Learning2gether with Phil Hubbard, Curation in CALL and TED Talk videos

Learning2gether with Phil Hubbard, Curation in CALL and TED Talk videos

>> Vance Stevens: We're live!

Hello, everybody. Somehow my video disappeared.

It's there, but that's my - it's just an avatar format.

[missed words]

OK, well anyway, this is Vance Stevens in Abu Dhab... sorry, in L.A.

I'm living in L.A. now, if you want to know where I'm living.

Today is the 8th of December.

They move me around so much, you know.

And, anyway, it's the 8th of December 2013.

We're talking with a good friend of mine, Phil Hubbard,

from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

And he's been doing some really neat stuff in Cal.

I've known him for a long time in the Cal intersection Tea [missed words]

>> Phil Hubbard: Since we were kids.

>> Stevens: We were, 20 years ago
[Hubbard laughs]

>> Hubbard: reaching 30 [check]
[background voice]

>> Stevens: Someone has a -- someone needs to have a headset on.

[missed words] is muted.

Errh not sure: it could be someone listening to the stream.

Yeah, if you're listening to the stream -- OK.

Their call has gone away [check]

Someone has corrected it, that's good.

All right, well, OK. Someone has announced in the stream chat that they're listening to it there.

So that's good, everything seems to be working.

We're doing a Hangout on Air, as we often do.

We're streaming it on webheadsinaction.org/live

At the moment we have six people in the hangout,

there's room for four more.

So if anyone is listening on the stream and would like to join us, they can.

And right now we've got Clare [check surname] and Jim Buckingham, Rita Zeinstejer and

let's see, and also Rob, Rob is there, and me, Vance Stevens. Rob Perhamus, is that correct?

Correct me if I'm wrong. Perhamus, Perhamus - how do you pronounce your name?

>> Hubbard: [missed words]

>> Stevens: it's Perhamus -- Perhamus, OK, Good, I'll never forget that again, all right.

Thank you very much, Rob. Rob is an occasional participant in our hangouts.

Well Phil, take it away and anybody who wants to --

by the way, you're all muted by default when you come into the hangout.

You can unmute yourself.

If you're going to unmute yourself and talk, please mute yourself again,

so we don't get keyboard noises and things like that.

And there's Elizabeth Anne, also shown up from Grenoble in France.

And Halima [check] in Tashkent has also joined us, I see.

>> Hubbard [check] I think we're great, well, hello, everybody.

It's Good Morning for me, a little early in the morning,

but the sun is beginning to show through the back window here.

Thank you all for being here from all over the world.

What I wanted to do today is talk about largely an idea and a project that I've been working on

for the last couple of years, very sporadically.

Unfortunately I get interrupted easily, as I'm sure all of you do,

so what started out as a -- what I hoped was going to be a much more robust collection of materials

has turned out to be a little more anemic

but I still think that I have enough here that I can demonstrate the idea

and especially share my thoughts about how to go

about dealing with this relatively new notion of curation,

although in some ways, maybe it's just a label for an old notion that we've had for quite some time.

So, let me give you a little bit of the background,

like several of the things I've worked on in the last few years,

like learner training.

This is something that has emerged out of my classroom experience

with an advanced listening and vocabulary class,

and I see Vance is showing some of the slides now.

The class is for graduate students at Stanford

and it's a really nice sandbox for playing with ideas,

because these are -- well, they're all in graduate school already,

they're, for the most part, in the high 90's onwards to the 100s in the TOFL IBT [check]

so they really are advanced in that sense.

And many of them are taking the course because we require them to do it.

So they're kind of a captive audience

but it's also a small course: we have a maximum 14 students in it

and it allows me to not only play around with ideas, but get a chance to the students afterward,

not usually with formal research, but just informally as part of our normal tutorial sessions

and find out what they thought about them and what I can do to make them work a little better. [5:35]

We're live!

Hello everybody, somehow my video just disappeared. It's there, it's just in avatar format.

Google+ does that every now and again. So, anyway, this is Vance Stevens in Abu Dhab..sorry, in L.A.! I forget every now and again where I live.

Today is the 8th of December.

They move me around so much, ya know? And..

Anyways, its the 8th of December 2013. We're talking with the

Good friend of mine, Phil Hubbard, from Standord University in Palo Alto, California.

and he's been doing some really neat stuff

uh, in Cal. I've known him for a really long time in the Cal Intersection in [missed text]. >Phil: Since we were kids!

Vance: We..we were! 20 years ago!

