The End Is Nigh!

And so the end is near…Incredibly this is my final blog post. I know those colleagues who have submitted comments to this blog will be sorry (all two of you:-0). Now, therefore, is a suitable time for reflection and discussion.

Summer time on campus is like a parallel universe ‘there is life, Jim, but not as we know it’. It is the same thing for this course. Over the academic year we have experienced so many facets of the new technologies (and as Dr Darina rightly said in her final lecture) we now have a whole range of skills that we did not have before. From next week we will all go off to different venues and start to apply those skills. In a way we will be distance learners from then on.  

I recently completed my final thread on the virtual team project which went very well whether by chance or design. Personally, from a class building point of view the use of threads for discussion created an excellent group dynamic and I feel that it might be better employed in term one in future years.

There is a definite market for this type of postgraduate programme and I expect to see it going from strength to strength. There is also a definite market niche for a course that is application-based and not just programming-based. Social media are increasingly used by companies and have great revenue generating potential.

So as you sail off into the sunset do not forget where it all began for you. No matter whether you become a ‘Sage on the Stage’ or a ‘Ride (or was that Guide?) on the Side’ there are no former students of the University of Limerick only present ones.

Team Building Is Not Just For The Birds

An unusual piece of research published in the journal ‘Current Biology’ has revealed important insights into the nature of group work.

Dr Dora Biro and colleagues from the University of Oxford studied the flight paths and direction   finding of homing pigeons using the latest GPS tracking systems.

Amazingly, the Oxford team found that the birds adopted similar team building techniques to those taught on many postgraduate courses (including this one).

Pigeons (like many birds that flock together for the purposes of   safety and navigation) must decide on the best   route to their destination based on many possible alternatives.

The research showed that single birds faithfully   reverted to a habitual   route which was hard-wired into their memories. When flying   in pairs, however, this route was challenged by the emergence   of a credible   alternative.

Faced with the possibility of conflict three strategies were employed in order    to decide   the best   route   to take. Each possibility weighed the difference in distance between an innate memorised route and the conflicted route.

The first option   involved each side compromising and   choosing the least worst option if the differences between both routes was small. This involved accepting a ‘group decision’. 

The alternative involved ‘compliance’ that is   bowing to another’s   leadership and following that route. Finally, when a conflict could not be avoided the pair decided to split and   make their own way home following different routes.

The scientists used a mathematical model called the ‘many wrongs hypothesis’ to test their belief that pairs of pigeons were better able to   negotiate the best route home. They found that for Pigeons, as for humans, leaders must demonstrate superior knowledge if they are to be followed.

Two Shakes Is A ‘Wonk’

The media friendly science journal ‘Current Biology’ reveals fascinating ‘cognitive parallels’ between man and his best friend the dog.

Deep Learning ‘Wonks’ currently studying the ‘Three Component Model’ might be interested to hear about parallels with our furry friends. You see dogs, like humans, observe and interpret external activity before learning to imitate a new action.

In a study of 54 dogs charged with opening a can by pulling a lever, the natural inclination was to use their mouths. One dog, however, was taught to use its paw. The others followed his example (Trigger) but only when they interpreted it as being a deliberate choice (Exploration). For example, when a ball was placed in their mouths they   believed that they had no option but to use their paws (Integration).

Like dogs the human brain is wired ‘asymmetrically’ that is the left side of the body is controlled by the right side of the brain and vice versa. Birds, by contrast, use their right eyes to search for food while watching for predators with the left. Does this leave them cross-eyed when trying to catch hares?

Know That Who You Meet You Are

Women are attracted to men who most closely resemble their fathers say researchers published in the journal ‘Evolution and Human Behaviour’.

The study could have widespread social implications and favours the influence of ‘cognitive theories’ over ‘behavioural’ ones in the learning process. Falling in love is a complex business at the best of times but the study indicates that females further complicate the process by involving their family history.

Formerly, women had been shown to prefer men for their emotional intelligence and such qualities as caring, trustworthiness and commitment. What the psychologists have now found, however, is that women are in fact basing such choices upon ‘prior learning’.

While men are known to place a high premium on visual stimuli when choosing a partner, women by contrast, show increased activity in an area of the brain called the  ‘Caudate Nucleus’. In Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans this area has been shown to be strongly associated with learning and memory.

The study may encourage certain unscrupulous individuals to try and fool   ‘Mother Nature’ by undertaking cosmetic surgery.  Changing our facial characteristics allows us to project powerful psychological   cues which appeal to potential mates.  Of course having studied ethics intensely none of our colleagues would dare resort to such an underhanded approach or would they?

Has Technology Taken Us Over?

Research published in the journal ‘Personality and Individual Differences’ has highlighted a growing   tendency to apply human qualities to machines.

Jacob A. Benfield and colleagues from Colorado State University   looked at the personality inventories of some 204 undergraduate drivers. Amazingly they found   not just a strong tendency to name (34%) and apply gender (55%) to   vehicles but also complete   unanimity   in their willingness to discuss a vehicle’s ‘personality’.

Indeed, ‘vehicle personality’ may   one   day   be employed as a tool in predicting the aggressive predisposition of certain drivers. Moreover, future legislation could be employed to create more agreeable road vehicles or to confine certain personality types to certain vehicles only. Changing cars, for example, may be a help in reducing a driver’s levels of aggression. Cars, like pets it seems, tend to take on the characteristics of their owners both for good and for ill. Prospective technical writers please take note.

Online Learning and Modernity

The latest developments in online learning are having a profound effect on the world of education. Indeed change has been so rapid that a schism has developed between two philosophical groupings namely ‘Humanists’ and ‘Scientists’. The latter advocate a rational computer driven basis to education, while the former fear the supplanting of traditional curricula with more cognitively based systems. C. P. Snow (1959) for example, warned of the dangers of such educational disparities; “it is dangerous to have two cultures which can’t or don’t communicate”, (C.E.R.I.,1986).

Keizenbaum (1976) also warned: “the computer can become part of a person and alter his way of comprehending reality” (ibid).Scientists, however, insist that educational advantages will offset any such disadvantages. Echoing the ideas of Maria Montessori they state that drill and practice will be replaced by the concept of learning as 'personal discovery'.

The startling fact today  is that children as young as eight years old today may know more about the new information technologies than their parents. This certainly marks a ‘paradigm shift’ on previous models of learning but is it a good thing?

Learning To Write On Campus

With reference to our recent assignment on distance education it is interesting to note how conventional means of improving writing skills remain dominant.

The ‘Shannon Consortium Regional Writing Centre (RWC)’ was set up in 2007 under the auspices of the ‘Centre for Teaching and Learning’, directed by Professor Sarah Moore, the associate Vice-President of the University of Limerick, and was initially funded by the Higher Education Authority’s (HEAs) Strategic Initiative Fund.

 The RWC offers group and one-to-one peer (face to face) tutoring to students of all disciplines from humanities to engineering. It takes a fun approach to the topic and this has paid dividends in terms of improving once problematic areas like grammar, style, sentence construction, vocabulary, essay, dissertation and even Ph.D work. The RWC believes that anybody can improve their writing skills by examining the strategies used to achieve  writing goals.