As a recent invitee to Google Wave, I am still experimenting and sampling this new resource [with the help of The Complete Guide to Google Wave]. As more people receive invites and the beta version of Google Wave develops, educators will get involved and as they find value and potential for their profession.
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.
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.
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.
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.]
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
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/oWhy 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 univerisities.
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. Dialogging about relevant course material. Sharing ideas, thoughts, facts and opinions.]
Wed, Apr 15, 2009 tim
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.
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:
New Ways of Teaching & Learning with Technology, by Jim Slotta
Digital communication technologies: educational and social practices, by Claire Brett
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
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
