iPad in Academia, "Look Ma, no hands!..." June 10, 2011 Webcast

Description (Schedule/Plan, Resource Links Below)

Lisa Star will talk about her knowledge and experience with the iPad in online courses.  Lisa has a wealth of experience both teaching online and training teachers to teach online. She has also taken many online courses herself. In those various settings, she has employed the iPad.  In addition, Lisa has an added layer of engagement with the iPad; on account of recent physiological conditions, she can no longer use a keyboard and has had to implement voice recognition technologies as alternatives to keyboards. The iPad has been especially useful on this frontier. We look forward to hearing more about her practical experience with this new technology.

Home Base (Google Doc) Web Page

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Resources & Links

"Attending Genocide Conference" (4.5 Mins - Video)

Please watch/listen to "Attending Genocide Conference." (4.5 Mins - Video)

[Photo copied April 13, 2007, from "Portfolio - Being Human - Philosophy of Teaching: This, Too, Is Part of Being Human" by Kathleen Z. Young, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, Western Washington University,

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/portfolio.htm]

This was one of first, and most provocative, responses to my request for examples of "clips" yesterday. It is embedded in a Website and related "portfolio" of materials that provide an excellent model for one way to extend the possibilities of a brief clip. By sending this sample I hope to prompt more of you to share clips and suggest different ways of using them.

This simply constructed videorecording is disturbing, perhaps profound. Young describes the atrocities of Srebrenica and her commitment to "not looking away." She ends with a hopeful explanation of new international responses to genocide. This clip is presented as her response to "Why did you take your students with you to the International Genocide Conference in Sarajevo?"

Please watch/listen to "Attending Genocide Conference" at:

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/showcase3.htm

First click on the above URL, then to begin this videorecording, click on the "play" (left-most) button on the control panel that appears beneath the viewing screen as shown here.

You may also need to increase the audio volume or listen carefully. It is worth it!

Please don't be intimidated by this example. We need to find a wide range of useful models. Far below in this message, I include links to a few other valuable examples that are much simpler. I hope more of you will be encouraged to share your first modest efforts! We need the LTA approach to 5-minute clips and hybrid workshops!

In four and a half minutes Kathleen Z. Young of Western Wash. U. calmly describes how she came to take a group of "… students to travel to Bosnia with me to attend an international conference on genocide in Sarajevo and participate in the excavation of a mass grave and the Muslim mass funeral and reburial of 600 of the 8,000 Bosniaks killed in the United Nation's 'safe haven' of Srebrenica in 1995."

You can go deeper into this experience and learn more about Young's teaching and the responses of some of her students by visiting other parts of this extraordinary Web-based "portfolio".

Student Reflections (about Genocide Conference trip - includes photos):

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/student_reflections.htm

Student Comments about Young as teacher:

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/student_comments.htm

Student Essay - text + photos - "Because I was There" - response to trip to Genocide Conference:

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/becauseiwasthere.htm

Excerpt from Young's website:

"The first time I taught the class on Islam and Conflict in Europe it was as an unpaid labor to prepare interested students to travel to Bosnia with me to attend an international conference on genocide in Sarajevo and participate in the excavation of a mass grave and the Muslim mass funeral and reburial of 600 of the 8,000 Bosniaks killed in the United Nation's 'safe haven' of Srebrenica in 1995. From the conference in Bosnia, the students traveled with me to Den Hague in The Netherlands and attended the trial of the Slobodan Milosevic. Students went with me to the new International Criminal Court, also in Den Hague, to meet with a judge on the new court and discuss the importance of anthropology in ending the impunity of the rogue actions of leaders committing genocide and crimes against humanity and helping the weak and victimized have a forum to speak their truths."

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Comment added to TLT-SWG Blog Posting April 12, 2007

From Karen Casto, Director, Center for Instructional Innovation, Western Washington University, Karen.Casto@wwu.edu

At the Center for Instructional Innovation at Western Washington University we have been using the concept of short videos as part of our innovative teaching showcase published on the web each year since 1999. In past years the showcases have a theme, with last year's being "educating global citizens". We create both written and video materials for these showcases and our goal is for both faculty at our institution and faculty from around the world to be able to use this resource.

Last year for the first time we used Google to host our videos, in part because we had an ever changing campus video environment, but mostly because Google provides statistics for each video, and also allows users to download the videos, search for appropriate videos, and use them for their own purposes.

