An ELI In Conversation Not to Loose Track Off…

As we are thinking of how to support faculty instructional needs (technology and otherwise), this ELI In Conversation: Veronica Diaz and Laura Blankenship on Instructional Technologies, is a good conversation starter as it provides a good overview of the processes, technologies, and understandings necessary of a successful instructional technologist.

MP3 – Diaz/Blankenship ELI Audio

IT Communication in Plain English

I just attended a really great session on practices that can improve communication with the community.  (See Program Abstract -  Detailed Conference Agenda)

Of the many good ideas that where presented a few that Mur  presented drove me to write some notes. (it is important to say that the ideas shared by copresenter Lisa were good but did not match my experiences at a small liberal arts college.)

The ideas not to loose

• conceptual messages targeted at students via campus TV.  This is something that one of our workstudies might get excited about producing as he is a media studies student and involved in the college tv station.
• Incorporating blogging into our regular communication to take advantage of the social nature of the tool.  – while we have used the technology as a news site of sorts it seems that crafting messages in ways that will draw interested users into the conversation.  It seems that Mur is struggling with this as well.  I wonder if targeting the remote technicians to add to the conversation is part of the solution.
• Starting to podcast is another idea that they are incorporating that I have been meaning to get started but with everything else continues to take a back seat.  I think I need to move it back into the fold.

There was discussion on starting a communication constituency group and continuing the conversation in some forum.  I am interested in what that will become as the thinking I have done in the past few days is that my job as director is much more about communicating with and connecting to people than it is technology.  More about that later.

The session was recorded for podcast subscribe to http://connect.educause.edu/podcsats

Idea to incorporate student podcasts to course

From Academic Commons – Using Student Podcasts in Literature Classes | Academic Commons.

Student-made podcasts could work well for many other kinds of courses (from history to foreign languages to any of the social sciences) where a premium is placed on texts and careful interpretation.

Using podcasts/technology to reinforce content learned from texts. But a word of caution from the lesson’s learned section…

Professors incorporating podcast assignments into their syllabi need to be sure that they are well-integrated and well-balanced with the other assignments.

Well integrated and well balanced with other assignments. I will get up on my soap box…

Do we think this carefully about non-technology assignments?

The fact that generally we are more careful about planning the technology integrated into the course than we are about traditional methods is why it is important that the instructional technologist needs to be an educator first and a techno guru second.

Podcast to your cell phone

I was updating the Adventures in Storytelling Podcast for Josh Searle-White to publish from its blog. When I realized that feedburner.com now provides the ability to podcast to mobile phones.

A little reminder that of what the folks at ELI said last January about the importance of developing learning resources that can be delivered to technology that students carry on them, ie their Cell Phones.

Gardner Writes » Blog Archive » Faculty Academy 2006 Podcast: What is Web 2.0?

Gardner Writes » Blog Archive » Faculty Academy 2006 Podcast: What is Web 2.0?
What if each presentation were recorded to be podcast, but the presentation respondent also did all the post-production and, afterwards, wrote a reflective essay on the presentation?

I wrote this orginally think wow that is a ton of work.  After reviewing the orginal post I think the point I missed was the level of thinking and understanding post-production requires is a lot deeper than that necessary to create a presentation.  The reflective essay is also key as thinking about the difference in ones understanding from creating/giving the presention and ones understanding after producing  a podcast.  I wonder how many students would be up for that kind of challenge?  For those that aren’t what kind of scaffolding activities are necessary to get them ready.

Faculty Academy 2006 Podcast: A Conversation on Blogging at UMW

Gardner Writes » Blog Archive » Faculty Academy 2006 Podcast: A Conversation on Blogging at UMW

I spent the first 52 minutes this morning listening to a group of faculty talk about blogging.  Interesting stories and commentary all the way through the podcast, but in particular a comment was made at about the 42 minute mark on the value of students learning how to express ideas using this technology and a cautionary note about not forgetting to help students learn how to express ideas publically.

Solid commentary that I would like to through my 2 cents at…

What I have found through blogging is the opportunity to quasi-publically express and crystalize my ideas without immediate contridiction or interruption.  My blogging has implications in my face to face world as I have constructed, revisited, and revised my ideas, beliefs, theories, and practices online, which allows me to clearly convey suggestions and possibilities to colleagues, faculty and friends.

Also, by having a clear understanding of my positions and ideas I find engaging in conversations and projects in a group of diverse ideas and values more productive as I know where I stand and do not need to work that out internally as the debate is happening. Since blogging I feel I am better able to listen to other’s points of view objectively which assists me in developing a more comprehensive product/solution.
Thus, I think it safe to generalize here a bit…

Blogging can lead to deeper understanding of self(and your relation to the content) which builds confidence which translates to ability to share ideas pubically.

The trick as educator is remembering it is all a process that we need to facilitate.

another iPod formatted tutorial

If we develop videos to make the tutorials portable this is what one might look like.

Download: FTP Tutorial

iPod video tutorial for FS training

If we develop videos to make the tutorials portable this is what one might look like.

Download: overview of web resources

zFeeder – a tool for reusing rss content

A few years ago I was looking to tie web content that others were producing on their sites and republish them in one spot to make the content more available to our users. As the sites I wanted to tie together produced RSS feeds my job was easier as the content was easily available.

I found zFeeder and as I could make it work without needing to know much about PHP or CSS I went ahead and incorporated it into my personal site before incorporating it into the department pages I manage.

Demonstration of using zFeeder

• Download to iPod/iTunes
• Online Quicktime Video

Screencast with movie outside blog structure

A faculty Member asked how todo something so I created a little movie using Camtasia and sent it to him.

Setting up a Discussion board for group work