Group items tagged

This is the tool I use to record screencasts.

For the final presentation, I chose 'Jing' because it is the easiest tool to use that the teacher recommended to us. When I actually tried to make a sample video, I could easily apply this tool. There was five minute limit for free users, but my final presentation has also five minute limit. After I applied this tool for my final presentation, I learned about the new technology, and how to apply this technology in my future online class.

In the Summer of 2010, I taught an online class called the Fundamentals of Interactive Entertainment for the University of Tasmania, via the Human Interface Technology Lab under the sponsorship of Dr. Thomas Furness of the University of Washington. This course provides an overview of interactive media - video games and real-time interactive simulations. It includes information concerning the history, theory, technology, design, and social impact of these emerging communications media. The course consists of thirteen modules, and in the Summer of 2010, was made up of two weekly events: 1) A lab session which met every Tuesday to provide discussions, team planning meetings, and hands-exercises and 2) a live classroom session which was videocast directly from Seattle to a University of Tasmania classroom in Launceston, Australia. I posted more information regarding this project on my Web2.0 Chronicle blog. PLEASE NOTE: This narrated screencast runs two minutes past the 5 minute recommendation given by Jennifer.

Bruce, applying the Boettcher/Conrad 10 Best Practices to a course you have already taught, was brilliant! It is always a source of learning when we can go back and critique our own work, finding needed areas of improvement or simply discovering how "right on" we were from the get-go! I enjoyed seeing this piece of your creativity!

I found your presentation very smooth and professional.

This is a glogster of seven of the ten best practices for the course "Everything you always wanted to know about colon cancer". At the bottom of the glogster, you can click to see a jingcast of the glogster. There is an animated icon indicating this. You may want to expand the window for seeing the entire jingcast or if you don't go through the glog, the link is: http://www.screencast.com/users/astephens33/folders/Default/media/f42c4438-4715-4ccb-928a-7c8b7d4bb6a7. Thanks.

Thanks Joy. It realize that the production element of the course is an added dimension one needs to consider in on-line learning that I hadn't fully appreciated.

Glogster is a lot of fun and I love that you were able to find a way to record it so we could understand both your course, and your use of the tool!

I hope you enjoy the video. It took a whole lot of studio takes.

Joy, Your combination of Jing Pro with YouTube worked well for your final assignment. I was surprised how clear the YouTube video is, even in full screen format. Your course framework also seems to be a workable and inviting way to look at aging issues. One bullet point that stands out to me is: "Baby Boomer have gotten a bum rap." We're always compared to the our parent's generation, who weathered the Great Depression and WWII. I believe a lot of positive social change also took place under our watch - it's not all a bad picture!

Thanks Bruce. The boomers are fighters and leaders! As women,"... we have come a long way baby." There is not anything bad about the picture my friend. Once you start to really read the material and connect with the accomplishments of this group, I bet money you will be very proud!

This VoiceThread I put together as a presentation regarding some shifts in thinking and accomodations I have made regarding online & tech applications. I thought we might be sharing these, this evening, but nevertheless, it stands alone. Enjoy!

It was nice to see the preliminary decision process you went through to determine the 'collage' project. Using voicethread to explain was interesting.

Helen, your Voice Thread was a perfect finish to your final project, even if it did stand alone! I agree with one of your statements to your pre-service teachers about them needing to be on board with all the tech tools they teach to their students in the 21st century. Your "metaphor" was also engaging!

Teaching on-line or in a classroom requires the ability to ask good questions. I found this article to be useful--I hope you will too.

I'm not opposed to a final project that involves students re-developing this course. It could even be a group project. (But I'd probably want to write about you and brag about you all to my friends!)

I posted Bloom's Taxonomy, which is a guideline for how people learn and how education should be targetted to that model. It is similiar to the types of questioning one does to reflect where we are in the learning process. I think the same is true of our course. We all seem to have through experience and past coursework some basic knowledge of on-line teaching and learning. My preference, I think, would be to have answers/discussion to some of the questions that are coming up, not just a list.

"The current and future health of America's 21st Century Economy depends directly on how broadly and deeply Americans reach a new level of literacy--'21st Century Literacy'--that includes strong academic skills, thinking, reasoning, teamwork skills, and proficiency in using technology.", says the 21st Century Workforce Commission National Alliance of Business

Another great read and thanks, Ann. Something this article doesn't address is the growing concern about the "digital divide." Not all segments of our society has equal access to the internet. I recently heard a lecture at NSCC addressing this problem. Many outlining districts in urban areas(and rural areas) do not have the infrastructure to receive Wi-Fi. Students is poor neighborhoods (many who don't have computers at home) must go to their local public library to get internet access. Yes, our public school system needs to incorporate more technology "know-how" into their curriculum and instruction, but equally as important, our society needs to take a closer look at what segments of society are presently at a big disadvantage in terms of equal access to technology, both in and out of school. As technology redefines what it means to be "literate," then we also must address equity and accessibility to resources.

