Tegrity, Zoho, and more . . .

Last semester I started teaching online. Learning how to get the same content in the face-to-face classroom into the online classroom and still get the message across was a challenge, to be sure. I had the students do two presentations, and offered both of these to be done as group work. I also encouraged students to try Zoho. Zoho is a site that allows students to create Web 2.0 PowerPoint presentations as well as having a lot of other functions, but I thought Zoho might be ideal for people working remotely to put together their presentation online. It worked great for some, while others found it difficult to edit. I think that creating a wiki might be a more efficient way to go.

I also started teaching in a Tegrity enabled classroom last spring. Tegrity is a software program that will capture what is on the instructor computer or the document camera, as well as showing an image from a ceiling camera, which is normally focused on the instructor. Learning how to operate and produce quality Tegrity presentations is something I still need practice with, but these presentations are a great Web 2.0 tool. I found that students were ignoring these Tegrity recordings, so I stopped putting up the effort to create them for a while. Then I had a student who couldn't attend class because of her baby's health, so I started again. The other use the students found for these was review. When I gave a review session for the class before their midterm, the students did enjoy reviewing the class session to be sure they understood the major concepts. It was a great way to display visual pictures, notes, and have the animation of the classroom come through at the same time.

Another great success I had was learning the weekend that the Note Taking assignment was due in the online class that the link I had to the lecture was down. I was able to quickly take one of the Tegrity sessions from the ENG061 class and upload it into the online ENG140 class. Success! Most students could view this recording and were able to finish the assignment. The other great part of this technique is that students got to see me, their online instructor, teaching a class. I think it gave them a little better feel for who I am.

The final lesson I created with Tegrity last semester was a lecture on how the religious background and the sacrificial lamb story from The Kite Runner affected the people in the story as well as in our culture today. I was able to show the lecture notes online as well as have a small box with me lecturing in the corner. That was exciting. I sincerely want to pursue making more of these for the online students.

Another Web 2.0 activity I want to try is to take some of my PowerPoint presentations and put them up as photosharing documents to turn them into slideshows on the wiki. This is something I need to continue working on because I was not getting all layers of the slide. I was sometimes just getting the background. It would be really helpful to pull the PowerPoint presentations from the classroom up onto the Internet so we are not dependent upon Blackboard for everything. Sometimes Blackboard goes down, and then students could still access the content to do their homework.

Putting materials in the wiki is also a great way to keep students connected. Once the semester is over, all the content in Blackboard is off limits. Anything we have posted in the wiki is still viewable. Perhaps our students will be taking another class and will want to look back to see how we described, explained, performed something in our class. What a concept!

Photosharing in the Classroom

Photosharing in the Classroom
By Tina Luffman

As we continue to explore new ways to teach using the Web 2.0 tools available to teachers today, it is important to consider photosharing. This week I created a Flickr account and uploaded some scenery pictures. It didn?t take long for me to realize the importance of gathering photos with large enough resolution to look nicely when played in the slideshow view.

One thing I can see teachers using photosharing sites for is to search for pictures for a specific geographic region being discussed in the classroom. For example, if the class is reading a novel, the instructor could run a search for photos in Flickr that are tagged as being from that specific region. Last semester I decided to create a PowerPoint presentation with pictures I found online from the San Francisco Bay area as the novel we had been reading took place there.

Creating this presentation took a lot of time because I had to do a search on the Internet, and then I had to copy and paste each of the pictures into PowerPoint. Then I had to upload this PowerPoint into the Blackboard course for each class I was teaching. Using Flickr will make this process much more simple. I can go to Flickr, run a search for pictures, and then upload the ones I want. Students can be enabled through a ?group? setting to see these pictures and captions I place between them to get a feel for the Bay area. All I would need to do in Blackboard is to create an External Link to the Flickr page.

Another idea for using photosharing in the classroom is to put a set of pictures into the Flickr page. Then I can have the students view these pictures and write an essay about one of them. These can be landscapes, people, action scenes, or whatever we choose. I can ask students to write a descriptive or illustrative paragraph of a scene, write a narrative about a person, and so on. There is not limit on the imagination for this activity.

