Search results matching tag 'Innovations in Teaching'

Making Live (Synchronous) Distance Learning Come Alive - Georgia Tech and DyKnow

jgvanides — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:08:00 GMT

Ask anyone who has attended an online webinar presentation, a live "broadcast lecture", or viewed a lecture that has been video podcast, and chances are they were multitasking - big time. Let's face it: Without actually engaging the audience, a lecture is highly ineffective - and if it's an online, non-interactive lecture, it's like watching a television show - minus the entertainment value of advertising.

Thankfully, innovation in instruction and technology is changing the equation, as is the case at Georgia Tech Savannah...

With support from an HP Technology for Teaching grant in 2006, and a follow-on HP Leadership Grant in 2008, Elliot Moore and Monson Hayes, co-PI's and faculty in engineering, used HP tablet pcs and DyKnow software to make their synchronous, distributed learning courses come alive.

From their project website:

Currently, Georgia Tech Savannah (GTS) provides engineering education to students located across 4 different universities. One of the primary initiatives at GTS is to develop a blueprint for building a campus that utilizes computer-based technology to enhance the effectiveness of education in synchronous distributed learning (DL) environments. In this scenario, the professor and students engage in a live classroom session via videoconferencing equipment that allows the students and professors to be at different geographical locations. This type of DL environment typically suffers from several challenges that create significant barriers in effective student learning and teacher instruction including:

1. Poor transmission of live lecture content
2. Limitations on basic classroom interaction among the instructor and students
3. Challenges in class administration of basic assessment activities (e.g., in class examples, exams, etc.)

These problems have contributed to a poor opinion overall of DL courses by students and instructors. The results of this project have shown the following measured improvements in student attitudes and opinions regarding the learning environments created in the DL courses for this project as opposed to traditional DL courses:

1. Students felt the presentation of the lecture content was more clear and easy to follow than in traditional DL courses
2. Students preferred the use of the Tablet PC for taking and receiving notes
3. Students felt more involved in class discussions and learning activities
4. Students felt the in-class interaction through the Tablet PC helped them learn the material better and pay more attention in class

The comments from the students support these findings:

"I liked that the professor could ask questions and have us submit answers. It caused me to pay more attention than I normally would. I think I also grasped the concepts better by actually doing them during class." (Spring 2007 Student)

"The Dyknow interface allows students to actually LISTEN to what the instructor is saying without scrambling madly to write stuff down and missing important point in the process. I would highly recommend it!" (Spring 2007 Student)

"LOBBY TO MAKE OTHER CLASSES USE TABLET PCs!! It worked very well. Not only was having all the notes readily available great, but working problems in class with you giving feedback and showing popular incorrect answers was nice too. I'm actually getting a tablet pc for Christmas because of this class, no joke." (Fall 2007 student)

Keep up the great work, Georgia Tech Savannah!

PS:

This experience at Georgia Tech is only one of many. Richard Anderson, creator of Classroom Presenter software, has created a similar synchronous distance learning interaction in his computer science course (see my previous blog posting, "Enhancing "Live" Distance Learning with Classroom Presenter").

Also, check out the Virginia Tech video posted on the DyKnow site "...I can take an auditorium, a theater, and turn it into an active learning place..." (Tom Walker, Associate Professor of Engineering).

Jim Vanides, B.S.M.E, M.Ed.
Worldwide Education Programs
HP Global Social Investment
Hewlett-Packard
Twitter @jgvanides

For information about the HP Global Social Investments, visit www.hp.com/hpinfo/grants

Beyond Video Chat - Making Conference Presentations via HP Virtual Rooms

jgvanides — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:12:00 GMT

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Let's face it - there are more conferences on the planet than one can possibly attend. While I always appreciate the opportunity to participate and share stories about "Re-Imagining the Classroom", I simply cannot be traveling all the time. So I have recently tried using HP Virtual Rooms - and it's a whole lot of fun!...

There's nothing particularly new about video conferencing. Those of us with loved ones far away have been appreciating the Glorious magic of Skype video calls - and some are switching to Google Video Chat. But what's missing from both is the ability to show and annotate. Having used a tablet pc for several years now, it's hard for me to imagine talking without simultaneously drawing - so you can imagine my frustration with most video webchats.

