Product Sketch Pad (Catalystwo Limited) Category Sketching Overview An excellent sketching app that can serve multiple purposes. Learning Curve Very easy to use. Rating (5 star scale) Chock full of nice features. Cost $.99

The Sketch Pad program is a must for several reasons: it is very easy to use, has several features, and it is very nicely priced. All of the tools can be controlled from their home location at the bottom of the screen or be made to float and positioned anywhere they are convenient.

I use Sketch Pad as a sort of Whiteboard but I wish it had a selection feature for ‘an erase all’ function. There is, however, a workaround for fast erasing: pinch the image to the smallest size possible and a few passes with the eraser will clean up the board rather quickly.

Sketch Pad uses the standard pinch-in, pinch-out gesture for zooming in and out. There are four pen size options, a color swatch that is customized by simply double-tapping one of the primary colors, and there are lots of emoticons that can be added to your drawing. The program has a selectable palm rest that can be positioned on the bottom right or left, or it can be resized to your liking. There is also a track pad that can be used to position the image anywhere on the canvas.

Like all iPad apps, Sketch Pad allows you to e-mail and print your creation. You also can save your canvas as a photo to the photo library, or send it any of several other apps. The preference is chock full of options from Autosave, spell-check and Geotagging, to synching to the cloud with Dropbox, iCloud, Google Docs, Evernote, etc.

A free version of Sketch Pad called Sketch Pad 3 is available and it appears to pretty much do most of what its $.99 brother/sister will do with one exception: Sketch Pad 3 has an advertisement banner running at the top that some of you might find distracting. There are two ways to deal with this: 1. Turn off your Wi-Fi and the banner will disappear. 2. Place the floating tools on top of the ad banner to cover it up.

Summary:
I like this program a lot and I think you will to! From drawing simple sketches, to doodling, or creating annotated drawings, I think you will agree that the program has just about everything you will ever want. Catalystwo Limited, the designers of Sketch Pad and Sketch Pad 3 also offer two other sketching programs: FastFinga ($1.99) and Fast Finga 3 ($2.99). Other similar available apps are: Drawing Pad ($1.99); Sketch Pad HP ($0.99); and SketchBook Pro for iPad ($4.99). One last thing: you will be productive with Sketch Pad in no time because using it is as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Dave Yearwood is an associate professor and chair of the technology department at University of North Dakota.

According to a recent study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith & Zickuhr, 2010) teen and young adult use of social networking sites has exploded since 2006. Yet, most collegiate faculty will choose not to embrace a device that could greatly enhance their teaching prowess and, more importantly, assist the development of their students.

Digital Immigrant professors often believe that Digital Native students’ familiarity with social media software and cutting edge mobile technologies corresponds to a deep and critical use of Twitter, Facebook and blogs in research or coursework applications (Kumar, 2010). This double-edged facet both excites and scares faculty. If students are so familiar with social media, then they could use it to uncover new ways to research material. If students are so much more versed than faculty in the technology, then I, as a teacher, cannot teach them.

There is a solution to this problem. The use of an effective and basic social media tool in the higher education classroom can be a wonderful bridge between the cyber skills of students and the thoughtful lessons provided by professors. The answer is found in creating a blogging assignment.

In my Writing for the Media course, I adopted the creation of a blog as a new assignment. As a Digital Immigrant professor whose early professional and academic careers pre-dated the Internet, I was, at first, skeptical of introducing a technology-based exercise in which I held very little expertise. Deep down I knew that I needed to shelve my fear and learn as much about blogs as I could because it made sense to use web tools as a relational component of instruction. Besides, blogs are particularly well suited for a whole variety of courses. They can be used for writing essays, research, communication studies, visual art galleries, e-Portfolios and other impactful endeavors. And blogs make fantastic end-of-semester presentation forums.

Based upon my experience, I recommend a few essential steps for implementing a blog as a student-generated learning exercise. First, discover as much as you can about the appearance and basic functionality of blogs. You do not need to be an IT expert; however, you do need to have a good idea about how to create and update posts, and the overall maintenance. Second, find a free platform, such as Blogger or WordPress, to house the student blogs. This search will greatly assist the access and naming conditions for project work with very little hassle. Third, create your own site before you ask students to create theirs. Here is where you can get ahead of the curve, maintain an expert practitioner status and promote your confidence. This is my site here: http://massmediazone.blogspot.com/

These simple steps will assist your in learning the new language of blogs and the unique cultural qualities of social media. In time, you will be like every immigrant and learn to love your new land.

References:
Kumar, S. (2010). Teaching history with blogs for student engagement and critical use of digital media. Journal of Applied Computing, Vol. 6, No. 2: 69-76.

Lenhart, A., Purcell, K., Smith, A., and Zickuhr, K. (2010). Social media & mobile internet use among teens and young adults. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, Vol. 9, No. 5: 1-6.

Dr. David McCoy is an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Digital Media at Ashland University.

Product Keynote (Apple) Category Presentations Overview A presentation program that runs in landscape mode, rather robust, easy to use, and integrates well with desktop presentations files. Learning Curve Not difficult to master and rather intuitive. Rating (5 star scale) Rating given due in part to inability of app to import audio and the round about method of inserting video Cost $9.99

The first app up for review is Keynote, the little brother/sister to its full-blown sibling Keynote that runs on Macs and is similar in many respects to PowerPoint. Keep in mind that no app will ever run like the complete version you would use on a computer, this much you ought to know going into the iPad world of apps. That said, Keynote is easy to use and the Help section is very straight forward. In fact, you will be running your first presentation within minutes of purchasing Keynote!

