Integration is Easier

Right now in my personal life classes are ending and reports are due. Well reports were always due and that constantly made it a challenge to juggle assignments, blogging, and personal activities. Sometimes it came down to what was valued as more important.

Do you ever thought to yourself, what is really important? Take for instance academic courses. As I mentioned before, STEM is a program that emphasizes the maths and sciences and people are looking to improve that, hence STEMx/STEM+ (STEM 2.0?). But what about art and writing? What about history?

I had an epiphany in thinking over why science over literature (though I may be wrong). Aren't the visual and literary arts the more creative courses? (Nevermind history...that appears to be just memorization)

Creativity is an integrated process of our lives. We are taught at a young age to be creative in everything we do; to apply ourselves. Therefore I notice that art is simply integrated in design and literature is part of writing reports (and I've done and am stilling doing alot of them).

Math and science however are not as creative as the a fore mentioned topics. They are dealt with a different area of the brain, and they aren't something I would exactly do in my free time. Sometimes I feel like my brain has to switch to a different mode between STEM related classes. They seem like separate topics, that my brain cannot make the connections. It would be so much easier if the professors worked together and made their classes relate to each other.

Hold on... thats it! Why doesn't this happen? Why can't professors work together find ways to connect their courses. Students are struggling to mix study time for each class as separate subjects. If they were more meshed together to create a super subject that builds the topics on one another, this integration would led to a more advanced learning while also becoming less strenuous to student life. That's just a thought.

Now that leads to how STEM+ will actually be applied and if this program will be updated in the future. I also hope that the educational system becomes improved and courses are not individual entities within the academic pyramid and not only do students have correlation within multiple class but critical thinking increases as well.

STEM and STEMx

Hello audience. Throughout these past months I was engaged in learning of a higher and more engaging form of literacy: metaliteracy. Well the course was fine and dandy and actually alot of the learning took place outside of the classroom and it was more of a hands-on thing, very different than traditional learning. By traditional learning I mean "...sit here and listen to the teacher". It was quite a shift that I wasn't all too ready for but I believe the format is much more valuable. The problem is that not all courses and classes are like this.

So here's where STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) comes in and it was the topic of the last MOOC talk I listened to. Like how metaliteracy redefined literacy and offered an upgrade to the methods in which literacy is thought of and taught, the discussion in the MOOC talk focused on applying similar skills to teaching the sciences. Now if there's one thing if anything you should have learned from metaliteracy is cooperation and collaboration of different medium to create a better and more unified form of understanding.

STEM education is very important to drive the modern era into more progressive technologies and the ideal thoughts of the future. (Hopefully one where robots serve us instead of hunting us to extinction). But the teaching methods for STEM require an update, and that's where STEMx (or STEM+) comes in. Nevermind the "2.0" name, like metaliteracy, STEMx is just a redefinition of how one should actually learn STEM. As collaboration of literacies define metaliteracy, why not collaboration of the STEM programs form a unified learning? This can actually be applied for all courses teaching in general. Instead of having classes treated as separate subjects in academics and pieces of an educational degree, why can't parts of teaching system work together and collaborate?

STEM taught as separate courses 

STEMx, the modification of STEM into a single unified course.

This is one of the major things that come to mind when I reflect how metaliteracy and the MOOC system catalyzes learning methods beyond memorization. If courses rely on the unity and integration of each other, the applications of the subject matter become more apparent and that becomes much more valuable than memorizing facts.

Think of it this way: in the current educational system we are taught in parts of what constitutes a major. The classes don't coincide with each other, so as the teaching is separate so is the learning. This isn't particularly useful because the value of each course becomes hidden; the connections aren't made. If the educational system becomes updated and not only students collaborate in learning but teachers collaborate in teaching, a greater understanding can be brought out for the applications in real-world situations. No longer things would be thought in hierarchy, but rather a communication of every subject for a single goal.

