Keeping Ourselves Busy

A number of people have asked me what I do.

I must have not done a good enough job in my past postings… This indicates that either I bored everyone to tears before or that it is actually hard to describe what I do. I tend to lean towards the later.

I am an Instructional Technologist. I build instructional materials for teachers to use with their students. I do not teach the students and I do not create the original teaching content (I do not know the subject and do not need to, that is the teacher's job), what I do is craft the teaching material that the teacher has created. It takes a very creative person to do this as I have to be shown what is needed and then dream up new, engaging or innovative ways of presenting it. But I'm getting ahead of myself… I have yet been unable to do this because the University is too new and the faculty are mainly concerned with generating their lecture notes or with trying to learn how to work with the program that contains the online learning materials (Blackboard). SO… what I have been doing lately is the other half of what an Instructional Designer tends to do when they are not supported by a large team (graphic designers, application trainers, IT application support and dedicated application administrators), I am training faculty to use Blackboard. On our team now is a Virtual Learning Environment team leader who supervises our newly-hired application trainer (a wonderful Saudi lady) and a sort of ‘independent’ me, which makes three of us.

Before this semester started, I concentrated my work on developing a KAUST flavored Blackboard Course template that was applied to each of the 70 some new courses created for this semester. It is a difficult job trying to create something that fits everyone. The template had to be flexible enough to suit different teaching styles and different subject matter and yet generic enough to provide help and resources for all the programs at KAUST. Last semester we had a rather ‘default’ template and it had a whole lot of things that distracted faculty and students and made their experience with their online courses confusing. So, this semester we have a slimmed-down interface with very self-evident navigation, and with the help of our team, faculty training materials are being created. The image here of the first page is personalized for each course as we insert the course’s description from the University Course Catalogue. Faculty then add their contact details and fill in the sample syllabus. Over on the left are links to areas where faculty can add assignments and teaching materials – hidden are assessments/tests and quizzes which appear once teachers add them. At the top is the tab holding training materials – quick-guides we call them. The image you see here is like the top layer of an onion as there are MANY layers below this and as many combinations and permutations that enable each course to be personalized and unique to the subject and teaching style desired.

Last week I booked a room in the center of the campus along the main walk-way (the Spine) and ran training sessions for faculty. We invited the Library as well as the AV team to run back-to-back sessions. I was quite pleased that I got quite a few faculty attending. We demonstrated the new template and discussed why it was built the way it was and we taught them how to navigate the system to build their courses, showing them how to upload files, and to edit or add content. In some cases, I suggested different configurations that they could consider to organize their materials. If I was to break development of a course into thee levels it would be like this:

• Level 1. Often faculty who are not familiar with online learning tend to try to build their courses the same way they teach – which inevitably is a poor choice. A teacher who stands in front of a class and lectures from a single Power Point file with lecture notes can not transfer those notes to an online course and expect that students will get any benefit from them – although inevitably they all attempt this.
• Level 2. Their learning material (single file?) needs to be chunked into: concepts, weeks, lessons or units. For best teaching practice, each of those chunks then needs to be written as discrete items with introductions and summaries.
• Level 3. In addition to chunking concepts, difficult concepts need to be identified and targeted with either available remedial material or with some form of multimedia that enables the student to view or play with the concept in different ways so that different learning styles are addressed.

