Values Exchange February 17, 2008
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Web2.0.Tags: Elearning, TIGS, valuesexchange
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Another teacher and I became involved in a Values Exchange pilot program late in 2007. The other teacher is not too confident with the technology side of things and requested that I attend the introductory session where she could focus on the conceptual ideas that were offered and not be distracted by the online technology that was involved. As it turned out this was a very good idea because the software is quite complex.
There are a few schools involved in Australia and New Zealand in the pilot program. If successful and funding found, the progam can be scaled up to bigger and better things.
Teachers are required to submit a proposal that can be discussed / debated online. Students are required to research the proposal and go through a series of online screens that forces the students to articulate clearly about their stance on a proposal. The software breaks all proposals into social areas such as the Law, a group of people, human rights, dignity ect. The students rank each area by using interactive graphics. Most screens require an opinion by the student of no more than 150 words.
When the student completes the entire process, the software translates the responses into numerical data in various ways. The software also displays emperical data after a group of students have responded to the proposal.
The learning by students in this pilot program is two fold: one for experiencing the interface of the online software and two: improving their ability to persuade and / or analyse a scenario.
The teacher cannot just ‘whip’ up a proposal within 30 minutes. The teacher actually has to provide some thoughtful notes on the proposal and give details as to where further information can be found.
The author of the software, David Seedhouse, is more than willing to give assistance to teachers when polishing their proposal.
I created a proposal and with David’s assistance it evolved to:
It is proposed that social operating systems should be completely transparent and have no privacy restrictions.
The concept comes from the Horizon Report 2008. I choose one their concepts on social operating systems, identified a specific concept that may prevent social operating systems from evolving and created the proposal (again, with David’s assistance). My first proposal attempt was mediocre at best.
The language found in the Horizon Report 2008 is too complex for students in Years Eight or Nine. I did considerable re-phrasing in the hope that the students will be able to understand the concept.
To the best of my knowledge, anyone can go to the Values Exchange site and register to participate in some of the experimental proposals.
The Values Exchange Pilot Program can be found at:
http://knox.values-exchange.co.nz/
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