What are some basic things to know from about Keynote from the outset? To start Keynote, simply tap “Presentation,” tap the + sign and tap on ‘Create Presentation.’ If, however, you wish to import a presentation instead of starting a new presentation, choose from one of three locations: iTunes, iDisk, or a server. There are several templates for new presentations, tap one of these and double tap to enter text. Tap the ‘play’ symbol to start the presentation and pinch to stop the presentation.

The ‘tool’ symbol in the menu allows for sharing and printing slides, along with a ‘find’ option, an ‘adding notes’ option, and an ‘advanced’ option for slide numbers, interactivity, looping and using your iTouch or iPhone to run an iPad presentation. Note: using an iTouch or iPhone to run your presentation will require another app called ‘Remote’ ($0.99). One thing to keep in mind: Remote will only run with WiFi enabled, not with Bluetooth as stated in Apple Support Some of the fixes offered by others range from running third party-plugins to turning off the firewall, none of which I really care for. Here is a quick fix: plug in an Apple Airport Express (no cable required) then connect both devices to that WiFi and you are ready to go. There are also options for inserting shapes into key and the app has multiple ‘undo’ options but holding the ‘undo’ will allow for the selection of ‘redo.’ Tap and hold a slide to: cut, copy, delete, or skip (slides are arranged vertically along the left side of the iPad screen).

To delete a presentation, tap and hold. Once the presentation starts shaking, select the ‘share’ (curved arrow), duplicate (‘+’ sign), or the delete option. The insert option allows you to insert media (photos and video), tables, charts, and shapes. There is a trick, however, to inserting videos: they have to be emailed and pulled in using the reply/forward/save option in the e-mail app where they will show up as a video in the Media section of the insert tool. This trick took some effort to figure out but it really works!

One last thing about the Keynote app: it has a built in pointer—press and hold any point on the iPad when in presentation mode (need to tap the ‘play’ icon to get to the presentation mode) and a pointer appears which can be moved to any area of the screen.

 

 

Summary:
There are many other presentation apps, all of which allow you to import a Keynote for Mac or Windows/Mac PowerPoint presentations. Some of these other apps include: Limelight (free), 2Screen ($4.99), Power Presenter ($1.99), and Quick Office ($24.99; this app is a mobile office suite). Some of these apps are a bit more robust than others but all of the presentation apps can do a decent job and most do it rather well. Connect Keynote to a display monitor and you have the option of seeing your notes, all of your slides (on the left pane, toggle mode), including what is being projected. Keynote, in my estimation is a great app but it is a bit over priced compared to similar presentation apps and Apple need to give us the option to embedded audio into presentations.

Dave Yearwood, associate professor and chair of the technology department, University of North Dakota.

So, how does the average person acquire information about individual apps? Two ways really: Try out the app yourself, hopefully most are free because this can be an expensive proposition. Or alternatively, wait for someone to try them and provide you with their take on the app’s usefulness. Well, if you opt for the latter then you are in luck because this is what I will attempt to do for the foreseeable future through this App of the Week column. I say “attempt” because what works for me might not for you. However, because we share a common interest—using apps that offer some pedagogical benefit in our work with students, apps that allow for increased productivity, or apps that allow us to find an escape—I think that you will enjoy looking into these apps yourself to see how they might make your life easier.

Before I introduce the first app, I’d like to lay the groundwork and offer some advice to help those of you just getting started with apps. First things first: If you have not yet organized your apps into folders, then you should do this now. One of the main reasons for creating folders is to reduce the amount of swiping you have to do to get to the app you want. As your app library grows, these folders will be big timesavers.

To create a folder on an iPad, simply touch and hold one app until they all start to shake. Release and then drag that or any other app onto another app that share some characteristics, e.g. drag your Angry Birds onto FreeCell. Next give the folder a name such as, ‘Games’ or ‘Entertainment’, or you can accept the default name if that is suitable to you. And finally, click the home button at the bottom of the iPad to stop the shaking apps. All of the apps on my iPad are in folders which are grouped mainly by function. As an educator, my area of interests, when it comes to iPad apps, falls into six distinct categories: Books, Productivity, Health, Utilities, Music, Periodicals, and Entertainment.

One last thing before we leave the topic of organization; the process for moving individual apps between pages can be accomplished by holding shaking apps and dragging them onto a desired page. This process is a bit more challenging than making folders as the app may resist the move. Persistence is the key here, as in any successful move, so don’t give up.

Coming March 9: a review of the Apple Keynote app.

Dave Yearwood is an associate professor and chair of the technology department at the University of North Dakota.

In this article, we outline some of the benefits we found and share tips for getting started with interactive web conferencing in your classes.

Interactive web conferencing increases accessibility. Because synchronous web-based sessions can be accessed by students anywhere there is an Internet connection, IWC increases the likelihood that students will be able to actively participate in classes despite illness, family obligations, weather or travel that would – in a traditional face-to-face class – result in absences.

Interactive web conferencing increases student-to-student and student-to-teacher interaction. Many online courses rely heavily on asynchronous discussion forums or wikis to promote collaboration and communication between the students and instructor. By adding the IWC component, discussions can again be dynamic and spontaneous, spirited and engaging, because the audio and video components of the interface promote real-time learning and discussion. The format also allows students to work collaboratively on a project even though they are not at the same physical location. As college students struggle to balance home, work and school, this kind of flexibility allows them to more easily accomplish project-based collaborative work.

Interaction is also increased because there is a set time where the class comes together synchronously, which helps eliminate feelings of isolation or lack of interpersonal connections with classmates and the instructor that may occur in a fully asynchronous online course.

Interactive web conferencing promotes active learning. Imagine if your students could comment on a presentation as it happens and remain engaged in the lesson via polls, surveys, or interactive whiteboard sharing.

