Tag Archives: learning

Metaliteracy – Week 1 – Introduction to the course

The PolyBlog
May 8 2020

I finished taking my first MOOC on Understanding Video Games (#50by50 #32 – Complete a MOOC – Understanding Video Games) and next on my list was one related to Metaliteracy – Empowering Yourself in a Connected World. The description was pretty good, talking about being a bit more reflective about our online work, and it was offered through Coursera. The downside to that is that I’m really only interested in “passive learning”, watching the videos, etc., not actively engaging online with fellow students. That might seem like a cop-out of sorts, but I like the idea of a curated course that pulls together interesting material in a professional manner. It would be nice to be able to afford all The Great Courses library and work my way through those, and I have managed to snag a photography course through them (still in progress) plus two new astronomy titles (they were having a sale!).

But, as I said, the Metaliteracy course looked interesting as a stepping stone, just as the video game was…I used the video game MOOC to get my feet wet in the world of gamification, and despite the fact that I time-shifted it over the course of a couple of years, I got a lot out of it and gained a foundation to understand gamification in a very different way than if I’d just started with gamification. For online engagement, I wanted to step back a bit and look at the online world through a more objective lens. The Metaliteracy course might do that, although I hate the term literacy being used that way. The course is offered as a collaboration between SUNY Empire State College and the SUNY University of Albany.

Enrolling in the Course

When I wrote this post the first time, it was December 2018, just over 18 months ago (it is now May 2020). I had enrolled in the course, and there were 10 weeks or so of classes. I did the first 5 weeks of classes, but I struggled to find enough other students to provide peer-reviews of my assignments. I found the material interesting, but it was a challenge to keep it “going”. I would stall, the other students would stall, I’d reset dates, it would languish. I didn’t get very far.

Fast-forward to 2020 and I wanted to reboot my interest. Except the course has radically changed from 10 weeks with lots of topics to only 4 weeks! Some of which it thinks I’ve already done (because it was part of the other course). It looks to me like they have removed a lot of the assignments and peer review interactions.

Introduction

From 2018: The original Introduction for Week 1 started off bad for me…the hosts/leaders are a librarian and a vice-provost for academic programs. My fear is that often these types of approaches are about trying to do something “different” i.e. “we want to do a MOOC, what should it be about” as opposed to having a vision for a course and delivering it as a MOOC. Time will tell, right? And my initial reaction is part of the course itself — how I am evaluating the info without full context.

The course will involve this week’s intro, plus three sessions on digital citizenry (identity, IP, ethics), modes and formats of info sharing, creating info, participation in global community, curating and metacognitive awareness. And the end will focus on how students move on to being teachers. Okay, it’s got a decent structure.

One thing I liked in the intro was the idea of a metaliterate learner (meh) having different roles all woven together…communicator, translator, author, teacher, collaborator, producer, publisher, researcher, participant, etc. I would probably add curator in there too as a separate heading, but this week probably isn’t the week to quibble too much. As an active blogger, I experience all of those roles, so I’m curious to see where the course goes from here.

Originally, I thought I was going to hold myself to just the videos, having downloaded them so I could timeshift more easily when I didn’t have a live internet connection. Instead, I realized that the readings are still available to me as I did “enrol” in the course, and thus still “live”. I went in to check something, saw the readings, and have now gone through the readings for the first week. The excellent chart mentioned above was included (i.e., not just in the video), and more importantly, they have a great article about what metaliteracy is compared to digital literacy, etc. Here is an excerpt from their paper:

Several competing concepts of literacy have emerged including digital literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, and information technology fluency, but there is a need for a comprehensive framework based on essential information proficiencies and knowledge. New media literacy and transliteracy have also responded to the rapid and ongoing changes in technology. As part of a metaliteracy reframing, we argue that producing and sharing information are critical activities in participatory Web 2.0 environments. Information literacy is central to this redefinition because information takes many forms online and is produced and communicated through multiple modalities. Information literacy is more significant now than it ever was, but it must be connected to related literacy types that address ongoing shifts in technology.

(Source: Mackey, T.P. & Jacobson, T.E. (2011). Reframing information literacy as a metaliteracy. College and Research Libraries, 72 (1), 62-78. doi: 10.5860/crl-76r1))

Over the course of the article, they compare it to information literacy (too research-y), media literacy (too narrowly focused on media writ large, not the digital and technological world), digital literacy (a little bit too narrowly within digital environments), visual literacy (heavy focus on visual design), cyberliteracy (participatory aspects only), and information fluency (like info literacy, but with extra techno bent). Metaliteracy, the topic of the course, tries to bring the best of all the perspectives together…participatory, collaborative, critical, more than info as a commodity, beyond skills-based definitions, engagement with the technology, transliterate (“the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media”, Thomas et al cited in the paper), blurring of information / entertainment / economics, and incorporating IP and privacy issues. A rather daunting list.