That's all changed now.

I finally have had a chance to use the HP Virtual Room service that we granted to our 2009 HP Innovations in Education awardees in the US. The version we granted is the Multimedia version of HP Virtual Room, which supports webcam video streams and Voice over IP conversations, so participants can see and hear one another without an extra phone line. Like all HP Virtual Rooms, the room's content is persistent (you can upload presentations and keep them there for future use). It really is "your room".

I recently used my HP Virtual Room Multimedia account as a Presenter at two conferences, neither of which I could attend in person - the Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology in Education (www.wipte.org) held recently at Virginia Tech, and the Next Steps Institute, a K-12 science education conference hosted recently in Huntsville, Alabama, by the Association for Science Materials Centers (http://www.kitsupport.org/).

The setup was simple: I have a computer, webcam, external mic, earbuds, and an HP Virtual Room. I create an event and send the room URL to the conference organizers, who have a room full of people, a computer (with headphone output connect to their house P/A system, a webcam, a digital projector, and (preferably) a wireless house mic connected back to the mic input on their computer.

The result is an easy way to have a video conference with window sharing. Below is a screen shot of what the NSI event looked like this morning:

If you can't be there in person to give a presentation, it sure is nice to still have a way to participate... and in this visual, multimedia world, being able to show, point, and scribble is very important - and couldn't be easier!

Banners and Posters @ School: Educational (and fundraising!) Ideas

jgvanides — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:26:00 GMT

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While the focus of most of our grants are the high-tech tools like HP Tablet PCs, for the last several funding rounds we've been including HP DesignJet wide-format printers. "What would we do with a wide-format printer at school?" Glad you asked. Here are some ideas - including ways to get the ink to pay for itself...

Poster Presentations instead of PowerPoint

The first time I was introduced to the idea of wide-format printing (24" or wider) in a school setting was from Chris Heumann, a middle school teacher who received an HP DesignJet printer from HP Labs. The experiment was, among other things, an exploration of the instructional uses of wide-format prints. Chris had already been asking students to create PowerPoints to support their science project presentations. With the HP DesignJet in hand, he decided to assign each student the task of creating their presentations in the form of a 2' x 3' poster instead. The posters were all hung around the room, and each student would, in turn, stand by their poster and describe their findings. The teacher immediately saw the following benefits:

He saved instructional time - Between the "come-up-and-share-your-powerpoint" switch-over time, and students' tendency to NOT be succinct with PowerPoint, the time consumed was much greater than simply "stand-by-your-poster-and-talk". Given that he had multiple sections of the same class, he said he saved 2 days of instruction!
Student learning artifacts persisted - Because he could leave their projects on the wall, students could continue to revisit and reflect on what they were learning... and it sure made parent visits more impressive. It goes without saying that the battery life of paper is essentially endless.

Of course other types of "poster presentations" and student projects are possible in many disciplines:

Science - Science Fair Posters
Math - Key geometric ideas; My Favorite Polyhedron
Engineering Design - Computer-Aided Drafting (CAD) renderings
Language Arts - Design & display your own print advertisements or magazine covers
History - Illustrated timelines
Student Government - even out the playing field for students running for student government
Photography Club - large prints are a great way to create a stunning photography exhibition

School Fundraising - Sell Custom Banners and Posters

For educators on a tight budget (who isn't?) and concerned about the cost of ink, consider what some schools are doing - selling posters and banners to parents and the community at large. The income from the printed "products" could easily cover the ongoing instructional cost of supplies. Plus, this entrepreneurial approach is a great entrepreneurial experience for students who are interested in learning how to run a small business. The possibilities are endless:

Homecoming Highlights - A collage of football and prom stars, perhaps?
Student Art Reproductions - Invite the community to your next art show - and give them a chance to go home with a reproduction of their favorites (great holiday gifts, too!)
Custom Banners for local businesses, Chamber of Commerce events, or private parties
Favorite School Memories - Why should the Yearbook Club wait to the end of the year to share fantastic photos? Why not print and sell selected photos to promote the yearbook?