Helen, I like your astute comments and observations. The poor in this country may have access to computers in the library and at school, but many of them are homeless and living in cars. Anywhere from 2000-5000 people are homeless in King County and 80% of these people are women with children and suffering from DV incidents. If we go further, I have a friend working in Chimbote, Peru. Most of the people living in the barrios do not even have running water, much less the ability to buy or use computers. I suspect worldwide, you would see extremely large percentages of children without food much less computer access or skills.

This is an overview of a guideline for how learning occurs and how as teachers we can focus our lessons to this guideline. It is relevant in on-line education, as the on-line environment allows us to have different modes to provide information to our students. We can utilize everything from video to chat rooms.

Ann, do you have any tools or taxonomies that have helped you develop those questioning skills? And have you got any experience using the SOLO taxonomy?

I have not had experience with SOLO - Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes - but from the bit of investigation I have done, it is similiar to Bloom's in that it is based upon the notion that a studen'ts ability to grasp more abstract concepts, is based on more fundamental understandings and that you need to make sure you are not too advanced for where the student is. It reminds me of Piaget's concept that you can only learn something that is slightly more advanced than where you are (my paraphrase). As for my experience with help in developing questioning skills, which I feel is an excellent example of elearning, is that my company had us first take an interactive tutorial on Bloom's taxonomy. The "final" was taking a math problem and providing questions for each level of the taxonomy. We posted this on a dedicated discussion, with the teacher providing her response for everyone to see and learn from. We have since started another topic where teacher can post specific questions they are using and have tried and this will eventually be collected into a reference document. For example, one idea that was shared was that you after you have tested your student on a fundamental, you can ask them to give you a problem. My experience is that I often get back something I didn't expect. Like if adding decimels, they will return with a problem that might be in the millionths rather than the tenths. What I found most useful was not these specifics or having a question for each level, as much as the consciousness raising it did for me to think more creatively in helping the students. I have found that an elearning platform is very helpful in this regard. For example, they might take a lesson on adding or subtracting fractions and another on adding or subtracting decimels. I will then give them a problem in adding both - example - 1/2 + .25 = . By having an interactive whiteboard I can see how they convert the fraction to a decimal to add them and offer guidan

Jonah Lehrer provides another perspective on the Terkle book. It's a brief review and seems truncated, but his main point is at the very end. "We are so eager to take sides on technology, to describe the Web in utopian or dystopian terms, but maybe that's the problem. In the end, it's just another tool, an accessory that allows us to do what we've always done: interact with one other. The form of these interactions is always changing. But the conversation remains. "

I tend to think there is an element of "object making" going on in Facebook and other social medias. My granddaughters and son have hundreds of friends listed and I know they do not communicate with all these people on a daily basis. Does anyone remember the story of the "Stepford Wives?" And finally, there might be an element of addiction in our gadgets. What is going to happen when the sun bursts predicted shut down our electronics for 6 months at a time, should this happen?

http://www.theheartlinknetwork.com/blog/?p=984 This article begins to address the possible addictions to electronics and social media.

Joy, Your posts are quite sobering, regarding your own experiences working towards completing your university education. I strongly agree with the following quote in your post: "In sum, it is time for educators to make college and higher learning relevant to their students. It is not about us, it is about them. We are the facilitators of their learning. We must prepare them for the world they will find themselves in when they leave the protected walls of our colleges and universities" I found the recent events in Cairo to be fascinating, where large numbers of people suddenly rose up against an authoritarian and out-of-touch government. This largely peaceful uprising was fueled by the same Web2.0 technologies that are underpinning this class. It's possible that many traditional schools will soon find themselves in a similar situation to the Egyptian government, where students pass them by in favor of lower cost and more relevant educational experiences - many of them available online. Bill Gates recently came under fire for making the statement that valid online college degrees may soon be available for $2000. He may have said this to exaggerate a point, but the evidence of a growing number of online low cost educational resources can't be ignored. One of them is the Khan Academy - run by an MIT graduate who has created a large free archive of mathematics courses that are used by students all over the world - many who claim they are better than their university courses. Colleges and universities ignore this development at their own peril. It's not clear yet how we'll make this transition to relevancy for students, but the next decade will be very interesting...

