Month: May 2011

I wanted anyone reading this blog to think about what really works in education. Self-directed and self-assessing learning is really possible in our lifetime. As I struggled to understand what we were suppose to think about and learn during this module, I began to think we may have reached a point in eLearning that might make possible the autonomy of students in deciding what they will learn about and create with Web 2.0 technologies. In fact they may reach far beyond anything we could direct them toward.

Along with self-directed learning is self assessment. The students takes responsibility for their learning and self-assesses what they have learned and where they need to go to accomplish the goals they have set for themselves. The instructor becomes the facilitator for their learning and helps direct them in their learning only by asking them how they are going to go about learning what they want to learn. Most of what the facilitatior does is formative assessment; as the first film shows us. Both elements of summative and formative assessment are found in this type of learning, since there is usually a project that is developing as the students reach for the goals they have set.

Watching the film, I think the thing that I thought the most about was how creative and driven the students were. Their final product was very high quality. They were able to take delight in the project and did not seem to care much about a grade; but rather they seemed to want to create something of value for everyone, including themselves to enjoy and share. I am not certain whether this type of learning will make a facilitator or instructor obsolete; but is much like the work of  Sugata Mitra.

Sugata Mitra’s research is intriguing. It shows how students are involved in their own learning when teachers are not in the picture or in control of the learning process. The video on self-directed learning helps us understand that natural curiosity and wanting to learn drives not just young people but all people. As educators, we must help them on this journey by allowing them more freedom to make decisions about their learning and what they want to learn. It may even help us more fully understand why giving them assessment tools helps them to grow into self-directed and self-assessing intellectuals. Acceptance and autonomy or helping them believe they can do it seems to fire the passion they have to learn; while Web 2.0 gives them the tools to accomplish their goals.

This week there was another challenging blog to write on this weeks topic. My brain felt like it was on fire; because most of what I understand about self-regulating or assessing is subconscious. The bottom line of this assignment is reflected in article written by David J. Nicol and Debra MacFarlane-Dick entitled, Formative assessment and self regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice, it is “every student that continues through the program of a college or university is already self-assessing their work.” However without feedback from other students or a professor, they may not see what they could improve in their work. I am not even certain a rubric would give them the guidance they need. Several authors have stated rubrics are lacking when trying to use them to assess individualized writing.

Self regulated or assessed learning is not easy to define. In fact this week I had an example of that when I knew I had completed my assignment and thought I had done not only what was expected of me but more. I lost five points and did not understand what happened to cause the loss of points, for that module. Before, I was finished I had self-assessed everything I had done for that module. With fury in my eye, I confronted the instructor. After discussing the problem with her, I realized I had not named the module when I send her the email telling her which two blogs I had commented on. Therefore, she was unable to see that I had completed that part of the assignment.

This incident caused me to deeply contemplate not only what grades are; but, I started to question just exactly what self-assessment is. It seems I had been doing self-assessment during my university studies without being aware of what it was and that I was doing it. Most probably, my professors were using formative assessment as they guided me through the development of my thesis writing. Now when I think about it, I realize there is a lot more to it then I thought. Nicol and MacFarlane-Dick wrote:

Self regulation is manifested in the active monitoring and regulation of a number of different learning processes, e.g., the setting of and orientation towards, learning goals; the strategies used to achieve goals; the management of resources; the efforts exerted; reaction to external feedback; the products producted.

This means that as a student, I was aware of certain goals and expectations that I was to achieve while writing my master thesis and to get my master’s degree. I needed to compare what I was doing with what was expected of me, as stated in the course work given me and the expectations for the master’s degree I was seeking. I knew I would have to defend my thesis before my committee, not only what I had written and the resources I used; but the knowledge I had accumulated regarding the subject matter was also to be defended. Also, I would have to give an oral presentation about all the courses I had taken and answer the questions they were giving me regarding this information, thereby defending my position on the issues.

My committee was made up of the Dean of the Graduate School (my honor studies professor); the Chairman of the Political Science Department; my Criminology and Sociology Professor; and my political science student advising professor. Once my orals were completed and my thesis was finished and defended, I left the university to meet my family in Wisconsin. I did not attend the ceremonies and a few weeks later I received a letter from my committee and the graduate chair stating I had failed my orals and in my thesis writing and would not receive my degree. I immediately fired off a letter to the graduate chair and my committee telling them I had passed and that was nonsense. I knew I had not failed and could defend my position with them. Before that letter was ever received by them, my degree was sent to me.