Biophilic Designs

So last time I touched upon biophilia and the combination of life and naturalization into technology and modern design. So let's now observe a few examples of organic designs that are meant to give us a feeling of being one with nature:

A Modern Natural Bathroom Design
(Source: http://homenewdesign.com/natural-bathroom-design-ideas/modern-natural-bathroom-design-ideas)

Roof Garden
(Source: http://www.hosowo.com/roof-garden-design-ideas/)

Nature within city life
(Source: http://blog.interface.com/the-promise-of-biophilic-design)

Technobiophilia

Everyone loves technology right? Well do you love nature too? This is the topic that was covered in the latest MOOC talk that I listened to. We live in a world where technology overtakes almost every aspect of life. In fact sometimes it becomes a substitute for life itself. What do I mean by this?

Well in this day and age, people are constantly looking at a screen to connect with the world. Their world is the screen. Technology teleports them across physical boundaries and removes the effort to get out there. This is nice to be able to socialize with people across the web, but it isn't the same as a walk in the park or enjoying a coffee together. Or is it?

Surprisingly people have developed ways to imitate life through the computer screen. And instead of going out with your real self, people can go out in their second life. Second Life. This is the name of a popular online game, but its more of a world really. Whatever you can do in real life, Second Life can do too and more.

The amazing world of Second Life

To integrate life into technology...why exactly? Well why do people like to use nature-theme wallpaper. Why are there "organic designs"? To put one view into it: maybe we miss a part of natural life in all the hubbub of the modern world. That's why mom like to put plants in the house. That's why designers adore hardwood floors and wooden furniture. When something has an earthy feeling to it, why is this generally perceived as a positive thing? Are we just feeling something instinctual? Something agreeing to our deep primal urges. Maybe that could be it.

Mother nature doesn't have a metal body made of straight lines and patterns of high order. Instead nature is a bit more uneven, a little less ordered, something about that gives more life to this design.

Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling. So what is it? Stories told digitally of course! Okay now the obvious and general concept is cleared up let's dive into the specifics. When you think of stories what exactly comes to mind? Elaborate fantasies, structured plot lines, in depth characters? Of course if you want to be fancy and critical and put alot of room for analysis but we don't need all that. Digital stories can be practically anything, actually alot of things can tell stories, its just how one interprets it. I learned about this during a MOOC talk about Digital Storytelling and Metaliteracy.

Stories don't have to be told in many words or use alot of visuals. Like early cave paintings a seemingly simple drawing can spread alot of meaning and story. Like modern art, simple forms can take on a whole lot of meaning, that is if you can see it. 

Now let's back to words; often in school I was taught a certain structure for stories. Beginning, middle, end. 

Now I never liked telling stories due to this structure and also because I am wired into short bursts of thought. And I'm not talking about intellectual ideas, Mostly insignificant little brain bubbles, the kind that don't make much sense or have proper grammar.Who would ever listen to those kind of things? Would you even call it a story or are you expecting a published, reviewed, work from Huffington Post or the like? Well one thing I learned from the MOOC talk about digital storytelling is that there are thousands upon thousands (maybe millions?) of digital stories being published, or should I say posted? And many are posted on a whim.

As you can guess, these stories are told through YouTube, blogs, and let's go so far to mention Facebook and Twitter. Now you may wonder how can a silly ol' tweet be digital storytelling?

I am presenting a thought.., my story.., an idea.., out there. Care to listen? Care to comment? Care to care? Its really not a complex thing. Stories are ideas. Ideas spread through any form or media. The media here is electronic.., digital.., technological.. that's all. Storytelling in a digital format.

Social media at the Forefront of News

Society today is fully integrated with social media and like a school cliché, word and news gets around quickly. Now of course there are already well established news and media in the form of newspapers and television broadcasts, but the papers are slow and who has the time or diligence to constantly watch the news on TV? We have become strongly attached to social media and are constantly looking forward to entertainment. I know I am. So now where we get our news? Well if you're not actively looking for breaking news, you probably are scanning Twitter or Facebook or some other website for something interesting.