And yet, having read it, I’m left with two large questions. First, while they talk about the practical issues around doing research in a webbed-world, and how to deal with defining your search environment — are Amazon reviews in-scope? Youtube videos? music lyrics? — I don’t see anything about the time factor inherent in all of it. The more you engage with an everchanging “techno” world as your environment, the more your research is defined by a smaller and smaller snapshot in time. The minute you blink and take your “readings” for your research, not only does that act influence the subject but also the next minute it is gone, changed again by the new info available on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Second, while they talk about the “framework” as being less about “skills” and more about cognitive frameworks, as soon as they apply it to the practical worlds, it quickly becomes very skills-focused, as all applications do. If so, is a “skills-reduced” framework the way to go?

I don’t know the answers, but I like the questions. Let’s call it a promising intro.

Update in 2020: The first week’s focus has jumped to a different article from the course professors about fake news that discusses how “metaliteracy” can help us function better as digital citizens (https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-learn-to-reject-fake-news-in-the-digital-world-69706), including:

  • Reflecting on how we process information based on feelings and beliefs;
  • Questioning sources of information (formal and informal, validity, packaging/medium, )
  • Challenging assumptions, including our own
  • Contributing responsibly

For myself, I would say that I do a decent job (as most of us probably believe about ourselves) in questioning sources of information, particularly where it disagrees with my sense of probability. Where it confirms my expectations, I likely don’t challenge it much, but nuances are important to me, so I do sometimes question methodologies even when I agree with the conclusions.

I probably have not reflected as much on how my feelings influence my processing, mainly as I’m primarily an analytical introvert and thus more focused on the cognitive side of life. To the extent that I’ve thought about packaging, I would say for me it is more about how to communicate better (i.e. what are my options in blogging, for example, since I tend to rely heavily on words over graphics).

I do frequently adjust my contributions online to be more “responsible”. As a blogger, and a civil servant, I have a pretty fine line to walk in what I can do on certain subjects, but not so much from a “legal” standpoint as an ethical one. I owe a duty of loyalty to my employer and while I might disagree with certain policies, it’s not really my place to second-guess a political level policy choice unless it is whistle-blower territory.

For me, though, I think the biggest factor is reminding myself that I play those multiple roles (mentioned above) simultaneously when I’m online. Communicator, author, producer of content, participant, etc. And given my own predilections, I would say”curator” tops that list…A guide I wrote for a small audience proved helpful to others, and it has been downloaded from my website over 7000 times in two years despite the fact I have done no promotion whatsoever. People then email me follow-up questions looking for further advice from the expert, which I am decidedly not. I frequently have to add disclaimers about not being an expert…it’s what works for me, their mileage may vary.

Overall, I think most of us view internet content from the perspective of passive consumers, but for me, it is a far more “collaborative” experience with every click or post or share.

I’m determined to complete the course this time!

Metaliteracy – Week 5 – Understanding How Information is Packaged and Shared

The PolyBlog
July 8 2019

Week 5 of Coursera’s Metaliteracy course is entitled “Understanding How Information is Packaged and Shared”. I was initially skeptical of the week, as the format is rarely something I have thought much about outside of the mainstream. For example, a blog post vs. a news article, and the likely credibility of the two by default. Kind of like peer-reviewed vs. non-peer-reviewed articles. But as I worked through the readings, and the assignments, I actually found that I liked the content more than I expected.

For example, it talks about it from a creation standpoint. An academic wanting to advance learning in a specific area is likely to follow a traditional route and publish in a peer-reviewed journal using technical language appropriate to the field. By contrast, the same academic might want to make a presentation to students that would make the same information available but tied to more fundamental principles. And equally, the same academic might try to reach out through blogs or popular press articles with infographics to encapsulate similar information. But the same infographic wouldn’t work for the technical crowd. And while all that is obvious, another element hadn’t occurred to me.

That it’s the same process for me with my blog. I am not trying to be the academic talking to the peers, nor am I teaching students. My target for my HR guide and my blog, in general, is usually the Average Joe on the street. But I usually default to text. I rarely put much thought into infographics which are often a better vehicle for the Average Joe. While I consider many of the same elements, I rarely boil it down so starkly. In particular, one of the readings talked about various formats available for communicating:

A book
A journal article written for scholars in the field
A blog entry that is public
A Facebook message for only one’s friends
In-person communication
A text message
A chart with data
An infographic
A YouTube video montage
An online timeline containing text, video, and photos

It has started me thinking about my HR Guide in book form and whether that was ever the best format. I’ll likely still do it, but I have my eye on some other formats for subsequent versions.

