Art of Cyberdribble

Malcolm S. Knowles' Theories of Adult Learning: Two books, Twenty Year Apart

Hello Students!

I created a web-based Prezi presentation to show highlights from two seminal books by Malcolm S. Knowles, Higher Education in the U.S. (1969) and The Making of an Adult Educator (1989).

Prezi Presentation Directions
Go to Janet's Prezi here
http://tinyurl.com/29qsw5o

1. Scroll down the page. See the black screen with titled "Malcolm Knowles: Two books Twenty Years Apart.
2. Click the black arrow on the bottom of screen to move through the presentation .
3. Option: When you are done, you can leave a comment on the bottom of the page. Prezi.com is an open source tool and is free for students/educators. Prezi also has tools to create and collaborate on presentations. Check it out!

Adult Learning and Knowles' Principles
Knowles' is known as the 'father of andragogy' (theory and practice of adult learning). His 1969 work could be described as "andragogy versus pedagogy" while his 1989 work is described as an andragogy-pedagogy continuum. Knowles recognized that adult learners' prior experience and subsequently explained how adult instructors can tap into their students' experience-base to create new knowledge. Knowles also believed that adults have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to learn, but the intrinsic (internal) motivation was the most powerful. Also, critical to the formulation of his principles is the concept that adults are self-directed learners who are motivated when they can apply their learning, sometimes immediately to new experiences; whereas, younger learners may delay the application of the learning.

Knowles recognized the importance of identifying adult learners' readiness to learn (in a learning orientation). Further, an adult learners' self-concept impacts learning, so adults learn best in environments where they can set goals and where it is safe to experiment. It follows that, based on Knowles' concepts, effective adult educators are facilitators of adult learners.

As facilitators at Regis University, we are 'guides' to a student's self-directed learning and hopefully, we can create a safe context where experimentation and learning is nourished.

Knowles on Technology
I believe that Knowles would have enjoyed seeing the way we are experimenting with learning and technologies in our class. Knowles predicted that technology would impact adult learning. In 1969, Knowles thought that the demand for adult education would grow due to a number of economic drivers such as the need for technological skills and training in the post-industrial era. In his 1989 memoirs, Knowles recalled how adult education has used the telephone, television, and the computer "invasion" (p.121). In one chapter of his book, he recalled his frustration on learning to teach himself to format a letter on his newly-acquired Apple computer. Subsequently Knowles wrote a letter to Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple, Inc.) to explain his frustration when he had to follow technical instructions which he said were not "learner friendly" (1989, p.127)! Certainly, Knowles recognized that there would be barriers, but that technology would be a key player in advancing the needs of the adult learner population.

Final Thought
As a result of my learning, I felt stretched to generate new knowledge, meaning, and learning from my experience, especially when creating this Prezi presentation. Learning about my learning through experience has helped me to better appreciate Knowles' legacy and the principles of andragogy that he espoused.

My Adult Learning farewell video is here (on youtube).

Enjoy blogging everyone!
Prof Janet
References

Knowles, M. S. (1969). Higher adult education in the U.S. Washington, D.C: American Council on Education.
Knowles, M. S. (1989). The making of an adult educator: An autobiographical journey. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Facebook.com: Invading Account Holder Privacy

Based on an article written by Jon Swartz in June 2010, “More and more people want to share information. That is where the world is going”, states Facebook CEO Mark Zuckergerg. If that is true, why are many people arguing that Facebook is sharing privacy information about account holders?

Last month a conference was held and Mark Zuckergerg openly admitted that the company has invaded account holder’s privacy by providing individual’s information to advertisers. He doesn’t however comment on the information that is being used to target ad’s and increase revenue for the Facebook Company. However, listed in the same article, two people that are associated with Facebook’s finances and are authorized to publicly speak on behave of Facebook Company, states that the revenue could top one million this year, up from $550 million in 2009 and $300 million in 2008.

Approximately 95% of American consumers are concerned about privacy on the internet based on a market survey that was conducted by Vovici. Although account holders can change a setting on their personal profile to prohibit sharing, many people do not understand how to perform this action. An alternative to have an authorized prompt would be helpful for some account holder’s. This would allow all account holders an option to participate by choice. Also included in the article, Henry Bloget, CEO of tech blog, “The Business Insider,” says that it is possible, but if Facebook asked permission on each account holder every time the service made changes, innovation would come to a crawl.

