On the myclasses portal where this learning episode was found there were links back to parts of the unit that may not be completed by students as responses to assessment tasks. The final week can be a great time to have the last of the Temporal Creation tasks submitted, or performed - as a last chance for some students.
The students are also invited to complete their Forum discussion posts and their final Journal entry, as these are marked, according to guidelines set through negotiation in learning episode one. The students are invited to complete a small Concept Map in this week, for 5% of their total 100% of the unit assessment. Finally, students are invited to evaluate the unit for formative and summative reports to improve the fate and predestination theme area content.
The following text with links was offered to the students, excluding images from the movies, due to copyright concerns. Citations for the texts are available in the Readings and Further Links and Resource List.
The points at the start of these notes are to be discussed in the Forum area. You are asked to jump to the Forum area, using the link here and making a comment in the appropriate Forum thread. Please remember, your participation in discussions is expected in this study, as part of your overall participation.
Forum topics for discussion: |
|
| The future or the past? If you had a time travel device, when would you go and why? | |
| To celebrate the end of the 'Fate and Predestination' unit, make up the silliest time paradox you can. See if it can be even sillier but more paradoxical than everyone else. | |
| Overall evaluation - what did you learn from this 'Fate and Predestination' unit? |
This week is an opportunity for reflection on the use of time travel devices in SF stories and texts. The last eight weeks have covered many ways in which SF texts use time travel: as political commentaries; to discuss and resolve social problems; as depictions of alternative social systems; as discussions of religious ideas on fate and predestination; to create logical conundrums or paradoxes; or just as a device to shock and entertain.
The Forum property is the place to reflect on the use of time in SF narratives in the fate and predestination theme area. The main texts are noted in the list of learning episodes to refresh your memory and you can jump back to that list by clicking here.
In the Forum area, look at the discussion starters at the top of this page and comment on these based on your work in the fate and predestination theme area. You are also very welcome to discuss any of the major texts, including those major SF movies, stories and novels you have experienced outside this course and relate these also to the themes as discussed in our study, here.
There are many other texts that may to stimulate your ideas. You might know some of these, like
The Final Countdown (Taylor, 1980), Returner (Yamazaki, 2002), Timecop (Hyams, 1994), Time after Time (Mayer, 1979), Timeline (Donner, 2003) and even The Flight of the Navigator (Keliser, 1986).
You are invited to include these other texts, and of course short stories and novels in your Forum area discussion in learning episode ten. This final reflection is very important and should bring together your ideas from studies in this and other theme areas of the mySF Project.
This week is also used for completing any of the assessment tasks as set in the myclasses task area. Please check the descriptions of the assessment tasks and their due dates and submit your responses using the for each and every task. Please add a comment about the task as you submit it. This will assist your teacher in improving the fate and predestination theme area content and associated tasks.
Please take time in this week to reflect on your learning in the Journal area. The reflection in your personal Journal area is an important means for your communication to your teachers, but also for you to rethink and restructure your own ideas about the use of time travel as a device in SF.
The mySF Project uses a Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environment (CSILE) and the Journal tool for individual and group reflection is vital for this. One of the developers of CSILE, Carl Bereiter, says reflection can cause conceptual change, that is a "significant deepening and expanding of the conception" (Bereiter, 2002). The reflection in the Journal should be done over time, not straight after watching a DVD or discussing a text. The reflection should allow time to think, rather than needing to be finished under the pressure of oral discussion (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996).
The educational benefits from spending some time in reflecting on how time travel devices are used in SF is only one good reason for making a comment in the Journal area. Another good reason is that you are assessed on their use of the Journal, reflection tool in myclasses. Please check your assessment details about the reflection task, looking through guidelines for the task carefully.
Just as there is very good evidence to show that students deepen their understanding of SF through the reflection, there are also good reasons to finish the Fate and Predestination theme area with another concept map, using software like 'Inspiration' or 'Visio'.
In learning episode one students in the mySF Project were asked to create a snapshot concept map of their understanding of the particular theme area, in this case the use of time travel in SF.