The two highest rated and most viewed and downloaded, according to Google, from last year can be seen at:
Teaching Russian [2 Mins 53 Seconds - teaching basic Russian by speaking (almost) only Russian from very first class session + other suggestions - SWG]

Inviting class to accompany teacher who was invited to give a paper at international conference about/at memorial to srebendsa genocide; description of what happened at the conference and roles and responses of students
Attending Genocide Conference

The full showcase can be seen at 2005-06 Innovative Teaching Showcase

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005

These videos are all made here at the teaching/learning center, mostly by students.

New Learning Spaces: Health Care Embraces Electronic Info + "Bodies...the Exhibit "+ Valparaiso Univ. Lab

While pornography may be the industry to most rapidly adapt new information technologies, the health sciences are often the academic disciplines to do so. If you want to find some examples of innovative integration of technology, physical space, and virtual realities, look into medical education - whether in colleges and universities or hospitals. E.g., visit "Bodies...the Exhibition" when it comes to your city [see below] or see silent slide show (< 2 minutes) about Valparaiso University's Virtual Nursing Learning Center, and read the article excerpt below about Integrating Electronic Medical Records.

VIRTUAL NURSING LEARNING CENTER
This slide show ends by taking your browser to a Web page where you will find more info about this fascinating learning/teaching space, including a longer, full-motion narrated video about it. Click here: http://www.tltgroup.org/TailoredWebsites-gigs/Valpo/VVNLab.htm

BODIES...THE EXHIBITION
"Bodies... the Exhibition" - slightly controversial mix of art and anatomy education - human cadavers extraordinarily preserved, displayed, annotated, and explained. For more info, see: www.bodiestheexhibition.com . I saw a version of this exhibit in Chicago a couple months ago and was astonished, fascinated, educated, and exhausted. I need to go at least once more.

INTEGRATING ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS
"The electronic medical record is the most important single development helping to usher in the Era of No Excuses in modern medicine. It is an age in which clinical decision-making, physician performance and patient outcomes are increasingly transparent; patient safety is mechanized; and the once-secret medical chart is sometimes open to contributions from the patients themselves.

"Electronic medical records make confusing and physically unwieldy masses of data instantly available, portable and searchable -- altogether more useful than when the information was stored on paper. Computer-accessible records have the potential to save the cost-strangled American medical system billions of dollars in waste, repetition and error. They may also prove to be essential tools of research, allowing scientists to examine patterns of medical practice, drug use, complication rates and health outcomes."

Excerpt from: "VA Takes the Lead in Paperless Care - Computerized Medical Records Promise Lower Costs and Better Treatment," By David Brown, Washington Post, April 10, 2007; p. HE01
VA Takes the Lead in Paperless Care - washingtonpost.com

Watch for Cell Phones on Campus! Why?

8 to 12 year olds are using cell phones. Wake Forest Univ. students can check their laundry status via cell phones.

See below for more... including "5. Class resources like a mobile periodic table at your fingertips" from list of"...top 20 reasons" student should "...join MobileU" [cell phone system at Wake Forest]

What's the difference between a cell phone, a pocket pc, and a clicker?

A. $100
B. 1 year
C. 2 ounces
D. Students' dependence
E. Faculty attitudes
F. All of the above

NOTE:

• Pocket PC = very small handheld computer; over-developed PDA = Personal Digital Assistant; Handheld device; Palm; etc.
• Smart Cell Phone = whatever works on latest cell phone models!
• Clicker = Personal Response System; students individually and anonymously answer multiple choice questions in class

Following excerpt is from "Three Dads, a Kid-Oriented Cellphone Service" By Kim Hart, Washington Post Staff Writer, Washington Post, Monday, April 2, 2007; p. D02
URL as of 4/3/2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/01/AR2007040100683.html?sub=AR

"Daniel Neal scoffs at the notion that children are too young for cellphones.

'Kids are using more advanced mobile devices than even their parents,' said Neal, co-founder of a new cellphone service geared specifically toward 8- to 16-year-olds. 'They're adept. They're swimming in technology, and they're comfortable using it.'

"...it is the 'tween' market of 8- to 12-year-olds that is considered to the be one of the last frontiers for wireless companies, according to a 2006 study by the Yankee Group, a market research firm. More than half of the 'tween' population will be wireless users by 2010, the study predicted.

"Most of the 'tweens' already using cellphones are on family plans -- the earliest attempts by wireless companies to capture business. In the past two years, a handful of companies entered the 'tween' market. Disney, LeapFrog, Verizon and LG rolled out kid-friendly phones with parental controls.