To date, I have not reached Level 3 with faculty. Most are on Level 1 and very few, Level 2. I have learned from quite a few years and from four different learning cultures, that the leap in understanding between Level 2 and 3 is quite difficult for teachers – because it involves understanding the fundamental difference between teaching face-to-face and eLearning. Instructors have to come to the realization that in an online environment they are not able to see and respond to students and must plan their lessons and materials in a way that they can anticipate potential questions/learning difficulties and craft their learning materials in such a way that the student flows through the learning experience in a natural simple process. This knowledge transition goes by the over-used term of a ‘paradigm shift’ or change. Teachers are by definition, experts in their field and rather reticent to change. It is hard to tell a teacher that the way they are teaching is not as effective as it could be, especially if they have a few years under their belt. An effective flexible Instructional Designer has to be a teacher, politician, artist and social worker all wrapped into one. They need to gain the Instructor’s trust to be able to work with the instructor’s most-personal of assets, their knowledge, and be able to suggest changes, point out weaknesses and suggesting alternatives. I have found that the best way to gain their confidence and faith in my ability to transform their material, is by showing them an example. Getting to that point is a hard task and gained by small steps and always being available to jump up and make a desk visit or answer an email at any time of day or night, 7 days a week. My father has said that the oft-used saying of ‘I will believe it when I see it’ is actually more accurate when rephrased as ‘I will see it when I believe it.’ My battle is to get faculty to ‘believe’ that face-to-face instruction does not effective eLearning make.

Following the three days of training in the room along the Spine, our trainer and I spent an additional two days in the building where the teaching rooms/lecture halls are. Faculty and students dropped by our desk and we were able to answer quite a few questions.

During the last few days I have been helping visiting instructors who are here for a few weeks before returning to their universities from around the globe to continue teaching from there. I am helping them set up their courses and gain access to their students through their courses. In once case, the faculty will not come here at all, but will teach using video conferencing. We are discussing ways for his students to submit their hand-written assignments (math and physics formula computations). This stuff is not just simple typing on a keyboard and saving a Word file. I am in contact with the Library where they have scanners. Doing something like this is more than just dropping off some paper and getting it scanned. We have to consider that these assignments should not be let out of the sight of the student or they could claim that they lost it, or it was destroyed or changed or they didn’t to get what they dropped off or that someone else had opportunity to copy their work… and so much more. Simple tasks are not so simple when working with eLearning materials.

Other things that are not so simple

Each time something needs to be repaired in our homes, we have to be there. Oddly though, the repair people work while we work and trying to coordinate this is often difficult so a lot of time is wasted by the workers hanging around homes waiting for tenants to return. A week or so ago, I got a call that there were people waiting outside my house… this was news to me! They wanted to test my roof for leaks. So I spent the rest of the day working from home (this was at 9 am). The workmen – up to 6 or more – were in my house until 4:00 that afternoon. I had just cleaned my house the day before. Seems to always be like that, eh? It inevitably rains the day you wash you car. 8-/ All day there was a steady stream of one person or another coming into the house or leaving and asking me to open this door or that so that they could inspect if any water was coming in. They took a hose connected to my guest-room tub faucet and ran this up on the roof and flooded the flat roof after covering the drains. They filled up the roof and then left for lunch. I did not ask them what they would do to repair if water did come in and collapse my ceiling – I didn’t want to go there! I was thankful when I realized that they were gone… they did not tell me that they were done, the house just became quiet. I wandered around and didn’t find water, so guess that my roof is water tight.

Starting to see wildlife around here. 

I think I will get a bird feeder for the back yard. I have seen the globally ubiquitous sparrow… 8-/ and today, I saw a Yellow Vented Bulbul which will not be attracted to the feed, but by their evidence there is enough insect life to support them now. This is good proof that things are becoming more diverse here. Talking about insects, I was woken up the other night by the loudest cricket that I have ever heard in my life! Not sure if it was hanging around my front door or inside the house. I have seen them around the campus lately and they are as large as two peanuts in the shell. I recall fondly my sister Aleta giving me, when we lived in Ontario (1966?), a small bamboo cricket cage with sliding door. It is a Chinese tradition to have good-luck crickets as pets. She was attending art school at that time I think and had purchased it for me in Chinatown. I would love to catch one here and have a pet. 8-)

Recently I have been out fishing just at dusk for a half hour or so. I only have 4 lures that I purchased in Canada before I came here and I have a very long casting rod that I still have from Dubai days. It is nice to get out and do a few casts, but I think I do not have the right lure. I am getting rises but no real bites. Maybe I need to factor in moon phase and tides as well. 