At the time I did not have a rubric to assess my work and never heard of self-regulated learning and yet that was exactly what I did and was doing.  I knew I had met the requirements and was going to get the degree. I knew I had defended my paper extremely well and completed my orals with honors. I knew they were preparing me for something…but did not know what it was. It turned out that is what I had to do to get my entrance into the doctoral program approved, after it had been denied. I knew I would be able to convince them to take me. I had the grades and the desire to succeed in the program.

How does all this relate to our assignment? Somewhere in the learning process I was learning to self-regulate. That is exactly what I hope to move my students toward. Meta-cognitive blogs are great measurements of what is being learned and what is not and where one is in the whole process. In fact informative blogs are equally as good a tool since it forces the student to think about the concepts and issues presented in the modules. Also the class rubric while not ideal, since it was not created by the students, is a guiding tool to help them assess their strengths and weaknesses. It would be ideal if we could build our own class rubric; but there really isn’t enough time in 13 weeks to do this task.

Feedback to the students on meta-cognitive blogs and projects will help in the formative process and in their self-assessment. Feedback by other students serves to move the students toward self-assessment as well. I know when I get feedback that I don’t agree with, I still re-evaluate my thinking before I respond. Maybe the ideal form of feedback is best used in a questioning process…for example, why did you reach the conclusion you did?…etc. As Robin has stated in her blog, self-assessment skills are a process and it is not done or learned overnight.

Guiding questions help the student to understand what they might want to re-consider or improve upon. The whole idea is helping the learner to know where they are at in the learning process and where they need to go to accomplish the goals they have set for themselves and those the institiution is imposing on them. Once again, the ideal would be for them to be self directed enough that there are no insititutional requirements for their learning. But this idea is so far ahead of its time it is hard to even contemplate in the 21st century.

I learned to play the guitar like this teacher learned to play the dulcimer. When I lived in West Virginia I listened to all the very different instruments they used, including their own bodies; I found I loved the sound of the dulcimer the best!

Thankfully this week’s brain teaser is finished. The past two weeks were spent with my band training in a new drummer and retraining a bass player that used to play in my band, before his back surgery. My new drummer has just had major heart surgery and my bass player is, finally, recovered from that major back surgery. I have a new rule: No more operations or Dying!! So, we gave our concert or had our gig last night. My legs and feet are still sore from all the bouncing around with my percussion instruments and guitar during the gig. My learning has taken a back seat to the training going on with my band. I have not had the time to spend on my lessons. I have had to cram it all in with the few hours (10 hours or less) I had. I am exhausted!

Today, instead of sleepng in and spending some quality time with my husband, I have been writing blogs and rethinking what I would use as CATs ( classroom training techniques). While this was not hard to do, once I got started…I began to consider what CATs are really all about. They are about the questions you are asking your students. Now that is the hardest part of the whole lesson design or lesson development process. I wonder if I will sleep tonight wondering if, I am able to ask those wonderful questions to direct their minds where I want them to go. Part of any eLearning course should be a course on how to ask the right questions.

Completely off the subject, most of my classmates seldom write anything personal in their blogs. I think their training and professionalism must discourage them from that sort of communication with the outside world and their students. Most of the time, the discussions in our diigo site are intellectualizing on class diigo entries. Each week we entry posts and blogs we have found during our reseach of the topics. Each of us has a totally different educational and teaching background. I seem to be the only one sharing what they must consider to be unprofessional information, for example, the statements I have made in this blog. What it feels like is people talking at each other rather than to each other. Humor is seldom seen in a post or entry…except from the instructor who probably has learned life can be very dull and stressful if humor is not an outlet for frustrations. But then again, humor has become the bad guy with people taking offense easily at just about anything said.  Okay, enough of this silly rant!

This week we were not told what to write about…so, taking a lazy person’s way out, I am making this a very short post. I need to get groceries for the week; put the check in the bank from last night and maybe spend some time with my husband. We did,  however, get to see the latest movie by Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I encourage anyone seeing this movie to stay past the credits…there is an ending at the end of them you really must stay to see. It tells it all! I loved the movie. Oh, one last thing…can you imagine Captain Jack Sparrow as a father? Well, quess what pirate fans? Yup, I am going to leave it there…

Since my brain is tired, I decided to let you know my brain flow has stopped completely!

