For our first episode of 2025, we’ve opened up our various variousnesses (sic) ahead of the winter semester proper to consider where we’ve been and where we hope to be in the early days of the new year!

Y’all don’t need a weatherfolk to know which way the wind blows! #ednontech

If it’s between your ears, feel free to share! #ednontech

Here I sit, in the waning days of 2024… very nearly down to the waning hours, if you want to know!

I’ve made a commitment to myself to be better at wellness… and particularly to my future self!

As we’ve gotten three episodes out in the past few days, I feel like I am finally getting ahead of something for a change! If I’m looking back at my 2024 personally and professionally I’m seeing a person in constant motion, having very little chance in the moment to process the significant changes… the severe motions afoot!

We’re talking hotel rooms, multiple cities, job interviews, cross-country travel, and some major peaks and valleys in key relationships and roles and you know, existentially!

Phew, I’m saying!

Doug let me know when we recorded the last episode yesterday that this would be a flotsam and/or jetsam and/or lagan and/or ballast… leaning into our digital clutter, perchance?

I think I’m going to keep beating this Microsoft 365 subscription thing for awhile. Ostensibly, all the apps that I’m using have their equivalents outside a subscription model. You’d think perhaps I’d get enough of these at work!

I’m here to tell you that this personal instance of 365 is showing me on my desktop in clear visuals how much time I have, and what I can achieve both in the work hours and outside out. My work 365 is, from a usage standpoint, a sub-instance within my larger personal education infrastructure (PEI). My educational practice is focused at my job, but also transcends those boundaries.

My PEI consists of the 365 instance; it also includes the WordPress sites for this podcast and other media efforts; and what elements of Google I’ve found preferable to any alternatives; notably YouTube and Drive! It would also include my social media presences which include Instagram and Facebook, with content from those being shared by default to a Threads profile. Perhaps ironically, the platform where I have the most “clout”… i.e., LinkedIn, another Microsoft product, is the one I engage with the least frequently!

All of this is meant to be used more mindfully and intentionally than I’ve done in the past. Much of that comes from new habits of mind and life and movement. The more time I spend away from my kids, the better an example I want to be for them… so that in the limited times we get to see each other, and when they are away from me for months at a time, that I can be a reasonable, kind, low-key kind of person. That’s what I’m aspiring for! At the end of the day, being a Dad is the most important aspect of who I am. So I’m trying to use that as my guiding principle… to wit, does any given behavior align with that goal? Does the same behavior move my ability to be an outstanding father forward? Those are the two questions I’ve been asking myself in just about any situation I’ve encountered lately. It’s a positive way of deciding what’s important, I think!

Thanks to Doug for being such an amazing creative partner in this endeavor! Thanks to anybody who checks these notes, the video, the audio, or any other aspect of this show for any reason whatsoever! We are grateful in all ways for your interest in our #ednontech!

Derelict – goods sank to the bottom and abandoned

Lagan – goods sank to the bottom and tethered by a marker to be potentially recovered

Jetsam – goods jettisoned and abandoned

Flotsam – goods floating on the surface and may be reclaimed

… demonstrate that campuses lack a robust Celebration, Appreciation, and Recognition (CAR).

There is a vast body of research that demonstrates that CAR improves motivation, morale, and performance within organizations.

Kezar, A., & Elrod, S. (2020). Taken for granted: Improving the culture of celebration, appreciation, and recognition in higher education. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 52(5), 29-36.

Planning provides a thoughtful blueprint to guide our instruction. However, remember the learning environment is dynamic and ever-changing. 

Rice, A. H., & Mars, M. (2023). Planning for Effective Instruction. The Art and Science of Teaching Agriculture: Four Keys to Dynamic Learning. https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu/teachagriculture/chapter/planning-for-effective-instruction/

“zelfsturing” has been the subject of much discussion. It is defined as the ability in self-management that students will need in the future and is a characteristic of learning processes in which students have a relatively large input and responsibility.

Voskamp, A., Kuiper, E., & Volman, M. (2022). Teaching practices for self-directed and self-regulated learning: Case studies in Dutch innovative secondary schools. Educational Studies, 48(6), 772-789.

** This is one of my favourite articles I have presented in the run of this podcast. **

… conclude that the human factor is often considered as the most influential factor on the chances of failure or success.

Educational innovations, such as implementing a new pedagogic method such as problem-based learning, are sometimes the result of an intuitive and hasty decision to change. And without a proper investigation of aspects as problems the innovation is supposed to solve, needs of the future users, willingness of different participants to cooperate and success and fail factors of this particular project, the success of the innovation is at stake. 

Kirschner, P. A., Hendricks, M., Paas, F., Wopereis, I., & Cordewener, B. (2004). Determinants for Failure and Success of Innovation Projects: The Road to Sustainable Educational Innovation. Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Pressey’s Teaching Machine – originally only offered multiple choice questions

There are more people in the world than ever before, and a far greater part of them want an education. The demand cannot be met simply by building more schools and training more teachers. Education must become more efficient. … In any other field a demand for increased production would have led at once to the invention of labor-saving capital equipment. 

in the 192O’s, when Sidney L. Pressey designed several machines for the automatic testing of intelligence and information. … Pressey’s machines succumbed in part to cultural inertia; the world of education was not ready for them. 

Skinner, B. F. (1958). Teaching Machines: From the experimental study of learning come devices which arrange optimal conditions for self-instruction. Science, 128(3330), 969-977.

Lagan

What Derelict, Lagan, Jetsam, & Flotsam would the audience like us to address in more detail in a future podcast?

I’ve got that dataset.

&

Tirades, I thought I was done with them.

The party raged for seven days until it was complete
Bottles buried in the snow lay hidden until spring
Monuments abandoned #ednontech