The University of Colorado at Denver has published a new, free ebook for online college instructors. The CU Online Handbook covers a variety of issues and topics for distance teachers, including:
* how to transition from face-to-face to online teaching
* how to use web 2.0 tools like Twitter and blogs for educational purposes
* how to use eCollege
Download the e-book at http://www.cudenver.edu/Academics/CUOnline/FacultyResources/Handbook/Pages/Handbook2009.aspx
One of the recurring issues in higher education regarding faculty developing electronic learning materials is getting all this work considered in the tenure and promotion process. The Modern Languages Association has a wiki that tries to address that question in part, A Short Guide to Evaluation of Digital Work. According to the wiki, "This short guide gathers a collection of questions evaluators can ask about a project, a check list of what to look for in a project, and some ideas about how to find experts in one place." This is a section of the overall Wiki, The Evaluation of Digital Work. You can access the wiki at http://wiki.mla.org/index.php/Evaluation_Wiki
I came across a blog entry of David Williams, the President of University of Alabama Huntsville, in relation to university teaching at http://www.uah.edu/president/blog/teachingblog.php
Below is the part I found interesting.
If we are to teach our students in the way that they are taught in K-12 system, then we must stay in contact with that system and be aware of how new generations of students will expect to be taught when they come to university.
I was recently in Mobile at the George Hall elementary school – a 100% minority school in one of the poorest areas of that city. The teachers were podcasting some of their classes and in the process of setting up streaming video webcasts for some of their other classes. At another high school in Mobile, foreign language class was taught synchronously on-line from a school where there were enough students who wanted to learn Spanish that a teacher was on site. So the web, the ipod and the video from afar are all common in third grade. Should we not be doing the same at a leading technological university?
As teachers we should continually find out the expectations of our students in terms of the best way for them to learn – not seek their input on the content or the way we test their grasp of the content - but the ways that we communicate the knowledge that we believe they must gain from the courses we teach in order that they be successful in applying that knowledge."
Here is is a link to a CNBC video based on a joint Linden Lab/IBM study "How Meeting In Second Life Transformed IBM's Technology Elite Into Virtual World Believers." IBM estimates that they saved $320,000 by hosting a recent conference in Second Life versus holding the event in the physical world. See http://secondlifegrid.net/casestudies/IBM for an Executive Summary.
Introduction to iTunes U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPNQGmCMv1E&feature=related
This is an introduction to iTunes U produced by Apple Inc.
ITunes U at Miami Dade College
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXjVn20co9I&feature=related
This is a pretty good intro into how iTunes U is used at the largest community college in the US.
iTunes U at the University of Georgia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzTYv7egjKQ
Two early adopters from UGA introduce the iTunes U and talk about their experiences.
Technology in the Classroom
(4:43)
This video was created by the University of Alabama to explain how several students use technology. This video explains it from the student side. (contributed by Catherine Armstrong)
Connecting education with how students use technology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztzfv9zsOLQ&NR=1 (1:47)
This video discusses students use of web 2.0 and introduces a really interesting web site for resources, ConnectingEducation.com. (see http://www.schoolinfo.ca/connectingeducation/index.htm).
Learning to change Changing to learn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UDdCyr1DZM&feature=related (5:36)
Geared more toward k-12, it's worth watching just for the opening segment. Well produced sound bites by educators. "It's the death of education, but it's the dawn of learning."
This blog post by an English fellow, Tom Barrett, provides some creative ideas for using simple tech tools for education.
This morning a colleague at another university emailed me about a presentation he is delivering soon regarding trends in education and instructional design. He wanted to include virtual worlds and asked for my "views regarding some of the key instructional affordances such worlds offer, or key instructional principles associated with this trend."
This was my response.
Hi ___________,
Interesting that you asked that. I'm just finishing a chapter this weekend on a very similar topic. Briefly,
I use a personal framework or taxonomy that consists of elemental learning (actual and simulated elements) and synthetic learning outcomes (basically decontextualized procedures, concepts, and knowledge). In other words, actual and simulated elements involve [assessing or learning] the "real" task or a simulation of that task. Synthetic learning outcomes do not.
