- Splits Definition
- Splots Definition
- Blind Spots Definition
- Plots Definition
- Tardieu Spots Definition
- Splits Definition Finance
SPLOST is an important and attractive tool for funding local government projects. It can be combined with general obligation debt, lease-purchase financing and certificates of participation to leverage its power and build projects for use and enjoyment sooner. A breach or rupture in a group: a split that threatened the unity of the political party. The division of a company's stock by issuing multiples of the existing shares with a corresponding reduction in the price of each share. This is the original sploot definition. However, there are also similar variations of this silly pose: Legs flat and stretched to the side; Just one leg flat and stretched; Why Do Dogs Sploot? Why do dogs do all of the silly, goofy things they usually do? We might never know, but do we need a.
Remember that famous line in the movie The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman, the new college graduate, gets that one word piece of advice “plastics”? Well of course you don’t remember that because you’re probably not a really old man like me. But maybe you saw it in some retrospective on Dustin Hoffman’s career. Anyway, I’m here to tell you ONE WORD for your future in teaching and it’s not plastics. It’s SPLOTS. That’s right. SPLOTS. I’m telling you, it’s the future of teaching and edtech.
So what does SPLOT stand for? It’s obviously an acronym but nobody really knows what it stands for. The catchy(?) acronym came first. Alan Levine, a man who could rightly be considered the godfather of SPLOTS wrote about the origin story here. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that SPLOTS were invented over some beers Alan had with another great edtechie, Brian Lamb. It doesn’t surprise me that such great open learning technology was invented in Canada with some help from Tom Woodward in Virginia. Anyway, since the first outbreak of SPLOTs at Thompson Rivers Univ (TRU), folks have been trying to agree on what letters stand for ever since. There’s lots of possibilities.
My personal favorite is Smallest Possible Learning Object Thingy.
There are other possibilities for what SPLOT means. Super Possible Lucid Outstanding Tools. Super Perceptive Latest Open Technologies. Simplest Lightist Opportunistic Tools. You get the idea. The thing is the name doesn’t matter. What matters is what they ARE and they can DO.
What are SPLOTs? That’s the playful fun of this project, there is no fixed definition. But the ones I have been working on since 2014 are WordPress themes designed to be easy to install, configurable single purpose tools. Definition of SPLOTT in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of SPLOTT. What does SPLOTT mean? Information and translations of SPLOTT in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on.
The Concept: Easy to Use Edtech Tools
If you’ve spent some time in ed tech, especially trying to teach with it, you might be willing to argue that “easy to use” and “edtech” don’t belong in the same sentence together. But that’s the concept. Tom Woodward runs the Virginia Commonwealth University blogs and domains-of-one’s-own program. He’s a former history professor turned edtechie (and still teaches some). Back in 2017 Tom described the idea thusly:
The Proposal
There is a tendency to make or buy tools that try do everything. As a result we end up with a massive tool that does most things poorly and few things well. Learning goals get obscured by the increasing complexity involved in navigating the compromises inherent in the omni-tool. It’s not focused on a particular discipline or kind of thinking.
While generic tools have their place, that place should not be ubiquitous.
Today’s technology lets us build tiny, targeted tools that get learners to the learning with as little unwanted friction as possible. These tools can be built quickly and with virtually no cost on a number of platforms by people with all technological skill levels.
Content creation in these targeted tools offers an increasingly sophisticated way to scaffold analysis, entwined instructional resources, and build a unique experience for students- all while creating useful work. This work can then be used for additional educational purposes as the aggregate grows in scale and complexity.
![Tardieu Tardieu](/uploads/1/3/7/7/137788110/643474973.jpg)
Splits Definition
Tiny, targeted tools. Little websites designed to do pretty much one thing. That’s really it. Instead of having big, institutional-size complex systems that try to do and provide everything any professor might ever want and then doing it poorly, why not just create a collection of little, simple tech tools that can be used. What’s more, SPLOTs are different from a lot of edtech tools/systems in two other ways. SPLOTs are open, free, and freely shared. So when Tom at VCU or Brian at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) creates a new one for some purpose, we can get it too and put it to use in situations we might have. The other key feature is SPLOTs are imagined, developed, and created by people who are educators and teachers first. Yes, Tom and Brian and Alan and others like them have a lot more coding skills and tech knowledge than you or me or the average professor. But they have taught. They start in the classroom. They’re just folks that got interested in technology and started learning. Then they started sharing.
Rather than try to define SPLOTs further, I’m going to just describe a few of the SPLOTs we’ve used already at LCC or that I think you might find useful. I’m going to give you several links to SPLOT sites so you can see and experience what they look like and how they function. But first, I next want to offer an analogy by playing with some Legos…
SPLOTs in Action: Targeted Tools, Targeted Goals – Extended Narrative
Learning management systems (LMS) have become an essential teaching tool in the higher education sector and almost all universities use one or more different systems (Pomerantz et al., 2018). Teachers use LMS primarily as an administrative tool such as informing students about tasks, giving feedback on these and posting lecture slides (Dobbin, 2016). Consequently it is not very surprising that students are generally satisfied with the use of learning platforms, but that the satisfaction decreases when it comes to interactive activities, collaboration (Pomerantz et al., 2018), and the construction of new knowledge or the creation of non-standard media. In practice, the use of the LMS as the defacto digital learning environment seems to be taken for granted by too many teachers. Other options do not seem to be considered or explored, supposedly due to over reported heavy workload (Blix et al., 1994) or the required combination of skill sets (Koehler and Mishra, 2009) or a combination thereof.