The first assignment for the week was a simple worksheet that asked you to pick a topic that you could explain to someone else, choose three different formats you could use from the above list to communicate information about it, and then give some strengths and weaknesses for the format, how much the format lends itself to collaboration / feedback / sharing, and whether the format is important to the content.

The second assignment was to reflect on your own role in critically examining online material (I chose the example of my frequently seeing so-called factual memes or infographics that seem one-sided or misleading and having to dig deeper to get to the truth), what triggers me (i.e. the one-sidedness that seems off), and if it affects you in your own role as producer of information.

And finally, the third assignment was to expand on the producer role and how I as a producer use various formats, how I started, whether I considered those other factors, etc.

An interesting week, much better than I expected.

FtU #02 – MOOC this, universe

The PolyBlog
June 3 2019

I completed a previous MOOC on video game analysis (#50by50 #32 – Complete a MOOC – Understanding Video Games) from the University of Alberta and I started one on Metaliteracy some time ago from the State University of New York (SUNY). But I’ve found the Metaliteracy course a bit challenging for its design.

There are ten weeks, with each week having a mix of videos and readings to consume, and then a couple of online assignments to fill out about what you learned. The previous one had an option for just auditing with little interaction, this one needs that interaction to really work. Which is generally fine, no problem.

Except each week’s “submission” then has to be graded by your peers. Which would work fine if you had any other peers doing the course at the same time, but it has continual intake. People can start and stop anytime, the deadlines can be reset with a click of a button, etc. Which means I finished weeks 1-4 and sat waiting for “grades” on the submitted postings/assignments until someone started the course, reached the same point, and reviewed them. As part of the community, you also have to review three other people’s materials. Which also doesn’t work if I go to review them, and there are no other people doing it at the same time — once or twice, I had NOTHING to review. 

Which means while I’m doing my part, there’s no cohort moving through the course with me. So I got to week 4 and stalled. Eventually, someone else will come along and review my stuff and I can review theirs, but until then, my submissions go into the temporary abyss of the internet waiting for “review”.

I also confess that the course, while okay, is not as interesting as I had hoped. It has some interesting readings related to curation of info, fact checking in a social media age, licensing, etc., and I’m getting what I wanted out of it, but it is definitely not at the top of my list of interesting presentations and presenters.

The “challenges”, however small, are not an unusual occurrence, nor any grand universe conspiracy, it’s just a really frustrating form of group work that holds back my somewhat boring learning while I’m waiting for others to engage and do their part.

Except it isn’t really holding me back, that is / has been my perception. MY part is just to do the assignments each week and mark other people. I can still do my part, and complete the majority of my learning. If I don’t get the checkmark for any given week because nobody marked my submission, who cares?

MOOC this, universe. I’m proceeding anyway. I’m designating Mondays as my MOOC day, either at lunch or at night. I’ve even downloaded the app for Coursera so I can view it on my tablet rather than at night on my laptop. Week 5 on formats as a consumer and producer is done, moving on to week 6.

#50by50ish #37 – Take a photography course

The PolyBlog
October 10 2018

Back in 2016, I decided to “up my game” for photography, and I thought I would start with a class or two. Henry’s courses are popular, but there are also courses through the city’s annual learning catalog, and even through Algonquin College if I want to get really serious. But I wanted to keep it simple, so I started watching The Great Course’s “Fundamentals of Photography” series (Fundamentals of Photography – Class 01 – Making Great Pictures).

Recently, as part of my lingering 50by50 commitments, I wanted to get back into photography learning, but even in the last two years, my approach has changed. I have a decent camera — a Canon Rebel T5i aka the 700D — and it works well for me. It is considered a high-value entry level DSLR, but my needs are relatively modest, with just a couple of quirks.

My primary need is outdoors photography … waterfalls, landscapes, flora and fauna, hiking through nature, and friends and family doing both active and passive activities.

My secondary need, like most people, is indoor photography … birthdays, parties, events, holidays.

My quirky needs are both related to astrophotography — first, attached to the scope (body only) or second, straight Milky Way sky shots (with and without zooms).

The T5i came in a couple of configured bundles, and I went with the one that included two lenses — 18-55mm, and 55-250mm. It also has a whack of pre-set modes:

  • Portrait (blurred backgrounds);
  • Landscape (wide depth of field so both foreground and background are in focus);
  • Close-up (aka a software macro option for flowers and things);
  • Sports (continuous shooting, high speed capture, rapid focus);
  • Scene mode (several sub-options);
  • Creative auto (simple mode for quick setting of common features);
  • Flash off (can’t fire, no matter what the camera thinks is right or not); and,
  • Scene-intelligent auto (the computer takes its best guess on all the settings, useful if you keep changing setting)

It then has four semi-manual modes:

  • Program mode (P) — This is a bit misleading, as it is semi-auto (aperture and shutter speed) but you control the rest;
  • Shutter priority mode (Tv) — You control how fast the shutter is, the computer does the rest;
  • Aperture priority mode (Av) — You control how wide the aperture is, the computer does the rest;
  • Manual mode (M) — The full power of the camera is at your fingertips.