And a final two notes about my family.

My father is doing much better thank you! He is up and walking/hiking and has probably heard instructions and warnings a thousand times to not lift anything. My father and mother plan to travel home from California to the Okanogan Valley in British Columbia next week. I would like to introduce everyone to my father's life story.

"Daylight in the swamp!" was my father's clarion call to rouse me from my bed in the chilly pre-dawn hours in anticipation of a duck hunt at the nearby lake. Since then, the love of the outdoors and my life's work as a wildlife pathologist has taken me to places as diverse as the swamps of Georgia and the plains of East Africa. This book is written as a song of gratitude for those good times.

As well as my Father’s exploits, my eldest sister, Aleta Karstad, a biological illustrator, (here is her Blog/electronic journal and the beginnings of her commercial site) and husband Fred Schueler are in the final stages of planning for their,

“The 30 Years Later Expedition a trans-Canada biological survey in celebration of the International Year of Biodiversity, and in partnership with the Canadian Museum of Nature, will embark in March of 2010 to cross Canada from coast to coast. We’ll revisit the landscape we have traveled over the past 30 years, surveying species, describing, sketching and painting.”

And if you can only spend a moment looking at other web sties, choose to visit their main site aptly titled Doing Natural History, which is indeed what they have done for nigh on 40 years.

Deep Six

It was a stressful time for our whole family lately

News about dad being taken to hospital two weeks ago put writing my blog into a tailspin.  Dad was admitted with severe abdominal pain, after which an infection set in and then a critical drop in blood pressure followed.  We were all hanging on the edges of our collective places of rest as my sister Karen in California sent us updates (I would get them each morning or evening).  My parents were on holiday for the winter in the States and they had dropped into Karen and Gary’s place to visit and to complete the editing of my father’s life story, which has now been published.   They were proofing a pre-production printed copy when dad was swept off to the hospital in an ambulance.  Dad went though many different tests and at one point was in such poor condition that invasive exams were canceled.  In the end, 1.2 meters of intestine was removed due to internal hernia strangulation.  He is doing well now and has many new friends in the hospital who came to listen to stories he told about his life.  He is feeling better now and is back at Karen’s place again.  Hang on Dad!  Not time just yet to be rooting around in Davey Jones'Locker.

Advanced Diver Certification

This past weekend I spent both days out diving.  Thursday, a group of about 7 of us gathered at the same hotel used when I did my Open Water Diver certification.  We arrived with lots of time to spare as we wanted to be relaxed and spend some time on the beach.  I also wanted to purchase a wet suit, fins, gloves and dive boots.  I need boots so that I can walk through the waist deep water over the reef to the drop off, then slip on the ‘slipper’ style of fins and drop off the edge into the deep. Walking barefoot would be extremely dangerous, and using the full shoe-style of fins that I had already meant that I had to wear sandals to walk over the reef and then put on the slip-on fins and buckle the sandals to my gear at my chest.  It was a pain to do that because the sandals wanted to float all the time and bumped around on my chest in front of my face.

This first day of the weekend was designated the day for our night dive and underwater navigation training.  Navigation is done with a compass and with an understanding of how many fin kicks you do over a certain time period.  Later in the week, we combined this with a ‘search’ pattern of going in a square and taking one less kick each time we completed the square – in this way, we moved into tighter and tighter squares in a pattern that would cover an area, as if we were searching for something on the bottom.

The most spectacular dive I have ever been on (was on a number of dives many years ago) was the night dive we did that first night.  WOW!  How can I describe it?  The moon was full, and at its closest point to the earth in the year so was abnormally large and directly above us.  We all had flashlights and a glow stick tied to our tanks which floated slightly above us as we swam.  Looking up we could see the moon silhouetting schools of fish cruising the edge of the drop off passing though the columns of sparkling bubbles that we were releasing.  It was fun to shine the flashlight into every nook and cranny because each held a fish or creature of some sort in varieties that boggles the mind.  Most all the fish were sleeping too.  I moved the light right up to them and then touched them and they would move sluggishly to the side and then swim away.  The fish that were sleeping tended to be the kind that had a territory and did not school.