In essence, web conferencing provides a venue for sustained interactions between students, authentic cooperative learning, and collegial sharing of ideas and project progress.

Interactive web conferencing adds variety: While there is much discussion and debate about learning styles (See references), IWC certainly engages the visual and auditory learner and helps to provide the multisensory interaction that traditionally has been missing from text-based online courses.

The format also allows instructors to record sessions for later viewing by students so they can go back and listen to content that they need further practice with or that may have been confusing. These recorded sessions also help meet the adaptations and modifications for students with disabilities who may need copies of class notes or presentations.

Tips for Success
Perhaps the most critical step required in order to realize the many instructional and learning benefits of interactive web conferencing is preparation — on the part of the faculty, student and institution. We accomplished this at Towson University by developing instructional guides and best practices, providing just-in-time training, and developing a community of faculty users for process improvement.

Do you want to get started with interactive web conferencing? Here are some useful tips to increase success and satisfaction for both students and faculty.

Getting Started

• Practice using IWC prior to meeting with your class.
• Schedule at least one test session with your students to ensure they can access, hear and participate in your meetings.
• Provide “How to Join a Meeting” instructions to your students.
• Post the invitations to your IWC meetings and instructions to a central location like your LMS so that students can easily access this information.
• Practice using IWC for the first time when everyone is in the same place at the same time whenever possible.
• Make sure the learning goals, and not the technology, drive the instruction.

Classroom Management

• Explain what the different icons mean in the IWC interface.
• Establish a protocol for how students should ask to speak or alert the instructor they are finished commenting so that passing the microphone is easier in larger groups.
• Appoint one or two students as presenters also so they can help pass the microphone.
• Change initial settings so that everyone can chat with all attendees and students have ability to do everything (like annotate).
• Use the “yes/no” buttons periodically to keep people on-task and to be sure they still hear you.

Troubleshooting and Technical Support

• Add the technical support number to every invitation to a meeting.
• Allow students to join 15 minutes prior so there is time to verify microphones and speakers are working correctly before beginning.
• Since we often have multiple peripheral devices connected to our computers remind your students to select the microphone and speaker source they intend to use.
• Remind participants to keep background noise and paper shuffling to a minimum and to mute their microphone when they do not need to speak.
• Keep e-mail running in the background and have your phone handy in case students try and contact you when having technical difficulties.
• Always check that students can hear you (and others) well and ask them to alert you if they are having trouble hearing.

Dr. Linda Macaulay is a lecturer in the Department of Educational Technology and Literacy at Towson University. La Tonya Dyer, M.A., M.S., is an Instructional Designer/Trainer for the Center of Advancement Instructional and Technology at Towson University.

References:
Neighmond, Patti. “Think You’re An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It’s Unlikely : Shots – Health Blog : NPR.” NPR. 29 Aug. 2011. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. .

Christensen, Clayton M., Michael B. Horn, and Curtis W. Johnson. Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Print.

During the recent online seminar Selecting and Using Technologies in Online & Blended Courses, Tony Bates, an elearning and distance education planning and management consultant, offered some insights on what to consider when making technology decisions.

Bates, author of Managing Technology in Higher Education: Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning, recommends the SECTIONS model, which examines a variety of factors for determining the most appropriate technology to bring into a classroom. Some of the larger questions you need to ask are, “How will this technology benefit the students? Does it make learning more accessible for the students? Does it increase their flexibility? What kind of students are you reaching—or, more importantly, could you reach who you’re not reaching already—with this technology?,” Bates said.

The SECTIONS decision-making model
Students – What are the demographics of the students in your course? Do they work? Do they live on or near campus? What is their preferred learning style? Are they motivated learners?

Ease of use; portability – There’s nothing more frustrating than technology that doesn’t work like it’s supposed to, so whatever technologies you choose, they must be easy to use, easy to maintain and reliable. Training should be available for anyone who needs it.

Costs – The costs involved could be fixed or variable, and go beyond the actual cost of the product to include instructor time, instructional support, media production, and maintenance.

Teaching – What is your teaching style? Some technologies lend themselves more to didactic or direct teaching; others to student participation. What are the intended learning outcomes? How will students be assessed?

Interaction – What technologies will engage and motivate your students? What technologies will enhance interaction between you and your students, between students, and between the students and the course material?

Organization – Does the institution support the use of learning technologies? Can you and your students get help if you need it? If you try to do something different will you be rewarded or punished?

Novelty – New technologies are a double-edged sword, Bates said. Because they are new, they might attract positive attention and support. However, new technologies also carry more risk because they’re largely untested, and may never reach broad adoption or maturation.

Speed and Security – Security and privacy issues are becoming increasingly important. Is the technology secure or can it be ‘hacked’? Is student information protected? Is the data stored on a secure server and is it backed up in case of an emergency?

“The key is, whatever model you choose, think about the technology choice before designing the course,” said Bates. “Too often instructors get halfway through the course and then start making decisions about the technology when that should have been thought about at the beginning so that it can be properly integrated.”

One of the easiest and most powerful tools is the regular old wiki. Wikis are simply web pages that can be edited by their users. Instead of only carrying content from the administrator, they harness the power of crowdsourcing to create a powerful communal resource.

I use a wiki as the electronic hub of my face-to-face courses. The uses are varied:

Course Information
All course information —syllabus, course schedule, assignments, handouts, etc. —is posted on the wiki. This means that students can check in to get information at any time without the multiple login steps of an LMS. I also find it much easier to update content on the wiki than the LMS. Plus, students considering taking the course can check out the syllabus before registering. It is beyond me why most colleges still only provide a name and short generic description of their courses to guide students’ decisions. Why not at least require instructors to put their syllabi into an online database?

