From K-12 to Higher Ed

Since the majority of my classmates are K-12 teachers, it's understandable that most of our class discussions and projects are geared toward the K-12 environment. However, much of what we've learned is also applicable to higher ed.

The first things that come to mind are social bookmarking and personal learning networks. My blog post of June 12 talked about the need to get more efficient at organizing web resources. Lo and behold, the next day Dr. Z and Lois Lindell showed us around Diigo and how to use iGoogle in conjunction with customized RSS feeds to set up a Personal Learning Network. Using those tools to also tap into library resources will come in handy down the road.

Faculty members at my institution, especially those who are actively involved in research, would benefit from setting up a PLN too. They could in turn show their students, who might be lured away from Facebook long enough to learn about an easy way to aggregate information from the web.

VoiceThread could be a useful and interesting tool for faculty to use with their students, such as those in the Modern Languages Department. There are some good examples of using VoiceThread at the college level here, and excellent how-to resources here.

Although Second Life is an amazing place, I think that its learning curve would be too steep. I'll keep my eyes and ears open for opportunities to introduce it as a possibility, though.

When I'm able to come up for air after these two weeks on campus are over, I'll take some time to reflect further on what we've learned in this class that is transferrable to my work in higher ed.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmk/2741404653/sizes/s/#cc_license

The end of the beginning

There are only two days left of the Emerging Instructional Technologies class, which means that the end of the first class in the two-year Instructional Technology graduate program is in sight.

This particular course will be over soon, but I hope that the friendships taking root this week will continue to grow. Our final project team (see photo) was working so well together today that it was just plain fun. Another classmate and I have so much in common that we must have been twins separated at birth.

Earlier this week Dr. Leigh Zeitz invited our cohort over for a barbecue in his backyard, which was a very gracious gesture. It was nice to meet some of the other faculty members there from whom we will be learning in the months to come.

It's a privilege to be a part of this learning community!

The main thing

If the first day of the face-to-face portion of the Emerging Instructional Technologies class is any indication of what the next two years are going to be like, bring it on! What more could a person want than a roomful of educators and educator-support-people who love technology and are eager to learn more from an enthusiastic, connected professor?

Well, I can think of a few things that a person could want, such as a dorm room that has live network connectivity and a bathroom that doesn't require you to punch in a numeric code to enter. But that's beside the point.

It makes me sad to hear teachers talk about their desire to use some of the Web 2.0 technologies in their classrooms but being stymied by strict computer and network policies. Those policies prevent access to some websites or prevent the installation of browser plug-ins or other applications.

On the other hand, I've witnessed the mayhem that happens when viruses, malware, spyware, etc. infect a computer or a network, or when a computer slows to a crawl because it's loaded down with junk that eat up the system resources. It's not pretty. And when those things happen, it's usually not the end user who has to clean up the mess.

Still, those of us who work in the information technology areas of educational institutions must remember to keep the main thing the main thing. The mission of the institution is to educate students, and the technology resources must support that mission, not hinder it. This blog post by David Pogue, the technology columnist for the New York Times who could double as a stand-up comedian hits the nail on the head.

Network security is extremely important, but there are ways to minimize the risk by using software tools and methods that didn't exist a few years ago. Note that I said "minimize"---there is no such thing as a guarantee regardless of how strict the policies are.

Teachers, go have a heart-to-heart talk with your IT department and explain to them the potential educational benefits of what you’d like to do. Let them know that you are now more savvy and conscious of suspicious e-mail messages than you were in previous years. Promise to backup your important files elsewhere so that if your computer does fall victim to some nefarious plot, they are welcome to wipe its hard drive clean.

IT directors and network managers, listen to the teachers, provide appropriate warnings and predictions, and do what you can behind the scenes to protect them without crippling them. The next generation of 21st century learners will reap the benefits.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthur-caranta/2906069843/sizes/s/ licensed under Creative Commons

Adding up the virtual miles

I wish my computer had an odometer. Then I would know for certain how many virtual miles I've travelled around the Internet. I do know, though, that I've logged more virtual windshield time and seen more virtual landscapes these past few months than I have in the last few years combined.

When I go on a physical trip, I use my camera to snap photos along the way so I can remember where I've been and what I saw. In doing research on the web, I need something like a camera too. Too often I find an outstanding website or blog and think, "Oh, I'll remember where I found that" and later search high and low for it without success.

When the web was still a toddler, my list of favorite websites fit on a sticky note. Then I graduated to using bookmarks in a web browser, and then to organizing bookmarks into folders. Now those URL collection spots have expanded to include a wiki and blog, Google Reader and iGoogle, which may further evolve into a Personal Learning Network. I wonder, though, as I do more research on the web, if I should use some tools like Diigo, iCyte, Zotero or Evernote. Does anybody have a recommendation?