Teaching sequence is another thing we can do with photosharing. As an instructor, I can set up a series of events and take pictures of them while working through the process. Then I can put the pictures into Flickr and ask students to order the photos and write a description of why they believe these photos happened in the order they created.

Group work is something I would like to try in photosharing. I would like to ask all students to gather some pictures of their own and load them into a group Flickr account. Then students could create an assignment using their shared photos. The challenge with an activity like this is knowing when it is reasonable to expect students in an English class to have technological ability and access to equipment for such a project. I do not feel It is reasonable to expect all of the students in my class to have access to a digital camera or the ability to scan photos at this point. It is reasonable to expect students to view, but not necessarily to create photosharing sites. Eventually these skills will be relatively universal especially for those who come to the campus for face-to-face classes.

Steve Hargadon -- Reflections on Classroom 2.0

In Steve Hargadon’s Ning site, he discusses six points to consider when creating Web 2.0 communities: http://www.stevehargadon.com/2009/01/some-things-ive-learned-about-building.html . Following are reflections I have made about two of his points and how these would be beneficial or not beneficial in a college classroom setting. First I would like to say that college courses are not “failure is free” settings.

Therefore, we don’t have to worry about our social networking site taking off or succeeding. Students will have assignments to do, and if they do them, they will get credit. If they don’t they don’t. Plain and simple, right???

Well, if the site is engaging, students will get into the social networking site and really delve in. That should be the instructor’s goal. How much of the “I’ve already done enough for my ‘A’” attitude would there be that might prevent students from totally engaging? (Sounds like a point for research.) I have even seen students who didn’t want to dive deep and really explore the lesson actually balk and drag their feet until it was almost too late in the semester to save themselves from certain failure.

Perhaps the problem with that particular class is the way the textbook author continued to drum it into students’ heads that they had to dive deep. Perhaps using a Web 2.0 process with interaction with other classmates would draw the diving deep out in an entertaining way where students would not even know they were being coerced into sharing their stuff and learning truths about what makes for a good student.

As for fulfilling some compelling need, I can envision a Web 2.0 wiki or Ning site where students get together to help each other meet the goals of the class. When students can successfully learn to do group work online, it will be great to see them creating a group Zoho presentation, (which my ENG140 students started doing last semester). It would also be great to create a social network with peers who attend workshops, and then post the items we create and share them one with another.

It seems like such a benefit to share what we have created so every teacher teaching the same curriculum across the country doesn’t have to start from scratch on every single assignment. Now that might be an idea that would fulfill a compelling need. How often have we come home from a conference full of great ideas only to be greeted with piles of mail and papers to grade, and then two months later we realize we have barely changed our teaching at all?

Social Network Possibilities

When I was working through the social networking lessons this week, I could actually see myself using Ning as a way to contact students. It seems like a good place to go for interaction. The chatting feature has two different tools, and while I didn't test it, I could see which other students from our class were in there at the time. The best part of Ning is the way students can see pictures of each other and have a greater sense of community. They actually gain the ability to communicate one with the other as well, just like in a face-to-face setting. This feature should actually create a richer learning environment than Blackboard, where students can talk to each other in the Discussions, but who don't have the same level of ability to approach each other directly. When creating a tool like this, it is important to remember to remind the students that nothing posted online is private. They need to take care to behave academically and to use common sense in their conversations and means of approaching one another.

For the time being, I will likely begin by adding the chat tool in Blackboard again. I had stopped using it because of the run-away nature of the conversations when I would create a live chat meeting with asynchronous students. In fact, the students ran away with the chat even when I was sitting in a room letting them play with this new technology. But this SNS week has reminded me that it's not all about my agenda. We need to allow the students to take the class where they need to go with it as long as we are meeting the learning outcomes for the course.

Facebook is another site I enjoy using for personal interaction with my family and friends. I don't add students as friends as a policy of mine. However, I wonder what value it would be to create an instructor Facebook account. I could add all of my students into this network, and we could post questions, queries, and comments about the lessons and assignments. We could upload pictures and videos to share with each other. Facebook also has a chat capability, and I have used it to visit for an extended conversation, which has the potential to be much more satisfying for a student than sending emails back and forth.

Twitter sounds like a nice idea for getting to know my son and daughter-in-law who live out of state, but I'm not sure I want to use it with students. It seems like it would generate way too much information and would take up too much of my time. Anyone having success with this medium?