Resource Repository
I like saving current articles that relate to course content. For instance, I am constantly running across advances in genetics that fit perfectly into my medical ethics course. I put links to these articles into my wiki. Importantly, I encourage students to do the same so that they feel a part of a knowledge community that is exploring the topics together.

One interesting section of the wiki is called “Just for Fun.” This is a place for students to load links to funny stories or videos related to course content. You would be surprised how much is out there.

Student Projects
One of the biggest mistakes we make in education is keeping the good work our students do hidden from the public. While professors are supposed to make public their research to advance understanding in their field, student work is only seen by the instructor and the student. Why not make the best work public? Not only does this encourage students to do better work, but also makes that work a resource for future students. Other students can benefit from the work, and it can serve as a model of what the instructor wants from students.

I put my students into small groups and assign each the project of developing a learning module on a topic covered in class. The resulting module is posted to the wiki along with the other class content. That module needs to have learning content, such as a voice-over PowerPoint or VoiceThread, as well as an assessment module, like an online quiz, and recommended resources.

Consider a simple wiki as an easy way to dip your toes into the online waters.

As always, I welcome your comments, criticisms, and cries of outrage on the blog. In particular, I’d like to hear your suggestions on other uses of a wiki in the classroom.

Resources
PB Works – Formerly PB Wiki, this is an easy to learn and fairly powerful free wiki system. They recently upgraded the capabilities in interesting ways, which I haven’t even begun to explore yet.

Glogster – Fun platform that makes a wiki into a kind of online mosaic.

NU Medical Ethics – My own very simple wiki—you can do better.

Wikis in Plain English – Still the best introduction to wikis from the good people at Common Craft.

Learner-Centered Technology: Aligning Tools with Learning Goals

Learner-centered classrooms require learner-centered technology. The technological tools available for learner-centered instruction continue to advance, presenting faculty with opportunities and challenges.

Today’s teachers need a thorough understanding of how technological tools can enhance learning. Successful educators become adept at creating courses that capitalize on the pedagogical benefits that technology can bring, facilitating students to meet the desired learning outcomes.

In this seminar you will learn proven, practical ways to select appropriate technologies and integrate them in to your learner-centered curriculum.

Learner-Centered Technology: Aligning Tools with Learning Goals features Dr. Ike Shibley, an associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, and one of our most popular and dynamic presenters.

He will show you:

• How to match learning goals with technological products
• How to design course assignments that more effectively incorporate technology
• How technology can improve learner-centered instruction in each of the four major course formats: Face-to-face learning, web-enhanced learning, blended learning, and online learning
• How to explain the major tenets of learner-centered education and relate each tenet to technology
• How to argue effectively about the way that technology can improve learning
• How to identify technology programs that can improve learning in a course

When you order the recording of this seminar on CD, you’ll also receive the complete transcript.

An optional Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to upload the CD of the seminar onto the institution’s password-protected internal web site for unlimited access by members of the campus community.

Order the CD + Transcript

All seminars include a discussion guide for facilitators
Participating in a Magna Online Seminar as a team can help leverage unique insights, foster collaboration, and build momentum for change. Each seminar now includes a Discussion Guide for Facilitators which provides step-by-step instructions for generating productive discussions and thoughtful reflection. You’ll also get guidelines for continuing the conversation after the event, implementing the strategies discussed, and creating a feedback loop for sharing best practices and challenges.

Social Media Usage Trends Among Higher Education Faculty

The popularity of social media and its rapid ascension into our daily lives is nothing short of astounding. Sites that weren’t even around 10 years ago are now visited every day. What’s more, 56 percent of the faculty surveyed said they expect their use of social media to increase this school year.

Do you friend your students on Facebook?

Do you tweet, or use Twitter in the classroom?

Do you network on LinkedIn, and participate in its groups?

Does your college or university have a social media policy?

For the past two years, Faculty Focus conducted a survey on Twitter usage in higher education. This year we expanded the survey to include Facebook and LinkedIn, while adding a number of new questions as well.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all have their strengths and weaknesses, and each are better used for some things than others. But how are the three being used in higher education today? It’s our hope that these survey results provide at least some of the answers while lending new data to the discussion.

Here are just some of the findings from Social Media Usage Trends Among Higher Education Faculty, a 2011 Faculty Focus survey of nearly 900 higher education professionals:

• Facebook is the most popular social media site for the people who took this survey. Nearly 85 percent have a Facebook account, following by LinkedIn at approximately 67 percent and Twitter at around 50 percent.
• Thirty-two percent have “friended” an undergraduate student on Facebook; 55 percent said they wait until after the student graduates.
• Eighty-three percent allow students to use laptops in the classroom; 52 percent allow smart phones.
• Thirty percent said their institution doesn’t have a social media policy. About 40 percent weren’t sure.
• Sixty-eight percent have talked to their students about managing their online reputation.

Social Media Usage Trends Among Higher Education Faculty

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Social Media Usage Trends Among Higher Education Faculty includes a complete breakdown of all the questions asked in the survey, as well as narrative comments. In many cases, the comments show a great divide between those who have embraced social media, and those who have not.

Here are just some of the comments, in their own words:

I am quite sure that students are learning less and less because they are distracted by Facebook (primarily) when they should be engaged in the class.

It is very risky for a professional educator to use social media as a learning tool.

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Faculty Focus contains a wealth of valuable material on all of the key issues that matter to today’s top faculty and administrators. It’s packed with strategies, tips, and other information you can use on the topics that impact your students, your school, and your work, including:

• Student Engagement
• Instructional Design
• Online Education
• Classroom Management
• Educational Assessment
• Teaching with Technology
• Faculty Development
• Curriculum Development
• Trends in Higher Education
• And much, much more.

