This morning I came across an interesting article about book publishing in the future.  Apparently Penguin Books is doing an experiment called “We Tell Stories” with delivering six different books through six different medium channels over the next six weeks.  The first two are already done…  Google Maps for the first week and a  Blogging/Twitter combination for the second.  The third is an interactive writing of a fairy tale…

The google maps mashup, “The 21 Steps” is very creative.  There are certainly stories that would benefit from something like this.

I like the blogging/twitter combination book “Slice.“  Blogging is a pretty good way of reading a book.  RSS and twitter for little extra’s.  That seems cool to me.

The third one “Fairy Tales” is interesting because there are many, many different outcomes to the story.  Very clever… and interactive.  Should keep our attention.

What do you think?  What other mediums do you think they will use?  Is this progression, or regression?

1. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
2. Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to Miguel Guhlin’s original blog entry.
3. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

My Passion for kids to learn is Programming! When I think of what I want my own kids to learn, I want them to be able to program. Computers are becoming more and more integrated in our lives and if they have this skill they will not only be able to always find work, they will be creative in thinking outside the box and creating their own solutions! That is why I love programs like Alice!

I’m running out of time so I tag the following three people:

• Darren Draper
• Blern
• Ryan Bretag

• Growing rhetoric about being ‘Student-Centered.’
• So how do we become student centered.
• Lots of resources out there to help us understand these students… lots from EDUCAUSE.
• They did a study where they looked at all the user groups on campus and then make decisions about what they are doing, see the world through their eyes, and then make digital decisions based on that information.
• Applying methodologies and ethnographic information to better understand campus communities.
• To do this they used the following tools:
  • Photo elicitation exercises – give camera and let them take pictures and tell us why they took those pictures.
  • Gave assignments to take pictures of favorite study areas, places they feel lost, what stuff they carry with them, etc. etc.
  • Mapping Diaries – where do they go and when do they go where they go?
  • They are leaving early, not eating a lot, and carry a lot of stuff with them (that’s why they don’t carry the laptops with them).
  • Very structured and VERY busy!
• Design Workshops
  • Had students design their ideal learning space… they wanted flexibility and comfort (not big heavy desks that can’t move!).
  • Easy access to food and drink.
  • Lots of technology and tools – from plasma’s to staplers.
  • Staff Support – Generic all-purpose… they don’t want to have to figure which department to go to for all things!
• Retrospective Interviews
  • What activities occurred in between the time when a paper was assigned and when it was turned in.
  • Every picture had a call to a parent about where to get topic, information, or help edit a paper. (Really? I didn’t expect that… )
  • Laptops
  • He have high level of laptop ownership
  • They aren’t carrying laptops around
  • Not enough Power Outlets
  • Security is an issue … don’t want to pack up laptops when they need food.
  • Too Heavy
  • They are using public computing computers instead.
  • Solution: Local computers and extension chords.

So what can we do with all this data?

• ‘Helicopter’ Parents (the ones that just hover)
  • Solution: Drop Student Orientation and Add Parent Orientation
  • They come because they are dying to learn about where their students are going to be.
  • One Message: Every class has a librarian. Let them know what is going to happen in the coming months when the students get a paper. Use the parents as the channel to get the students to the librarians.
• Renovations – New Student Spaces
  • The designs encourage quiet study, but we are encouraging collaboration…
  • Need 24/7 access
  • Need more power and data
  • Importance of Food!
  • Comfortable Seating!
  • Lots of Big Tables – in front of windows so you don’t feel like you are cut off from the world. Need double the space of a normal study desk to spread out stuff.
  • Whiteboards form the walls of these spaces for lots of writing and drawing! (Great idea!)

Faculty

When you make getting research from professors all about them they respond to it much better. “I just read this article you wrote. It was fascinating. Tell me how you got from the idea to the final product…”

Overall impressions

This information is great information for designing and understanding how students learn today and designing learning spaces that help those students! Let the students tell us what they want and you will be better of EVERY time!

Resources:

Book – “Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester” (Direct PDF)

Email Susan with questions

A very interesting title… think about it. How can social bookmarking help students screen and use resources online to helping scholars collaborate about things that they think are important? What are the pedagogical implications of social bookmarking?

The tools that they are using is Blackboard Scholar. It is available as part of Blackboard LMS, or by itself… and all for FREE (Don’t you just love that word?)

• Getting students involved allows students to collaborate and contribute to the content of the course.
• The information they gather can become part of a lifelong learning effort that they can access later on as well.
• Used as a way for students to find resources that can be shared with the entire class.
• Thought: we should create tags for each of our classes. We can then search that tag online and find resources for that course forever (in theory).
• Social networking is a great way for students to find information and share it with the professor and other students.
• You can create a course page by creating an unique tag for the class and tagging any information with that tag.
• If students are not doing it already, they adapt very quickly. (Digital Natives)
• The Blackboard Module allows much more customization as well. (See Powerpoint for great examples). Each class can have certain tags as well for group projects.

How can we use Social Bookmarking:

• Personal Productivity
• Course Content
• Teamwork and Projects
• Professional Development
• Discovery, Tracking and Networking

Thoughts:

• This really is a great way to get the students collaborating and working together.
• In a way, social bookmarking is our way of annotating the web… at least organizing it in a way that is useful for each of us.
• I logged into our blackboard system and tried to find a way to add a social bookmarking module to our class, but I couldn’t find it… hmmm… anyone else know how to enable that on blackboard? Do the admin’s have to do that?