Just as my own URL lists have grown exponentially over time, so too has the amount of information on the Internet. In spite of powerful search engines and carefully selected search terms, it's still a shot in the dark sometimes to find exactly what I'm looking for. Just as the world's information has outgrown the card catalog, is it now outgrowing the capabilities of the search engines as we know them?

That's the premise of this fascinating video by Kate Ray, which gives us a peek at what may be the next generation of information exchange: Web 3.0, a.k.a. Semantic Web. The Semantic Web will look at relationships between pieces of information and use those relationships to build context. Since context gives meaning, the result might be among other things more intelligent search results.

It sounds quite esoteric to me, but the idea is intriguing. And the sound effect at the end of the video made me wonder if, in a few short years, we'll look back at the Internet as it is today and remark about how unintelligent it was.

Walking the Talk

"Thinking is now distributed across minds, tools and media, groups of people, and space and time." --Chris Dede in "Web 2.0: Helping Reinvent Education"

Yesterday I re-read the Dede journal article entitled "Enabling Distributed Learning Communities Via Emerging Technologies" Part One and Part Two. I read it more carefully this time and soon realized that the characteristics that describe a distributed learning community also describe our class: diversity of expertise, advancing collective knowledge and skills, learning how to learn, and sharing what is learned.

I don't know why I didn't realize before that Dr. Z isn't simply teaching an online course, he's shepherding us into a distributed learning community.

This course is fascinating, challenging, and very different from any course I've ever taken, and not just because it's an on-line course. Dr. Z's teaching strategies guide us in the direction we need to go but then we are encouraged to roam and discover and synthesize and contribute. Our classroom is the whole virtual world, not a room with four walls and a textbook with a finite number of pages and a multiple-choice quiz at the end of the chapter. It's exhilarating and exhausting.

As the Dede article describes, a learning community "is a radical departure from the traditional view of schooling, with its emphasis on individual knowledge and performance..." That explains why this course is taking us out of our comfort zones, as Bill, Cathy and Gabe have described---Dr. Z is trying to get us to "unlearn the beliefs, values, assumptions and cultures underlying schools' standard operating practices." He's nudging us away from "passive assimilation of information to active construction of knowledge." He's serving as a facilitator and interpreter, commissioning us to mine "knowledge sources embedded in real-world settings."

He's "walking the talk" so that we can do the same.

Plan B

No matter how advanced our computers are, how fast our Internet connections are or how much we use and understand today's technology, an act of God can still trump it all.

This past Tuesday evening our group met on-line again to continue work on our domain element presentation. The clouds outside were dark, the air was still, and spotty storms were predicted for this area. Sure enough, during our meeting there was lightning nearby, the power went out and I was abruptly disconnected from the meeting. Although the electricity came back on almost immediately, our Internet service did not. I felt helpless and a little fearful---the last time this happened it took 4 days before our Internet service was restored. Thankfully, this time we were back online by midday on Wednesday.

These two incidents, however, make me wonder about the wisdom of relying solely on the Internet for information, communication, document storage, running applications, etc. The trend toward cloud computing means that more resources and services are being moved online. What happens if access to that cloud is taken away for a significant amount of time, either by an act of God or through human error or terror?

Anyone who teaches with technology knows that they should always have a Plan B. If our households, schools, and institutions increasingly rely on the Internet, what should be our Plan B?

The opposite experience

This past Thurday evening the three of us assigned to the copyright/ethics key element in the Media Planning and Production course met online to plan our presentation. We used Adobe Connect and it worked beautifully---the opposite of my earlier experience. We were able to see each other via webcams and used the chat feature, the shared whiteboard and shared application features for our brainstorming session. The audio was very clear, like a 3-way telephone call.

This technology allowed us to hold a very productive meeting and get to know each other a little bit more while never leaving our own homes. Without this technology, we would have had to set up a face-to-face meeting or a conference call or resort to an asynchronous method of communication such as e-mail or discussion board. What a great resource!

Musings about the class videoconference on May 17

This past Monday night our Emerging Technologies class met via Adobe Connect for the purpose of getting to know each other a little bit more, to discuss the readings, and to experience firsthand a virtual classroom complete with audio and video.

I had tested my computer ahead of time and expected the session to go smoothly but it turned out to be an exercise in frustration. The audio was extremely choppy and sometimes the sequence of the conversation was even mixed up---I would hear a classmate answer a question before I heard the professor ask it. Often it seemed that people were talking at the same time, making the conversation unintelligible.

I was in a hotel room connected wirelessly to the Internet and suspect that there was not enough bandwidth available. So I'll give Adobe Connect the benefit of the doubt and hope that the next session will go more smoothly.

I've used Elluminate's virtual classroom and have found the moderator's ability to selectively turn on/off participants' microphones is very useful. In a large group, having a moderator, aka "traffic cop," is a necessity.

In spite of this rocky start, I have no doubt that this type of technology will become even more mainstream as high-speed Internet service becomes part of each home's utilities alongside electricity, sewer, water and gas.