timÆus supporting dialogic inquiry into the nature of science
timÆus is a web-based visualization tool and curriculum designed to facilitate dialogues in science. I will be piloting the technology in Honolulu, Hawaii, as a part of the next NALU Studies session in October, 2010.
Developed for Esther Wojcicki's Journalism course at Palo Alto High School, In Search of Things was distributed under a Creative Commons License at ISTE 2010 in Denver.
About me
Aloha, and welcome to my LDT portfolio! Featured on this page is the work I have done as a Master's student in Stanford's Learning, Design, and Technology program. Please also check out my blog at nichtdiesetone.blogspot.com.
A little about me:
My Ohana (family) - My name is Paul Franz, and I come from a family with deep roots in education. My grandmother was a counselor and principal, my uncle a professor, and my mother a teacher. I have grown up around teaching, and my passion for and belief in education no doubt owe to that upbringing.
My Aina (home) - I was born in Denver, Colorado, and grew up in Boulder. After attending St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I moved to Honolulu, my current home. Living in Hawaii, I am fond of reminding people, is very different from visiting Hawaii. How? In the same way that living in your home town is different than visiting, except with better weather and warm-water beaches.
My Hana (work) - I help run a small educational non-profit called NALU Studies. We work with at-risk and high-risk teens, teaching them science and critical thinking skills and techniques so that they are in a position to find jobs or attend college. Because most of our students are Native Hawaiians, Hawaiian culture is at the heart of our pedagogical and curricular efforts. Being in Hawaii, marine biology and ecological conservation are natural subject areas. But our mission is fundamentally holistic; science education is not an end, but rather a vehicle to a better life.
A lecture series featuring executives and entrepreneurs from technology companies that use, to varying degrees, a Software as a Service (or SAAS) business model. Speakers included former Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and Google VP Vic Gundotra.
My final paper for the course is a reflection on the impact of cloud computing on education.
CS 547 - Terry Winograd
Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
A lecture series featuring academics and designers who specialize in human-computer interaction. Topics ranged from a review of Mechanical Turk as a data collection system to theories around color schemes and interaction.
EDUC 94SI - Karin Forssell
Technology for Learners
A review of existing technologies designed to support learning. Not only did we discuss the application of technological solutions to learning problems, we also explored the learning theories and research that led to the development of those technologies.
EDUC 151 - Denise Pope
Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods
In this project-based course we collaborated with each other to produce a small piece of qualitative research (which I am not permitted to upload for privacy reasons). We learned interview and coding techniques, observation skills, and discussed the ethical and practical issues surrounding qualitative studies.
EDUC 225X - Julie Juergens
Business for Non-Business Students
In addition to readings covering the key components of organizational culture, structure, and brand, we worked in groups to produce a marketing plan for an educational non-profit. The course was very student-centric. Each week, students presented the core material, with the professor serving as a facilitator.
I partnered with a fellow LDT student and two POLS students to produce a marketing presentation for the Red Hook Initiative, a Brooklyn non-profit who provides education and health support to teens and community members.
In addition to delivering a presentation, we produced a detailed written report that explained our analyses in greater detail.
EDUC 229A - Karin Forssell
Learning, Design, and Technology Seminar
In addition to helping us identify and secure internships for the coming quarters, the fall seminar focused on exploring our preconceptions and growing definitions of learning, design, and technology.
EDUC 391X - Paul Kim
Web-based Teaching Technology
In this course we were asked to develop a prototype of a technological solution to an existing problem facing a marginalized community. We studied a number of existing efforts across disciplines and discussed the concept of “action research” as a method combining investigation with intervention.
I focused on the Native Hawaiian population with which I work back home on Oahu. My prototype, described in the final paper, is an opportunity for Hawaiian teens to learn reading and writing skills through discussion-based storytelling workshops.
Understanding writing to mean more than just putting words on paper, this video was a rough sample of the kind of work I might ask students to do:
EDUC 150 - Ann Porteus
Introduction to Data Analysis and Interpretation
A foundational course designed to instruct students in the basics of quantitative research analysis. The coursework consisted primarily in taking existing research write-ups, reading and critiquing the literature review, methods, and data sections, and then writing afresh – without having seen the real writeup – the discussion and conclusion sections.
EDUC 208B - Denise Pope
Curriculum Construction
A project-based course wherein we were asked to develop a curriculum for a real site. In preparation for this project, we read and discussed existing takes on curriculum development, as well as the significant social, legal, ethical, and economic factors that go into building curriculum. Frequent workshops and peer reviews aided the curriculum development project as well.
