 2 “teachers” could serve 2000 plus learners, do you think there is a need to employ more teachers/moderators in mass open on-line courses? Chester asks if MOOC be adopted in k-12 education: Which got me thinking: Why not MOOCs in K–12 education, too—for the kids, not just their teachers? I posted on FB, and Mary Rearick and Ana Cristina Pratas also made their comments. My comments here: I think small scale of OOC structured with a “duty of care” is important if it is to be designed for k-12, and must be exercised with more cautions, due to the huge risks involved. What sort of design would be required for a particular MOOC? Are there free lunches in this world? Like this: Like Loading...
#CFHE12 #Oped12 A reflection on the cMOOCs and xMOOCs and their future
When I reflect upon the two MOOCs – xMOOCs and cMOOCs in terms of how the courses are structured, I come to a conclusion that: In xMOOCs, the professors plan out everything for the participants, the video lectures, the artifacts & resources, the forum and discussion boards, the assignments, the quizzes, the examination, the assessment rubrics, and even the “recommendations and referencing link” to potential employer. Every learning is under a prescriptive regime, that if the participants follow the instruction, study the learning materials, watch the video lectures, then they could be able to master the content, and thus get a certificate if they satisfy the minimum requirements for the course. Here Keith Devlin explains how it works, with his MOOC. Dave Cormier explains how a MOOC works here: There are more than two millions Courserians in Coursera, there would be another few millions joining these MOOCs soon, as the competitions go on. George remarks here: Would MOOCs become a fad?
Learning Design and Complexity Science
My response to Jenny’s post on OLDSMOOC Design: Hi Jenny and Roy, I agreed with what Roy said, that you are a learning designer if you do all those things in a course, in an adaptive manner. What might typically happened is that instructional designers plan and design the curriculum, with multi-media and gamification in mind, trying to incorporate all the “essential” learning objects and artifacts to achieve the desired education outcomes (the learning outcomes, in the case of a course). The input management – or compliance with lesson plans are typically judged to be excellent when “all elements” of good instruction – like Gagne’s 9 steps of instruction are followed in a classroom environment, or that of mastery learning is followed, with sensory feedback and repeated drills and practice on the learners. I have been thinking about having learning design based on complexity science where: Like this: Like Loading...
