Inspired By Blog Post but Not Sure of Appropriate Action

In the last few weeks, I have been reading other blogs much more than I am writing on about those posts or putting my own thoughts to words.

I am not sure if it is more about lack of sleep or preoccupation with home matters (a 6 week old son – thus the lack of sleep) or what it is.

Perhaps it is that there are a few posts that really got me to thinking but because of things I just have not focused enough on the sparks of ignited by the posts to figure out which cords were struck and why. Perhaps in time.

In particular, I want to remember the following links and give their authors ’shout outs’ for planting seeds.

The Human â??Educationâ?? Network at EduTechie.com

Joan Vinall-Cox :: Weblog :: Learning and the Academic Use of the Web

Bryan and Ubicomp at ELI – Gardner Writes

Attacking the Symptoms – edVentures in Technology

Small Pieces Loosely Joined – compos(t)ing

I hope to revisit these post to figure out if the seeds will sprout or lie dormant for a while longer.

Allegheny On My Space

Interesting stuff = www.myspace.com/alleghenycollege = it even gets a mention in this year’s Horizon Report (as html) and on a few other websites like the syndicateblog.petersons.com.

Just a small aside – in the last few months, I have casually tried to gauge students reaction to an academic/administrative invasion of social networking sites. To say the least I experienced a lot of push back from the students. They view this as their space. I think the Allegheny MySpace page balances having a presence without presenting an agenda. From the comment’s list it looks like it could be a good tool for keeping recent alums connected as they start out in new cities.

With social networking sites about to break into the mainstream of daily teaching, learning, and business, for more than the geeky on campus is it time for the college to have a discussion on how to efficiently use such tools to accomplish the business of the college?

It seems that if those that see applications for such tools as blogs, myspace/facebook, value is in the community aspect. Developing a community understanding of the strengths, pitfalls and appropriate use could lead to some really creative outcomes not possible through other media. Along with the creative implementations a communal understand would allow for a kind of mission statement (lack of better word) that new ideas and projects could be measured against during project consideration.
Some possibilities of the top of my head (so a lot of discussion is necessary before truly considering them).

• Connect Students to Alums working in chosen field of study through blogging
• Tag news/press releases about the college with an Allegheny specific tag and providing an RSS feed of tagged items. to keep community, friends and alums informed of the great things happening at Allegheny.
• Encourage working groups and committees to blog proceedings
• Encourage departments to provide news and updates using an rss feed
• Live Bookmark news feeds in browsers as part of the standard configuration
• Encourage conference goers/groups to use tags to tie experiences together by tagging posts (ex. ELI2007)
• Consider the elements of community networking that can be incorporated into new projects or retrofitted on to existing systems
• Provide online spaces for foreign language immersion perhaps a facebook space or a blog
• Admission Counselor blogging the admissions cycle providing tips and insight for prospective students – could be a recruiting tool and a service at the same time.
• Consider collaborations (intra and inter college) that takes advantage of loosely joined tools of Web2.0. – Lower threshold for adoption than video conferencing.

I wonder if other colleges have already started doing some of this?

Inspiration – Pedablogy, ELI and Job.

Three strands of professional life collide.
Strand 1 -

In the past few weeks, I started conversations with a professor who wants to help his students easily add the resources they find to the conversation of the course.  He is planning on applying for course redesign funds so that we can dedicate 6 weeks this summer working on incorporating blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking, and other social networking technology to redesign the learning around the student.  I planned on using some of the ideas I learned from following Pedablogy to guide our conversations as I help to develop the project with Steve Onyeiwu.
Strand 2 -

Following ELI annual conference through blog, podcast and tag (ELI2007) where I saw that Steve Greenlaw presented his globalization class that used loosely joined web2.0 tools to make his course more student centric by giving them voice and permission to drive.  My colleague attended this session and we have talked about it a little bit.  She mentioned that as she sat in the session she thought of my mentions of the project with Steve (see strand 1).  This also has relevance as she and I are half of a group charged with evaluating LMS for the college.
Strand 3 -

Following the discussion with Susan I checked out my bloglines and found a new post at Pedablogy that discussed changing the perspective from course as unit of measure to student as the unit of measure. This post is based on a post on the Fishwrapper about the topic.

Pedablogy: Musings on the Art & Craft of Teaching » Blog Archive » The Student as the Unit of Measurement – I think the seminar as a whole will be a richer experience to have the business students read and bring to the table the finance literature while the international affairs students do the same for the political science literature. If you disagree, consider this: would it be be better to try the converse, or should we only use readings that every student can handle?

