This is a useful article on how our students are using Facebook and things that we should consider as college educators. Listed below are rules 1 and 2 in a list of 10. For more information, please click here: http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2006/01/how-university-administrators-should.html
1. The Facebook isn’t going away. While Facebook.com may not last forever, a service like the Facebook will always be present and useful on a college campus. The logic to this is quite simple: students are forced to renegotiate their social networks every semester. The Facebook supports and answers the student’s information needs. Put simply, our students are curious; they want to know anything and everything about the students around them. If you had the Facebook when you were an undergrad, wouldn’t you have wanted the same?
2. Almost all of your institution’s undergraduates are on the Facebook. I found that 94 percent of UNC’s Freshman class was on the Facebook. Techcrunch reported in November that 85% of all college students were on the Facebook, and surely that number has increased. You can’t fight numbers like this. More importantly, you can’t ignore them.
Both of these services can provide useful tools that can be utilized from home, office, or dorm room.
Do you have a Facebook account? How can Facebook be used to stay in contact with our students?…Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!
November 9th, 2007
Sarah Robbins (aka – Intellagirl), prompted the BGSU Tech Trends Series audience, “The world is changing… are you ready? Are your students ready?“
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:
- 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.
- Social Networks – (e.g., Facebook, Ning) where communities are built around common interests, including trends, culture, ideas, events, ideas, and creations.
- 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)
October 25th, 2007
Follow the link below for 23 Learning 2.0 Things. The site gives you tasks designed to make you more comfortable with Web 2.0 technologies. Tips and advice are provided along your journey. Learn more about blogging, RSS, photo sharing, tagging, wikis, and other online tools.
http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/
What tasks have you tried? What ideas or tools you would add to this tutorial? What is your favorite Web 2.0 tool? …Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!
October 18th, 2007
What is your opinion of the video? Do your students have similar concerns? How can you or the University help to change and encourage better student interaction? …Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!
For another great video from this group check out
The Machine is Us/ing Us a short video about the Web 2.0 revolution.
October 15th, 2007
Here are a couple of useful resources that we would like to share:
The Library of Congress offers an Ask-a-Librarian service, where they provide the ability to choose a research area and then ask a librarian via either online chat or email.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/
Another option is to use BGSU’s own Ask-a-Librarian service, The library offers help via online chat, email, phone, and one-on-one consultations.
http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/infosrv/ref/ask.html
Both of these services can provide useful tools that can be utilized from home, office, or dorm room.
What luck have you had with either service? Have you shared these resources with your students? Are there any other similar services that you use?…Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!
October 3rd, 2007
Slideshare is a site for hosting slidecasts – a new multimedia format for viewing slideshow (i.e. PowerPoint) synchronized with a podcast. However, presentations do not need to contain audio to be viewed on Slideshare.net. It can be used for conference talks, musical slideshows, audio picture books, portfolios or whatever else you can imagine.
Slideshare can be an alternative to Blackboard, when you want your presentations to be available to a wider audience than only your current students or community members, such as conference attendees, colleagues, future/prospective students, etc.
Here are the simple steps to create your own SlideShare show:
- Upload your PowerPoint presentation file to Slideshare
- Go to edit slide show > Create Slidecast tab and enter your URL here
- Synchronize slides and audio using the synchronization tool and click publish
- Your Slidecast is now ready for public viewing on SlideShare or anywhere else you embed the presentation, such as in a blog, wiki, or other web page.
How could you use Slideshare to enhance student learning? What types of “shows” would you like to share or view?…Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!
September 14th, 2007
Question 1
How might I use a wiki in an educational setting?
AL’s answer for Mac
http://www.atomiclearning.com/almovie?key=31064
AL’s answer for PC
http://www.atomiclearning.com/almovie?key=31064&format=1
Question 2
How can I set up a pbwiki site?
AL’s answer for Mac
http://www.atomiclearning.com/almovie?key=31071
AL’s answer for PC
http://www.atomiclearning.com/almovie?key=31071&format=1
Do you currently use wikis in the classroom? If so, how? Can you think of any instances where wikis could improve communication and collaboration amongst your students?…Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!
September 5th, 2007
The Ohio Learning Network (OLN) announces the 2007-2008 online webinar series. OLN’s TeachU webinars are hour-long interactive web seminars on uses of emerging technologies and pedagogies within the contexts of teaching, assessment, and student success. They’re also free!
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
September 4th, 2007
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?
August 22nd, 2007
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Ever wish you could watch a video that would easily explain these new technology concepts?
