Tag: teaching

Collaboration, Higher Education, Learning Community, Learning Technologies, Professional Development

Course Exploration Continues… (Day 2)

Laura Pasquini

Today was the second half of Exploring the Future of Courses: From Courses to Dis/Course web conference.  There great things to hear & learn about from the 3 sessions:

It is great to engage with others who share the same passion and interest in the EdTech community. Although there was some great exchange today, I did leave the online conference with many questions and thoughts to ponder. After digesting the wealth of information & presentations I will be sure to share more thoughts.

Many thanks to:

  • Martin Weller, George Siemens, and Grainne Conole for initiating the web conference
  • All the presenters who shared their experiences & knowledge
  • And of course, the many participants who contributed to a myriad of discussions & posts

For more follow up discussions check out the Disc09 Moodle.

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!

Higher Education, web 2.0

Higher Education 2.0

Laura Pasquini

worldonshoulderswos

Technology has become quite accessible, especially in higher education. Whether you like the term web 2.0 or have caught the social media bug, the fact is, technology is present in many learning environments. The “alternate” forms of education are no more – it’s now just learning.

“Web 2.0 technologies and open education learning design, employed by imaginative teachers, create a landscape of learning–collaborative, problem-based, experiential–that is closer to our nature than the ranked, single voice classrooms so abundant in recent times. The single voice classroom developed because of the lack of other ways to help students learn. We no longer lack the resources and tools to develop learning designs that fit how people learn.”c/o Why Web 2.0 is Important in Higher Education, T. Baston, Campus Technology

Although this though is not widely embraced by faculty and administrators alike, it will be the challenge for the new generations of students entering into our colleges and universities.

Here are some interesting comments about this Campus Technology article’s message about web 2.0 in higher education:

Wed, Apr 15, 2009

I want someone, an actual human to talk to. Interaction with other humans. and the Web is not personal. I enjoy learning on line but getting the information and hearing the emotional delivery of a lecture is critical.

[Who is talking about online lectures? We are talking about engaging students in 2-way conversations online. Dialoging about relevant course material. Sharing ideas, thoughts, facts and opinions.]

Wed, Apr 15, 2009 

I still don’t see this. With the busy lives most of our students (mine are older) live, they need a lot of direction to get things done. My job as an instructor (I hate the instructor/professor paradigm) is to provide them with the initial stimulation to show them what they need to know and to make it interesting enough for them to pursue later (Web?). My students actually WANT me to talk to them, to help them see the framework things can be seen in, and to set the challenges for them. I wouldn’t dare say this always happens, but I try. And it is congruent with my own experience. I always loved great lectures from people who thoroughly understood and integrated knowledge (perhaps that’s why I still spend so much money on Teach12.com). I don’t say this as a Luddite. I’ve been involved in technology education for 25 years, and I am still uncertain where it can help ….

[GREAT! Keep talking to your students in-person… then engage & challenge them online and beyond the classroom/office hours environment – to share research, ask questions, and grow your learning community.]

Perhaps the misconception for technology in higher education is the thought it has to be ALL or NOTHING. I would encourage educators to think more broadly on how to support those adult learners, and seek out online mediums to to compliment and make your teaching practice more effective to cultivate learning communities at your institutions. It is never about the technology, it’s really the reason and purpose it plays in education.

Collaboration, Learning Community, Learning Technologies, Professional Development

Supporting Learning & Teaching

Laura Pasquini

kmdi_logo_vert

I was introduced to the Lecture Series from KMDI at the University of Toronto from my former U of T colleague.  This series is free and open for live events to the viewing public by creating a log-in ID and password.  The other option would be to check out the Recently Published Events on the ePresence Presentation Portal.

Yesterday’s 2-hour lecture series was on the topic of  “Supporting Learning & Teaching.”  Three Curriculum Learning and Teaching presenters from OISE discussed various topics around this main idea for the viewers.  Here are the presentation topics and a few few notes/thoughts/questions that I had for each:

  1. New Ways of Teaching & Learning with Technology, by Jim Slotta
  2. Digital communication technologies: educational and social practices, by Claire Brett
  3. Technologies for Higher Education, by Jim Hewitt

 Here are some notes & references made during the webcast that caught my ear/eye:

  • The challenges to using technology in education is the evolution and perspective of social online resources.
  • Check out the WISE Project: http://wise.berkeley.edu/
  • Values in Education (Terry Anderson, 2008): Presence, notification, cooperative learning, student modelling, documenting and sharing
  • Technology & learning is understanding HOW to best utilize & embedd these technology resources into education and courses.
  • How do you reconcile the difference between education and cultural purposes of these tools??
  • Social vs. Technical integration; the GRAIL model: GRaduate Student Academic Identity on-Line – to help students see how their research and training is connected to their broader academic experience and relevance to their social life.
  • Higher education learning with powerpoint, clickers, podcasts & wiki:
  • Do students skip class if the lecture is available on podcast?
  • Havard study says NO; students use podcasts for key points in lectures, or could podcasts be used to replace lectures and use the lecture time for more in-depth review of matrial 
  • Clickers: “gateway” technology to expose more lecturers to the great uses of technology in their teaching practice. 
  • Clickers promote learning by: questioning, encourage peer to peer learning, take a vote/poll & discuss results with peers in the class
  • Clicker Results: Increased performance on test, decreased dropout rates & reduced failure rates (10-12% is now down to 4%)
  • Higher education needs to consider utilizing peer instruction/learning instead o f traditional teaching practices
  • MIT are going the way of Blackboard: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/13physics.html

Overall, these lectures provided a few insights and it is interesting to see what colleagues elsewhere are thinking about learing & teaching with technology.

A few technical notes, that you should keep in mind if you are to partake in these lecture series:

  • distance viewers are able to engage in online chat & questions
  • ensure you have a strong wireless connection for streaming video
  • attach  good set of speakers as the sound quality was low