Tools and Tips

It doesn't have to cost a lot to get started. Here are some tools that may be helpful:

If you already have PowerPoint, you can do simple poster or banner designs by changing the Page Setup and specifying a larger page size (FYI, standard ANSI paper sizes are A = 8 1/2 x 11"; B = 11 x 17; C = 17 x 22; D = 22 x 34; E = 34 x 44; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size for additional paper sizes)
Chris says, don't put the HP DesignJet printer in the teachers' room or administrative offices - put it in one of the teacher's rooms where it is more likely to get used by the students and other teachers.
If you have the Adobe Digital School Suite of software, you've got all the tools you need; if not, try GIMP, the free open-source GNU Image Manipulation Program
HP DesignJet Template Software by Serif makes it VERY easy to create posters and very long banners (which is hard to do in PowerPoint).

If you have a question or tips of your own, please post a comment! I'd love to hear from you...

US National Ed Tech Plan - Your Chance to Speak Up!

jgvanides — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:48:00 GMT

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The US education system is at a cross-roads, and "education technology" is part of the national dialog - again. In the nearly one decade that has transpired since the last national discussion about the role technology should be in US schools, the technologies themselves have evolved many times over. Perhaps more exciting is that the innovations related to the educational use of technology has generated new and compelling "emerging evidence".

For those of you involved in these innovative projects, it's time to speak up - the US Department of Education wants to hear from you...

Barbara Means at SRI is leading an effort to gather input about the NEW National Ed Tech Plan for the US. Below is their email invitation to all of us to participate in the dialog and submit our feedback. Now is our chance to speak up and make a difference! The input period begins now, and continues into October. Please take a moment to share your story, your data, and your recommendations...

Jim Vanides

******************************email from SRI*************************

The U.S. Department of Education is developing a new National Educational Technology Plan to provide a vision for the use of information and communication technologies in transforming American education with technical support from SRI International and a Technical Working Group. We are seeking public participation in the development of the Plan to ensure that it reflects the experience and expertise of the educational community. With this goal in mind, you and your organization are cordially invited to share your input through the new National Educational Technology Plan development website at www.edtechfuture.org.

The site is designed to collect public contributions that will be used by a Technical Working Group of education and technology scholars, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from the field that has been organized to support plan development. In particular, the Working Group is seeking written resources, technology tool recommendations, short videos and exemplary cases related to four focus areas in which technology has the potential to transform education:

Learning: Enabling unprecedented access to high-quality learning experiences.

Teaching: Implementing new ways to support those who support learning.

Assessment: Measuring what matters and providing the information that enables continuous improvement processes at all levels of the education system.

Productivity: Redesigning systems and processes to free up education system resources to support learning.

You may share your individual input, as well as work with your community and professional networks to generate collective input for submission to the site. In addition to contributing resources ideas, you can rate and discuss others' submissions, with the goal of identifying particularly innovative and relevant resources.

To focus participants' discussions, website sections devoted to each of the four focus areas will be launched one by one, beginning with Learning (September 9) and followed by Assessment (September 18), Teaching (October 5), and Productivity (October 19). We hope you will visit the site frequently to share your expertise in the areas that interest you.

Please join us in this important endeavor and forward this invitation to other colleagues and organizations that you think would be interested in this opportunity. To learn more about the National Educational Technology Plan and to participate in this important national effort, please visit www.edtechfuture.org.

First-time Tablet PC User? Try My Favorite "5 First Steps"

jgvanides — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:30:00 GMT

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I recently had the privilege of introducing 50 middle school teachers to their new tablet pcs. It was great fun, and everyone left with something simple they could try the first time they fired up their tablet in class. If you've just acquired a tablet pc to enhance your teaching, or if you're still thinking about it, below are my favorite, simple, "5 First Steps" that I shared during my workshops...