If you mean by affordance, the quality of an environment or an object that allows an individual to do something, perform an action, etc., virtual worlds clearly support elemental learning outcomes. This is the top of the food chain in our business, isn't it? Why? Because if you are really going to be a surgeon, what you really have to do is real surgery. The next best thing to that is a simulation of real surgery.
What virtual worlds like Second Life do for us is to provides us with three-dimensional environments including audio and in the near future other sensory outputs, that lets us behave closely enough to the way we would in the real world that we can "feel" part of whatever aspects of the physical world that are emulated.
Actual Elements VR examples:
Conferences, business meetings, office hours, sales presentations, philosophy classes, research focus groups, counseling sessions, business receptions, music concerts, practicing foreign languages
Simulated Elements VR examples:
Archeological excavations, cancer surgery, flying airplanes, historical reenactments, body processes, atomic chain reactions
Curiously, I find it easier to generate actual element examples from my recent experiences in Second Life than simulated elements examples.
I have attached three images I captured in Second Life within the last week. I thought you might use them in your talk.
2 actual elements images
A panel discussion of individuals from global companies (e.g., Sun Microsystems, Crédit Agricole) at the VR Best Practices in Education conference last weekend. This type of thing is especially worthwhile in SL because while listening to audio and watching PowerPoints of one speaker, the audience is interacting in text chat with one or more of the other panelists.
A doctoral student at the University of South Alabama (SL name- Aevalle Galicia) at the reception desk at our Online Learning Lab SL Learning Center. From Sunday to Wednesday of this week, our little visitor gadget recorded the SL names of 35 unique visitors to our learning center. (Of course, much of that time there is no one there and avatars of visitors just wander around wondering why certain of our many gadgets aren't working. :-) But, we're working on it.
Simulated elements image
My avatar (SL name- Learner Magic) going through a CTscan machine in a simulation build called "Cancerland" regarding a young woman's experience with thyroid cancer. Having my avatar physically simulate some of the situations she did was a moving experience to me.
This talk by Ken Robinson is very entertaining and argues for more creativity in educating children. He's a wonderful speaker. No earth shattering ideas here, but definitely not boring.
A higher resolution video is availble from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design).
Free Rice (http://www.freerice.com/) is a casual game using a multiple-choice format to drill a variety of general related knowledge and physical concept areas including language vocabulary (English, French, Spanish, Italian and German), mathematics, chemistry, geography, and art. Simple correct answer feedback is given for each response and levels of difficulty are based on the number of available items in the existing content pool. A few introductory questions set the player's initial level. Questions are repeated on a scheduled basis only if the player responds to them incorrectly.
What sets Free Rice apart from a zillion other similar edu-drill games is that by playing this game and acquiring general related knowledge, the player is contributing food to the hungry. Here's how it works. Every time the player answers a question correctly sponsors donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. The rice appears virtually in a simple wooden bowl on the right side the screen as the game progresses, which along with periodic "wow!" comments, provides players with immediate and tangible positive reinforcement.
The "feel-good" socially-beneficial aspect of this game has contributed to its status as a "viral" Internet casual game. The site began in October, 2007. In the following year, 2008, freerice.com reports donating 43,942,622,700 grains of rice. That is sensationally successful for any kind of educational activity! Think of the amount of related knowledge players acquire on a spaced learning schedule. At the same time, learners are reminded on an interval schedule of the importance of ending world hunger.
One of the clearest explanations I've come in contact with regarding the whole Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 preoccupation comes from Jonathan Strickland at HowStuffWorks.com (See http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-306.htm).
Before you do that take the Web 3.0 Quiz (See http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-30-quiz.htm) and see if you can "ceiling out" on the pretest.
Last fall I developed a demo on the Internet to show some of the
features of Google Scholar and how you can use it to connect it to
your bibliography manager and the university library. A couple of
people have asked me recently for the URL. Google Scholar is a great
tool and it's relatively easy to use.