Phil: Chuckling.

Phil: laughs pushing 30.

Vance: Someone has a.. someone needs

Vance: to have a headset on. If everyone is muted.. uhhh.. not sure. It could be if someone is listening to the

Vance: stream. Yeah, listening to the stream. Okay, the echo's kinda gone away.

Someone corrected it, so that's good. Alright, well.. Okay. SOmeone has announced in the stream chat that they are listening to it there, so that's good. Everything seems to be working. We are doing a hang out

We are doing a hang out on air as we often do. We are streaming it on (web address). At the moment, we have six people in the hang out. There is room for

four more, so if anyone is listening on the stream and would like to join us, they can.

..and right now we have Clair Siskin and Jim Buckingham redesign stare and uh.. let's see and also Rob. Rob is there. And me, Vance Stevens.

Rob.. Per..manus? Correct? Correct me if I am wrong.

Permanus.. Perrrmanus? How do you pronounce your name?

You have to unmute him chuckles

It's Per-hame-us. It's Perhamus. Okay, I will never forget THAT again. laughing

Alright, thank you very much Rob. Rob is an occasional participant in our hang outs. Well, Phil! Take it away!

If anyone wants to.. so.. everyone is muted by default when you come in to the hang out. You can unmute yourself. If you are going to unmute yourself and talk, please mute yourself again so we don't

get, uh, keyboard noises and stuff like that. There is Elizabeth M. showing up, from Granobe (?) in France. And Halima in uh. Tashkent has also joined us, I see.

Alright, well great!

Well, hello everybody. It's good morning, for me. Early in the morning, but, uh, the sun is beginning to show through the back window here.

Thank you all for being here from all over the world.

Uh, I.. what I wanted to do today was talk about largely an idea and a project that I've been working on for the last couple of years.

Uh, very sporadically. Unfortunately, I get interrupted easily, as I am sure all of you do. So, what started out as what I hoped was going to be a much more robust

collection of materials has turned out to be a little more anemic. But, I still think that I have enough here that I can demonstrate the idea.

and especially share my thoughts about how to go about dealing with this relatively new notion of curation. Although, maybe it's just a new label for an old notion that we've had for quite some time.

So, let me give you a little bit of the background. Like several of the things I've worked on in the last few years, like learner training, this is

something that has emerged out of my classroom experience with an advanced listening and vocabulary class.

I see Vance is showing some of the slides now. The.. the.. class is for graduate students at Stanford and its a really nice sandbox for playing with ideas because these are

..because.. they are all in graduate school already. They're, for the most part, in the high 90s into the 100s on the tofal-IBT (?), so they really are advanced in that sense. Many of them are

taking the course because we required them to do it. So, they are kind of a captive audience. But, it's also a small course. We have a maximum 14 students in it.

It allows me to not only play around with ideas, but get a chance to talk to the students afterward. Not usually with formal research, but informally as a part of our normal tutorial sessions and

find out what they thought about them and what I can do to make them work a little better. So, the problem that I noticed - an important part of this class is that

students to independent projects and those independent projects are supposed to be for a minimum of three hours a week.

Sounds like I am getting some echo in the background, but I will keep pushing through here..

Uhh.. those projects are for three hours a week and they are responsible for doing the selection of the material with my help and with my guidance both before and after.

Over the years, I have discovered that they are actually not really good at that. What they are good at is finding material that is interesting to them.

But, they are not necessarily good at finding material that helps them. They discover that on their own a little bit down the road and often it doesn't become clear to both of us.. because I have a very slow

learning curve and quickly forget things.. so, I get to the end of the class and then go "Oh, I should have provided them with a little more guidance.".

So, about 2 years ago, I started doing this and it came as a juxtaposition of a couple of things. First of all, just my own general interest in the development

of autonomy had been growing and as I have gone out and started collecting materials that I would just use in class, it was pretty clear to me that there is a huge

amount of really interesting materials out there. People have been collecting these for a while and teachers have been building lessons out of them - sometimes pretty sophisiticated lessons

but I needed something that students could work with on their own. So, I wanted to find a way to help them without just my

advice as to how to look for materials. To actually start collecting materials in ways that would still give them quite a bit of freedom of choice but would also

make it.. umm.. better as a language learning experience. As part of this course, they are also required to build vocabulary

They have to identify at least 35 new words and phrases every week, from the material they are using. This is a bit of the backdrop

In 2011, I came across a book, kind of independently. It was just recommended to me, for some reason, by Amazon. You know how that works.

