Category: Learning Technologies

astd, ATPI, Learning Technologies, LPQ, Open Education

Introducing the NEW Learning and Performance Quarterly (LPQ) Journal

Laura Pasquini

CALL FOR PAPERS: LPQ, VOL. 1, ISSUE 1

The Center for Knowledge Solutions at the Department of Learning Technologies, University of North Texas is proud to announce the first Call for Papers for the inaugural issue of the Learning and Performance Quarterly (LPQ) journal.

The Learning and Performance Quarterly (LPQ) is currently accepting submissions for the inaugural issue. We are welcoming any article submissions that detail the definition, history and evolution of learning and performance in its broadly conceived terms including instructional design, performance improvement, learning innovations, training and development and educational technology for both public and private sectors: http://bit.ly/LPQv1i1 

The deadline for submissions is Friday, February 10, 2012.

For detailed submission guidelines and instructions on how to make a submission, please visit Author Guidelines. Editors, Laura Pasquini and Dr. Jeff Allen, will gladly answer any questions or concerns regarding submissions via e-mail: LPquarterly@gmail.com. We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Please share this announcement with other colleagues and researchers who might be interested in publishing for the Learning and Performance Quarterly. Thanks!

AcAdv, BreakDrink, Collaboration, Learning Technologies, PhD, PLN, Professional Development

Why Networked Anything Matters…

Laura Pasquini

Time sure flies when you are catching up from conferences and travel! October has been a very productive academic and professional month for me, which has left little time for blogging here. Let me re-cap the conference fun that has been happening & that I might have mentioned on Conference Review/Preview BreakDrink #CTCX show last week.

October kicked off with a bang as I discussed in previous blog post about the #NACADA11 Conference. The altitude and momentum was quite high in Denver for the advising group and it left me wheeling with some new ideas in my new gig with the Office for Exploring Majors. More to come on that end soon…

Mid-month I said aloha to a great group of advising/counseling professionals as I joined the University of Hawaii System Advising Workshop. This was my first keynote where I was wearing a lei, and I enjoyed discussing was the importance of holistic advising in order to support the needs of our students and the campus community.

Here the slides and the open Google doc http://bit.ly/UHAdvising2011 of resources I shared:

The goal of this workshop was to introduce technological and systematic changes happening across the UH system and discuss how they can continue to connect across the many islands as counselors/advisors to support their student needs. I want to send a very big mahalo to the amazing group of advising professionals who invited me to speak, and who I have learned a great deal from during the conference and beyond. The friendly and welcoming attitudes there just might have me visiting the gorgeous state of Hawaii again.

My first visit to the state of Hawaii could not be complete with a few sight-seeing trips. I joined a moped tour to see some of the best waves, beaches and of course some adventure:

I could not leave the island without another professional development opportunity – the AACE E-Learn 2011 #elearnconf. I spent the next week connecting and learning about research, models and instructional design ideas from a wide variety of colleagues from around the globe. A big shout out to my adopted Australian/Kiwi/Dutch #elearnconf family from Deakin University. I think that Bosely knows how to effectively with his angels, and I hope to meet up with you all someday in Melbourne. Did someone say the PLE Conference might be there in 2012?!?!

I presented two best practices sessions that discussed the alternative professional development opportunities from BreakDrink.com and the connected and informal blended learning environments of FYE courses. Both are current chapters I’m working on for the upcoming IGI Publication “Cases on Formal, Non-Formal, and Informational Online Learning: Opportunities and Practices” book that will hit the presses in the near future. Kudos for all the hard work put in by a few of my co-authors and researchers that I have been collaborating with as of late – Kevin Guidry, Melissa Johnson, Michelle Rodems, & Jeff Jackson. Thanks for your efforts and insights.

Finally, there was no better way to end the month than with the #NASPAtech conference last week. Unfortunately, my academic and professional obligations kept me grounded from being there IRL. I am grateful for the amazing backchannel of conversation and my excellent co-facilitators @jeffjacksonTX and @lesliedareNCSU to have me hangout in a couple of Unsessions via Google Plus Hangouts with extras.