I often get my news like this. People would post something interesting they would find, then it would I come across it while scrolling the page. If it is worthy and attractive enough to gain my attention I'll take a closer look at it. Like an outrageous rumor one might hear at school; the juicer, the better. Then it'll spread like wildfire, someone comes across it, shares it, more people see it, and more people share it.

Now the "it"....what is "it"? Be it an actual real life event or something quite silly. I'll leave your imaginations to give yourself examples. But this is something mentioned during a MOOC talk I listened to on the topic of "Media and News Literacy". Often silly things gain more attention than serious news, and whose to say what is the truth? If juicy rumors spread quickly through the school, would fantastic stories overshadow more pressing matters? That is something called the "Tragedy of the Commons".

Multimedias and Multiliteracies

Do you wonder where do the boundaries of different types of literacies reside?

Well before getting to the edges of literacy definitions lets look at actual definitions. Just take a look some of these to get an understanding of each specific literacy: (Click on the image to enlarge)

source: http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/5066

source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100503190811AAO4ZLD

So yes, there are many types of literacies and very specific defining criteria for some of them.

Alot of what is discussed about metaliteracy involves these kinds of literacies, particularly information literacy, media literacy and visual literacy.

The MOOC talk "Connecting Visual Literacy to Metaliteracy" focuses on the power that visual media has in presenting a message. The incorporation of images and illustration must aid in the message being said. If there is a contradiction with the components of the content then confusion can arise.

Let me put this into a picture:

You see what you have here? Unless the sign wants you to moonwalk, pedestrians may be slightly confused at the image of a man walking right when you must actually go left.
Proper use of media is important. How confusing would it be if the images of restroom signs were switched?

Do I go Left or Right?

So do you follow the words or the pictures? And what someone can't read the words? Imagine the comical sketch we can make of this. But this is what I'm getting at, this is the point of visual literacy; not only how to read them but the proper use of them.

Metamorphosis into the Metavisual

It's time that something needs to change around here. I have recently learned that improvements must be made on this blog because I realize how boring and plain it was. Hopefully now I can up the ante and make this more interesting. I don't want my readers to be bored by what they see.

Don't be this guy!

In order to present information well it must be attractive and engaging to a certain extent. This is the topic of a MOOC talk "Connecting Visual Literacy to Metaliteracy". Metaliteracy is closely connected to social media and the online world. People of the modern world are captivated with first looks and visual information. Like any designer would argue: the product, the information, must be visually pleasing in order to get consumers attracted to it.

This is also what I learned in class, which is why I've updated my blog. Hopefully it will be everchanging, a metablog, if you please. Like metaliteracy is on a higher defined order of literacy, I shall make write and transform this blog on better criteria and expectations I should have. Its in a constantly evolving state.

Like an evolving Pokemon

And as we are metaliterate readers I welcome any insight to improve upon my posts.

Metaliteracy simplified and re-freshened

Hello meta-audiences! There has been something on my mind lately: life is busy and time is short. We all have our own thing going on and we give priorities and spend time on what we value. Truthfully, my talks of metaliteracy are academia related and serve as a requirement for me. My enthusiasm for it varies. Metaliteracy does seem like an abstract concept after all, probably because it sounds too weird and it's hard to get motivation going.

But as I may have mentioned, many of us in some way are metaliterate. Now if we forget about learning this meta-monster for a moment, put a pause on academics, and think about actual forms of metaliteracies, maybe we can learn without the weird taste of being schooled in your mind, welcome this word (metaliteracy) into our dictionaries.

I’m sure at some point we all went on Youtube, Facebook, or Twitter. These are 3 big websites of the modern social world. We may like to watch videos, find out whats happening in people’s lives, read tweets and so on. We know this as social media and entertainment (in academia: media literacy). Ok taking this one step further, let’s contribute to the video, post, or tweet that we have just witnessed (and walk into the realm of metaliteracy). And I’m not talking about just a thumbs up I mean like really say something about whatever you looked at or listened to.