I partnered with two other LDT students, Amrita and Tony, in writing a web-search curriculum for Esther Wojcicki's journalism course at Palo Alto High School. Using the principles of backwards design, our curriculum highlights the particular issues surrounding effective use of Internet search engines, focusing on search skills, credibility assessment, and copyright law.
EDUC 333A - Ray & Roy
Understanding Learning Environments
A foundational course covering, in brief, the last century in applied learning theories. Throughout the reading-intensive course we were asked to keep track of how our own definitions of learning evolved and changed. In general, the course encouraged understanding the complex role of culture and situation on the learning process.
One of my response papers to a particular reading assignment turned into a paper of fairly significant length (compared to the one page assignment). Because it was instrumental in defining and shaping my thought-process moving forward to the Master's Project, I include it here.
ENGLISH 262B - Carol Shloss
Biography and Life Writing
One of my favorite classes, because it wasn't an engineering, computer science, or education course. Reading a variety of biographical and autobiographical works, we explored the process of biography, as well as major questions like the role of memory (or source material), and the way in which writers are forced to curtail or adapt their stories based upon legal and ethical concerns.
My final paper explored the history of biography, tracing fundamental questions about the importance of accuracy and the priority of narrative. I drew on two texts from the course, as well as Plutarch's Lives.
One of my reaction papers during the course was a reflection on the Professor's own work on Lucia Joyce. I addressed the learning of Lucia Joyce through the lens of Lave and Wenger's 'Situated Learning' theory. Joyce, I argued, apprenticed in and was acquired by a culture of insanity.
My other reaction paper focused on Mary Carr's The Liar's Club. I was intentionally stylistically wild in this one, and I'm not sure the effort benefits from it. Nevertheless, it was a fascinating book to explore from the perspective not of character but setting. Given that biographies and memoirs are usually character-driven, it was a fun effort.
EDUC 229B - Karin Forssell
Learning, Design, and Technology Seminar
In addition to continuing a discussion around the core principles of LDT, the winter seminar served as an initial push into defining a learning problem for the Master's Project.
EDUC 380 - Shelley Goldman
Supervised Internship - EPAA and Sacred Heart Prep
While working at SHS in the winter I wrote two workshop curricula to be taught during Tutorpedia's summer program at Sacred Heart in June (see below). The first was a poetry writing workshop, the second a baseball statistics research workshop. At EPAA, I worked with tech specialists on the school website.
My only course at the d.school. No Teacher Left Behind's unfortunate name notwithstanding, this class was a cross-disciplinary design experience. We worked in small groups, learning and applying the design process with a focus on supporting teachers.
While many groups produced (or imagined) technologies, my group's project was a service. I facilitated a day-long planning and professional development meeting at Capuchino High School. Using notes from that meeting, my team and I developed a set of documents to assist their “school-within-a-school” efforts.
To present our work, we put together a video based on “Voltron.” Finished at the last minute, this video captures our design process as well as anything could.
EDUC 305X - Ray McDermott
Alienation and Deprivation in Fiction and Education
My smallest class met in the Professor's office. We paired famous novels with historically concurrent texts in economics in an effort to understand the political economies in which educational systems are situated. The class is built around the notion that fiction might just tell us as much (or more, or at least something different) than traditional research.
The following was our reading list:
Dickens – Hard Times
Defoe – Moll Flanders
Morrison – The Bluest Eye
Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God
Galbraith – The Affluent Society
Marx – Capital; Manuscripts of 1844; Estranged Labor
Smith – Wealth of Nations
Keynes – The End of Laissez-Faire; The General Theory of Employment
Mandeville - Fable of the Bees
Wells – The Country of the Blind
Williams – Marxism and Literature
EDUC 229C - Karin Forssell
Learning, Design, and Technology Seminar
The spring seminar focused on the early stages of defining and planning for the Master's Project.
EDUC 380 - Shelley Goldman
Supervised Internship - EPPA and Sacred Heart Prep
In the spring I worked with an AP Statistics teacher at EPAA and continued to work with the SHS IT specialist. Both sites yielded valuable opportunity to do user studies of early MA Project prototypes.
EDUC 229D - Karin Forssell
Learning, Design, and Technology Seminar
The summer seminar helped us prepare for the LDT Expo.
EDUC 380 - Shelley Goldman
Supervised Internship - NALU Studies
In addition to completing the Master's Project, I began collaborating with my former employer at NALU Studies, Manning Taite, in preparation for taking over as Director of the program in September 2010.