• Goal is not to replicate classroom experience in an online course.
• Course instructors are more like facilitators or Coaches. … All the course content is available online.
• Teachers done have the control they think they have…
• She uses MediaSite.com for her lessons. (Does anyone know how to sign up for this and cost?)
• Class fills up within minutes because they want mobile learning! (all lessons are in multiple formats to allow for them to get on IPOD or phone or playstation)
• ‘Digital Natives‘ love this type of class!
• Going beyond conventional classroom!

• fully online
• rich media
• radically interactive
• mobile
• enactive learning

If you look at Chickering and Gamson’s 7 Principles of Good Practice in Undergradute Education you find they all apply here!! Diane also adds an 8th principle… but she didn’t get to it in the presentation… Diane… what is that one?

When discussing concerns with professors using this type of educational model she mentions “32 Trends in Distance Education” (Condensed PDF) as proof of how things are getting better and changing with professors embracing this new model of classrooms.

As I think about this I realize that we can add this stuff to our courses now!! Video! Podcasting! It doesn’t take a whole lot, but it really increases the learning in the students. I heard this morning at a Horizon Wimba presentation that the following increase the learning in the students by the respective percentage.

Podcasts (23%)
Instant Messaging (22%)
Webcasts (22%)
Course Management Systems (14%)

So get out there and try something new!! Email Diane to get electronic copies of handouts!

The second is about information and how the internet has changed the way we interact with and find information.   Enjoy.

The Connected Classroom

When I Grow Up…

Here’s my list of 8 things you can use a camera phone for in the classroom, in no particular order.

1. Whiteboard/Blackboard Archive

Do you ever get done with a class and look at the board with regret because you have to erase everything you or your class just created? Snap a quick picture and archive that for future use. You could even post them on a class discussion board, wiki, blog, webpage or even just e-mail them to your class for review.

2. Handheld Scanner

This one I take directly from the article.

Remember those old spy movies, where the secret agents captured documents with a tiny secret mini-camera? Now we all have one. Believe it or not, photographing documents works.

I don’t recommend stealing information, but for random paper information, notes … you can snap a picture to capture the data.

3. Reminder List

Sometimes you see something that jogs your memory. Take a picture of that thing as a reminder of what you need to do.

4. Learn Student’s Names and Faces

One of the biggest struggles we have as teachers is learning the names and faces of the constant rotation of students coming through our classes. Take some time at the beginning of the year to photograph the students, or even better yet, have them take pictures of each other and e-mail to you if they have that capability.

5. Security/Liability Device

I hesitate adding this one in here, but we all know crazy things can happen in the classroom. Sometimes you may need to take a picture of something happening, or something that happened to protect yourself and your students.

6. Assignments

Depending on the subject you teach, it may be appropriate to send the students out one day to take pictures of nature, people or other things. Try to think of ways to use the phone. Just using the phone in an assignment will help students be more excited about it. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with using technology as a motivator. It works great with these digital natives.

7. Instant Blogging

This is one of my favorite options. If you are a blogger or have a class blog/website you can set up an e-mail address that you can post directly to that blog. You can give that address out to students or use it yourself.

Granted, you need an internet connected phone for this, but I had to add it in. It is so awesome to be out in the middle of nowhere posting to a blog, archiving.

8. Memories

We all know we get attached to those we teach and often we don’t want to forget them. Take some pictures throughout the year and print them out at the end of the year for a scrapbook or collage. Five, ten, twenty years from now those pictures will bring up dear memories.

1. Make the Final Product SHAREABLE!

If a student knows that their work is going to a larger audience they will naturally take more time to work on it. The easiest way to do that is use Web 2.0 technologies like blogs, wiki’s, podcasts, and online video. Of course, you will need to be comfortable with those technologies yourself.

2. PROJECT’S, not Assignments!

Don’t give students a bunch of assignments, give them one larger project with a end result that students can see. Although this may take longer, students will naturally get more involved. They will want to be involved with the topic beyond the end of class.

3. Encourage students to use POPULAR TECHNOLOGIES they are familiar with!

The latest and greatest technology is more than likely taking over your student’s life’s. Encourage them to find educational uses for it. Almost every new web startup, or tech gadget can be used in an educational way. If you encourage the students to use these technologies they will come up with ideas that you could never have thought of yourself. (Oh, and they will think you’re cool because you encourage them to use their iPod in class. )

4. Give the Student’s OPTIONS!

Don’t limit your students to any specific medium of transfer. Some digital natives love music and would make an amazing music video, or write an amazing song. Others would do better with video like the example below.

EXAMPLE of a Great Project!

This morning I was reading the Infinite Thinking Machine, a blog I highly recommend, and I came across a video produced by some 12th grade students for an English project. The project is called MacBeth Wars and can be seen below.

From the introduction on Google Video:

This movie was done for a 12th grade english project, parodying Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” with a Star Wars style. It features the majority of the Macbeth storyline, and includes a 3-minute lightsaber duel between Macbeth and Macduff near the end.

Then the most amazing part…

We hope to release Macbeth Wars II, a project purely for our own fun, by summer 2007.

Wow! You don’t have to watch the whole production to realize that this project was probably WELL beyond what was required of them for the class. It has great digital effects, sounds effects, multiple video shots in each scene and appropriate background music. This project surely took hundreds of hours to complete AND they want to do another one in their FREE time! Now that is a good project!

What other things have you done, or seen done that really get student’s involved? What other projects have you seen that are just amazing? Do share in the comments!

“Before, we were reliant upon what the user has expressed through words, however, when one can read beyond words through visuals, the communication seems to become more “human and personal.” If there was a fear that the internet was making society antisocial, vlogging would seek to prove otherwise.”

UPDATE: The video used to be here, but I removed it because of a repeated expletive throughout the video. If you want to see it you can click here but it may not be work appropriate.

As I watch this video I begin to realize the impact online media has had on our culture and will continue to have. We are truly digital people who live and share our lives online.