Currently at this time account holders are forced to navigate through the setting to understand the profile options clearly or accept to participate with the service to hold the account. As fast as technology is growing, someone needs to discover a solution to benefit both the consumer and corporations.

Reference:
http://lastwatchdog.com/facebooks-business-model-hinges-wiping-privacy/

Did the lack of technology create a higher literacy rate in Cuba?

Cuba is one the few countries in the world with limited technological growth. Not because of resources or funding, but rather the government sanctions which limits this growth. While the internet has been around for several years now, Cubans have only been allowed access-albeit restricted- within the last two. The fortunate ones with access to a computer are limited to 56kbs dial-up through a government operated facilitator.

This restriction of access to the outside world has been viewed by most as a way of controlling the flow of information within Cuba. Most of the news and information comes from letters and phone calls from loved ones outside of the country. Is this the reason why Cuba has a literacy rate of 99%? Are they forced to exploit the most basic form of communication because there are no other means? I guess if I had no internet, no television and a limited amount of non-political channels to listen to, I too would be inclined to read a book. Has the lack of technology actually helped in this situation?

Is Technology Making kids shy?

When I was a child, I would run over to my friend’s house, knock on the door and ask if he could come out and play. I had to ask my teachers to explain the material I had misunderstood in front of the class, as well as having to ask my parent embarrassing questions about growing up. Now I can text my friends to go have a drink, email my teacher, and research anything and everything online. Technology has not only given us instant information, but gratification as well. But where does the personal interaction take place? Often times, I see college graduates whom are great at research and technology, but are extremely introverted, and are terrified about giving a public speech or presentation. Sure, some people are wired that way to begin with, but is technology making us shy?

Socializing is a learned behavior. We have to practice getting along with other people. There are so many rules that need to be learned. But kids aren't getting a lot of practice at it anymore. And they're exhibiting more and more signs of shyness and social phobia. These shy kids become shy adults. Research shows an increase in shyness amongst adults within the last 20 years.

Get your kids off of the computer and have them interact with other kids. Unless interviews and dating will all be held online or through a PS2, they need to learn to interact.

Journalism & the Internet (youtube)

I chose to do a news segment youtube about news and journalism in society today because I was speaking with my brother about this class and how everything has changed so much in recent years. He was a journalism major for most of his college years, and this is something very close to him. Paper forms of news, articles and journalism in general have declined greatly in recent years. Newspapers, magazines, and even news channels are not as prevalent now since everything is posted online and so many people are connected online throughout the day. There are new ways to bring the news and write through blogs, podcasts, and streaming video. This is really hurting old paper forms of news in those traditional formats; however they are still able to get revenue online through advertisement on their websites. Journalism is still very much a part of society, but the ways they are delivering their information has evolved. Since people are able to record and post their takes on news from their phones and laptops on the go, news gets to the world much quicker. This can be a good thing as people can see video footage as things happen, but oddly enough, perspective and vantage points still play the same roles leaving different sources reporting different views of the same events.

Is Sun Virtual Desktop Solutions meeting Healthcare Cost?

What is the hype on Sun's desktop virtualization? Hospitals need to lead the efforts in changing to an electronic health record and thus must adapt faster, expand their scope, create domains of practice, and access their performance. President Obama and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have giving healthcare no option but to change to an electronic environment. Automated data access and retention rely on information technology, hardware, software, and telecommunications, to collect, store, manage, and transmit health information. So is Sun’s desktop virtualization the “magic” answer to this complicated problem?

Denver Health has adopted a Sun Virtual Desktop Solution to manage their operations. The Sun Ray 2 runs the Solaris 10 Operating System (Solaris OS) is the IT infrastructure Denver Health chose. Denver Health also worked with Sun to integrate the Sun Ray technology into its IT environment and to have Sun supports its existing implementation of smart cards and Active Directory and, ultimately, to enable the solution to offer a feature-rich desktop based on Citrix software.

“Desktop virtualization with Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is not only more manageable than traditional desktop architectures; it is more flexible as well. The software allows users to access the same desktop environment from many different client devices and locations, enabling disaster recovery, remote office, and work from home, and green computing through the use of low power thin client devices such as Oracle's Sun Ray Clients.” (http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/oraclevm)

The smart card is a great resource to have. I work in the healthcare industry and have over 15 different applications with different passwords. It is essential to have a computer system that can navigate and keep patients’ information confidential. Even with Sun Ray 2 having all these provisions, it does not mean patient’s health information is safe. It is up to the institutions or organization to have check and balances for each employee’s and each application.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpP3F1pFSgE&feature=related

Reference
Oracle. (2010) SunRay Client 2. Retrieved from: http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/sunray-3-client-
ds-173275.pdf#search="sunray"

Is the Internet Slowly Killing Cable and Satellite TV?

