After presenting a multitude of recent statistics on the technology use habits of 18-22 year olds, Robbins explained how the numbers simply represent symptoms of a larger issue – young people want to express themselves and communicate with others, which all too often ends at the classroom door.

Her remedy for bridging this chasm is to determine what faculty need to know and be able to do in this new, changing world. She suggests that an instructor’s technological expertise should be “somewhere between (knowing) everything and nothing” – enough so faculty can help build a bridge from the place where students are interested and engaged to where they need to go, educationally.

Her overall message centered on three approaches to reach current (and especially future) students:

1. Second Life – a MUVE, or multi-user virtual environment (not an online game, since there are no game mechanics and no goals assigned; instead, each individual must figure out what to do and has free reign within certain boundaries.
2. Social Networks – (e.g., Facebook, Ning) where communities are built around common interests, including trends, culture, ideas, events, ideas, and creations.
3. Contributed/remixed content sites – (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, blogs, wikis) where students can collaborate, create, contribute, and critique – with text, audio, and/or images.

Benefits of these three approaches include:

• Collaboration
• Creativity
• Authenticity
• Community — around the content; they try much harder – “recreate it for the web”
• Engagement – students are engaged in participatory explorations
• Social
• Local/Global – local issue becomes global and vice versa
• Immediate – instant experiences; questions researched and answered quickly
• Participatory — not just a consumer; students become knowledge creators/synthesizers

Robbins is known to some for her often-publicized, academic exercise where students were asked to portray Kool-Aid people and mill around various Second Life spaces to experience diversity, crowd mentality, exclusion, and discrimination. She explained that because most of her Ball State University (Indiana) students never felt excluded or discriminated against, the “Kool-Aid man experience” was the best way to get them to quickly and easily understand a previously foreign concept.

So how did the students react to this new (and strangely unique) exercise? Robbins said many of them expressed they felt safe because they were in a group who were like themselves; had they been alone, “it would have been worse.” In other words, within five minutes, students learned complex, experiential concepts that were only marginally successful during a 50-minute, face-to-face class.

Robbins shared several other educational uses and applications of Second Life:

• Chat text from each student can be exported, saved, analyzed
• Group IM (instant messaging) – allows a lifeline when out interviewing others in SL (like an expert or advisor in an earpiece)
• Translating metaphorical ideas
• Role Playing
• Building, testing, synthesizing theoretical models (e.g., customer traffic flow, chemical molecules)
• Recreate works from literature to build understanding (e.g., Dante’s levels of hell, science fiction/fantasy recreations or interpretations)
• Critique and parody
• Sharing and presenting works to hundreds, rather than only the instructor or single class
• Student-generated schizophrenia simulator
• Her students were treated as co-researchers

Robbins closed by emphasizing the need to find and use technologies that meet the needs and goals of the course and your comfort level – not all tools are for everyone or every purpose, just because they are popular or novel. And with that, we’ll close with a few questions about your thoughts… What do YOU think?

How have you used Second Life or other “connecting” tools to engage students? What are your thoughts on teaching/learning in Second Life? (concerns, questions, success stories, ideas, etc.) …Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!

For more information:

Intellagirl Website

Sarah Robbins’ Ubernoggin Blog

Second Life

(Search for Article) Professor Avatar: In the digital universe of Second Life, classroom instruction also takes on a new personality (from The Chronicle of Higher Ed – September 21, 2007)

To register go to: http://wiki.teachuohio.org/page/Register

Additional Webinars in the 2007-2008 TeachU Series Include:

October 4th @ 2:00 pm:
The Web 2.0 Classroom: What’s Available, Where to Begin, and Innovative Integrations
Presented by Garrick Ducat, Mercy College and Terence Armentano, Bowling Green State University

November 8th @ 3:00 pm:
Stretching Into the Future
Presented by Kay Strong, Bowling Green State University

January 17th @ 11:00 am:
Creating a Course and Open Source Portfolio for First Year Students
Presented by Jason Tetzloff, Owens Community College

January 24th @ 2:00 pm:
Mobile Learning
Presented by Sheri Stover, Bryan Beverly, Frank Carone, Terri Klaus and Chris Roberts, Wright State University

February 14th @ 1:00 pm:
Reverse Benefits: How Teaching Online Improves Face to Face Teaching
Presented by Paul Pennington, Dean of Distance Education and Institutional Research, Cincinnati Christian University

March 20th @ 2:00 pm:
Making CENTSS of Web-based Student Services
Presented by Melody Clark, University of Cincinnati and George Steele, The Ohio Learning Network

April 24th @ 11:00 am:
Blogs and Wikis in an Integrated Curriculum
Presented by Lisa Meloncon, University of Cincinnati

May 29th @ 11:00 am:
Creating Hybrid Courses
Presented by Antoinette Perkins, Judith Anderson, Ingrid Emch, and Sharon Barnewell, Columbus State Community College

An article by Ruth Reynard, Associate Professor from Trevecca Nazarene University in Tennessee, discusses the inherent, powerful learning opportunities for students when they reflect on their learning in a written fashion – in particular, through blogging. She states,

(w)hile the notion of “finding individual voice” is not new to the learning process, technology such as blogging has presented a unique opportunity for teachers and students to work intentionally at this process.

She continues, noting that

(s)tudent response statements really cover a wide variety of “types” that reflect the instructional goals of the courses. That is, when developing individual voice throughout a learning process, each stage of that process is often reflected in the students’ comments. I have described each of these that I have noticed into the following categories:

• Reflective statements;
• Commentary statements;
• New idea statements; and
• Application statements.

In a 2005 article Blogs in Higher Ed: Personal Voice as Part of Learning, Reynard expresses the importance of blogging for learning:

(f)inding personal voice as a pedagogical method is important to establish learner identity and focus, and journaling has long been recognized as an effective way to provide space for this to occur.

Furthermore, with regard to assessing student learning,

(t)he idea that more than one person will view the work is quite powerful in promoting a sense of ownership from the student. Teachers can also benefit from “hearing” the personal voice of their students to begin to really understand the learning path of each student through a course.

For more information about the basics of blogging in education, visit this page, organized by Drs. Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson or visit The Center’s Blog & Wiki Resource Page.

What has been your experience with blogging for learning? How can blogging be used in your teaching, research/scholarship, service, and engagement? What type of blogging assignments do you create for students?

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Terence Armentano is an Instructional Designer and Multimedia Specialist for IDEAL (Interactive Distance Education for All Learners) at Bowling Green State University. His blog entails his weekly elearning spotlights as well as feeds from many of his favorite resources. These resources could be integrated into online or face-to-face courses — or anywhere in between.

Check out the videos, live chat and many other numerous features of the blog. Also, if you have questions about Blackboard or online pedogy techniques feel free to ask him questions…

Share your opinion and experiences by leaving a comment below:
What do you think of TerenceOnline? What information on his site did you find useful?

This week the feature we are focusing on is blogging. Follow the link below to a myriad of tutorials and explanations on how to effectively start and manage your own personal blog or help students with theirs.

Click Here for Blogging Tutorials

Share your opinion and experiences by leaving a comment below:
How have you used blogging? Do you believe it can be used effectively as a teaching tool?