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“How fantastic would it be to take that bulleted list of text, put each bullet on a slide and do a quick audio narration that’s maybe 30 seconds in length for each learning objective?” said Jill Schiefelbein, owner of the Impromptu Guru and a former director of online programs for Arizona State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “Then the learning objective comes more alive for your students … so now instead of seeing a bulleted list, which a lot of them might not even read, they actually have a video of you discussing with them what these learning objectives are. A lot us who have worked with curriculum design and designing courses from scratch know that learning objectives are key foundational pieces in course development so why not treat them like the key objectives they are and actually talk about them more to our students.”

In the recent online seminar A Guide to Video Communication for Online Instructors, Schiefelbein offered strategies for the types of content that can be enhanced or repurposed through video, as well as some of the basic technical aspects of shooting, editing and embedding video into your courses.

For those completely new to working with video, Schiefelbein recommends creating a narrated PowerPoint as a good starting point. Once you’re comfortable with that, screen captures are effective for explaining processes that might be difficult to follow in text alone. For example, Schiefelbein likes to use screen capture to show students how to navigate within the learning management system. For complex tasks, where interaction with both the instructor and the content are needed to boost understanding, you might want to try what Schiefelbein calls a “teaching head” video, which is similar to a talking head video but also gives the instructor latitude to use teaching props to help explain a concept.

During the seminar, Schiefelbein also shared a number of do’s and don’ts for adding video to your teaching repertoire. Here are just some of her recommendations:

Do…

• Try just one thing at a time—give yourself time to adjust to new technologies and techniques.
• Break content into digestible chunks.
• Experiment with micro lectures—be sure to keep to one concept in the 3-5 minutes.
• Repurpose and reuse content.

Don’t…

• Overwhelm yourself by trying too many things at once—focus on one step at a time.
• Just start recording without a plan—a little planning and practice goes a long way.
• Forget that putting in dates and references to current events limits your repurposing potential.
• Create content that relies on a specific learning management system.

View a brief clip from the seminar:

Finding the Right Technology to Support Learning Outcomes

You have probably heard the rumors: Blended instruction can yield better results than traditional face-to-face courses. That’s right. Student performance will improve while costs go down. Only it’s no rumor. It is entirely true.

Blended instruction can save money and increase student success. Yet while adding online components to a course might make it “blended,” it doesn’t necessarily make it good. You have to make the right changes at the right spots to increase student learning and reap the benefits blended learning can deliver.

Find out how to imaginatively redesign almost any course in Finding the Right Technology to Support Learning Outcomes. Led by Ike Shibley, PhD, this seminar will help participants to optimize face-to-face classroom time by adopting and applying various instructional technologies. Shibley is a professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, a small four-year college within the Penn State system. He has proven expertise in developing blended courses that focus on enhanced learning and that meet or exceed university performance standards.

In just 90 minutes, you’ll gain real-world insight on innovative yet practical ways to evaluate and redesign courses that improve student performance. You will learn to:

• Identify the essential components of a successful blended format;
• Revise existing blended courses and redesign other traditional courses to ensure optimal instructional design;
• Determine which learning activities are better accomplished in class and which are better accomplished online;
• Articulate the role blended courses can play in learner-centered instruction;
• Identify most appropriate uses for both online and face-to-face communication;
• Review and evaluate existing courses to determine when blended formats would be advantageous.

When you order the recording of this seminar on CD, you’ll also receive the complete transcript.

Order the CD + Transcript

An optional Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to upload the CD of the seminar onto the institution’s password-protected internal web site for unlimited access by members of the campus community.

This seminar is intended for:

• Instructors
• Course Developers
• Instructional Designers
• Administrators

All seminars include a discussion guide for facilitators
Participating in a Magna Online Seminar as a team can help leverage unique insights, foster collaboration, and build momentum for change. Each seminar now includes a Discussion Guide for Facilitators which provides step-by-step instructions for generating productive discussions and thoughtful reflection. You’ll also get guidelines for continuing the conversation after the event, implementing the strategies discussed, and creating a feedback loop for sharing best practices and challenges.

Selecting and Using Technologies in Online & Blended Courses

Just as smart phones, Twitter, Facebook and all of Web 2.0 are transforming communication, they’re also changing how teachers teach and students learn. These new technologies could encourage learner-centered teaching and help students learn skills they’ll need to succeed.

Like any tool, digital technologies must be used appropriately to realize their potential.

Discover how to maximize the effectiveness of 21st century teaching tools with Selecting and Using Technologies in Online & Blended Courses, a 60-minute audio online seminar with noted presenter Tony Bates.

During the seminar Bates shares a comprehensive framework for educational technology decisions. Known as the SECTIONS Model, this letter-by-letter approach includes instructional and administrative criteria as follows:

S Is the technology appropriate for students?
E Is it easy to use and reliable?
C What are its direct and indirect costs?
T How will it support teaching and learning?
I What kinds of interaction will it make possible?
O What organizational issues will be involved?
N How much of a novelty is this technology?
S Will it let us start courses and make changes with the speed we need? Is it secure?

Order the CD + Transcript

Starting with this framework, you’ll learn:

• When to use face-to-face, blended learning, or online learning
• When to use a learning management system
• When and how to create personal learning environments
• When to blend a learning management system and personal learning environments
• When to use Web 2.0 tools, and for what purposes
• How to design learner-centered teaching.

Who will benefit:
This is an advanced level seminar, perfect for universities, colleges, training organizations and people in the following positions:

• Curriculum developers
• Educational technologists
• Instructional designers
• Faculty
• Instructors
• Program directors

When you order the recording of this seminar on CD, you’ll also receive the complete transcript.