First, I have to say "thank you" to the educators I've met in Twitter who were kind enough to answer my question, "What would YOU show teachers who are new to tablet pcs?" I received some great suggestions, one of which was from @web20classroom. He STRONGLY encouraged me to give them time to play and NOT overwhelm them with too much information. So I purposely focused my 90 minute workshop on teaching-relevant tablet pc uses that are EASY first steps.

Try This #1: Use Windows Journal as a replacement for your chalkboard, whiteboard, and/or overhead projector

Windows Journal is marvelous in its simplicity. It's basically an infinite pad of digital paper - with some features that have many educators tossing out PowerPoint and using Journal instead. Here's why:

Unlike PowerPoint, with Journal your annotations, drawings, scribbles, text and pasted images can all be REPOSITIONED afterward. Just use the lasso tool to grab and move an object.

Instructional Use: Journal is great for facilitating a brainstorm discussion. Write a list of ideas as step 1 of a brainstorm, and then (step 2 of a brainstorm) discuss ways to organize all the ideas - and move the list items being discussed. You can't do this on a white board unless you erase and rewrite everything. Yes, you can brainstorm with stickies - but those tend to be hard to read from far away. With a digital projector located toward the back of the classroom, the projected image can be ENORMOUS.
Unlike PowerPoint, if you want to spontaneously add a blank page because you've run out of space for more annotations, you can easily add a new page and keep going. With PowerPoint, you'd have to stop your presentation, save your annotations, insert a slide, and then restart the presentation. Ugh.

Instructional Use: You can prepare your lesson plan ahead of time, pre-populating your Journal file with curricular materials you want to share. Invariably you'll be asked a question which requires more space for drawing as you discuss the question. Journal helps you shift from "presenter" to "discussion facilitator".
Unlike PowerPoint, you can STRETCH (or unStretch) the digital canvas as needed. Want to insert some space between diagrams? No problem - just activate the "stretch" icon and tap/drag the pen DOWN to add more room (or tap/drag UP to unstretch).

Instructional Use: Have two drawings or photos, one on top of another, but now you need some room to label key features? Just STRETCH the paper and make some room for your annotations.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Try This #2: Customize Windows Journal backgrounds

Teach mathematics? Easily create grid paper for plotting data

Teach music? Easily create staff paper that you can notate on top of

Teach language arts? Create a graphic organizer background to facilitate discussions and scaffold student thinking

Try This #3: Use the Snipping Tool to grab and discuss images

Many instructors find themselves using their tablet pcs in "laptop mode", which is to say the display is open but not swiveled down on top of the keyboard. This makes it easy to draw AND "alt-tab" to any other open application being discussed. So let's say you have a webpage open and you want to point, draw, or otherwise annotate on top of a portion of it (e.g., "Look at this suspension bridge - what kind of mathematical expression might be used to characterize the shape of the suspension cable?"). With the snipping tool, you can "grab" an area (rectangular or free form), copy it, and paste it into Journal - in real-time, while you're discussing things in class.

The snipping tool was originally a free utility included in the Microsoft Tablet PC Experience Pack (a free download for MS Windows XP Tablet PC edition users). I suspect it was so popular that it now is included in MS Vista operating system. I can see why - it's so handy, I've copied a shortcut to the snipping tool and placed it on my toolbar (lower left hand corner, down by the Windows "start" blob).

Here's how to use it during a class discussion:

1) With Windows Journal open, make some space to add a "snip"

2) Open the other program you want to talk about (a browser window, a spreadsheet, anything that runs on your computer!)

3) Launch the snipping tool; use your pen to draw a box or freehand "snip"; in Vista, this action will automatically copy the snip to your clipboard

4) ALT-TAB back to Journal

5) EDIT > Paste your snip into Journal, and annotate away!

Try This #4: Markup Word Docs with Digital Ink

Looking for ways to be more efficient? Try paperless homework! If you're already having students use MS Word to write assignments, you can mark them up and send them back without ever having to print (and carry around) the originals. Here's how:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Try This #5: Annotate your PowerPoint - and throw away your laser pointer

Finally, because PowerPoint is so prevalent, you've GOT to see how easy it is to draw on top of your slides during your presentation. This short video will show you how:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Instructors who are doing this have basically thrown out their laser pointers - after all, laser pointers are now pointless. Digital annotations are easier to see and can be saved for later distribution to students.