Educational research, on the other hand, advocates a completely different approach. Bates (2015) points out, for example, that the starting point in the choice of digital learning environment should always be which target group the course is aimed at and what the learning outcomes are. Another critical voice regarding the LMS is raised by Dalsgaard (2006), who points out that the LMS is not very suitable for a social constructivist pedagogy. What is needed instead are tools that are easy to use and which are perceived to be useful by students as well as teachers (Šumak et al., 2011).
Towards this end, some educational developers are pursuing a focused and functional approach to integrate targeted, yet simple, educational tools in a myriad of ways (cf. Groom and Lamb, 2014). Plotsquared spigot. They call these simple tools SPLOTs. The acronym SPLOT was coined by Brian Lamb (Levine, 2014) and while it’s difficult to pin down an exact definition (Splot.ca, 2019), the focus is on simple tools that protect student privacy while providing powerful opportunities for students to create and share media that directly align with learning objectives. SPLOTs support and value open education while making it as easy as possible to post activity in an appealing and accessible way. SPLOTs have been used by several institutions. In the United States, one pioneer in the use of SPLOTs is the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). In the European context, Karlstad University, Sweden, has taken on the approach as part of their externally financed open online course development projects.
At both institutes, SPLOTs have been used for a wide range of purposes across a wide range of disciplines. They have been used to help identify plants using a dichotomous key and to create and share text sets for literacy work. SPLOT authoring patterns offer the ability to create structure and guidance while students are in the process of creating content. This guidance in media res leads to an engaged acquisition of knowledge and the potential for its immediate application. These targeted-authoring-patterns also result in consistently structured content within the larger course-level-collection of information. The individual student creates information that’s valuable independently and as part of a larger data ecosystem. The collection itself then becomes fodder for analysis by the class, future classes, and the community as a whole. VCU continues to leverage platforms that enable the dynamic creation of learning and authoring workflows and continues to work to make the connection between tools, thinking, and content creation as direct as possible.
Splots Definition
In this Action Lab, we will focus on participants using SPLOTs in experiential ways. Participants will get a feel for the simplicity of the tools and how faculty can use diverse media to create community, share information, and spur creativity. All of our actions will remain as an open resource that can grow and expand beyond this conference Action Lab.
- SPLOT Timeline – participants will submit their best experience with authoring on the web. What was the tool? When did it happen? What made it great? Those submissions will create an interactive timeline using Knight Lab’s Timeline JS. The interactive timeline will form the backbone of a conversation on what makes authoring on the web a positive experience and how we can take those premises and apply them to student work in courses with SPLOTs.
- SPLOT Community – interested participants will create a biography page as part of a community of individuals interested in pursuing the concept of SPLOTs in education. Information volunteered in this process will be used to create affinity groups in the face-to-face space for additional conversation.
- SPLOT Tool List – in their face-to-face groups participants will have access to a list of SPLOTs with descriptions and other identified characteristics. They will have the ability to add tools to the list and/or explore tools on the list. All tools will have live demos that do not require registration.
- SPLOT Tool Review – the SPLOT Tool List includes the option to review tools. Participants who have experience with tools can review the tools and make connections between the tool and specific courses and projects.
- SPLOT Wish List – using TRU Writer groups will generate descriptions of SPLOT tools that they hope to have built.
Reference list
Bates, A. W. (2015). Teaching in a Digital Age. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/
Blix, A. G., Cruise, R. J., Mitchell, B. M., & Blix, G. G. (1994). Occupational stress among university teachers. Educational research, 36(2), 157-169.
Dalsgaard, C. (2006). Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems. European Journal of Open, Distance and e-learning, 9(2).
Dobbin, G. (2016). Exploring the Next Generation Digital Learning Environment: Opportunities and Challenges. Retrieved from https://library.educause.edu/resources/2016/6/exploring-the-next-generation-digital-learning-environment-opportunities-and-challenges
Groom, J., & Lamb, B. (2014). Reclaiming innovation. Educause Review, 49(3), 29-30.
Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)?. Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education, 9(1), 60-70.
Blind Spots Definition
Levine, A. (2014). What the SPLOT?. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://cogdog.trubox.ca/2014/10/28/what-the-splot/
Plots Definition
Pomerantz, J., Brown, M. & Brown, D. C. (2018). Foundations for a Next Generation Digital Learning Environment: Faculty, Students, and the LMS. Retrieved from https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/foundations-for-a-next-generation-digital-learning-environment-faculty-students-and-the-lms/introduction/authors/author-chapter#Authors
Tardieu Spots Definition
Splot.ca (2019). Splot.ca [online]. Retrieved from https://www.splot.ca
Splits Definition Finance
Šumak, B., Heričko, M., & Pušnik, M. (2011). A meta-analysis of e-learning technology acceptance: The role of user types and e-learning technology types. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(6), 2067-2077.