See my demo "A Couple of Reasons Google Scholar Doesn't Suck" at
http://www.southalabama.edu/coe/bset/dempsey/googlescholar/googlescholar.htm
If you lose the URL, you can access through my school web site.
Google Scholar is located at http://scholar.google.com
Like a lot of guys on February 4th, I kept checking Rivals.com to see how the recruiting at my favorite college football schools was doing. In process I came across an interesting link/article, "Look back at Class of 2005: Good, bad and tragic," which looked at the Top 100 athletes recruited into colleges in 2005, how they did, and what they are up to now. (see http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=908560). It's amazing the contrast in the life stories of some of these kids. So many were thrown out of school—sometimes multiple schools--that the extremes (the ones cashing in with the NFL or are waiting for or are already in prison) pale by comparison. There are many good kids in the middle, outstanding athletes, doing their thing and basically out of this conversation/diatribe. Good guys. Soon to be former athletes and pillars of their communities. But, what strikes you is the number of young men thrown out of their schools. Schools that surely wanted to keep them in school and brag about their success in graduating their athletes.
Being a Florida State fan, I have been really hit with this lately. Two of the best and physically similar players this year were Myron Rolle and Preston Parker. I guess neither was on that graduating list from 2005. It is hard to say who the more talented athlete is. Both are handsome black men with great potential. At FSU they put little tomahawks on your helmet when you do well on the field. Both had so many tomahawks that the gold below barely shone below. To be honest, I did not know their backgrounds, but I suspected one or both grew up without a father around. My father died when I was young, so I know firsthand what that can lead to. I was wrong about Myron Rolle.
Myron Rolle, a potential first or second round draft pick, chose to accept the honor of a Rhodes Scholarship this year. He had two, apparently loving parents, originally from Jamaica. He graduated high school a year early and from FSU in 2.5 years so. I guess he thought he could wait a year to cash in on all his hard work as an athlete. Very good for him! As a young man I'm sure he learned Premack's Principle--likely from his parents.I can't say I know anything about his life outside of football really, but Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_Rolle ) tells a story of a kid who grew up with two parents and whose hero, Robert Smith (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smith_(football_player) may even be more captivating than Myron Rolle. So, I was wrong about him being without his father like another FSU legend, Dexter Carter. I am glad about that.
There is no Wikipedia entry for Preston Parker.You could look at the Seminoles page in which they describe Preston Parker as "An All-American candidate as one of the most athletic wide receiver/tailbacks in the nation, " (see http://seminoles.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/parker_preston00.html), but I suggest you do that right away as the university is not likely to keep the web site up very long. Preston Parker, stoned out on pot and whatever, fell asleep in a drive-through at a McDonalds in Tallahassee. It was his third major fuck-up and his second within a year. FSU and Saint Bobby had no choice but to toss his ass to the wolves. He still has his scholarship, which is only fair in an organization that makes millions off or these supremely talented kids. It's a symbiotic relationship.
Had he been a little more circumspect, there would be little doubt that he could have been a very rich young man in short order. I've seen him fill in at quarterback at one of the better programs in the US. Physically, Preston Parker is a gem. I think if you placed him down in a Brazilian football team, he would wind up showing them Pele's shortcomings.I couldn't find anything on the Internet about Preston Parker's personal life except that he was born in 1987, the year after Myron Rolle was born. I'm hoping that Preston snaps out of it. He doesn't have to be a Rhodes Scholar, nor me nor you—whoever you are. I just hope he finds a way to change his M.O. before it's too late. It happens. Like my other brothers and sisters in academia who love these talented young people, I wish we could have given him more of what he needed. We didn't reach him. Or at least we didn't reach him and grab hold tightly enough. Maybe he'll recall something we did to reach him and that will help.
The Business of SL (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZZlV2srUIE&feature=related
And then go to the 3 episodes that follow) is a pretty good discussion of that aspect of virtual worlds. By now, the importance of virtual worlds in business—even my business of higher education—seems obvious. The fascinating thing is the resistance to adopt based on unfamiliarity.
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