Instructors who are doing this are also finding it valuable to leave more whitespace on their slides so there's room to write. The secondary benefit of doing this is that you're less likely to commit the crime of "too much stuff on your powerpoints"; with more whitespace, your presentation can slow down to match the speed of thought - and your students' fingers won't cramp up so often.

TIP: Use "save as" to make a copy of your master file before you start each class

If you never annotate on your master file, then you will always have a fresh copy that is free of all annotations. If you teach the more than one section of the same class, then you can avoid having to erase all your annotations from the previous session. Likewise, you retain a clean master for next year! So, whether you're using PowerPoints or Journal files, open the master file, then immediately "Save As" and give it a new name. This retains the master intact, and gives you a copy that you can mark up and share with your students.

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If anyone else has a "favorite first step" recommendation for new Tablet PC users, please post a comment and share it with me!

Knowing What They Don't Know: How Real-Time Student Feedback Transforms Teaching

jgvanides — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:18:00 GMT

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Everyone's talking about data. But it isn't the results of high-stakes tests that's going to help students, because they don't always measure what's important and the data takes too long to show up. It's sort of like grading beef - the cow is dead. Real-time (formative) data is where the excitement is. Time after time, I'm hearing examples of how tablet pcs deployed in a classroom 1:1 (one per student) or shared 2:1 or 3:1, can expose very powerful data about students - and change the way we teach...

Some wonderful examples are coming from the team at Colorado School of Mines. With the support of HP Technology for Teaching grants, faculty are using tablet pcs to redesign the learning experience in courses like Physics - and in the process, discovering how exciting it is to revisit the scholarship of teaching.

I've previously blogged about the Mines Video and the InkSurvey web-tool that provides an easy way to ask students open ended questions whose answers are drawings - a graphical version of classroom polling. But I've just received the Mines project update and obtained permission to share what the faculty are experiencing.

Frank Kowalski, the principal investigator for the original HP Technology for Teaching grants and a professor physics, shared with me the following personal reflection:

"I am continually amazed at the difference between what I think the students know and what they demonstrate when I ask a question with InkSurvey. Going into the classroom now becomes an adventure in exploring and correcting student misunderstanding rather than an effort to deliver content in a structured lecture."

He goes on to say, "This project has fundamentally changed how I teach. Going into the classroom, I now focus my efforts on what the students will have difficulty learning rather than on content delivery, with a large "impedance mismatch" between that delivery and student understanding. This has generated a thrill that was not present in my pre-InkSurvey teaching. I go into the class not knowing what I will learn about the student understanding and also not knowing how I will have to meet the challenge of addressing that misunderstanding."

The net result for students is very positive. Perhaps equally important to me are the implications regarding how we prepare high school students for college are very important. As Frank points out, "I also find a surprising lack of deep understanding when I use the standard lecture/homework problem format compared with the learning achieved using InkSurvey, as indicated by exam performance. Apparently, their schooling has taught the students how to get answers quickly so they can move on to the next assignment rather than fostering an inquisitive attitude about the subject."

{Side note: To me this points to the greater need for revisiting what we're doing to our high school students in the typical AP class.}

Frank is not alone. Colleague Tracy Gardner is also using InkSurvey to teach, and reports that, "It is like a door to the students' minds, which is a professor's dream because it makes teaching so much more effective. Though students are always free to ask questions during class, I believe I get more questions, and more importantly I get questions from students who would not otherwise speak up. Therefore I am hopefully reaching a wider array of students than I would without the technology. [Graphical feedback through InkSurvey] really helps me to both pace the class better and to talk about concepts in more varied ways to reach more students..."

... which is EXACTLY what "re-imagining the classroom" is all about...

Keep up the great work, Colorado School of Mines!

Successful EdTech: First the Verbs, then the Nouns

jgvanides — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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With all the "Race to the Top" coverage in the US media as of late, there's a resurging interest in using technology to enable breakthrough innovations in education. But let's make sure the national, state, and local district discussions get it right: If we want to positively impact student achievement through the effective use of technology, we have to ensure that the strategy, planning, and implementation begins with (learning) VERBS, not the (technology) NOUNS...