This was another difficult project. Designing a CAT or classroom assessment technique takes a bit of thought. As Bruce stated in his Module 6 blog, you need background information from your students…I would certainly have them enter into a discussion board like Diigo, this type of information, in order to assess where they were at with their learning and why they took the class.  I would have them post some background information about what direction they are headed in with their studies in the future. It would seem prudent to get this information about them, before trying to assess what knowledge they have…after the first one or two modules.

Last quarter we developed our ability to create online assessment or self-help tools (a Google questionnaire) to help the students verbalize what they found difficult and what they would like changed, after each module. I believe that is a good place to start. In an article written on effective clicker questions, the University of Iowa stated Clickers should expose and clarify students’ misconceptions; promote discussion in large group case-based learning and act as a mock exam that gives immediate feedback, in order to assess the mastery of the content. This means that every question should identify what the students have or have not learned in the module being taught.

I think there are two effective ways to cover this territory: Twitter and Blogs. Tweeting is the CAT that would serve the purpose of immediate feedback, during a module (this doesn’t exclude emails which need to be encouraged when problems are encountered). Blogs can be used to assess the thought processes (meta-cognitive) and the results of the students’ ability to critically think about the material and apply the material learned, at the end of the module. Both of these CATs adapt themselves to online learning environments. The bottom line is asking what were the learning goals for that module and what kinds of responses do I expect from them? This moves the spotlight off what CATs a teacher uses to the more important question of what questions are being asked. Each CAT is only as useful as the questions asked.

Another useful CAT was demonstrated in our first eLearning course in a Voice Thread application. Students are encouraged to post comments on the Voice Thread project presented by the class or by the instructor. Sam gave us an example in his class voice thread on digital learners. This is an excellent way to get asynchronous feed back during the module. Skype can be used for a more private one on one discussion about what might be misunderstood by students, as well. The problem will be the ability of the student to feel safe enough to share with the instructor what information was problematic in each module. Anonymity most likely will promote sharing of this kind.

This is where a post board such as Wall Wishers for example could and may be used, also during the module to identify the “muddiest point” or problems within the course material.  If the students created a free email and used a name other than their own, they could post to the wall without giving their name. It would have to be postings with rules. Or not taking ownership for their words and thoughts might help them take a turn toward paths you would not like them to take. I will need to work with the board to determine whether I will actually use this along with blogs, Voice Thread, Twitter, emails and Skype.

The Cats I have chosen are the applications I have had to use as a student. I find they are valuable teaching assessment tools and prefer to stick with the CATs I know best…in the first few
online courses.  Finally I have displayed my check in points which are set before, during and after a module to help determine what needs changing and what other help the students may need to grasp the concepts. Each of the CATS should encourage group activity and discussion, just as they did during the courses I have taken on elearning.

Using the “muddiest point” technique can be done by using the Wall Wishers application. How it is done is stated in the video I have included.

I am very glad this part of my assignment is over! Creating a rubric for a course you are proposing, but have never taught, is like trying to pour milk into a an eye drop container with a blind fold on your eyes. I have racked my brain trying to come up with a way to measure blogs that have both summative and formative components in them. I think it takes more than one form of assessment to keep students or learners on track throughout a course. It has been quite a challenge for me.

One of the best things I did this week was meeting with a fellow student, one I consider a friend, and spending time with her discussing the course, this week’s module and ‘big ideas.” I value her judgment, because she has taught and has insights far beyond mine. She likes to tell me how accomplished I am; yet, she is actually projecting some of her competencies on me. I respect her opinions and insights; but, I also think often times we are our own worst critics. I wonder if we’re puzzling out just what genius means.

There was nothing particularly challenging about the module this week; until…I hit the part of designing a rubric around an imaginary course. Trying to convey to students what you want them to achieve, by using a rubric is a high level task and to do it right will take a lot of trial and error. It is challenging, frustrating and will probably never really be finished. Nevertheless, I think rubrics should always be improved upon. I am excited about the thought of using rubrics in my on-line course. I have spent a lot of time refining and thinking about what I really want to teach and why.

Assessment is the building block I had hoped would help me build the course I am designing. Now that I have contemplated the rubric and started creating it, I am wondering if it really will help me teach and assess my learners in the ways I hope to do so. I suppose time will answer those questions for me.