Social Networking Site (SNS)

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1. What was the target audience for this social networking site (SNS)? The target audience seems to be anyone interested in building a social network. It also caters to “artists, brands, and organizations to simplify and control their online presence with their own unique social network that beautifully integrates with other social media services while providing the most direct, unique and lucrative relationship with fans, consumers, and members.” http://about.ning.com/.
2. How long was the site in existence? Ning began in 2005 and is still actively growing today.
3. Why was it popular? “Millions of people everyday are coming together across Ning Networks to explore and express their interests, discover new passions, and meet new people around shared pursuits.” http://about.ning.com/. What was its demise? So far so good.
4. Is/was there another competitor in the same market that was more popular? Of the alternative SNS competitors, I would say that MySpace and Facebook are more popular. These tend to attract more teenagers and college students respectively. Ning is still a growing marketplace that has largely been untapped. I believe that MySpace attraction to bands and teenagers had made it a nearly instant phenomenon. Facebook became popularized with the initially exclusive college student availability. Once students make an account, they tend to stay with it. Older adults and high school students later gained access to Facebook, and at that point it seemed “academic” or “safe” to join this network over MySpace or others that were not as well known.
5. Would you ever consider creating an account and using it? Explain your reason using a personal experience as an example. Last summer my son and his wife got married in Chicago. I realized that they were posting their engagement and wedding pictures online in Facebook. That was my draw to get online. I felt that I would have a better chance to stay up with my son when I had access to Facebook. And now my other son in the military is also actively using this SNS as well.

Wiki Whys Guys

I got excited about the wiki tool this week and spent quite a bit of time working on the Critical Thinking pages, but I really can see where I will use this in my class. It is a great place to gather information in various forms such as text, video, links, and presentations to pull together the complex issues Critical Thinking brings to the forefront.

Last spring I was having trouble sensing whether my online students were actually digging deeply enough to really grasp these tools. When having them contribute to a class wiki, I feel I can draw out even more participation and actual Critical Thinking and learning.

I also liked Buckland's ideas concerning group work where the students score each other. Personally I would let students do so, and then I would give those who are not content the opportunity to improve their quality of work prior to receiving a final grade on these projects.

The other great part about group work on a wiki is that the instructor can see who participated, to what level each person participated, and who did not. I know the logon can always be faked if a person really wants to cheat, but I feel this tool is more than a step above what we have in face-to-face classroom settings or in Blackboard for monitoring group work at this time.

Educational Wikis

Wiki Teach lesson plans

Here is a great site where instructors can choose the subject and grade level before searching for Wiki lesson plans. When I searched for English grades 8 through graduate, I found thirteen lessons.

Edutech wiki lesson plans

This link has several links within to take you to various other wiki areas where you can search for lesson plans. The site was somewhat overwhelming for me because it seemed there were endless ways to find lessons, but also because of the advertisements.

Wiki Lesson Plans

This wiki was simplistic, but had few lessons. The site has a lot of potential for growth. Some of the lessons were ones I could see many different kinds of teachers being able to use such as Microsoft Paint and PhotoStory 3 lesson ideas.

Wiki Classroom Use

I plan to use the 0809workshops wiki as an informational tool to show them the basics of the Critical Thinking tools in our textbook. As you can see, I have added all three of the foundational tools: Elements of Thought, Intellectual Standards, and Intellectual Traits. Then in the Discussion tab, I added a brief explanation of how I want the students to use these tools to develop a more critical thinking approach to their learning process.

Students can then write their own discussion postings to explain how they perceive they are improving their thinking in each of the three areas. Students can expect to learn success strategies from each other, and they can also expect to be evaluated upon how well they express these gradients of change in their thinking process.

View my wiki: http://0809workshops.wikispaces.com/

College English Blogs

These were the top blog sites I found when googling this evening. I searched using "educational blogs college English."

The first blog I found was Teacher Lingo. This blog is a collection of educational blog posts supposedly by teachers who teach at a college or university. I found it to be an eclectic list of blogs by teachers from various levels and disciplines. One instructor was from Developmental English, so hers was interesting to me. Others were from high school teachers or math teachers. There are tabs across the top entitled “Find Teachers,” “Lessons,” Message Board,” and so on.