I first heard this described to me by Dan Gilbert, who at the time was working with faculty using Stanford's high-tech Wallenberg Hall experimental classrooms. It's only natural to get intrigued and excited about the gadgets, and as Dan pointed out to me, the IT department is typically focused on the NOUNS - the technology in the classroom. But he was quick to coach instructors that their focus needs to first be on the VERBS - what you, as the instructor, and your students as learners, need to be DOING. Once you define the verbs, the best (tech) nouns can be identified and deployed.

I blogged about this topic two years ago, but I think it's time to revisit the idea. Here's how I explain it:

At the bottom of the transformation continuum is the classic lecture, where the instructor talks and the students listen. With MS PowerPoint, the instructor now "talks and shows" slides while the students listen, watch, and transcribe. These verbs describe a scenario often referred to as "Death by PowerPoint" (there's a great stand-up comedy routine posted on YouTube that demonstrates some of the worse PowerPoint offenses).

Higher on the transformation continuum are more powerful learning verbs such as Debate, Compare, Discuss, and Create. These are only a few examples of learning verbs that lead to more powerful learning experiences that develop higher order thinking. I have more examples described in my presentation about the HP Innovations in Education initiative.

Once we know what verbs you're intending to activate in the classroom, then we can start talking about the technology nouns that will support these activities and experiences. For example, if you're pre-recording lectures so you can have more time for discussion and debate during class, you can choose from a wide variety of approaches for screen-cast recording using free webservices or high-end professional software like Camtasia. (Many thanks to Tami Brasst, @brasst on Twitter, for sharing a blog with links to 40 free screen capture tools).

I heard this important distinction between VERB-centric vs. NOUN-centric edtech planning again when I participated in the Leadership Retreat held last week at the University of Illinois at Chicago. During his keynote remarks, Marc Prensky talked specifically about education VERBS and technology NOUNS. He brought out another important point: While the technology nouns are ever changing and improving, the educational VERBS remain the same. Powerful learning VERBS do not go obsolete, so neither will your instructional plans designed around them.

Marc explains this much more eloquently in his blog posting, "Verbs vs. Nouns", where he says:

In teaching, our focus needs to be on the verbs, which don't change very much, and NOT on the nouns (i.e. the technologies) which change rapidly and which are only a means. For teachers to fixate on any particular noun as the "best" way (be it books or blogs, for example) is not good for our students, as new and better nouns will shortly emerge and will continue to emerge over the course of their lifetimes. Our teaching should instead focus on the verbs (i.e. skills) students need to master, making it clear to the students (and to the teachers) that there are many tools learners can use to practice and apply them....

This is exactly how successful technology-using educators I know are making a measurable improvement in their students' academic progress. Three cheers for powerful learning VERBS, and the technology NOUNS that enable them.

Education Talk-show in Second Life? You bet! ISTE Eduverse archive treasures...

jgvanides — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:14:00 GMT

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In our ongoing quest to find ways to share the expertise of innovative educators, we have been collaborating with ISTE in the use of Second Life as a professional networking venue. The education talk show, "ISTE Eduverse Talks" has just completed its 8^th episode - and each one is worth watching...

ISTE Eduverse "talk-show" events are recorded before a live studio audio in Second Life. The archives are then posted on the ISTE Eduverse blog. These one-hour interviews are done "talk show style", featuring HP grant recipients and other experts who have valuable best-practices to share. As described on the ISTE-Eduverse blog, "Filmed and broadcast from Second Life, the series highlights innovations in educational technology, in both real life and Second Life."

You are all welcome to attend the recordings "live" (well, your Second Life avatar is welcome to attend). But even if you don't have a Second Life account, you can still view the shows the ISTE Eduverse blog, or view videos chunked into sections and posted onto Youtube. I've pasted samples of the Youtube recordings below for your reference.

Enjoy!