An optional Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to upload the CD of the seminar onto the institution’s password-protected internal web site for unlimited access by members of the campus community.

Order the CD + Transcript

All seminars include a discussion guide for facilitators
Participating in a Magna Online Seminar as a team can help leverage unique insights, foster collaboration, and build momentum for change. Each seminar now includes a Discussion Guide for Facilitators which provides step-by-step instructions for generating productive discussions and thoughtful reflection. You’ll also get guidelines for continuing the conversation after the event, implementing the strategies discussed, and creating a feedback loop for sharing best practices and challenges.

Stories capture our imagination by reaching us on an emotional level. Mere facts out of context are hard to remember. Memory experts learn long stings of random numbers by creating a story around them (the first three digits are his mother’s birthday, the second three are the year of his first love, etc). Evolution has probably tuned our brains to remembering stories, rather than facts.

Unfortunately, education has forgotten about the power of storytelling in favor of straightforward transmission of the desired information. This method flies in the face of everything we know about learning. Without context, retention is low. Even the cave dwellers understood this, so why don’t we?

Digital storytelling returns us to the roots of education. Today, software that’s free and easy to learn allows students to develop stories that combine images, video, voice, and text. Having students create four to six minute multimedia videos forces them to reflect on what they’re learning and put it into a coherent narrative for others to understand as well. The work engages students in the higher order processes such as synthesis, analysis, and evaluation.

A research project by John Sandars and Gareth Frith at the University of Leeds compared the results of digital storytelling assignments in four very different types of classes—theater, medicine, education, and dietetics. The results were encouraging. Students felt that the projects allowed them to express “more obscure ideas that could be better understood when accompanied by image/sound.” One interesting example was a medical student who included in his story “a picture of a brick wall because I felt the patient had just put up a brick wall.” The student’s tutors also saw the value of digital storytelling by reporting that “the students involved in digital storytelling demonstrated much deeper reflection.”

As usual, I welcome your comments, criticisms, and cries of outrage in the comments section of this blog.

Resources
DigiTales: An excellent website on digital storytelling. Includes ideas, examples, and scoring guides.

Digital Storytelling Tools for Teachers, Silvia Tolisano. A 120 page book that can be downloaded for free, or purchased in the print version.

Stories for Change: A wonderful repository of digital stories.

A digital story I created about Buddy the bus driver.

Learn more about how to incorporate digital storytelling in your teaching, as well as other teaching tools techniques, with a copy of the online seminar How to Engage Students with Interactive Online Lectures

A Guide to Video Communication for Online Instructors

In the online classroom, communication is often one of the most commonly cited challenges for instructors … right up there with technology. This seminar will help you tackle both issues, and all it takes is just a little technical-know-how and a desire to engage your students.

If you’re an online educator, video content is no longer a “nice-to-have.” It’s a virtual requirement as student expectations for a rich, multimedia learning experience rise.

In the online video seminar, A Guide to Video Communication for Online Instructors, you’ll find the solution. This seminar covers video creation from inception to viewing, discovering simple ways to effectively create and deliver online video content.

View a brief clip from the seminar:

Why is online video so important for educators?
As online education enrollment continues to rise, so do student expectations. The methods by which students learn have adapted to new technologies, and educators must keep pace with the new modes of content creation and delivery.

Focused on your curriculum, you’ve had little time to adapt to the new online environment. You’re challenged with meeting these rising student expectations.

Learn how to deliver online video content
During the 60-minute seminar, you’ll get a comprehensive view of how to generate online video content — from inception to viewing. By the end you’ll be able to:

• Identify content appropriate for video creation
• Modify and adapt content for video delivery
• Understand the types of video options that are available, including screen captures, narrated text and the “teaching head”
• Utilize basic editing tools to enhance your video
• Compress, upload and embed your video

You will be surprised to learn how easy it is to create exceptional video content.

When you order the recording of this seminar on CD, you’ll also receive the complete transcript.

An optional Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to upload the CD of the seminar onto the institution’s password-protected internal web site for unlimited access by members of the campus community.

Order the CD + Transcript package

Who will benefit:
Any college or university with an online learning program should consider having these key staff members attend the seminar:

• Online instructors (adjunct, professor, teaching assistant)
• Training coordinators
• Curriculum specialists and developers
• Anyone involved in evaluating online instructors (supervisors)

All seminars include a discussion guide for facilitators
Participating in a Magna Online Seminar as a team can help leverage unique insights, foster collaboration, and build momentum for change. Each seminar now includes a Discussion Guide for Facilitators which provides step-by-step instructions for generating productive discussions and thoughtful reflection. You’ll also get guidelines for continuing the conversation after the event, implementing the strategies discussed, and creating a feedback loop for sharing best practices and challenges.

Although an extreme case, it’s a good example of how inappropriate behavior can not only spread rapidly far beyond one’s circle of friends, but can damage a reputation for years to come. Students don’t always thinking about this, nor are they aware that employers now regularly use Google and social networks to check out prospective employees.

“People have always been behaving badly, but the thing that’s different about behaving badly now is that it stays with you for years to come,” said Stephanie Delaney, J.D., Ph.D., director of eLearning for Cascade Community College.

In the recent online video seminar, Apps & Web 2.0: Legal Issues in Using the Internet in Class, Delaney outlined the proactive steps institutions and individual faculty members can take to ensure that in their enthusiasm to embrace Web 2.0 technologies and all of their benefits they don’t expose themselves to unanticipated legal problems.

Consider the following scenario. A professor wants his students to contribute to a public blog, both by making posts and responding to the posts of others. In order to do this, the blog requires the students to create an account, and the instructor says that students should register using their real names so that he can grade their work efficiently.