Following is from Wake Forest University Website about it's Mobile University plan
URL as of 4/3/2007: http://mobileu.wfu.edu/?page=spring2006details

"MobileU Spring 2006

Registration is open NOW for spring enrollment in Information Systems’ MobileU™ pilot program. Join! If you know nothing about technology – or know everything – MobileU is for you! As a member of the Wake Forest community, you have the opportunity to join in one of the nation’s first Pocket PC phone pilot programs. See for yourself what everyone is talking about!

Use the Mobi to lead your sorority more effectively. Keep in touch with your teammates about changes in practice or game strategies. Prepare for the technology you’ll be expected to use in the real world. Or, just love it as a phone!

The $279 cost includes the Cingular 8125 (Mobi), warranty, insurance, free 1 GB storage card, PLUS 20% discount on Cingular service.

The top 20 reasons YOU should join MobileU:
20. Free Wi-Fi!
19. 1 GB Storage card
18. No service plan contract!
17. 20% off Cingular service plans
16. E-mail on the go
15. Instant messaging on the go
14. Track the campus shuttle arrival time
13. Check laundry from anywhere
12. Unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes
11. Enhanced cellular coverage on campus
10. Mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint Viewer, Campus Map, WIN, and more!
9. Leave virtual messages in campus buildings for others to find
8. Use it to store your music files
7. It’s a camera!
6. It’s a video camera!
5. Class resources like a mobile periodic table at your fingertips
4. Mobile class schedule that turns off the ringer when you’re in class
3. Insurance through May, 2008
2. Great on-campus support team
1. And oh yeah, it’s a cool phone!

Hybrid (Blended) Faculty Development & Professional Development

How can we use some of the new technologies to help meet the increasing need for faculty development and professional development that those technologies are also creating? How can we improve undergraduate teaching and learning?

Hybrid professional development, hybrid faculty development, and hybrid undergraduate courses can be part of the answer.

NOTE: The terms "hybrid" and "blended" are used almost interchangeably. I prefer "hybrid" because the other term implies more complete integration of the parts than is often possible - or desirable.

Hybrid Education: Synchronous and Asynchronous; Face-to-Face and Distance; Virtual and Tangible; Local and (Inter)National; Mixing Media; Using Web 2.0 Options AND older asynchronous options!

Goal: Provide something BETTER than was possible via any of the components ALONE.

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We know we can't keep up separately. How can we do better together? How can we use some of the new technologies to help meet the increasing demand for faculty development and professional development that those technologies are also creating?

Hybrid-Hybrid Professional Development is part of the answer.

The accelerating pace of development and access to new technologies with educational potential keeps

1. increasing the need and expectation for professional development

2. increasing workload and decreasing discretionary time for faculty and other academic professionals

3. increasing availability of tools and resources that seem likely to help cope with this overload

This collaborative approach to professional and faculty development is based on ten years of work by the TLT Group which began with a focus on intra-institutional multi-role collaboration (TLT Roundtables) and has shifted more recently to focus on inter-institutional collaboration and greater reliance on WebCasts, Web 2.0 and other Internet-based resources. The TLT Group has learned to develop and offer hybrid professional development by working collaboratively with a variety of professionals from a variety of institutions, because, more than ever, no one can keep up with everything.

The heart of the current model is learning to match what can be done best in face-to-face settings run by local campus professionals with what can be added by providing access to experts and activities who are located elsewhere via online synchronous and asynchronous activities. In particular, we design and support online synchronous live Webcasts including multi-directional audio and a variety of visual displays and interaction options IN CONJUNCTION WITH local gatherings of small groups.

Some of the small groups are linked to the "outside" via a single computer in their meeting room; some participate co-located but with each participant individually logged in within a computer lab; some participate with individual computer connections from their own offices or other campus locations. The success of these ventures depends on effective communication and collaboration among the local leaders and the online presenters. Some of the local leaders can share skills and knowledge that is valuable not only on their own campus but elsewhere too.

Importance or relevance to other institutions: There are so many platforms, operating systems, and software applications available to educators that finding a way through the maze individually can often interfere with the basic need to communicate and work together. The TLT Group has worked over the last ten years to use new technologies and new pedagogies to support, not undermine, communication and collaboration in pursuit of the improvement of teaching and learning. This "hybrid" collaborative professional development has been largely facilitated by offering moderated synchronous, multidirectional, voice, text, and visual applications using web conference interfaces. The synchronous environment is then complimented by asynchronous resources such as blogs, RSS feeds, web pages, and wikis - and whatever other options have emerged recently from Web 2.0, etc.