Episode 7: Living in the (Virtual) Moment: A Case Study of Association Member Engagement in Second Life - Learn how the International Society for Technology in Education expanded into Second Life and used this virtual world to support member professional development, networking, and leadership in this episode featuring some of ISTE's most active volunteers and members!

Full Episode, or partial sample from YouTube(Please visit the site to view this media):

Episode 6: Revolutionizing Instruction With Tablet PC's - Are you ready to learn how to use web-based tools in your classroom to improve the sharing of ideas, problems, questions and solutions among students? Join host Kevin Jarrett (SL: KJ Hax) for a discussion with cross-disciplinary team of educators from Clemson University who successfully integrated Tablet PC's into their curriculum as part of the HP Technology for Teaching Grant program. Hear classroom success stories and lessons learned from this diverse group of educators

Full Episode, or partial sample from YouTube:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Episode 5: Flat Classrooms: Using Web 2.0 Tools to Level the Playing Field between Students and Teachers - Want the inside scoop on The Flat Classroom Project-a collaborative effort that utilizes Web 2.0 tools to foster communication, collaboration, and creativity between educators and students across the globe? Join host Kevin Jarrett (SL: KJ Hax) and project co-founders Vicki Davis (SL: CoolCat Whitman), the IT Director of Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia, and Julie Lindsay (SL: Charlotte Ozigard), the head of IT and E-Learning at Qatar Academy in Doha, Qatar, for an exciting discussion about the evolution of this project as well as tips for flattening your own classroom.

Full Episode, or partial sample from YouTube:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

What is "e-Learning"?

jgvanides — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:57:00 GMT

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It happens every time - a word becomes part of the popular lexicon and it becomes so generalized or over-used that its very definition becomes unclear. I am no Historian of Words nor am I a Linguist, but let me at least share with you how I think about "e-Learning"...

The intent of the "e" in e-Learning was to describe a learning experience that is mediated by some form of ICT (information & communication technology), usually in a setting that is NOT a traditional classroom. The "e", I believe, was referring to "electronic" - not "existential" or "excellent". To some it implies the use of any technology that is electronic, distinguishing the experience from learning that uses "non-electronic" technologies, such as books, chalk, paper, pencils, slide rules...

Now that just about everything is mediated by electrically powered (batteries or otherwise) gizmos, the word "e-Learning" is becoming a bit too broad, almost to the point of being unhelpful. If we expect clear and meaningful dialog about how to design exemplary e-Learning experiences for students, I think we need to clarify what is meant by "e-Learning" and what has now become its many variants.

There are many types of e-Learning experiences that are being tried. Some of them are powerful and exciting, finally addressing the needs of a large number of students for whom large, lecture-style classrooms are not effective. One-size-fits-all instructional design is not working, so some of the permutations in eLearning bring welcome innovation. Unfortunately, other forms of e-Learning are (trying to be polite) "modest" in their effectiveness - dreadfully so, I'm afraid. The worst offender is the "self paced corporate training module" that you click through while reading your email.

So whenever I'm involved in a discussion about "e-Learning", I always ask, "What type of learning experience are you referring to?" Usually the discussion is about online learning of some sort, so let me share with you my current online learning taxonomy (if that's really the right way to describe my list below):

Asynchronous Online Learning - oLearning(a)

These are the types of online experiences that don't depend on "being there" at any particular time. Unlike "showing up for class at 9am", you can login and participate 24/7. Conversations are usually in the form of threaded discussion "bulletin boards", or now rising in popularity, micro-video or audio postings.

One of the interesting characteristics about oLearning(a) experiences with groups of learners is that the conversations are often much more reflective & meaningful - if the instructional design and facilitation of the experience are both wisely done.

Synchronous Online Learning - oLearning(s)

These experiences bring together people at the same moment in time, just like a face-to-face classroom that meets at a specific moment, an oLearning(s) experience requires that you show up at the same time.