This task has helped me understand why Backward Design makes sense. I think the idea was way beyond its time and will serve instructors and teachers for years to come…or until something even better comes along in the world of education. Having to deal with each step of the design is no small task. Doing it in small chunks seems to prove the point Black and Wiliam made when they said testing small chunks of learning within a week helps the learner do the very tasks we are asking of them and helps keep them in their long term memory for a longer period of time. I am not about to forget anything I learned in this course and the others in the certification program.

This video is a  bit long; nevertheless, I highly recommend watching it.

This week was spent studying rubrics. I think I had a pretty good idea how that was going to work. But, I think it will take quite a bit of teaching to really tailor make them for student learning. One of the things I want to measure is the learner’s ability to think critically and analytically about an ill-structured problem. Assessment helps us do this.

There are many similarities between formative and summative assessment. In our readings authors Black and Wiliam (1998) have stated short tests are far more productive than long comprehensive tests at the end of the course. The following ideas of Black and Wiliam were taken from, The Concept of Formative Assessment written by Carol Boston whose paper was based on experts in the field:   

• Frequent short tests are better than infrequent long ones. 
• New learning should be tested within about a week of first exposure. 
• Be mindful of the quality of test items and work with other teachers and outside sources to collect good ones.

Interestingly, I spent 10 years in the university system of which five were spent as an undergraduate and five as a graduate student. Most of the learning of concepts and “big ideas” were assessed through term finals. It was a horrible way to learn. It took days to go back through all the points and ideas presented in lectures. I did not sleep for three days at a time before finals (without the help of drugs) and crashed for 24 hours after the final was taken.

Since writing, critical thinking and analysis was the main focus of my studies in Political Science, I was groomed from the time I declared a major until the time I left my doctoral studies, to write tomes. These were original pieces on researched hypotheses. My work was torn to pieces by my committees. They were written and re-written for months at a time. Yet, these were the most useful forms of assessment, since I could see the under-developed ideas and where I needed to make changes. Today, however, I would never put students through this rigorous process of formative assessment (however, I will leave that for their editors at some future date). There were no rubrics and there was no way of knowing, besides the tests and the grades on them, whether I was on the right track or not.

I think the only Capstone experience I can think of was my oral tests and final tests and the defense of my papers with my committee members. Today, an on-line portfolio seems like a thing of beauty to me. Not only can the student see their progress weekly by participating in discussions in a variety of Web 2.0 applications and writing their blogs ; but they can use it as a Capstone resume for showcasing their work at the end of their degree and/or for a certification program. Even projects at the end of a course can be Capstone pieces. In the end, the students decide what they want to offer future employers as evidence of their accomplishments.

In thinking about the short-comings of portfolios or Capstone portfolios, I suppose it depends on how well the student learned the necessary and required elements in the course or how good a researcher and writer they are. When I think about on-line portfolios, I tend to see the positive; because each blog is a re-cap of what they have learned or did not learn during the module week. I would require them weekly and doing so would help me assess where they are at.  The perk for the student, is the fact they are handling smaller chunks of information, they can always refer back to if needed. This type of assessment can be both formative and summative. Why, because I would comment on them and let them know what they might have missed, over-looked or just not understood. I particularly like the meta-cognitive blogs we do as part of this course for that reason; it gives us a chance to reflect on our work and how we got to where we are and where we still have to go.

I am giving you an example of my rubric idea. I would modify it for my learners. Since I want them to become excellent researchers and think critically and analytically about current issues, my rubric was taken from the ideas presented by the University of Wisconsin-Stout. I have modified it a bit to fit my thinking and needs.

I met with the instructor Robin this week. She told me I cannot leap tall building in a single bound and bring students with me. Worse yet, she got away without helping me find the “big idea.” What do I mean by all this? Instead of thinking super big, I need to think smaller or at the level of first year students who might not even know how to write a paper much less research a topic like I was proposing. We “dumbed down” a whole lot to get where they were at academically, from her perspective. After my conversation with her [she was play acting the thinking of a new student], I would have sent her to academic success and would have hoped her tutor would get her up to speed. I would like to think high school students, at least, have the ability to write a research paper or a small blog. This left me wondering what the heck they’re teaching these kids in school these days. If a two year old can maneuver an iPad; why can’t a new college student write a 3 page research paper? My answer…oh yes they can!