I think this is what instruction, especially at a liberal arts college, needs to evolve to.  Faculty members creating environments that allow students to engage in subject matters from their own areas of expertise.  But is it possible with the pressure to cover content,  communally held expectations of acceptable teaching methods, the paradigm of students as empty vessels. In talking to faculty I hear them saying they really want to inspire students to care about the subject and have them walk away better for the experience.  But somewhere in the day-to-day life of students and faculty that seems to get lost more time than not.  What keeps us from putting desires into action? this isn’t really where I wanted to go with the post but I like the ideas and will keep them at least for a little bit. What role can I play in this?  I am not sure perhaps what my role is to encourage the faculty I work with to take chances and try something they have been toying with since the last conference where they heard a colleague who did such and such…

The question is do I get rope or a can of worms from the collision of these strands of thought?

Idea from ELI – PowerPoint

This is my third year attending ELI annual conference via podcast. While I loose on the direct interactions of being at the conference it still fosters many new ideas.  I will need to discuss this with my colleagues who were able to make the meeting.
The Postercast: Interactive PowerPoint | EDUCAUSE CONNECT inspired an idea that powerpoint can be used as a gateway to all of your learning resources for a class session through the use of slides, hyperlinks, and action buttons.

This got me thinking perhaps a single slide powerpoint presentation could be pretty useful. I think this idea is pretty practical and it allows an instructor to have a common place to start from and return to, thus would limit the switching between windows, limit the powerpoint induced sleep by tying multiple media together, and limit the file size of powerpoints by linking directly to resources instead of downloading them.

This will need to be included in future powerpoint workshops.

Tips For Beginning Bloggers

A class at the college is having all of the students blog about course content and resources for the first five weeks of the class to generate a common understanding and develop the course from the student perspective.  In support of this I developed some ‘words of wisdom’ to help get them thinking as bloggers.
Be Authentic â?? Your blog is your online voice.  Write to express yourself not to impress others or attract an audience.  When you focus on expressing ideas, facts, and concepts that matter to you in your own voice others will pay attention to your blog.

Be Aware â?? The words your write are a public as if you were shouting from the town square but unlike the town square your self-expression can linger for a lifetime or longer.

Give Credit Where Credit is Do â?? Blogging culture is collaborative and social by nature.  Expect that others will quote you and link to your posts and you will do the same.  It is good form to provide links to the authors and posts that inspire your ideas or solicit your reactions.

Just Blog â?? Writers block is a terrible thing, but force yourself to post and you will get through it.  Start small and be persistent.

Grow as You Write â?? Blogs are works in progress.  The key is to post and revise your thoughts through subsequent posts in the end you will have something you can be proud of.  Even if it is not where you thought your thoughts were heading originally.

Solicit Feedback in your Posts â??

For posts that you are trying to â??flesh outâ?? ideas in, consider ending with a few questions to help your readers know the kind of comments that will help you develop your ideas.

Comment on The Blogs You Read â?? The value of blogging lies in the interactions and the ability to revise thoughts and thinking patterns because of those interactions.

What are the other tips that beginning bloggers are given?

Furthering Blogging without Blogging (bad title)

It has been harder to blog as of late, new son, 3year old daughter, recovering wife, neglected dog, beginning of the semester, getting others started with blogs to support course work…

While more fun to talk about the antics of son, daughter, dog, or wife, I need to put down a few ideas that developed from the last few days…

Request from Economics Professor that wants to redesign courses to take advantage of podcasting and blogging to develop community of learners, diversify perspectives…

• After a little talking – one idea for this project is a blog where he can link to mp3 files and provide commentary to help guide the student’s listening experience. The comment functions might help provide interactions that set up in class discussions.
• Another idea is the use of delicious and tags to connect what the students are reading as a means allow students the chance to bring the resources they find on topic into the collective resources of the class.
• I wonder how much of Pedablogy’s experiment and first year seminar can provide a frame of reference for my work with Steve…
• I will be posting more about this when we start working to redesign his course…

Request from Philosophy Professor to incorporate technology that would facilitate student creation and reflection on content.

• Looked at a few options but it seems the first five weeks will focus on blogging. I introduced the main features of a blog in 30 minutes of class time (about 1/3) the time of teaching enough about web design to meerly make students dangerous with dreamweaver.
• Developed a list of tips on blogging to help students be effective bloggers included that in the Blogging Tips and Tutorials booklet.

