Preparing for a Podcast

Today, I meet with a professor and a student who incorporated podcasting into a class to see how the addition of student voice to the learning materials is viewed by the class.

I plan on podcasting this conversation through the Allegheny Workshop Podcast so keep an eye out if you are interested.

As part of the investigation of the effects of the experiment, (and I use that term loosely), the investigators asked the students the following questions:

1. What do you think are the strengths and drawbacks of using podcasts in the classroom?
2. How would you compare the use of podcasts to the use of some more traditional presentation approaches such as PowerPoint and regular presentations?
3. What types of things are you doing when you listen to the podcasts? Is this a positive or a negative feature of the experience?
4. What is it like to hear the digitalized voice of your classmates?
5. How would you describe your mood when listening to the podcasts?
6. What have been other people’s reaction to hearing that you were doing podcasts for the class?
7. What is it like for you to have current technology, that is, technology that is contemporary for college-aged students like and iPod introduced into the classroom? Are there any drawbacks to its introduction? Does using the technology in the classroom alter the meaning of your iPod or computer in any way?
8. If you have already produced your podcast(if not, just skip this one) what have been the best and the worst aspects of making the actual podcast?
9. How much exposure to podcasts, i.e. listening to them on the web, in general did you have before you took the class?
10. Has making the podcast together as a group process been similar or different to making a powerpoint or another type of classroom presentation? How so specifically?
11. How do you think the use of podcasting had affected the classroom dynamic?
12. How has the use of podcasting effected your in-class participation?
13. Have you listened to all the podcasts?

In the podcast, I plan to ask the investigators to share an overview of the project, what generated the idea, and their interpretation of the student responses to the above questions.

I have not found much research/assessment – informal or formal – on using student produced audio content in the form of podcasts so hopefully this is exciting to others out there. (I just completed capturing the podcast and Carla and Nathan said I can share the survey responses with interested people. Email me if you are interested.)

If not could someone please provide some pointers on where to such things?

Workshops Open For Registration

Finally, after many double checks and a few sick kids the faculty workshop Announcement Flyer is out in mailboxes. Not sure why but it always takes more time than seems necessary but it is what it is.

My post today is not to complain but to start a dialog about how we (those of us who read each other’s blogs) can help each other develop interesting opportunities for faculty to learn technologies that match teaching goals with technology of the day. This idea was spurred on by an exchange I had with John Martin over at EdVentures and reading Open Source 2010, Reflections on 2007.

Both of these reminded me of how important a community is to the exchange of ideas and supporting instructional technology in this day. As most colleges only have one or a handful of instructional technologists sometimes it is difficult to find time or media to interact with those like us. Thus, I am posting the Flyer to share what Allegheny is doing for faculty development this summer. Also, I open the door for those of you interested in asking questions, sharing critiques, or offering words of encouragement to do so on this blog and other blogs I maintain. Hopefully, such exchanges will help to develop more complete faculty develop opportunities both at Allegheny and your home institution.

Learning Web 2.0 by Diving In

My colleague emailed me a link of an idea for a hands on way to learn web 2.0 as a possible idea for a project of the reference and instructional technology group. I short the project identifies 23 tasks and deadlines for participants, in this case public library librarians, to accomplish in an 8 week period to raise awareness of tools and applications of the new web.

The Chronicle’s Wired Campus Blog also did a little piece on the project, Librarians Get a Tutorial in Web 2.0.

We think with a little modification that this will be a fun project for us to adopt. We have already talked a little about some of the new technologies available through the web but not in a systematic way. I think this will be a good opportunity for the group to share an experience and help each other better understand the emerging tools of importance to supporting instruction, research and learning.

Second Life Voice Beta

I registered to help test Second Life’s voice beta. It is at noon today(eastern time). To prepare I went into the grid and found others there trying to make sure the technology worked before the real experience.

The voice component made the exchanges more natural than with type chat. People’s voices would even soften with distance from you. It was unnatural at first trying to take part in a conversation starring at the back of my avatar’s head but moving to mouse view quickly solved that problem.

This test was not without difficulty…

• It is not easily noticeable if your voice is working. You are supposed to have a sound wave over your head as you talk but at points the wave was a barely noticeable green cloud. I many of us there were impersonating the verizon wireless guy. Just because you can hear others does not mean they can hear you. So that was not a good test.
• I and others in the group had to log off and log back on to get the voice and hearing to work.
• I found that after logging in once with it working does not ensure that the voice will work the next time you log in. But repeatedly going into preferences and enabling voice chat and applying the change would eventually work. It took three times through this process but only twice for others.

In the end the I would say the pretest was successful as it was a great leap forward from text chat but I would rate it a D in experience. Hopefully the actual test will go much smoother.

As a post script the folks that I met during my pretest were from larger institutions developing islands in SL. A few of them commented that the outcomes of such a island are unclear. That is fascinating! Investing in something just to see what comes of it.

Rise of Nations

My colleagues and I are preparing to host a NITLE workshop on emerging technologies in May. We have given much energy trying to come to terms with Second Life and its place in education and to be quite honest I am not sure of it yet. Perhaps the voice option that many are talking about will lift the fog for us and others.

At the workshop, a multiple user game will be demonstrated called Rise of Nations. Last Friday, I started ‘research’ on this. Basically, RoN is a game where you start with a village, a few farms, and a geographic scenario and the goal is to develop your village from the stone age to modern times. The twist is that there are other players developing their village by trying to take advantage of the same scares resources that you are.
While I can see ways to incorporate the such a game into learning, inclusion of a game as a learning tool is a very different mindset from the technologies/pedagogies I am used to incorporating. To use a game and all the interactions, knowledge and teachable moments such games provide would be a big leap of faith by many, including myself.