Does this create concerns about student privacy, particularly with regards to FERPA protections of educational records? According to Delaney, who says she takes a conservative stance to such matters, “Student posts and replies could be construed as student records, though opinions are split on this issue. Whether blog posts and similar web and app postings are educational records or not, prudent institutions should take steps to protect student privacy.”

Privacy issues are just one of the concerns Web 2.0 applications bring to the forefront. Another is document retention. If you’re using Twitter in the classroom, for example, and are grading students on the frequency and quality of their tweets, do you have a “paper trail” should a student challenge his or her grade? Delaney recommends a tool like TwapperKeeper for archiving tweets, or Backuptify for backing up a whole host of Web 2.0 applications, including Google apps, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Finally, many institutions are creating a formal social media policy which outlines the professional standards and expectations for faculty, staff and students who participate in social networking that’s associated with the institution. If your college or university doesn’t have a social media policy, now is the time to bring together all relevant stakeholders to develop one and then communicate it across campus, Delaney said.

I was interviewed in the next issue of the newspaper and I mentioned that I don’t object to computers and cell phones in class at all. In fact, I wonder if we should be encouraging students to bring them to class. For one, students will eventually be entering the working world where these devices are ubiquitous. Look at any business meeting and you will find everyone with smart phones or laptops. The restriction on their use amounts to telling students that they need to go back to using pen and paper for notetaking, like the 60’s. We are preparing students for a world that no longer exists.

But more importantly, I’m using the devices to increase student participation. This idea occurred to me when a student asked a factual question in class that I couldn’t answer off the top of my head. A few minutes later another student volunteered the answer, which she had looked up on her smart phone.

At that point I started telling students that they could bring their digital devices to class, but if they did they must be prepared to do research on the spot. For instance, I might say “Jerry, in what year did the Tuskegee Syphilis Study end?,” requiring him to research the answer for us.

This policy makes students collaborators in the learning process. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of believing that only teachers have valuable knowledge for students. While we may be the primary experts in our classroom, there is no reason why students cannot offer up information to advance the discussion.

I’m sure that the smart phones and laptops are a distraction at times, and no doubt students are checking text messages (email is passé among today’s students, in case you haven’t heard), and Facebook. But digital devices can also make them more engaged in the material, and can be of particular benefit to shy students who are afraid of saying something dumb if they speak up. This is not a concern when they are reporting someone else’s research.

So instead of fighting the digital movement, try treating it as a collaborator in the learning process and a way to get all of your students involved in class.

As always, I encourage your comments, criticisms, and cries of outrage in the comments section of the blog.

If this is so, how can this form of technology not be effective in academic learning? When videos incorporate humor, they usually are even more effective making the student eager to see, and learn, more. Hence, students are paying attention. They ask questions. They make knowledgeable comments. This all helps fuel an interactive class discussion.

On numerous occasions, I have used YouTube to drive home a point, expose students to new material, or to have them create debates on the topic. With whatever the outcome was, I was assured that they understood the material and would retain it better than me lecturing to them the entire class period.

Of course a combination of resources is optimal to use but visual aids always seem to make a great impact in conjunction with traditional learning tools. With videos, students can see a scenario, hear from an expert, see images, and listen to conversations that will make the content they are learning more understandable and relevant. In many instances, students experience the “Ah Ha” moment that all teachers get ecstatic about.

I have used videos from YouTube for marketing, management, and entrepreneurial courses and students found them interesting, informative, and funny. Many will ask if video will be used again in future lectures because they were excited about what the video brought to the discussion. I, too, like the excitement this visual aid brings to the classroom. It can be energizing not only for the student but the professor as well. After all, who likes a mundane, redundant process each day? The classroom shouldn’t be so. It is a place where learning, engagement, and creativity is born and dwells. It should be an exciting place to be. Videos give classroom discussion that extra something to keep the students enthralled in their environment. Ultimately, videos assist in the learning process through student engagement. Plainly stated, this tool works.

Dr. Michelle Harris is an Assistant Professor of Management at Paine College.

References
Cardine, S. (2008). Is education ready for YouTube? Converge.

McKenzie, J. (2008).
Breaking the YouTube blockade. From Now On.

Resources:
Here are a few of the videos I’ve used in my courses.

Business Ethics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyf2xjx4mzU

Organizational Change: Scenarios A&B:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhHgMTqw4ew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GGndoC-Ztk

Consider World of Warcraft. The goal is to defeat your enemies and move up to the next level. The goal is clear, as is the path to it. Moreover, the reward is immediate. When you finish a level you move up to the next level. The game tracks your status, and so players can boast about the level that they have attained.

It’s important to note that the image of video gamers as socially isolated individuals playing in the lonely darkness of their bedrooms is misleading. The most popular games require players to join teams to defeat groups of foes. It is a collaborate endeavor, and if you ever watched a gamer in action, you will be struck by the level of communication between players, who coordinate their efforts by directing others or signaling their moves in short comments. Studies have suggested that this collaboration develops teamwork and leadership skills.

Even more interestingly, gaming encourages a high level of intellectual engagement. It is not unusual for kids—again, mostly boys—to adopt the “too cool for school” persona of deliberately acting ignorant in front of the class. A boy may answer a teacher’s question with an exaggerated “what” to elicit laughter from his friends at his lack of attention to the subject. The student who jumps at providing the correct answer is labeled the nerd.

But no gamer wants to profess ignorance of gaming principles in front of his fellow gamers. In fact, the social pressure is the opposite—kids will apply a remarkable level of technical sophistication to analyzing a game on gamer forums, even going so far as to apply high level mathematical formulas (learned in school) to mine out the game’s underlying principles.