For me, I spend almost all my time in pre-set modes, and truth be told, I don’t even do that well.

I have managed to get what I think are some great shots — birds in flight, cousins doing various water sports, flora around various hiking trails in Ottawa. But while I pointed the camera, chose the mode (sports, for example) and captured the shot (cousin waterskiing and spraying up water), I didn’t really know what the camera was doing. I wanted to know how and why it worked, not just the what of the shot or settings. Part of my reasoning is that if I can understand the basics for my primary needs (basic outdoors and indoors), I have a better shot at understanding how to approach astrophotography.

So I signed up in September for a course with Henry’s, the local photography store. I wanted a bit of hands-on experience to get me out of pre-set modes and into manual, but I also wanted to know what the camera was doing. Part of that experience is going back to look at previous photos that turned out well and figuring out, “OH! So THAT’S how I / my camera did that…”. There were a few options available including both “learn about your Canon camera” as well as “photography 101”. With timing and location, I opted for the photography basics course in Kanata.

The course was divided into four classroom sessions, plus one practical session, with each session designed to dive into the key aspects of what you control in photography. I’m going to write separate blog posts about each week, but the overview is show below, although the titles/descriptions are mine, not the official ones:

  1. Camera fundamentals — I hesitate to call this “meet your camera” but it pretty much is what it was about. You learn all the basic controls, what they do, and because it is a generic photography class with everyone having different brands and models, a lot of it was hands on walking various people through THEIR camera settings to get it into a relatively common set of options for everyone to start with.
  2. Understanding aperture — Looking at depth of field, aperture and f/stops, and fast lenses.
  3. Understanding shutter speed — Looking at motion for capture, blurring, and panning techniques;
  4. Planning the photo — Looking at a combination of different lenses, perspectives, sensors, and then the creative side (composition, tips).

It was an interesting experience. For week 1 and 2, I went to the Kanata course on Wednesday nights, and there were about 10 of us in the class. A wide range of interest — older for hobby, younger with dreams of entrepreneurship, a few unique interests. However, the instructor noted he was also teaching on Friday nights nearer my house (earlier time, and on a Friday?), and if we missed Wed, we could catch Friday at the other site. Week 3 & 4, I did just that, because there was only 1 person over there, meaning it was almost like a hands-on class. We asked questions constantly, at least I did, and stopped him regularly when something wasn’t clear. Way more “aha” moments than if we had been in a larger group because it was the follow-up questions that really crystallized things for me. When I do the four blogs for the weeks, I really want to see if I can re-create some of the examples.

I have the practical session tonight, but it isn’t as “practical” as it sounds — we’ll be over by a park in the relative dark. The Friday night class would be great for me, but it’s at a bad time for me this week. so not sure what I’m doing yet.

Am I ready to go full manual now? No, but I achieved my true goal — learning and feeling much more comfortable with making my camera do more of what I want it to and less of what I don’t. Part of a multi-year plan to get me fully conversant before retirement. And a welcome addition to my list of 50 things.

Understanding Video Games – Week 11 – Serious Games

The PolyBlog
June 1 2018

For the last week, they note that there are lots of types of games that are supposedly “serious” i.e. aimed at serious purposes. In the history, the longest running example are wargames, but there are also “tycoon” games that are about business simulations. However, the largest sub-genre are education games, such as the Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego. Over time, the educational starter series have moved into mobile apps, virtual environment, and training simulations.

Stepping back from the genre, I can see how they are dividing things. For example, there are:

– games used in instruction, where the game is an added medium (for processes or procedures); or,

– other games are used as a construction tool, and thus the game empowers the learning style of the individual student (explore and discover).

Games often have to walk a fine line between learning and fun/engagement, but while constructionist tools are often more “fun”, they are also ripe to be subverted by emergent play.

In order to keep players playing, games frequently use:

  • Decay (daily obligations and no way to pause);
  • Sweetening/achievements (the achievements are shared publicly to encourage competition);
  • Object rarity (often with luck and play time); and,
  • Social obligation/activation (gift-giving and reciprocity).

The last video is probably the launching point for future learning that interested me the most from the start — gamification. Namely, the idea of using ideas such as game mechanics in non-game situations. The course concludes with Qs about how to gamify the course — such as course badges, increase use of avatar creator, etc. but I had hoped for a bit more.

And with that, the MOOC finished.