I hope that both Unsession conversations about #AltProDev and #SAmobile [both open & shared Google docs] will continue long past this conference. I look forward to joining the next #NASPAtech, since I think this one sounded like it was such a success. High five @NASPAtweets & everyone who brought their #SAtech ideas/thoughts to the conference and backchannel. 

blogs, Learning Technologies, Reflections

I Tumblr For You… To Reflect.

Laura Pasquini

The Fall semester has been kicked into full swing. I like the smell of a fresh class schedule, used textbooks and new beginnings in the air. This semester I am making a transition to a new job with the Office of Exploring Majors in the Undergraduate Studies department at UNT. This is a new(ish) office on campus that was formed to help support undecided and undeclared majors at the University of North Texas. My new gig (that officially starts tomorrow) is working with these “undecided” students to help support effective academic/life transition into university and explore major/career options.

With this new role, I am instructing a section of the UCRS 1000 – First Year Seminar for Major/Career Exploration. I have been fortunate to teach similar course curriculum at Niagara University and Miami University, so I thought I would take a different spin on student reflections and processing of the various course themes.

I am a fan of blogging as a form of reflection, ideas sharing and document of experiences. I have been blogging with WordPress and Blogger for quite some time. I think that blogs are great spaces for learners to share and archive their transition and exploration in the first semester. For this course, I have decided to explore Tumblr as a blogging platform.

Since Tumblr has been ranked higher than my fav WP blogging engine, I thought it would be best for me to test out this favored space for blogging. I thought the UCRS 1000 course would be a great opportunity to learn (for myself and many of my students) how to use Tumblr and share reflections. In previous posts, I have shared with my thoughts on how digital literacy is lacking among our undergraduate students — so why not model & use an online tool with purpose to learn?

Start Tumblin’

Here are a few resources I have used to set the students and instructors up for success when implementing Tumblr into an learning curriculum: 

1. Create your OWN Tumblr account. Play and explore with the blogging platform FIRST. Make it your own. Learn how to use it before you decide you want to use it for a class. Post videos, images, texts, and follow others online.

2. Set up a “go to” class Tumblr Blog. This will be a space for general class announcements, information, resources and model your blogging expectation for your learners. Here is the blog I created for my class this Fall semester: http://ucrs1000atunt.tumblr.com/ 

3. Outline and post a step-by-step approach that is simple & easy to follow both online on the class  Tumblr blog AND in your course syllabus, for example: HOW TO: Create A Tumblr Blog for UCRS 1000 (Thanks to the folks at MakeUseOf for their “how to” ideas for Tumblr http://bit.ly/oy8Ts9)

4. Provide students with insider tips for Tumblr that will be RELEVANT for the class objectives:

  • Follow a blog or two: Encourage the class to “follow” the primary class blog; ask students their preference for sharing and following other Tumblr blogs with their peers
  • Uploading a photo: need to find an online JPG or other photos form website sources
  • Privacy: create a primary Tumblr and then a 2nd Tumblr blog for the class if they want to keep it private (but give the instructor a password so they can read posts)
  • Tumblr suggestions:  there are many that are suggested, but let learners know they are NOT required to do this
  • Dashboard: When logged into Tumblr you will always return you to the Dashboard view; which is good since this is where text, photos, videos, quotes, etc will be posted and where you can read other blogs that are being followed

5. Academic Expectations: Detail your expectations and purpose for the Tumblr blog posts. Learners need to understand the WHY they are blogging and what you hope they will get out of it for the class. Also detail the specifics of what you require for your each blog post. For example, I told students that images, videos or quotes are welcome since it is a blog; however they are required to include a minimum of 600 words that address each assigned  blog topic. Suggest that students draft blog posts in Word document or a text editor before posting online to check for spelling, grammar & proper sentence structure. 