You ever saw how passionate people can argue especially online? (Though sometimes the essays of conversation could turn your attention away.) 

Well if you find that they make a good point or you ever thought “Hey, I didn't think of that” or “that’s something new” then behold what you see is an example of metaliteracy. And let’s turn our minds to education mode and keep this piece of knowledge.

The back and forth of information and ability for discussion is what drives this word: metaliteracy.

From what I gather every time we learn and expand our mind we are becoming more literate, any other form besides meta-. To transform our literacy into metaliteracy gives a little effort when we spew out a little information like kids at show-and-tell.

Metaliteracy on a Global Perspective

"Metaliteracy in Beta" This was the topic from the 4th MOOC talk I listened to.
But exactly what does that mean? During the talk, the speaker was speaking on metaliteracy which was shaped by his personal views. This is true on any source of knowledge; information is never neutral.
People's understandings of literacies are influenced by their surroundings and personal dispositions.
Think of it as an argument: each side has its own agendas, information presented in the way they view it and new information can contribute or argue against it. This is why we must be critical when we take in information as a metaliterate.
Tabloids, news agencies, and so called experts in a field are all producers of information which we must analyze the purpose of their information, what claims are made, and what supports or refutes their knowledge.
So now that we are learning about metaliteracy, we must analyze what has shaped our knowledge and how our understandings are affected by various discourses.

Openness

The best part of the internet and social media is how freely I can open up to you and empowers me to write things I wouldn't normally say. That however is not the point of the title of this post.

The topic of openness in this post is related to "Open Content".
It is also the topic of the 3rd MOOC talk that I am listening to.

As information is easily spread and shared digitally, sometimes we encounter problems:
Ownership, licensing, and giving credit where credit is due.
In today's world people often share, modify, and build upon each other's ideas. You can imagine the arguments and legal troubles associated with this.
Of course open sourced materials are a great thing, to be able to freely access something for your own personal use, entirely beneficial to you. But what about the authors of the work you take and use? What do they gain? This is where the decision of copyrighting and licensing come into play.

There are various ways to get pass this. There are many open education resources available, which are provided in this website: http://www.oercommons.org.
Creative Commons is an organization dedicated to reserving licenses while expanding creative works available for others to legally build upon and share.

So as there are ways to freely maintain access and build upon others works, we as metaliterate learners face no difficulty in doing what we do best: Collaboration.

Metacognition?

Cognition (noun) - The psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning

Source: Wordweb

Metacognition (noun) -  The knowledge and experiences we have about our own cognitive processes.

Source: wordwebonline.com

So what exactly is metacognition? Do we even know what cognition is? I know, sometimes big words can be confusing when you're not using them on a day to day basis. This has what got me thinking while listening to my second MOOC talk. Enthusiasts in this field may explain this in further detail and at length but I shall share a short video which I believe clarifies this well enough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVE21QhY-lI

Even if these explanations and definitions fly over your head. We are constantly cognitive and metacognitive thinkers. As information flows into your brain, you learn and think and reason. You are sorting this information and building up your knowledge. This is cognition as far as I can explain.

Metacognition is a step up from this, in fact this blog is a form of expressing metacognition!

If you're still not getting this, metacognition is "a literacy of awareness". This description was taken from the MOOC talk. 

Being aware of your own knowledge and evaluating yourself is what I believe metacognition is about. Reflecting upon your thinking process and incorporating yourself into your thoughts.

Can we think about our own thinking?

It sounds abstract and may be confusing but believe or not we are probably doing it all the time.