There are many versions of this, such as webinars where the audio comes through the phone or VoIP, and the visuals are delivered to your web browser; video chat through a webcam; high-resolution rooms that create face-to-face experiences so realistic that you forget the other half of the room is across the world, (e.g. HP HALO rooms); Second Life "avatar-to-avatar" experiences; and many more.

oLearning Design Dimensions

But "synchronous" vs. "asynchronous" is still inadequate in capturing the details we need in order to consider what type of experience design is best for the learning objectives being addressed. So, here's my checklist of "design dimensions" for your consideration:

PACE: is the learning scheduled, self-paced, or ad-hoc (on-demand)?
HELP: who/what provides the scaffolding that guides students through from novice to expert? Is the experience led by a PERSON (instructor, content-expert, facilitator, mentor) or by a MACHING (artificial intelligence, cognitive tutor, etc)
COHORT: are the learners alone, or in a structured cohort, or in an informal community?
FORMALITY: is this a "formal" learning experience for credit, or an informal learning experience that fills another need?

So here is how I describe the learning experience of the students in the online course I designed and deliver for Montana State University: The course is a conceptual physics course on the Science of Sound, designed specifically for teachers of students in grades 5 through 8. The learning is entirely online, asynchronous, scheduled (there are assignments due each week), instructor led, with a cohort of students who are earning 1 unit of semester credit (see www.scienceteacher.org for more info!).

I'm sure my taxonomy, as it were, is incomplete, so I welcome your comments. There are many wonderful resources for online learning design. Let me suggest two:

Seven Steps to Better E-Learning by Clark Quinn (via a Twitter post from Steven Anderson, @web20classroom)
Facilitating Online Learning by Collison, Elbaum, Haavind, and Tinker - a wonderful book to read if you are teaching online or designing an online, human-mediated experience

What I really hope this does is help us all have more precise discussions about what's working and what does not work, so that more students are successful the pursuit of their dreams...

When is Second Life Better than a Classroom?

jgvanides — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:46:00 GMT

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The team at ISTE.org have convinced me that Second Life is a great venue for short "face"-to-"face" professional meetings when you can't travel to meet face-to-face. But lately I've been asking myself, "When is SL better than a classroom for students?" One answer seems to be "immersive simulations" that can't (or shouldn't!) be done in real life. Here's an example...

Using technology to duplicate what can be done without technology may be novel, but I'm losing patience with this view of ed-tech. HP grant recipients that are combining the best instructional approaches with the right technologies to create NEW types of powerful learning experiences are having far more success in showing measurable improvements in student academic outcomes. So what are the implications for the instructional use of Second Life? For me, this means using SL for learning activities that go beyond what you're already able to do. An obvious example is using SL to facilitate meeting "face"-to-"face" with other students or experts, even though you are unable to meet in person.

But I'm looking for examples of powerful learning experiences, not just "Hi, nice avatar you've got there..."

This brings me to a discussion I had with Dr. Liz Falconer at the University of the West of England. Dr. Falconer is the manager of their e-Learning Development Unit, which works with colleagues across the university to help with developments in curricula and delivery that use ICT. UWE is also the recipient of a 2007 HP Technology for Teaching grant. One area of research is Simulations in Higher Education, many of which are conducted in Second Life.

Dr. Falconer was kind enough to show me one of their latest simulations, designed to support the learning of students enrolled in a course focused on occupational hazards. These students need to learn how to evaluate work-place industrial accidents. Unfortunately, many graduates did not encounter real accidents until AFTER they graduated - at which point they met the daunting challenge of dealing with the uncertainties of real (and often tragic) life circumstances.

To better prepare these students, Dr. Falconer and her team worked with Second Life designers at Citrus Virtual to create a simulator engine that has been used to create a realistic warehouse accident.

Students press go, and watch bad things happen - just like in real-life. But unlike real-life, you can press rewind and watch it again, perhaps from a different angle, or after a debrief with your instructor and classmates. What was the root cause? What can be done to prevent accidents like this? What would you do if you were sent in to investigate such an accident? With simulations like this, suddenly these questions don't seem so academic.

This is definitely an experience that you cannot (and should not) replicate in real-life. If you would like to visit "e-Learning at UWE" (their Second Life Island), visit http://www.uwe.ac.uk/elearning/projects/projectSecondlife.shtml for more information.

Nice job, UWE!