We met two other local men who were diving at the same time and when we were finished later that evening, they came over and showed us some of the photos that they took.  I think the most incredible fish was one that was surrounded by a penumbra of blue – Parrotfish spit out a ball of mucus and then swim inside it (their mouth is open all night holding the bubble that they are inside of).  The photo that these two men showed us had the sleeping fish inside a light blue globe.  Here is an example photo of this behavior, you will see that some sand is resting on the top of its bubble and if you look closely around on the right of the fish, you will see the edge of the bubble.  During the dive our instructor told us to shut off our lights.  With the moon above us, and still quite a bit of light from the moon to see with, he came over to each of us and waved his hand quickly in front of our masks creating an incredible swirling pattern of flashing lights.  He was agitating the luminous algae that floats suspended in the water all around us.  In the day time, it looked like small bits of paper but at night, when agitated, it releases a blue/green light for a few moments.  It was as if the stars had fallen down into the water and were dancing in front of me.  We dove to 60 feet that night and the water temperature was a steady 27 degrees C.

Two Wreck Dives

The next day, we were up early and on the road back into Jeddah, and this time, instead of going to a hotel, we went right into the center along the coast to the commercial harbor area where we boarded a small private dive-boat and went out to the Jeddah Reef which is just 15 minutes our from the land and right opposite the harbor – what did we find there?  We found ship wrecks on the bottom of the sea!  We visited two of them during the day.

When we arrived at the dock, we had to wait for the coast guard to approve our trip. We all handed in our identity cards. One of the men was called from our group after a bit longer delay than we had anticipated.  He returned, smiling and chatting with the boat-owner and another local on the boat.  We later found out that the officials thought that ‘United’ States and ‘United’ Kingdom were the same country and that a girl in our group (US citizen) was the sister of the man from UK.  With a little bit of creative footwork, the owner and the officials, both wanting the trip to be a success, fabricated the official documentation for the trip so that these two became siblings of different fathers.  Oh, and that either me, or the other older man (we did not ask to find out) was the father of the girl.  This arrangement permitted them to sanction the trip as the girl would have family along.  

We had three dives at two different locations on the day – all off the back end of the small boat as it was anchored.  One was a ‘deep’ dive, down to about 120 feet and the accompanying decompression stop at 15 feet on our way up.  The second was a recreational dive we chose to take on a shallower wreck. The third, was, rescue and recovery. The deep wreck was about 20 years old.  The wreck reminded me of what I have seen in the IMAX movies on the titanic. Spooky!  On the way down on the deep dive we passed some table-like coral structures.  These corals were larger than 12 feet across and were just like underwater juniper bushes, the variety that spread out and hug the ground.  Diving is so much like flying as you pass horizontally over the weird landscape, plants and animals.

On our Recreational Dive I saw what I took as a species of sea horse.  It was not curled up like the classic variety but stretched out and moving.  During the final third dive of the day, when we were taught the search and recovery pattern of ‘move in decreasing square patterns’ I spotted a huge blue/green Moray Eel.  Its head was as large around as my calf – it sure had big teeth!

Oh, and I think I found Davey Jones' Locker on the second ship.  No one seemed to have opened it lately either.

Reality check  

I was talking to one of the janitorial supervisors here at the University and they commented that their manager had ‘missed’ recording his overtime this past month. These people are all hired by external companies who contract to the University. This man works 7 days a week, 12 hour shifts, the company he works for will have his passport so that he cannot leave the country and he will be on a two or three year contract.  He was shorted 60 hrs of work this month worth CDN $113.  You do the math… what does he make a month?  Great place…?