Secondly, she was stating I should teach as though they had declared sociology as a major. Then I started thinking most students don’t declare a major until their second to third year in college. By the time they have their basic courses down for a general education associates degree; they have decided which discipline fits the direction they want to move in. Maybe she thought I was interested in teaching special needs students. By the time my kids were in second grade, they were at a grade level two or three years ahead of the other students. I think many students today are smarter than their teachers give them credit for. But, she got me thinking and that really was what the meeting was all about. She is really good at that.

The concepts in this assignment were pretty easy to understand. One of the guiding questions was how formative assessment could be used to help us teach expert as opposed to novice behavior or move them toward adaptive as opposed to routine expertise. This was a bit trickier to do and grasp. I think the answer was pretty simple. If you know where they are going and they know where they’re going, with guidance they will get there, if they’re engaged in the process. At the bottom of all this learning is the ability to help them think analytically by posing ill structured problems and then giving them interesting tools to solve these problems with online, even though they will no longer be able to resolve them once and for all with a capital “T” on the truth.

For example, if you watched the video of the 2 year old boy move to the items he really liked in the iPad; you could see this process of formative assessment at work with a digital tool. If a two year old can accomplish what most adults or digital immigrants cannot, these younger adults just entering college are a whole lot smarter than they get credit for. Furthermore, when the 2 year old didn’t want to do something, he just ignored his dad’s promptings. The interesting concept to ponder in all of this is…just how much they are teaching us in their first few years of junior college. My guess is they have changed the way we think about teaching and have told us what they want if we’re going to teach them. The bottom line, they have “potty” trained us in a role reversal sort of way. The next time you try to get your students interested in the subject matter, revisit this thought.

So what is the bottom line this week? Engage them; move them toward the learning goals by letting them know what it takes to get there; help them get there by adapting formative assessment and embedding it into the lesson design; believe they can do it and watch them develop the skills to behave as experts rather than novices. If you have watched children long enough and/or young adults you would be absolutely amazed at what they can do.

I think many of us have watched our parents from the eyes of a precocious child. We have played poker with them, never showing them what we were holding in our hand, while we let them win or at least let them think they were winning. Beware of the little professor that resides in every child, that child can change a whole educational system, graduate and have children of his/her own before you even realize what has happened.

This week we were to learn the basics of assessment. The two most descriptive types of assessment are formative and summative.  The focuses of both types of assessment are on the individual and/or the individual as compared to the group. However, each has a different way of evaluating the learning competencies of the learners.  Summative assessment is the result or the sum of what was learned, not only by the individual but by the group as well. It is a quantifiable measurement or a grade. It involves a test of the knowledge of the learner and usually comes after something was presented to the learner to learn about. While formative assessment, per Dylan Wiliams, is designed into the course and can be viewed as embedded; it provides feedback to move the student forward; it clarifies what the student needs to do to be successful; it motivates students to take an active role in their learning process and moves students to be learning resources for each other, while the big idea keeps learning on track.

For example, we record the practices of our band. By listening to the mistakes made and evaluating what was done right in the practices, I can help the band members discuss and discover what needs to be fixed in order to sound good and improve their up-coming performance. Once I start making suggestions for improvement, everyone gets in on the act. The end product is often determined by the singer. Since it is his/her song that is being reproduced by the band, the final say rests with the singer, based on the advice of the lead guitar player and sometimes the drummer. The rhythm player, the bass player and drummer than adjust their playing to insure the proper beat is produced for the singer, but also for the dancing audience.

While there is no written test given, the final performance before the audience is the test. If our audience is dancing to the songs consistently and filling the dance floor, we know we are doing it right. If we hold our dancers interest and keep them dancing without leaving, we know we’re doing it right. If the club that hired us asks us to come back based on the feedback they receive from their customers, we know we have done it right. My band members know where the mistakes were made, during a performance.  They have all developed an ear for the music.  They are all engaged in the learning process. They fix these errors in the next practice to the best of their ability. That is what our clients pay them to do.

Each of these band members have the innate ability to perform with their voices and instruments. They become more competent each time the cycle of practice and performance repeats itself. By analyzing how the music can be improved, they move from being novices to experts in their trade. Most of my band members have played in area bands for ten to 35 years or more. Because they often move on, either because they expire or join another band, we are constantly adapting our music to new players who are often at very different levels of expertise. We are constantly learning new music and adapting it to the playing abilities of each member.