The second blog I found was Online Freshmen English. This blog shows a training exercise on debate for online students. The concept is interesting, and I may choose to try it in one of my classes. As I worked through the navigation bar, I realized it actually links back into the Teacher Lingo blog above, so it may be a subset. Once I read the link name, I realized it was also part of the address, so I am sure it is. So much information is in this site that I felt overwhelmed.

The third blog I found was Beth Ritter-Guth’s College English. This site appears to actually be a teacher’s course for the semester. She has a series of videos for her students to explain how to do each week’s assignments. She also has information about vozme, pocasts, and other forms of technology tools. Her readings are also included in this one page. I found it a bit strange, but feel many students would love it once they got used to it since there probably isn’t any book to buy for the class, and there also is great communication with all of her explanations in the mini videos

Since two of these are from the same area, I will include a fourth: College English. This blog area includes tabs for E-Learning, Literature, Writing, and more. It also includes course blogs for Gladly Learne: English 280, LiveJournal Course Blog for 150 and 286. There is also a list of various professors who participate. On the right side there is a list of items recently on Del.icio.us talking about Twitter, YouTube, and other Web 2.0 technologies. I believe this blog has much to offer.

The second blog I found was Online Freshmen English: http://onlinefreshmenenglish.teacherlingo.com/. This blog shows a training exercise on debate for online students. The concept is interesting, and I may choose to try it in one of my classes. As I worked through the navigation bar, I realized it actually links back into the Teacher Lingo blog above, so it may be a subset. Once I read the link name, I realized it was also part of the address, so I am sure it is. So much information is in this site that I felt overwhelmed.

The third blog I found was Beth Ritter-Guth’s College English: http://lccccollegeenglish.blogspot.com/. This site appears to actually be a teacher’s course for the semester. She has a series of videos for her students to explain how to do each week’s assignments. She also has information about vozme, pocasts, and other forms of technology tools. Her readings are also included in this one page. I found it a bit strange, but feel many students would love it once they got used to it since there probably isn’t any book to buy for the class, and there also is great communication with all of her explanations in the mini videos

Since two of these are from the same area, I will include a fourth: College English: http://collegeenglish.wordpress.com/. This blog area includes tabs for E-Learning, Literature, Writing, and more. It also includes course blogs for Gladly Learne: English 280, LiveJournal Course Blog for 150 and 286. There is also a list of various professors who participate. On the right side there is a list of items recently on Del.icio.us talking about Twitter, YouTube, and other Web 2.0 technologies. I believe this blog has much to offer.

Will Richardson’s Blog Evaluation—Two postings under consideration
Tina Luffman—EDU255

A Cocktail Party Filled With Educators
Will Richardson’s top post in this link describes how educational blogs are like going to a cocktail party. Apparently he believes that blogging can be as good for meeting colleagues, networking, and gaining new ideas as going to the proverbial cocktail party where people had gone in the past to get connected with other peers to gain insight and influence. I would argue that they could be even better. Consider all of the time and money we can save by merely reading someone’s blog over getting dressed up and going to the party.

Here in this blog we listen to a newspaper reporter interviewing a high school principal to gain the principal’s viewpoint on how this works. He believes it is a great way to gain feedback, get tips, find helpful links, and join conversations to stimulate deeper thinking upon educational topics we don’t necessarily take the time to do on our own. One point the principal makes is that blog following has made his day longer. He has to do this activity in addition to his other duties. Unfortunately this is true. We will not get more time from our supervisors when we investigate new technologies. However, many of the new ideas we get may save us time and help us to be better teachers, so we need to weigh the benefits and decide for ourselves how much time to invest.

The Web as Human Development
In this posting, Will talks about a conversation he had with his friend and former colleague Rob Mancabelli about the challenges and difficulties many have in embracing the newer technologies. They decided that the resistance is not in learning the technology as much as changing our viewpoint on transparency and privacy issues.

I have to agree that changing my viewpoint on these issues is immense. My own husband wanted us to do online banking. I balked, and he took over our family’s banking. That was actually helpful to me, but it still took some work to trust having our money available for anyone to hack into and rob. You can easily see how difficult this was for me, but he explained that it was online anyway, so we might as well have access to it and use it for our own convenience.