How are games being used?

• Are they culminating experiences with the faculty member observing the interactions and rating performances, kind of like a model UN or NATO game?
• Are they played all the way through or are they stopped along the way to provide mini-lessons based on interactions or connections to other course content.
• Are they played simply to provide ‘life experiences’ to base more traditional learn activities on.

Finding successful concrete examples of faculty using such things will be key.

Creating a University in Second Life…

Finally got to read Jeff’s post Second Life Speaks – Imagine the POTENTIAL! at EduTechie.com.   In the post are a few imagine with me segment of how Second Life could be added into a course/learning experience.

It sparked an idea – what about an  art museum that a faculty member/student could populate with images from the campus digital assets management program (we use Luna) but that is another idea/day and requires resources not at my disposal. 

Towards the end of the post there is mention of the UNC island(that is being built).  As I was curious, I  jump on SL and teleported to the island.

This is what I found.

A campus in development.  The features emulating the ‘real’ campus.  Does this make it easier for students/staff to merge the real and virtual worlds?

At the center of the current campus there is a map and welcome billboard. The welcome statement conveys this space as one of community, creativity, and idea exchange.

On closer inspection of the map it looks like the map for visitors from the UNC web site.   I find that funny.  Not sure why as using this real world artifact makes sense.   Perhaps the funniness of it comes from my discomfort with intersections of my real life and my experiences in a virtual world.

The buildings are still in progress.  This one has a blue print with photos of the real world image.  I assume to assist in the development.

The history of the University spans over 200 years (the first building’s cornerstone was laid in 1793).  I wonder will the second life campus be a corner stone of the next 200 years or just an interesting experiment?

Wired Campus Blog: A History Department Limits Use of Wikipedia

Troubling -

The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog: A History Department Limits Use of Wikipedia

This is not to say that I believe Wikipedia is or an encyclopedia should carry the weight of a peer reviewed article or a first hand artifact from an expert.

What troubles me is:

• impact of this news/precedent will carry in the hands of the uninformed.
• the fact that it is even necessary
• opportunity lost

We are fortunated that it happened because: 

• it opens the doors for conversations.
  

Would this be a creative and acceptable use of Wikipedia?

What if instead of barring Wikipedia’s was used as part of the research assignment? A student would was to choose a topic, review the Wikipedia entry as a starting point, research the shortcomings, and ‘continue the dialog’ of research and publishing through the Wikipedia community?

Not only would the understanding of the topic be fostered in the student, research/information evaluation and communication would be a real experience (I can’t remember the last time my boss asked for a twenty page research paper) and the student would be connected to other with an interest in the field as they challenge, defend, explain, refine, and revise their understanding.

My First Skypecast.

Jeff VanDrimmelen from UNC hosted a skypecast on instructional technology.

It seems that there are many of us in the skypecast are using the tool for the first time. This resulted in a few logistic problems.

• Skype told me that the session was going to start in 30 seconds for about 10 minutes thus I entered the conversation 10 minutes late.
• When publicizing a skypecast the host needs to make sure that you clearly state the language and purpose of the discussion.
• Trying to figure out how to negotiate not talking over each other took a few minutes until the host moved everyone to listening and then asking to talk. This seems to work fairly well.
• Audio Feedback created distraction – would be smart to work out expectations of headsets and microphones before hand to limit this.
• Need to google “record skypecast” to find options on the recording for reuse.
• Is there a way to limit participants? the continual adding of participants became difficult to manage. Also, the total publicness.
• He will be posting his reflections on the experiment at his blog

Interesting ideas -

• Find ways to to use the profile to identify participants better
• Set some ground rules for using the chat backchannel
• look more into www.lookr.net

Skypecasts – Live Interactive Podcasts?

I just found out about Skypecasts through a blog on Educause Connect.

I need to attempt this with some others here in Computing.  Lucky we are starting an emerging technology group that can provide the forum for experimentation.

Nail on the Head?

I say it quite often but Pedablogy’s author and commenters continue to inspire thoughts.

Today’s word of wisdom comes from a commenter on a reflective post about the author’s recent class session/activity.

“[Information technologies] can increase our understanding of individuals by allowing them more opportunities for creativity and more modes of communication. Avatars, IM, blogs, rich media: these are interesting in themselves, but as windows onto the learnerâ??s mind and identity they are particularly valuable…”

This is the point to remember when challenged on how does instructional technologies equate to better learning.  (I will jump the good teaching guarntees learning issue cause we all know there are other variables to consider there.)  The window into the mind and thoughts of students this provides great opportunities to understand student motivation, comprehension, preparation, misconceptions, and readiness.

Using technology in this way requires moving from the students as jars to be filled to students as apprentices who need to be guided, challenged, and engaged in the construction of knowledge view of teaching and learning.

What is my role in this?  I can help by…

• not allowing others to believe that powerpoint alone = a technology rich course
• encouraging faculty to experiment with connective technologies like weblogs
• model the use of such technology in my instruction and the instruction of others during the faculty workshops
• learn student perceptions regarding effectiveness of various technologies already used on campus
• continue to look for trends and changes in use for maturing technology like cms, powerpoint, blogs, clickers, etc…
• continue to look for educational applications of emerging technologies
• remember that while my job is one that supports the faculty in their instruction it is really about providing a safe learning environment for the student.

Are these lofty enough goals to keep me going for the year?