Ruben R. Puentedura's Weblog

I'd love to hear the audio that accompanied these slides; particularly slides 21 & 22. Any chance you captured it or might you share it here as a canned review?

What are the opportunities for "classroom as mini-cloud" Active Learning Classrooms? It seems the major advances in classroom redefinition come from the interaction of one or two students with one device, whether mobile or otherwise. Can a group of mobile devices serve as an interactive mosh pit?

There are a few issues that are renavelt here. 1- There is the whole issue of evaluating a complex system. That is not a logic model issue but a methodological one. And of course, I see logic models as relating to both methodology and measurement. 2- Still, logic models do play a role, but a somewhat different one from the way we usually use them. We can talk about this as well during the workshop. But remind me to do so when we get to the right parts. 3- With respect to methodology, the big question is how to have powerful methodology when programs are subject to change. That's what the agile evaluation sections of my book are all about. 4- Also with respect to methodology, there is the question of what it even means when a system is truly complex. The problem is that we have to evaluate both the program in terms of its usual components and outcomes, and the program as a complex system. Doing the latter can involve methods quite different from doing the former.5- The issue I raised in #4 is not that big a deal if we only want to apply the dynamics of complex systems in heuristic terms. But if we want to get formal about it, well that is a horse of an entirely different feather.6- Don't forget that we can think of evaluation as having four different roles description, explanation, causation, and prediction. (Causation and prediction are not the same. Don't forget that Ptolemy used a totally incorrect theory to make very accurate predictions. And so I have been told the guy who invented the hot air balloon thought that fire gave off hydrogen, which being lighter than air, would cause the balloon to float.) Applying CAS notions is different (and a lot easier) for some of these functions of evaluation than for others.7- If a system is truly complex, then the whole nature of program theory changes, which obviously has an affect on logic models.8- And now I have to go off on two rants.Rant 1: People think of complex systems as being unstable, the butterfly effect and all that. NOT always true. Complex systems can also be very, very stable.Rant 2: People invoke the notion of complexity when there is no need to do so. Take a look at slide # 30. I have been in more than one situation where this scenario was explained in terms of emergence , which is a core concept in CAS. But there is no reason whatsoever to draw on CAS concepts to explain this situation. Garden variety program theory will work just fine.