Request from a Psych Professor to incorporate podcasting into psychology course to replace/supplement a class presentation.

• not much detail here we seem to be playing phone tag…

How cool is this?

It is nice to see the energy I spent investigating, experimenting, developing, and publicizing these tools pay off with a chance to try them out on real classes with professors.

5 Questions about Blogging From Christopher Sessums

If you are an educator and blogger head over to Christopher Sessum’s blog and help out by answering 5 Questions about Blogging.

Where and when do you blog?

I blog often from everywhere I get a thought I feel I need to remember.

How much time do you spend blogging?

It is hard to estimate the time I spend blogging as it is my primary tool for writing, developing thoughts, and finding perspective on the projects I work on from other practitioners.

Do you read other blogs? If so, do you leave comments and return to see what others have said?

I do read other blogs and more broadly websites that share new content through site feeds(RSS). I think at last count I follow about 112 such sites, thanks to bloglines. This is about 100 site more than pre-bloglines. Of those site there are about 15 that I actually contribute to on a regular basis.

The decision to participate normally is based on the level of my expertise with the subject of the blog/post. Typically, if I feel I can contribute either a question or example without feeling self-important I will leave a comment and check back to find the responses. If I am particularly moved/inspired/enraged by a post I will post my reactions/perceptions to my blog and link back to the post using trackback pings.

In what ways has blogging helped you?

Blogging has helped me by providing a writing tool to clarify thoughts, document thought processes and solicit comments from a wider audience. The fact that it is accessible from anywhere and time-stamped makes it just that more helpful.

What are the benefits or rewards you receive from blogging?

The answer to this one builds on the previous. The quality of projects I blog about normally run smoother and are developed more completely as a result of me having my thoughts clearer and the feedback and suggestions I receive from those that contribute to my blog.

Also Talking to the Library, LC and Computing Crew

In addition to talking to the secretaries about blogging on campus, I am sharing with the division somethings that are going on with blogging and social software at the college.  For this group I will be sharing…

Recent developments regarding social software at Allegheny

• installation of more powerful webpub server that includes Movable Type (blogging software) and PMwiki (wiki software)
• change in acceptance of blogging as a reliable information source and way to build community – Politics aside thanks to Howard Dean
• a few faculty started using blogs to support fs courses(1,2) and the study aboard experience

Talking About Social Software This Week.

This week I am going to briefly talk about social software twice this week.  Once for the campus secretaries and once to the LITS(the division).   It is always nice to have a chance to share the potential with social software?

My working outline for the secretaries

Meet Blogging and Social Software

• provide a little overview about the changes of the web in the last 7 years
• blogging started about the turn of the century with a small group of folks posting reviews

Benefits of Using a Blog

• Easily Publish Online
• Content is Organized and Searchable
• Built commenting features
• Makes it easy for others to stay informed through site feeds.

Blogging at Allegheny

• Academic Courses – Uncovering the Veil, Study Abroad, jhellwar blog
• Department Sites – Athletics
• Department News Pages – Help Desk, OET, ACCEL
• Working Group Sites – LMS
• Personal/Professional Blogs

Details to get started

• Publish a blog – complete Movable Type request form and tutorials
• Take advantage of blogs – find, subscribe, comment

New Ways of Computing (Questions of Evolution)

Last month at the student technology group meeting we talked with them about how they use their laptops and campus computers.  The underlying message that I heard from them was to structure systems in ways that allow them to use their computer (laptop) where they want when they want and that campus computers were mostly used for printing and special circumstances.  The rationale they used for structures that make it easier to use their personal computer is that for the advanced user they have control over the computer to do the things they want to do and more novice user are on a machine they have a certain level of comfort with.

So then the question is how do we harness this desire of students to use their own computer to the advantage of the campus computing environment?

• Is it wise to make it easier to use personal laptops and reduce the number of public computing labs? What then of the specialized software is it affordable to offer these to students?
• How can you keep a secure network/environment yet increase the flexibility and number of personal computers.
• Does it make sense to find ways to help faculty (and other employees) gain access to laptops that can be carried from office to class (or meeting).  What implications does this have for the wireless network?

The need/desire to work on a laptop (or  some other device that is not tied to a geographic location) will only increase as the Academic workforce adapts the trends that are becoming common place in the corporate world.(or at least the corporate world portrayed on TV commercials).

What are the answers?

I do not know but it seems that the days of purchasing Desktops computers as the standard employee computer is nearing its end.  But will it be laptops replacing them or some sort of networked device that allows remote access to applications and files?