Similarly we as educators need to dive in and allow ourselves to be more transparent and lose some of our privacy as we teach using Web 2.0 technologies. If we don’t, we surely will lose credibility as we teach the next generation of learners, teachers, and philosophers. When we do move forward with these technologies, we will find ourselves communicating and changing as we “author” one another. This is another term that gives me discomfort, but I don’t see any means of turning back, and I am not sure it would be a good thing to do so.

ADDIE or Dick and Carey Model

Instructional Design BlogTina Luffman, EDU255

Since I had never heard of ADDIE or Dick and Carey Model, I decided to read about these. ADDIE seems much more simplistic. There are only five parts of this system of creating instructional design: Analyze, Design, Development, Implement, and Evaluate. The Dick and Carey Model includes an entire flowchart with ten components. This system begins with identifying instructional goals. Next it addresses conducting instructional analysis and identifying entry behaviors of students. Then the instructor writes performance objectives. Next the process continues to flow through with developing criterion-reference tests, developing instructional strategies, developing and selecting instructional materials, and developing and conducting formative evaluations. Finally this model asks instructors to develop and conduct summative evaluation. Once these are complete, the instructor can revisit their identification of entry behaviors of the students and can revise the instruction for the following semester.

1) How are the two models of instructional design similar to one another?
Both follow a cyclical pattern beginning with some type of analysis and move toward some type of evaluation pattern. Both include steps to design the curriculum, develop it further, implement it into a class setting, and then to evaluate the results.

2) How do the two models of instructional design differ from one another?
The ADDIE method seems to be designed more for instructors who have already taught a course to go back and reevaluate what they have created and to make changes for the future. The Dick and Carey Model seems to be designed to initiate a new class and then to reevaluate the class over time. It seems more practical for most instructors who are new to the profession to help them get a handle on instructional design needs. Newer instructors need more detailed instructions to be successful. The ADDIE method seems like it would be more practical for an instructor who had taught before who already has a good sense of who the students are that s/he teaches on a regular basis. It would also be more simplistic and would save the returning teacher a lot of time.

3) Define the process for starting the design phase for a specific lesson you can use in your own curriculum. You should describe your potential audience (general characteristics, prior knowledge, demographics, and motivations). List any societal factors that may affect your lesson as well.
Most students coming to Yavapai College have lived in the United State for at least two years. Our demographics are not nearly as diverse as those of students at the university level. We also have more students who have learning disabilities and who are developmental learners. For these reasons, we need to design our courses primarily for English speaking students, but have links to the Learning Center and the library to help those who may need additional English speaking assistance or tutoring. We also need to design our courses with information concerning the ADA office for those with special needs.

Concerning a specific lesson, when writing an assignment where students need to use Skills Tutor, for example, I need to make sure all of the students have the visual capability to view these lessons and to be sure that there are provisions for them to do an alternate assignment if accommodations cannot be made. I have found that much of Skills Tutor is available through reader software, but sometimes it is necessary to have a tutor or an ADA assistant to help the student.

When creating the Skills Tutor lessons, I have had to enter the software program and hand-selected the assignments that specifically meet the goals for the students for this particular course. It is also necessary to place the students at the right level of assignment. It is not practical to ask students with a fifth grade reading level to do high school reading material, for example. I make sure I design the lesson to be worth a reasonable number of points compared to other assignments in the course. When we make assignments worth too much or too little, we do definitely weigh in on how much effort they will make in completing the work.

Constructivist Theory and Emerging TechnologiesBy Tina Lufman EDU255—Week Two Discussion Two

Constructivist Theory (http://tip.psychology.org/bruner.html) focuses on a way of learning where students construct meaning by going beyond what they are taught. The new Web 2.0 technologies that are emerging today can certainly facilitate constructivist thinking and learning. The students and teachers are responsible to create this reality for themselves and their classrooms respectively. Learning will not likely take place regardless of the learning tool without desire, discipline, and dedication. Each of the Web 2.0 tools we read about in Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning by George Siemens and Peter Tittenberger create the connectivity to allow for better teaching in hybrid, online and the face to face environments.