6. Follow and/or Bundle: It is easy to “follow” your student back on Tumblr in order to read and learn what they are reflecting about over the semester; however I have found it easier to group the Tumblr blog URLs into a single Google Bundle on my Google Reader (since that’s where I read blogs, news and other updates on a regular basis). These bundles are easy to share with other instructors, TA’s or students in the class as well. 


I will keep Tumblin’ along this semester, and keep you posted on how this learning experience goes. Do you use Tumblr for learning or teaching? If so, please share your tips, thoughts & experiences.
eduMOOC, Higher Education, Learning Community, Learning Technologies

Digital Education: Disruption, Improvements and What Lies Ahead

Laura Pasquini

In this  Knewton infographic,  The State of Digital Education, statistics share what is going on with digital education, online learning and blended classroom environments. The internet and online environments have posed some disruption to learning; however this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Educators and educational institutions who effectively embrace this digital evolution have see learning environments flourish by implementing online, social tools for engagement. Through increased digital content, mass distribution and personalized learning, the classroom is morphing into a virtual learning lab to support peer collaboration and foster life-long learning skills.  Both higher education and K-12 will see more action in the cloud as the push for personal learning environments (PLEs), mobile learning, and open content helps to design instructional curriculum.

I, for one, am very excited to see increased game-based learning and study the impacts of learning analytics in these environments. That’s just one #EdTech gals opinion. What do you think?

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

 

BreakDrink, CTCX, Higher Education, Learning Technologies, Social Media

Will Google+ Be a Plus for Our Learners?

Laura Pasquini

At the end of June, the @BreakDrink Campus Tech Connection (#CTCX) discussed Google’s new Chromebook hardware and some of it’s applications on our show. Here is a great as walk-through of the Samsung 5 Chromebook c/o our listener @brifanning and his co-worker Vlad.

As a student who primarily reads, researches, writes and works online for both classes and in Google applications – the Samsung 5 Chromebook is a good fit for my needs. I like the portability, access to both 3G/Wifi and most of my content is stored online which requires me to have little to no memory space. I still have a my MacBook Pro to support final manuscript edits, listen to my iTunes library, Skype with far away family/friends and so on. This means that my Chromebook is NOT replacing my current computing needs entirely; however it does help me as a full time professional and student as I work on a Mac at home, PC at my office and fulfill my lightweight need for classes/research on campus. A ReadWriteWeb article said it best: It’s not the device itself that matters, it’s how you use it. 

In considering the value of either a Chromebook or netbook for higher education, I can see why some institutions might head for the clouds. Many organizations are finding it far easier, less expensive and more efficient to access resources in the cloud. As budgets are cut and resources shrink, many institutions will consider integrated systems that support the changing IT needs for education.

Here are a few ways higher education professionals could put a Google Chromebook to work on campus:

All things Google (Chromebook, OS, Apps & Plus) is becoming more appealing to educators. Although many features are still in beta mode and integration has been limited between Google products and now Google+ – there is potential to connect and share with learners in this new social space. 
What impact will Google+ have on education and learning? I doubt that Google Plus will replace the enterprise or LMS systems supported by your higher ed institutions just yet; however it could be a great solution for instructors who are searching for alternative learning environments/platforms. Although it is fun to speculate the learning possibilities of Google+, I would be more interested in piloting a course or training program using this social web first. I plan to explore the features it has to offer & find out what new additions are ahead before identifying Google+ as a learning and training tool. Google+ has the potential to support groups for training, development and on-going learning initiatives. There is much to be said about a connected community of online learners who are interested in sharing and engaging. It will be interesting to see what updates Google+ is working on and what happens as otheres flock to the social network to explore.
In the meantime, here are some preliminary thoughts we recently shared on the #CTCX Google+ Preview Show from last week, and the BreakDrink Google+ Overview & Resources Guide for those of you just exploring the Google+ realm.  Please share any resources & links you find about Google+ In the LIVE Google Doc. Thanks!

What do YOU think about Google+so far? Is is a plus for you or for learners?