In learning episode ten this process is done again, based on prior discussion of all the texts studied over the weeks, and reflection on discussions and learning. The fate and predestination theme area uses what is called a modified Constructivist approach to this learning environment, and part of this way of working includes the creations of concept maps at regular intervals, as noted by academics Jonassen and Marra (1998), to see a sort of series of snapshots of student learning over time.
Please check your the full details of the task, below, to see what is required of the last concept map for the fate and predestination theme area. It should be submitted during one of the last days of the mySF Project, so start thinking about it and planning what you want to represent!
Again, please submit a comment about your making of the concept map as this will assist your teacher and others in improving the mySF Project.
This is the last task in the mySF unit, the fate and predestinartion theme area of the mySF Project.
This ask is designed by academics called Jonassen and Marra and it links to the first concept map you completed in week one of the mySF unit.
The idea of this task is to see how your ideas about 'time travel' as used in Science Fiction (SF) may have changed in the ten weeks since you started the unit.
In this task you are asked to start the Inspiration or Visio 2003 program from the Start/Programs button and open a new concept map.
Select the main, central icon and put your full name in that central icon
Create another, linked icon with rapid fire and call it 'Time travel in SF'
Create linked points and sub-points based on your own ideas of the role of time travel in Science Fiction
You may, if you wish, make the idea nodes into icons using Insiprations shape menus
You may want to consider such things as:
how time travel machines in science fiction short stories comment on contemporary family life of their times
how time travel can be used to represent religious ideas
how time travel may be used for political purposes, to offer an alternative political solution to society's problems
how time travel can be used in fiction to criticise the way one gender oppresses the other
how time machines are used to criticise technology itself
If you can remember them, please link the texts you studied and remembered to the various nodes.
Use the whole space, make spaghetti if you like, but please represent your current understandings of time travel in SF. Make it complex and show all your ideas on the concept map. Experiment and discuss the task with your friends, if it helps.
This task is due at the end of the lesson but can be submitted online. The task is worth 5% of your total for the mySF unit, so take it seriously. It is designed as a detailed snapshot of your understanding of this topic at this time.
Your concept map will be used to improve the mySF unit for future students.
Please be careful with your spelling and expression.
Submit the Concept Map using the Submit button in myclasses.
ends
Finally, it is vital that the Fate and Predestination theme area be evaluated by students. This online information and assessment system can be improved rapidly and effectively if there are criticisms and feedback from students about the Project. Please take the Survey for the end of the ten learning episodes for the fate and predestination theme area.
Thanks!
Bereiter, C. (2002). Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Donner, R. (Director). (2003). Timeline. Story by Michael Crichton. Screenplay by Jess Maguire and George Nulfi. Paramount Pictures.
Hyams, P. (Director). (1994). Timecop. Written by Richardson, M. and Verheiden, M. Universal Pictures.
Jonassen D.H. and Marra R.M., (1998). 'Concept Mapping and Other Formalisms as Mindtools for Representing Knowledge'. Retrieved 5 August, 2004 from http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~gramm/class/altdocs/dav_alt.htm.
Keliser, R. (Director). (1986). Flight of the Navigator. Written by Burton, M. and Baker, M. Disney Films.
Mayer, N. (Director). (1979). Time after Time. Screenplay by Nicholas Meyer. Story by Karl Alexander and Steve Hayes. Warner Brothers Films.
Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1996). ‘Computer Support for Knowledge-Building Communities’. Retrieved 30 June, 2005 from http://casey.oise.utoronto.ca/kc/articles/compsupp.html#1.
Taylor, D. (Director). (1980). The Final Countdown. Written by Peter Powell and Thomas Hunter. Paramount Pictures.
Yamazaki, T. (Director). (2002). Returner. Screenplay by Yamazaki, T. and Hirata, K. Pony Canyon Films.
ends
| enemy within | brave new world | fate and predestination | the shape of things to come | ghost in the shell |
 mySF Project is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License. |
||||