My role as owner and leader of the band is that of a facilitator. Each member of the band has their own area of expertise so our learning is based upon the group’s ability to create their own interpretation of the music. Each member is a learner and teacher to the other members. Our music and performances are never really perfected, because we are all involved in the learning process as we continue to perform. Perfection is not the goal; but growth as musicians is, individually and as a group.. The end product is entertainment for our customer. We want them to enjoy the music and dance to the beat. We want them to feel the rush! We want just enough money to keep our equipment in good working order and pay our expenses.

The video is an example of summative assessment and/or task.

No matter how I looked at the issues in my course and the content, I could not see the big idea. I spent hours researching the concept. I asked my teammates for help. In the end it took a good night’s sleep. Then it hit me. The real focus was why we need to be informed and participate in our system in order to change policy in Washington and Olympia. We the people…even if we are semi-sovereign as Elmer E. Schattschneider wrote in his book, The semisoverign people must find a way to partcipate:

Abstention reflects the suppression of the options and alternatives that reflect the needs of the nonparticipants. It is not necessarily true that the people with the greatest needs participate in politics most actively. Further, it is an outrage to attribute the failures of American democracy to the ignorance and stupidity of the masses. Only a pedagogue would suppose that the people must pass some kind of examination to qualify for participation in a democracy. The most important thing about any democratic regime is the way in which it uses and exploits popular sovereignty. The people are powerless if the political enterprise is not competitive.

My bias in thinking about the world around me is found in the educational choices I made. I began as a sociology major with a focus on criminology and finished in the field of political science and law. I see the need for the “masses” to participate in their governmental processes when a crisis is looming. I hope you do not doubt that one is just beginning and will last for the next twenty-five years. So just what kind of crisis is there? It is the one that is occurring between the political interests of the afluent and those of limited resources. This conflict is beginning over the resources needed to meet the needs of  Americans in the shrinking middle class and the socio-economically disavantaged which will allow them to live out their end-of-life cycle years with some dignity and quality of life.

One of the most powerful political lobbyist’s organizations in the country is AARP or the American Association of Retired People. Their membership begins at age 50. They are well aware of the fact that 78 million people born between 1946-1964 will retire and apply for social security benefits and Medicare benefits over the next twenty-five years. The National Institute on Aging is aware of the problems regarding long term care. Tammy Flanagan (Senior Benefits Director for the National Institute of Transition Planning)  wrote in an article on retirement planning that there is a federal long term care program available for federal employees. This program is easier to get than those existing long term care insurance plans for employees who do not have access to federal programs. Most of these non-federal plans are far too costly for people over 45, with limited funds,  to purchase. Also, common sense tells us that without funds no matter what program is out there for seniors they will not have access to it. Flanagan gives us an idea of what long term care costs in her article. But the figures are so depressing I will not attempt to cover them here.

When I started putting the class together, my first quarter as a student in the eLearning certification program, we were asked to think about the course we might be teaching as we progressed through the elements and courses needed to teach on-line and get the certification. It was during one of these courses, I became familiar with curriculum designing for on-line teaching and the concept of backward design. It was, simply put, a way to design lessons from the concept of the big idea of a course. Easy  to do? Not!

I am still not completely certain I have it right. My idea was, our governmental institutions and policies must be flexible and changeable in order to meet the changing needs of its citizenry. American citizens must become involved in their political processes to guide the making of law and policy on critical issues that face the so called “masses” today. That brings me to the idea,”… we must begin to think of new ways to solve old and new social problems.”  I hope this is the lynch pin that holds all the information in this course together; because, that is where I was going with the course. In fact, sociology studies help us understand how groups of people behave or think. Politial Science helps us understand how political institutions work and how they develop laws and policy. Gerontology helps us understand the influence the process of aging has on a nations citizenry, socially, politically and financially.

Although my classmates have heard me say this ad nauseam, in the next 25 years we will have to re-think our concepts of retirement, aging, Medicare, Medicaid, insurance, end of life saving plans and care-giving methods and institutions. We will have to re-define quality of life and personal dignity issues and concepts. Finally, we will have to truly investigate the aging process and determine what needs to be done in order to live longer, healthier and more prosperous lives during our end-of-life cycle.

Note: The video is circa an hour and eigtheen minutes long. You can get much of the information watching the first 14 minutes.  For those of you interested in the ideas, it is worth watching the whole video if you have the time.