Category: Learning Technologies

K-12, Learning Technologies

Tech Savvy Students Mentor Teachers

Laura Pasquini

How much technology should be in K-12 classrooms?

This was today’s topic on CBC Radio One’s Get Talking this afternoon. Much of this discussion evolved from the Ontario Public School Board Association discussion paper What If?: Technology in the 21st Century Classroom.  This paper reviewed how technology can support and contribute to learning in school.  Many callers shared concerns and questions about the increase of technology in the classroom, with respects to relevance, budget priorities, curriculum needs and instructor knowledge of resources.

Not all listeners  approached the topic from a negative perspective.  It was apparent that technology is thought to be an excellent instructional tool.  One  current example is the “adopt-a-teacher” program at Don Mills Collegiate in the GTA. This program supports the idea of how to utilize knowledge from the digital natives – the students.  Students are able to share their experience with various emerging technologies that can incorporate into the learning experience.

donmills

Walls are coming down between teacher and learner.  The idea of fostering learning from both ends brings learning communities to the forefront of education.

Students find the classroom more ‘relevant’ when they have opportunities to interact with real world experiences and practical learning means. Lets engage our students in the entire learning process.

K-12, Learning Community, Learning Technologies

Social Networks Are for the Kids.

Laura Pasquini

Silly adults. Social networks are for kids (too)!

Although my interests lie in technology use in higher education, I stumbled upon an interesting article, Child-friendly social networking tools, in the eSchool News.

Many child-friendly applications have been created for students in the K-12 realm, which include various security and privacy features to keep educators at ease.  These arenas allow schools to develop online learning communities within their classroom, schools and/or school districts.

compkid

The article describes more specifics about the following tools:

I think an introduction to these types of technologies in school at an early age is excellent. This provides  a great classroom model and hands-on experience for the instruction with various tools, i.e. wikis, blogs, and more! Students learn to design, create, share and interact with their peers online for learning.

Most students in higher education are VERY aware of social networking tools.  The only issue is that many college students would not think to utilize these online technologies to support learning and academic success (unless their current faculty is ‘hip’ to the technology jive).   To best support academic learning in the later years, instructors need to use these online resources during formative, educational years.

Learning Technologies, Photo Sharing

Easy Online Tools for Visual Teaching

Laura Pasquini

For many educators, the use of multi-media is a regular function in the classroom.

I went to an excellent workshop hosted by Carolyn Guertin from the eCreative Lab @ UTA about Moving Teaching Online: Screencasting.  This is one of many in their digital workshop series they offer.  It was  a great (free) workshop for faculty & staff to gain more knowledge about slide & screen casting to best support educational practices.

screencast

The wealth of media resources available online is overwhelming.  If your objective is to enhance instruction and learning, here are a few tools I use, and a couple new ones I have just begun to play with:

  • Screen Capture tools
    • SnagIt – screen grab tool for Window users; purchase required (test out the 30-day trial version)
    • Grab – a tool included in Mac computers to get screen shots/images
    • Jing – great for screen capture for image or video for any platform, able to do voice-overs & it’s FREE!
  • Slide Casting
    • SlideShare – online community forum to share slides (& audio) with students and others; able to match audio recording with slide content easily [I use this website the most.]
    • MyPlick
    • Sliderocket
  • Slides
  • Audio
    • Audacity – get a solid microphone with headset & start recording and editing tracks for your presentation
    • PodcastPeople – record your audio & get a link to an mp3; downside: there is no post-production editing feature
    • GarageBand – Mac users can get this free application to record & edit audio tracks
  • Screen Casting
    • Camtasia Studio – record, edit & share on screen activity; costs $
    • Camstudio – FREE streaming video software for screen capture
    • Captivate by Adobe – for those who are serious about their online learning and visual screen capture; purchase required (pricey even with education discounts, but worth it if used often)
    • Windows Media Maker – able to create videos for the screen cast; not part of the new Vista package (down grade OS)
    • Snapz Pro X – high quality imaging; able to use video, images and save the in a smaller format; time lapse editing,  audio voice-over and great editing options
    • iShowU – records audio & video; tagline = “when words aren’t enough”
  • Video Content Storage Online
    • YouTube EDU – YouTube videos posted for learning; great for archiving teaching material for your students
    • CaptionTube – new feature from YouTube that allows for adding captions via a sophisticated video caption editor – this means that the  text transcription sits beside the video
    • Recommendation:  use institutional web portal or closed site if you are using any copyrighted material or content

Have fun!

Learning Technologies, Web Design

The Survey for People Who Make Websites

Laura Pasquini

For those of you higher education folks who dabble in web design (and/or have web development as a larger part of your job portfolio) you might want to check out the findings from The 2008 List Apart – Survey for People Who Make Websites.

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Very interesting information about folks (some like you) who create and design websites. Get their perspective on their projects and where the world wide web is going in the future.  Other key details about:

  • technical & education experience
  • years on the job
  • geographic location
  • salary & vacation
  • their next career move
Learning Community, Learning Technologies

Goodbye Textbooks, Hello Open-Source Learning!

Laura Pasquini

Here is a very interesting TED talk by Richard Baraniuk about the vision behind Connexions, his open-source, online education system.

Imagine a world without textbooks in schools.  Knowledge would be shared and modified for various courses.  The materials would be online, free and accessible for the entire world.  Welcome to the knowledge ecosystem!

This talk is a few years old, which means much of what Baraniuk is talking about has and will continue to transform the traditional classroom experience. Resources like Flat World Knowledge already exist to share textbooks and course materials with college students.

How has (or will) open-source learning made an impact to your learning environment?