Social learning can be greatly enhanced when using Wikis. One instructor on our campus created a vocabulary Wiki for her class last semester. The students chose their own words they came upon while reading The Kite Runner and loaded them into this Wiki. At the end of the semester, the instructor used these words for the Vocabulary Final Exam.

Situated learning can be enhanced using YouTube videos. Many instructors create these videos to demonstrate how to complete assignments. Artists can show students how to paint, draw, sculpt, and so on. English teachers can show students how to write various types of papers, and math teachers can demonstrate solving various math equations. Tegrity and Camtasia are other video tools that have even greater potential since the students can view the demonstration as well as a Power Point or other similar presentation to narrate the main ideas.

Reflective learning is another benefit of Web 2.0 technologies. I have personally asked students how they feel about using discussions in college online courses, and the majority prefer these over face to face discussion. The more quiet students have the time to think and reflect on what they want to say without being in “competition” with those for whom words come quickly and easily. Many students felt they had more time to give a well considered response and to listen to their peers. Very few students actually would confess to preferring the classroom situation where they can jump in and “monopolize” the discussion.

Multi-faceted learning relates to Multiple Intelligence Theory where proponents believe the more ways instructors allow students to access curriculum, the more likely students will be to gain understanding of the material. When we add the visual aspect of video and other computer-based graphical interfaces, the aural aspect of recorded messages and text readers, and the kinesthetic aspect of interacting with a computer through the keyboard, mouse, and various drawing and selection tools, we can only increase the likelihood that students will engage in the material being presented. How much more interesting is it to study and learn while watching, listening, and keying into a computer device over reading a textbook!

I have observed this firsthand in the GED classroom. Students would come into the room and work out of textbooks for part of the class time, listen to a short lecture, and then participate in groups. Finally, students would get onto a local computer in the classroom to study through software programs, computer math games, and more. Students who were mostly playing with their pencil during the first part of the class period when working out of the book would be more engaged for the entire rest of the time. Emerging technologies deserve our attention as serious tools to enhance learning for students of the 21st Century.

Blogs in Education

1) How can you see blogs being used in a F2F class as well as an online course?

I can see blogs being used to communicate general information to assist students in completing weekly assignments. When an instructor posts comments to the blog, all students can go see an example of a math problem for solution, a sample summary assignment, and so on to help them feel more confident in doing their own assignment.

2) What are the benefits of using a blog over another medium?

The greatest benefit I see of using a blog over another medium is that it can be publically viewed. When we post information in Blackboard or send information via email, the only people who can view these items are those who are registered for the class. I have had occasions where support personnel wanted to help a student of mine, and they could not access the information. For example, I had one student last semester who had a counselor who was trying to assist him with his first college class, and I had to manually send everything to this counselor so they could help the studnet. If it had been in a blog, the counselor could have followed the information remotely without needing my assistance. Furthermore, when the information can be viewed by anyone, potential students can likely find it and get an idea whether they want to take the class.

3) What are the challenges of using a blog in education? Similarly, I believe the public viewing capability can be a challenge. When someone finds a public blog, they can also log in and create havoc with unwanted comments. These are all choices we need to make as educators.

Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is that students don't care how much we know until they know how much we care. Expressing an interest in student well-being is vital to communicate in both face-to-face and online classroom settings.

Another vital component to good teaching is engaging intellectual interaction with students. Getting students to pay attention in the classroom can be enhanced by using a stack of cards with student names on them and randomly calling on them to respond to questions in class. Getting students engaged in technology such as making a blog, working through Skills Tutor, or searching for YouTube videos that go along with key concepts can build the depth and breadth of understanding they take away from the learning process.

Relevant assignments are necessary to enable students to meet the learning outcomes for each course. A good instructor will be sure to begin course development by studying the learning outcomes and then designing the assignments and curriculum to address these needs. For example, if the class requires that students learn tools for motivation, the instructor can locate YouTube videos on motivation. Then the instructor can follow up by creating a blog for students to share what they have learned about motivation and tell at least one way they will use this new information.

Quality instruction also necessarily addresses the needs of students with learning disabilities, those for whom English is not their first language, and any other accommodations that present themselves--within reason. One example is in finding another way to highlight text in documents for students with visual challenges.