What can this teach us about education? For one, teachers too often assign only a few large works during a class, and thus put off rewards for many weeks. Instead, teachers can assign continual short pieces with a narrower focus and clearer goals to achievement.

Moreover, the A through F grading system provides only a running average of the student’s performance. The student is not moving upward in this system. Teachers might instead use a game-like scoring system in which the student accumulates points towards a final grade. While this might sound hokey, it appeals to our deep seeded interest in scoring. I was highly motivated to work through self-paced math booklets in grade school because they were numbered sequentially, with the student given the next book in the sequence after correctly finishing the last one, because I wanted to see what would happen when I finished book 99, thinking that it must be the end of the line (it turns out that it went into the hundreds).

So instead of disparaging games, let’s see if we can incorporate a few gaming principles in teaching to improve motivation and outcomes.

Feedback
As usual, I welcome your comments, criticisms, and cries of outrage in the comments section of this blog.

Resources
7 Ways that Games Reward the Brain – Tom Chatfield discusses the appeal of games.
http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_chatfield_7_ways_games_reward_the_brain.html

Gaming Can Make a BetterWorld – Jane McGonigal talks about the value of games.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

Video Gaming Principles as Applied to Education – Well-known education researcher James Gee talks about his discoveries about gaming.
http://wistechnology.com/articles/243/

Spring Revival: Alternate Reality Game Breathes New Life into Old Course – Ben Betts talks about how gaming was applied to a graduate business course.
http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/617/spring-revival-alternate-reality-game-breathes-new-life-into-old-course

One way to break the monotony is through audio or video-based discussion. The sound of a voice adds interest that is not possible in text discussion. Phil Ice (article referenced below) demonstrated the power of voice when he compared voice feedback on assignments to text feedback. He found a number of advantages to voice feedback:

• Improved Ability to Understand Nuance: Students indicated that they were better able to understand the instructor’s intent. Students also indicated that instructor encouragement and emphasis were clearer.
• Increased Involvement: Students felt less isolated in the online environment and were more motivated to participate when hearing their instructor’s voice.
• Increased Content Retention: Students reported that they retained audio feedback better than text feedback. Interestingly, they also reported that they retained the course content to which the feedback was related better than with text feedback. These self-reported findings were supported by the fact that students incorporated into their final projects three times as much audio feedback as text feedback.
• Increased Instructor Caring: Students interpreted the instructor as caring about them and their work more when they received audio feedback over text feedback. This difference was due to audio feedback coming across as more personal than text feedback.

Video takes this one step forward by providing a visual image along with the voice. A $100 webcam is all you need to start recording video and posting it to discussion.

One particularly good place to use video in the online classroom is during the instructor’s wrap-up at the end of each week. I use weekly video posts to provide thoughts on what I believe to be the most important insights to come out of week’s discussion. They are also an opportunity to give video shout-outs to students who made interesting points during the week.

Another option is to do video interviews with student on their thoughts concerning the discussion. These can be done with WeToKu, a free service that allows two people with webcams to record an online video on a split screen that shows both participants at once. Students especially like being about to see and hear another student online.

There is no need to worry about production values in creating these recordings. The lighting does not have to be perfect, and there is no need to edit out the “ums” and other comments. Just make sure to avoid the common mistake of looking at the keyboard rather than the camera. Talk to the camera like you would to a friend. Your language will naturally become more expressive than with text comments, and looking away briefly, rolling eyes, and other facial expressions go a long way towards adding interest. These are a lot of fun to make, and a benefit to all involved.

As usual, I welcome your comments, criticisms, and cries of outrage in the comments section of the blog.

Reference:
Ice, P., Curtis, R., Phillips, P. & Wells, J. (2007). Using Asynchronous Audio Feedback to Enhance Teaching Presence and Students’ Sense of Community. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(2), 3-25.

Resources:
A video discussion example from my class. Watch it here >>

Free Technology 4 Teachers, 47 Alternatives to YouTube. Go here >>

Q: What pedagogical advantages does screen capture technology offer?
Yearwood: The opportunity to develop course content in a way that personalizes instruction. It is almost like having your personal tutor whose message never changes regardless of how many times you rewind or review the content. Anytime, anyplace, on demand instruction.

Q: What types of content lends itself to the screen capture format? What suggestions do you have for selecting content for this format?
Yearwood:

• Tutorials–how-to instructions, explanations, or clarifications–potentially better to use the Vodcast instead of the Podcast option to enhance the visual appeal
• Demonstrations of a laboratory operation, showing a sequence of activities, or teaching software use, etc.
• Information dissemination or instructions–anything from the syllabus, test instructions, review of a concepts or review of tests, etc.

Q: What suggestions do you have for integrating what you do online and what you do face to face?
Yearwood: The technology of screen capturing/recording allows for the creation or simulation of the kind of activities that we may do in a face-to-face setting. Being able to mimic face-to-face activities could greatly, and hopefully positively, impact what we do in online environments.

Q: What suggestions do you have for including students in recorded sessions?
Yearwood: Select students that represent the diversity within the class–gender, ethnicity, older than average students, bright or A student, a B student, a student who may be struggling, etc. The goal here is to replicate the class, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale, so that the discussions which take place will be more valuable to all students.

The expectation is that the range of questions, the interactions would appeal to most in the class because the mix of students participating in recorded sessions. With this mix, it is highly likely that questions asked will be representative of the type that peers would have.

Explanations/answers are also likely to be phrased in ways that students might better comprehend – a way to diversify approaches to problem solving and ways of explaining a phenomenon. In essence, it’s a good way to achieve peer teaching.