My Specialty – The Web

A large re-organization of our group was recently announced. Up until this point in my job I have been both responsible for technical support for 8 departments, and instructional technology for those departments. Starting in about two weeks I will only be responsible for the technical needs of my departments (now 10). The instructional side of my job is going to go to a newly formed ‘Instructional Technology Group.’

The move is a great idea. It is very difficult to balance both technical and instructional needs of a department, but I have to admit, I am a bit disappointed. I really wanted to continue working with faculty and staff in an innovative way. I did go and discuss my concerns with my manager, and he suggested that I would still be able to do instructional technology, but perhaps in a more limited way. He suggested that instead of taking a large approach to anything and everything technology related, I focus on something and become very good at that thing. As much as I would love to just do instructional technology all of the time, I realize that might not be possible for a while. So what is my focus? What do I love? What technology do I want to focus on?

I thought about these questions for a while and realized that my specialty is the web. More specifically, my specialty is using the web as a learning/educational tool. This in itself is still a bit broad, but I think that is where I want my focus to go when I don’t have as much time as I used to to devote to instructional research. I want to look for new an innovative programs (websites/technologies within the web) that educators can use to increase the effectiveness of their teaching. I think the biggest piece to this puzzle is the read-write capabilities of the web; the awesome (as in massive) collaborative potential that we as educators can harness through the web. Social networks will play a part, but only in emerging technologies, not in things like Facebook and MySpace. I am working on a couple of articles right now about some programs (Footnote, Trailfire) that let you collaboratively annotate web pages and documents online in a social atmosphere. These are the kinds of technologies that I was to focus on.

How I will actually be able to implement these ideas is yet to be seen…

What are your specialties? What other read/write web technologies have you found useful in education?

Five Ways YOU Could Use Video in EDUCATION

Lifehack.org posted an article today in which they declared this year the year of the Internet Presidency (in light of all of the recent announcements from US candidates for president). They then went on to list five ways we could all take advantage of the internet video. Great article… highly recommend for promoting your thinking caps.

Joining in the spirit of the year I have put together a quick list of Five ways to use Video in EDUCATION this year!

• Record Class Presentations – Record classroom presentations. Your lectures will be a great resource for your students to look back on what was said in class. Make your lectures available to the students, but for heaven’s sake, don’t charge them for it. If you record student presentations keep those around (with the student’s permission of course) and show the best one’s to your students in coming years of what a presentation or project should be.
• Video Projects – Nothing motivates a student like using exciting technology to create something amazing! Let the students have the option of using that excitement in their projects for the class. You’ll be amazed how some of the students grab onto something like this. If they post them online they will also be able to share their work with family and friends.
• Instructional Video’s – Do you have a special topic you are teaching that would be useful to take a little field trip. Go out a day or two in advance and record an on site explanation of the topic. This will work great with science, history, archeology, and many other subjects.
• Video Blogs – Create a class blog and have your students record their reactions to literary or other assignments and post them on the blog. Give them specific assignments and have them post those on the blog.
• Use Online Video Already Available – There are massive amounts of video already available online in all sorts of topic areas. Utilize that video in your curriculum. It will increase the student’s retention of the subject and encourage them to seek out educational video’s as well. As more and more teachers get into making video’s there will also be more resources available.

These are just a couple of ideas, but there are surely dozens of other ways to use online video in the classroom. What other ideas do you have? Specifically, how can we, as educators, utilize the budding social ramifications of internet video in the classroom?

e-Portfolio’s of the Future! (Foreign Language Focus)

I received an e-mail from a professor (Dick Langston) on campus today informing me that their department (Germanic Languages) will be totally revamping the current curriculum. Their plan right now is to have all incoming students create a blog that they will update during their time in the department. When they leave they will then have an e-portfolio all ready to go with their thoughts as well as a nice representation of their work.

This blog entry has three purposes: 1) to write about what will definitely be included and how it will be useful; 2) to examine some possible emerging technology inclusions; and 3) to solicit thoughts from others about their experiences, both with platforms and student blogs as a whole.

Background

Using blogs to solicit student involvement has been gradually coming on over the past couple of years. Today I listened to a great conference discussion about student blogs on David Warlick’s Connect Learning that really summed up the efforts nicely. I highly recommend that anyone thinking about using blogs in student curriculum listen to this. It is a little more than an hour long, but very worth the effort.

Definite Uses

Turning the discussion to our uses, here are some of the definite ideas right now. The list of application is by no means complete, so please feel free to add your own ideas in the comment section!

• Text – Bread and butter of all good information. Essays, Research Projects, Opinions on Articles and so forth
• Images – Activities they are working on in class, Diagrams of grammar explanations (remember, this is foreign language based), Images to augment text contributions, Images from literary texts they are discussing
• Audio – Lectures they have given, Authentic foreign language examples, Student Feedback, Music, Audio blogs
• Video – All the Audio examples with video, Video blogs

Emerging Possibilities

What are some of the emerging technolgies that might be important to look into? Where are we going in the next 5-10 years?

• Skypecasts – I wrote an article several weeks ago about the possibilities here in regard to language acquisition. They could record a skypecast they put on.
• Virtual Gaming Classes – Integrating online multi-player games like Eve-Online, Second Life and World of Warcraft into classroom learning environments (Article).
• Web 2.0 in Classrooms – Examples of web pages/blogs students created for classes you taught.
• RSS Reader Lists – Most students spend hours and hours reading and aggregate it using a RSS feed reader (Article). Put current, or favorite reads on there!
• Del.icio.us – Bookmark lists of favorite sites will provide not only a great bookmarking resource, but a personal touch to what that student is really interested in interdisciplinary.

This is by no means a complete list. These are just a couple of ideas I had off the top of my head. What other ideas have you seen, or do you think would be important to include in a E-Portfolio? What platforms have you used in the past that have been useful to you? Any other thoughts and comments? Please add them below!