Into the MOOC

Hello you all. Sorry I haven't been posting as much as I should have. Personal things going on and lethargy got the better of me. Quite the lazy metaliterate learner. Now what is a metaliterate learner you may ask? Now this goes back the my interpretation of metaliteracy and I'll side track a bit. Generally metaliteracy is any form of information that inquires you think and learn. Lately I have been going over some MOOC talks as a critical part of a course I'm taking. (A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course, but more on that later you keep our minds drooling.) In the first MOOC talk, there were speakers introducing the concept of metaliteracy and how it differs from information literacy. Now to give you a taste of this talk I've incorporated an image from their Prezi presentation.

Are you getting the idea now? Are we becoming metaliterate learners? Now here's the tricky part. We can't be metaliterate learners without one crucial thing: collaboration.

Anyone can go and absorb information. There are actually many forms of literacy. This page lets you in on that: http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/5066

But the point here is that a metaliterate learner is a participant of the information they are receiving. Contribution is key. These couple of diagrams, also taken from the MOOC talk gives a sense of this.

Read the outermost circle of words on both of them. See? At this stage we are only information literate. Only once we added a bit of our own thoughts into the pool of information can we truly be metaliterate.

Collaborative Information

Whoops so I haven't been quite constant with my posts since last time. There are alot of things to do and its been quite difficult to find the time to do it, which brings us to this topic: collaborative information.

Collaboration with others is usually always a good thing, it reduces time and effort and like the proverb goes "two heads are better than one". I wish I had a constant companion to share stories and ideas with and sometimes its hard to collaborate with others when we all have busy schedules. This is where the wonders of the internet comes in play. There are many online tools available to help people collaborate to overcome the obstacles of distance and time.

I was recently introduced of one: padlet.com
It is an interesting resource for collaboration. Think of it like putting sticky notes on a wall...but better. You have the basic concept: writing a piece of information and placing it on the wall. You can move it around and organize separate thoughts into groups or maybe just for aesthetic purposes. Now here's the creative part. You can also stylize the design of the wall to your liking, add images and resources, easily edit anything on there and best of all you can share the url with whomever!
Here's a sample of what padlet is like:

With this ability others can contribute to the wall where ever and whenever and that's what you call collaboration across time and space! Sounds cool when I put it that way.
But what other resources can one have for online collaboration?
Padlet sure seems nice but it feels like a tool for brainstorming and a mix-match of ideas. Can there other sources to help write articles or documents, something people are always using?
Of course there is!
I'm sure we all know of at least one tool. Google docs! Think of it of using Microsoft Office online and with others. Ta-da! As a student, if we need to write and correct papers or presentations without huddling over one screen or the back and forth of transmission of files with revisions, we can! Get the gist? Online collaboration has become so much easier in this day and age (but you still need to find people to collaborate with. That is more of a personal obstacle).
What other tools are there that is more specific to lets say a programmer?
*Raises hand* "titanpad.com"

Haha, so titanpad.com is really just a simple typing resource but the format of it is so much like the ones people use in programming. Here's a sample:

Like other online collaboration tools you can just give the url to someone and they can join in on the fun!
Titanpad is arranged by numbered lines, perfect for a programmer and you can even see who wrote what by the color coding of the authors. Its an excellent way of dividing up tasks and seeing who is responsible for what is typed. There is even a way to export the project after your done or whatnot. Titanpad allows you to export the document as an HTML, PDF file, Microsoft Word document, or plain text and a couple more formats. It really is a nice way to do collaborative coding.

What is Metaliteracy?

Meta-: a later stage of development, a change
Literacy: possession of education, a person's knowledge of a particular subject or field

So what is metaliteracy? Well without going into extensive research and looking at the particular details of it I will give a quick breakdown of my current thoughts of it.

Metaliteracy is knowledge and education brought out by different forms of media. Like literacy or being literate is brought by the classroom and readings of papers and books, metaliteracy goes further and includes social media, online forums, and anything digital or online based. We are living in the digital world and connect our thoughts into the world wide web to share and recieve knowledge be it academia related or gossip about the latest celebrity.

Restart

Hello...if you see this. This means that I have begun a new chapter in my life.

Past posts are gone. It has been a learning experience.

Hello new me...