Why pay for cable or satellite when I get everything I need from the internet? More and more of my friends and family ask themselves this question and promptly cut their cable or satellite off. With the emergence of web based products like Hulu and Roku, and Netflix, people can stream virtually any show or movie they want, when they want. The best part is, most of this is available for little to no cost.
There are numerous online options for television. Let’s examine Hulu, Netflix, Roku, Youtube and Amazon. Hulu accounts can be created for free, and offer tons of TV shows that are being broadcasted on TV right now. Netflix is a monthly subscription that not only allows you to rent movies and have them sent straight to your house, but now offers tens of thousands of movies that can be streamed online on demand. Don’t want to watch TV on the computer screen? Not to worry, many TV’s and computers these days have connections to make the TV screen the computer monitor. One of the best options is the Roku box. This box plugs into the TV, and accesses the internet. The box has an upfront cost of $59.99 for standard definition, or high definition boxes from $69.99 to $99.99 (Roku, n.d.). What is better is there are no monthly costs from Roku. It comes with capabilities to stream movies from various sites, most notably Netflix. I can stream any of my watch instantly movies on my Netflix account without touching my computer. Another trend that is going to steal revenue from cable and satellite companies is companies like Youtube and Amazon offering movies at a pay per view rate. You can pick a video you want to watch, pay the money, and stream the video online with a few simple mouse clicks.
How is this going to kill cable and satellite? Netflix subscriptions are $8.99-23.99 per month, and most tv show options are free (Netflix, n.d.). The average cable bill is $71 per month, and increases almost yearly (Seidman, 2009). There is quite a bit of money to be saved by cancelling the cable or satellite service. I have three close friends and family members that have cancelled cable or satellite tv and go with online tv, and know of at least three more that will cancel theirs as soon as their sporting events are being broadcasted live online.

References
Netflix. (n.d.). Netflix. Retrieved from http://www.netflix.com
Roku. (n.d.). Www.roku.com. Retrieved from http://www.roku.com
Seidman, R. (16). Average monthly cable bill is $71 according to study. Retrieved from http://http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/04/16/average-monthly-cable-bill-is-71-according-to-study/16887

Brand Engagement Through Social Media and Prezi

I wanted to explore the connections between how businesses and consumers use social media and how they can work together to co-create a better brand experience. To illustrate how this works, I chose to use Starbucks and Yelp as examples.

According to the Altimeter Report, Starbucks is the most engaged consumer brand online (Schonfeld). Based on the participation of their online community, Starbucks has launched My Starbucks Idea and the new However-You-Want-It Frappuccino (Wheeler). My Starbucks Idea allows consumers to share their big ideas with Starbucks online. Free Wi-Fi, My Starbucks Rewards, and the hot beverage plug all immerged from this online community. The However-You-Want-It Frappuccino was developed in response to comments and concerns Frappuccino fans had. The soy milk alternative, for instance, was not an option for Frappuccino beverages. Consumers wanted an alternative to milk and Starbucks responded.

Instead of focusing on the brand experience for a single organization, Yelp has developed sort of an online city-guide for customers to comment and rate all kinds of local businesses. This platform gives small businesses a new way to engage with customers, attract new customers, and promote word of mouth advertising. Though reviews have been damaging to some, others have seized the opportunity and have grown their businesses.

In both cases, Starbucks and Yelp cultivate the co-creation of the brand experience. Starbucks tailors to their consumers directly and Yelp has developed a platform for businesses and consumers to collaborate to build a better brand experience.

Brand Engagement Through Social Media on Prezi

Works Cited

Chafkin, M. (2010, February). You’ve been Yelped. Inc, 32 (1), 48-55.

Razorfish. (2009, August). The data. Razorfish FEED. Retrieved September 25, 2010, from http://feed.razorfish.com/feed09/the-data/

Schonfeld, E. (2009, July 20). The most engaged brands on the web. TechCrunch. Retrieved September 25, 2010, from http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/20/the-most-engaged-brands-on-the-web/

Wheeler, A. (2010, July). Keynote speaker: Digital strategy and social integration. Social Media Influence 2010. Retrieved September 25, 2010, from http://socialmediainfluence.com/conference2010/video.html