Get Creative (Commons)

is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

[They] provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

Creative Commons (CC) is quite relevant for all faculty & instructors who put together online course materials for students. It allows for content, such as images, videos, writing and music, to be shared freely and some access rights to the intellectual property. As classrooms expand and more material is shared openly, it is important for educators to be aware of how to use Creative Commons, and the implications for teaching & learning. Here are a few videos that best explain CC.

If you look at the Content Directories of CC is utilized by many companies, and even educational institutions. Some faculty started to challenge the traditional methods of research collection and how intellectual property is shared with others. One faculty shares how to encourage this open education movement in a publication called -  Open Doors and Open Minds.

The recent development and contribution from Creative Commons is the DiscoverEd search engine,  which provides accessible searches for open educational resources. This allows educators to access and share teaching and learning materials in an effective, easy way.

The question is… Wanna Work Together?

Easy Online Tools for Visual Teaching

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.

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
  • MS PowerPoint
  • Impress by OpenOffice
  • Google Docs or Zoho – great free online tools, but will often have to convert presentations to PPT format for slide casting
  • Keynote – need to convert to PPT format to use on slideshare
• 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!

Mind-Map It Out.

To help process information it is always great to introduce a mind map as an effective learning tool.

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing. (c/o Wikipedia.org)

[Mind Mapping Image (c) Mind Tools Ltd]

There are a few online tools that best support the mind-mapping approach for learning. Lifehacker.com recently reviewed the Five Best Mind-Mapping Applications for online mapping action. These tools are FREE & very user-friendly.

These resources are quite useful for both learning and teaching. There are plenty of online mind-mapping resources to support visual learners which makes mapping information fun!

Map on, my friends. Map on.

What the Tweet?

 There’s a whole lot of buzz in the news, on the political scene and elsewhere about micro-blogging with Twitter.  As an educator, you decided to join to see what the tweet it was all about. 

The good news is that educators CAN use this social media tool to connect with resources & individuals in their profession.  Be sure to check out The Top 100 Edu Tweeters who share great resources, information & news about education. 

Here are a few that I have been following on Twitter [and I am sure that a few more will be added shortly]:

@OpenUniversity: The Open University offers university education to everyone, and shares tips, news, and developments through this Twitter stream.

@utpress: This Tweeter offers news from Canada’s oldest and largest scholarly publisher.

@Librarian: This tweeter works to “reach the parts other libraries have yet to reach.”

@edventures: John Martin is a technology architect for higher education.

@eduguru: Follow edguru to learn about Internet marketing and web development for higher education.

@higheredu: Higher Edu works to get colleges and universities on Twitter.

For the Love of Google (& Learning)

When we first look for things online, we often turn to the popular search engine – Google.  But have you thought about what else Google can do for you?  Take a look at the various Google Apps that could be utilized for your practice in education, and an interesting article that supports use of Google  technology for learning.

Here are a few suggestions on how YOU can use Google as an educator with your learners or colleagues:

• Google Scholar: encourage scholary research & utilizing online publications for students and professional development; accurate & credible resources; also a fan of Google Book Search for similar use
• Google Earth: geo-tagging is all the rage in higher education; you may want to include Google Maps to this app to create collaborate landmarking & mapping
• Google Notebook:  Interested in keeping those searched websites in an orderly fashion?  Great for research & archiving
• Google Docs: store Word, PowerPoint & Excel documents online; share & collaborate with students, staff & faculty; excellent project management tool
• Google Calendar: keep track of assignments, itemize lesson plans visually, and more to help with better time management
• Blogger:  course contributions, themed journal writing, writing & development classes, and MORE!  Blogger has been used for a wide variety of contributions to learning. Here are some blog examples in Higher Ed.
• Google Sites: plan meetings or lessons, share information on a secure website, collaborate on projects, or stay connected to learning communities; similar to website or wiki development; easy to use 
• Google Reader:  lets you subscribe to web sites so that new content comes to you when it’s posted; similar to RSS feeds
• Google Talk: send instant text messages, voice and/or video conference, chat from desktop or Gmail, send documents, files or hyperlinks; easy way to host “office hours” from any location

Go forth and Google.

Supporting Learning & Teaching

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 

C4LPT Resource Centre

Looking for ideas on how to best utilize technology for learning?  Then I would recommend that you check out Jane Hart’s website:

 C4LPT Resource Centre

Here you will find a collection of technologies, tools and learning trends emerging in education.  There are a many links, bookmarks and collaborations to provide any educator with ideas on their technology projects for learning.  I especially enjoy Jane’s Pick of the Day, which is updated consistently in her blog. This website is divided into two main elements:

1. The Resource Centre
2. The Social Learning Network

The best part of this resource is Hart’s interest in collaboration for learning technologies.  She wants recommendations from YOU for the Top Tools of 2009.  This database of information is regularily updated and contributions come from various educators using technology.

Professional Development Options for “Tough Times”

Financial crisis has hit the US, and this has impacted many fiscal decisions in higher education.  One of first areas to be cut in college & university budgets is professional development.  

Although it is critical to engage our faculty & staff in personal and professional growth, it will be our challenge to be more “creative” with how we go about it.  Instead of attending conferences, workshops & seminars far away we are suggested to look towards internal development or online cost-effective alternatives.

Since I am interested in further education & support in the higher education field I thought it would great to share some online professional development resources.  Some of these are free or a cheaper alternative if you connect with your department staff:

• Knowledge Media Design Institute, University of Toronto: ePresence Presentation Portal & Lecture Series
• NACADA: Webinar Events
• Educause Live! free monthly events
• ACPA Higher Education: Webinar Series
• NASPA: New Professionals Online Series & members only E-Books
• InsideHigherEd.com: podcasts
• StudentAffairs.com: Online Courses, Listservs & Blogs 
• POD Network Resources
• Diverse Issues in Higher Education: Events
• Academic Impressions Events (some online)
• Articles & resources in The Chronicle
• Impact Alumni: podcasts
• Alumni Futures: blog

Feel free to add your 2 cents as to where to get free/inexpensive professional development.

Web 2.0 Tools for Effective Teaching

There are a lot of different ideas for teaching & learning with web 2.0.  I have been fortunate to share with the Web 2.0 Tools for Effective Learning group on SlideShare.  I would like to extend thanks to Elaine Talbert (etalbert) for archiving and collecting presentations & information about what educators are doing with web 2.0.  I think this is a valuable resource for those of you interested in engaging with online learning & development at your institutions.  Check it out!

etalbert is “Keen researcher of technology and education. Fascinated by the potential of web 2.0 applications to transform learning.” And I happened to stumble upon Steven Downes’ post about Elaine’s contributions on SlideShare today, which made me think of the community of collaboration there is for education.  Keep connecting & learning from those around you and online.

NACADA Presentation & Resource Archive

Today was a pretty exciting for NACADA as they host their 1st NACADA Technology Seminar with 118 participants in Clearwater Beach, FL. The sessions were filled with lots online tools & resources. It was great to follow up these sessions with discussions at lunch & in Learning Communities on how to use these mediums for advising. I enjoyed the sharing, questions, & thoughts about the future face of advising & technology. There is definitely room and space for this discussion to continue tomorrow – and onwards!

Be sure to stay connected to the many resources & presentations that are being shared at NACADA Tech, to help you work on you plans & development for technology:

1. NACADA Presentation Archive (this will be updated as they are posted)
2. The NACADA Tech Hub
3. Faculty Wiki & Pages: Karen, George, Eric & Laura

Happy sleeps to all! We shall continue this tomorrow…and beyond.