Thanks you for your comments Mary Ann...the bottom line reads, we may be killing off our aged population by sentencing them to give up and give in to old out-moded concepts!

Joy: I've been following your blog postings for some time now and have been meaning to let you know I always learn and find your postings valuable. Keep the information coming our way.

I thought I'd try something a little bit different for Module 5, and do a CMS review of a current online course that I've been working on, called Visual Storytelling. It's a review of a Blackboard/Vista-based online class, but I'm also blending a couple of presentation technologies together to create this - SlideRocket and Camtasia. If you take a look at it, you'll want to make sure your audio is turned on - otherwise, it won't make much sense... It runs just under 10 minutes. This was a useful exercise for me, because I became aware of numerous changes I'd like to make for the next iteration of this class. These presentation tools are now very powerful and easier to use than in the past. SlideRocket has only been around for about 2 years, and it keeps getting better! You can also access this presentation by way of my Web2.0 Chronicle blog.

Thanks Bruce for showing how you use Blackboard for one of your courses. I do agree that some of the mature LMS need to make it easier to use Web 2.0 tools. Jennifer's comments about being able to use these tools is so appropriate. All of these wonderful tools are available, the problem is learning when and how to use them in our online teaching.

Thanks everyone for your feedback and comments! Mary Ann, I did see your photos from the Galapagos, and it seems like they will make great material for an online class presentation especially with your underlying message - the importance of biodiversity to our long term survival. I'm really glad you're teaching this material... I wish we were more aware of these dire issues 50 years ago! The Visual Storytelling class will be offered again in Fall 2011. Susan... One useful application of online lectures/presentations is that they can free up classroom time for more exploratory dialog and hands-on activities, as appropriate. Students also like them, because they can stop and review material at their own pace. Jennifer - I'll be happy to give an overview some presentation media I use during your office hour on Thursday. This would be a good experience for me, since I've never taught a session using Elluminate. If you could give me some quick tips beforehand, that would be welcome. I can't do it this week, but Feb 24th or following Thursdays look open.

I started this over the summer while taking the first course for this certificate. Please feel free to follow my postings on blogger as we continue in this course.

My end of class reflection is located on my blog.

Thought I had posted this...to keep my blog in order, I post dated this to 2/28/11.

Interesting perspective on attention. This addresses some of the issues we've discussed this week. I'd be interested to know if you're able to watch the entire video without doing anything else. I'm 6 minutes into it, and I'm composing an email for work, writing this, and texting a friend in the UK.

I finally had a chance to watch this talk by Rheingold. He's covering some of the issues that we've already discussed over the past couple of weeks. One of them is the need for our educational institutions to change in response to global communications changes (1 billion online users, 2 billion cell phone users). He says we need new forms of literacy both in terms of how to use these new technologies, as well as how to communicate effectively using them. He said this isn't a new situation - in the past, societies had to adapt to the technologies of the phonetic alphabet, the printing press, telephone, television, etc. One interesting quote: "Our educational system, our schooling system is very well tuned to creating good citizen workers for 19th and 20th Century industries."

This is a screencast I made last year about how we used wikispaces for our courses. This is the type of recording I'd like to see you do for your final projects. I created this using the free trial version of Camtasia.

I am sharing a video I made for the class project. I welcome any critiques or information on how to make this a better video. I do not know if I have addressed all the elements Jen has asked for. I tried to address as many as I could...except those I will learn about in Module 8. This was my first attempt in making a eLearning video on You Tube, with the help of Jing and Screencast. I found a few frustrations along the way; but it was fairly easy to use. I have the following probs: 1.) I could not fit the screen to the screen used in You Tube; 2.) I had problems setting the volume controls on my recording; 3.) I found myself unable to think as fast as the video was going and 4.) the overall quality of the screen when used" full screen" was not as good as I would have liked it to be. Finally, I have never ( well maybe not NEVER) had so darn much fun doing something so darn frustrating at times.

Using a headset doesn't get the kind of result I want. However, I will try to do that the next time around. I have found this to be a problem when I made the elluminate recording, too. I could think you must be a fan Mary Ann! I really don't know what I am doing when I start these projects...they just sort of do themselves. My husband just shakes his head and ignores me. His computer is in our office. It is L shaped and I am on one side and he is on the other on the inside side of the L.That way we can't see each other...it keeps me from being tempted to do things to him, I might not want others to know about ( I am saying this while I untangle my fingers from his neck...at the moment.)