TEST [preview] Info about NEH's Digital Humanities Initiative

Fred Winter of NEH introduces several technology-related funding programs. Click here for MP3 file of interview 2/28/2007

Students writing their own textbook using a wiki

At Old Dominion University in Virginia, Dwight Allen and his graduate assistants teach over 200 students in "Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education." The course has many sections, some taught on campus, some in a distance learning format.

Allen saw that the textbook was not engaging students effectively, so he decided that, the next term, the students would be assigned to collaboratively create their own text, using the same software used by authors of Wikipedia.

Allen's team provided the chapter headings; students each worked on a different section, writing for other students. Three versions of each section were written and, later, students critiqued the drafts, and voted for the best version of each one. Using their advice, the faculty picked the versions for each chapter; the other versions were also included as supplementary material. All this was done in the first month of the course; after that, the students studied the textbook they'd created, as well as using other elements of instruction: lectures, discussions, readings, and so on.

For more on how the course and writing were organized, click here.
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What you see above is a new addition to our materials on 'Digital Writing Across the Curriculum.'

A little explanation: Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is important because writing is the lifeblood of most college courses: when students entering a course can already write well, the instructor has more options for how to teach them, and how to assess what they've learned. When those same students also have skills of digital writing (e.g., creating web sites, using multimedia, writing for wikis and blogs), those options expand even further. That's my hypothesis, and this TLT Group resource gives examples of disciplinary courses that are being taught in fresh, effective ways by using assignments that involve digital writing. Please send me more examples! We hope that our subscribing institutions will use this web site to consider whether, and how, to foster such skills in their students in order to help all departments improve instruction and assessment.

If you like this work, the best way to support it is to urge your institution to subscribe to The TLT Group.

"Take 5 for Teaching" Five-Minute Workshops - Example, "The Last Day of Class"

Provided by Todd Zakrajsek, Director, Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching (FaCIT), Central Michigan University. EMAIL: zakra1t@cmich.edu


Several examples available at:
http://facit.cmich.edu/whats-on/archive.html

[5 MINUTE VIDEO] "The Last Day of Class"
Need QuickTime or similar player.
http://facit.cmich.edu/videos/tfft-last-day.html

To what extent is it useful to have this available as a 5-minute video recording?
vs. Audio recording?
vs. Text description?

Which combinations of video, audio, text, etc. and a possible face-to-face session would be especially useful? For which purposes?

List of main points from video presentation:

• Food
• Undergrad research possibilities
• Review syllabus
• Link course content to life
• Greet students by name
• Ask for student feedback
• Discuss what current students would write to students who take course next term
• Discuss next semester
• 3 most important things learned in course
• Describe what TEACHER has learned
• Self-addressed stamped envelopes for students - encourage later feedback
• Course-evaluation survey at BEGINNING of session
• Resist urge to cram in more topics
• Discuss purpose of course and hopes

Imagine Adding Face-to-Face to Online Educ. - Thought Experiment

Exciting "thought experiment":
Suppose all higher education were conducted online.
Now imagine how and why you would ADD face-to-face meetings.

• In what ways could you improve online education by creating new hybrid or blended options?
• What strategies would you recommend to teachers,students in this new combined environment?
• How could you best take advantage of both synchronous and asynchronous interaction?
• What different media might you use?
• In what ways would you encourage, support, or prevent students from multi-tasking?
• How does the concept of "band-width" influence your choices?

This activity was suggested by Doug Eder, Director of Univ. Evaluation, Arizona State Univ. during a telephone conference call 1/30/2007 involving about a dozen experts in various aspects of faculty and professional development for college teaching and learning.

Listen to Eder describe this idea informally via MP3 .

Help! Need webcast telephone connection!

Need 2-way link between Webcast and telephone conference call.

• Prefer software interface solution (e.g., linking Skype phone call with Webcast connection INSIDE a computer).
• Hardware device linking computer, phone and headset would be OK, but Andrea PCTI device is inadequate due to local radio interfeernce.

CHALLENGE
Some people who participate in the Webcast cannot use a headset connected to a computer for audio participation, so they need to be able to use a telephone to connect to a conference call to hear and be heard.

GOAL

1. Run live Webcast with 2-way link to telephone conference call.
2. This link must be monitored and controlled by someone via a headset.
3. Everyone who is participating in phone conference call must be able to hear everything that is "broadcast" by the Internet Webcast.
4. Each person who is participating in the phone conference call must be ABLE TO BE heard by everyone who is participating via the Internet in the Webcast. This person needs to be able to click on the microphone to speak option in the Webcast when someone in the telephone conference call wants to speak and be heard by others on the Webcast.