The book was called 'Curation Nation' and there is, I think, a slide there somewhere.. like the sixth slide? There's a.. if you want to pop that up.

If not, it's just a picture of the book. But, it's a book it's a book by Steven Rosembaum.. Vance: I am supposed to be able to mute mics, as the owner of the chat, but I am unable to mute Halimas for some reason and that is where the echo is coming from.

So, Halima, could I ask if you could click the "mute" on your mic when not speaking? If you want to unmute, you can always speak to us. That is where our echo is coming from.

Okay, I will do what Phil has asked me to do and pull up 'Curation Nation'.

Phil: laughs Alright, thanks. So, anyway, this is not a book about education by any stretch.

It did come up with this notion that we have so much material on-line now and we are having so much difficulty in sorting out what the good stuff is from the chaff, for any reason.

For news and so on. We have all these feeds.. those of you on Twitter or any of the other networks that have lots of feeds. You get the.. even Google+, you get feeds from your friends

you get feeds from people that whoever runs the site thinks might be interesting to you and you are just overwhelmed with an enormous amount of material.

Some of it's pretty cool. Much of it is stuff you wouldn't find on you own and that's great. But, when you've got the

specific target of trying to improve your language - and of course, the group that I work with doesn't actually do a whole lot with social media, because they don't have time.

As full time graduate students, I am lucky if I can squeeze a few hours out of them to do the work that they need for the course that they are taking for credit from me.

So, this notion of curation is based roughly on the idea of what people do in museums and in art galleries.

You get an expert, somebody who actually knows a fair amount about a particular area and you have that expert create collections, add

value to them in one way or another, and then you release those collections for the consumer - whoever it might be.

To have a look at and to interact with. So, the key difference between this and what a lot of people are doing with this material

, you may have heard concepts like "digital curation", which can just mean curating digital materials but often means that computers are doing the job for you

. Google news is a really good example of that. I find a lot of interesting stuff in there. I can even ask it to find particular categories

. But, it's still being selected without any human intervention. You compare that with something like Huffington Post, which is material

that's been brought in by people who are, in some cases, they're producing it - but in other cases they are aggregating it and trying to make sense out of it for the rest of us.

So, a key point here is that curation isn't the same as aggregation, or listing, or tagging. It's okay to use that term for that but

that's not the way I am using it. There is a really nice quote in my slide there that.. I think it's maybe.. two more slides down, Vance.. One more. There you go.

Past curation.. yeah, that one. So this is - maybe it's a little mean, but I think it's right on point. When you just get collections of things, you've just got collections of things and its not

necessarily anything other than "these are things that I like" or "these are things that I think you will like". So, I prefer the next

slide.. you wanna go to it, Vance? This is more the way I see curation. Where you collect material, you organize it. There is even the potentially a path.. well, there is certainly paths through

the individual material groups, and then mayble even a path through the groups - although at the moment I haven't done that last point.

So, this is.. kind of captures the idea that I want to talk about today. Curation, importantly, is not the same as creation or recreation or adaptation or.. sampling, or synthesizing.

It's taking the material and adding something to it. Maybe just a commentary. Maybe just collecting it into some logical framework or logical sequence.

So, when I took that idea - which I was getting though the Curation Nation book, and though about it with respect to the material that I was using, I decided to experiment with that and come up with som

some collections of materials from.. as you probably know from the title, and the PDF, if you've had a look at it, comes from TED Talks. In a moment I will talk about why I think

TED talks is so good for that. At the base level, these were very popular with my students. What the students were doing is.. they were having trouble.. coming up with good ones. They would always pick what was

interesting and then often come back to me and say "Well, this was interesting, but I had trouble understanding it because my.. the accent of the speaker was not easy for me to understand.", or "I had trouble

understanding it because it was interesting because I didn't know anything about it and I didn't have the background so there was a whole bunch of new vocabulary."

It could be interesting for all sorts of reasons, but it wasn't interesting for the right reasons - for what we think is good for independent language learning.

Again, this doesn't mean that all of those collections with the help of a teacher, couldn't have been very valuable in a classroom and especially getting to the content for connecting discussions.

That's not the same thing as letting students work on their own. So, I do want to emphasis that. My perspective here, at least initially, is getting students to be able to do these things

outside of class and then just come back and report on them rather than.. y'know, rather than having something we do in class or that everybody does the same homework assignment on.

Alright, so that's the set-up for what I believe curation should be, or at least can be, within this framework.

So, what I think I will do is pause here and see if anybody has any questions.