Thanks for posting your work. It gives us all good yardstick for our own assignment.

I am not quite sure I know what a PDP is, but assume it is a portable device. I appreciated your sharing that as I hadn't thought about how eLearning is not just over the internet, but can include auxiullary technology. In a previous post, the thought of delivery of course material over other devices - such as an iPod - was brought up, but hadn't thought about how students also use these tools in a way that I, as a teacher, don't structure. This brings up for me, how, if anything, I want to do as a student. If, for example, everyone has an iPod, might I suggest they could enter their assignment either by blog or iPod? I realize in a course technology is an overhead, but it reminds me of the possibilities and that we are at the beginning of a teaching evolution.

I made a sample lecture material for my badminton class with powerpoint.

Hyerin, I just viewed your final project, finding it filled with many good things teachers do to engage and nurture their students. I liked the buttons at the top of the home page which directed students to the various pieces of the course on badminton. As a student, I would find it easy to navigate your course and have fun learning about this sport! Keep up the good work!

This well written article gives pointers to teachers on how to discourage plagiarism in their classes as well as how to teach students about plagiarism in a positive light before it occurs. Very helpful!

I think this Virtual Salt article does a good job outlining the reasons why students plagiarize. While poor time management and procrastination are major factors, I also think that students are afraid of looking stupid by using their own writing styles - especially with international students. My policy regarding plagiarism now is to "fire a shot across the bow - to make sure that a student understands how serious un-cited work or ideas can be. What follows is an example of an evaluation that I wrote for what I consider to be very good student, who should've known better. It was simple to discover the plagiarized material by putting a suspected plagiarized phrase in quotes and pasting into a Google search box. That approach works very well in my experience. *********** Evaluation note to a student who plagiarized content **************** Your assignment was copied and pasted directly from an online essay called "The Impact of the Information Revolution", written by Kerby Anderson at the following URL: a href="http://www.lifeway.com/" This is plagiarism. I can't emphasize how serious this is. Repeat occurrences can get you kicked out of school and can have a long term impact on your academic record. It also represents a careless and irresponsible attitude towards your work at Bellevue College. On a personal level, I'm also surprised and disappointed, since you've been a good student up to this point in the class. Since this is a 100 level communications class, I'm giving you zero points for this project. If it happens again, I'll fail you from this course, and will also notify the office of the Dean of Student Services, to let them know that there were instances of plagiarism on your part. If you feel that this action is unfair or unreasonable, you may contact XXXXX, Chair of the Communications Department at xxxxx@bellevuecollege.edu.

I found both comments and the presentation an interesting read. Maybe students plagiarize because of the pressures inside the system of education and in the business world. I have never felt the need; but I have felt the need to get good grades. I use to spend three days studying before finals and sometimes without sleep (no drugs) and then crash for 24 hours...sleeping. I did more than most students and worked hard to stay on the Dean's list. By the time I entered my doctoral program it was so cocmpetitive, I started rethinking the reason I had for being there. It was not a pleasant expereience. You had to be a 3.65 or higher just to get into the program and then write a reseach paper and defend it before a committee of three to just get in the door.

This link is to my development of a learning activity that maps to a course learning objective for Module 7. The activity I've chosen to work on for this project is in response to one of the learning objectives for a class called Visual Storytelling (CMST 115) that I'm teaching for Bellevue College. The learning objective (or understanding) I'm addressing is a final project that has students demonstrate their ability to put into practice a selection of visual storytelling skills that were taught during the quarter. This activity was designed to make use of authentic learning principles, derived from the ideas of Marilyn Lombardi - which are available in complete form in her article, Authentic Learning for the 21st Century: an Overview.

Very impressive, Bruce! This assessment piece is definitely in line with Lombardi's ideas AND is a perfect showcase for student understanding of the objective you set forth. I imagine your students jumped at the challenge you presented them, producing outstanding work! You continue to inspire me with your thinking and creativity!

Thanks for your comments, Mary Ann. One of the big take aways I've gotten from our EDUC 251 class so far, is the idea of relinquishing progressive amounts of control throughout the quarter - so that students at the end are teaching part of the class and demonstrating their acquired skills in some kind of collaborative, hands-on project. I've been exploring this idea over the past few years as I've become more comfortable with my teaching - and both the Boettcher reading and Jennifer's course structure validate this approach. One of the more interesting recommendations for "authentic learning" is having ill-defined goals - meaning that students have to fill in gaps with their own solutions - derived from general or even vague instructions. This enhances creativity, innovative pathways, and problem solving. Cool idea!