My thoughts/comments are indicated by an asterisk (*).

Worldware refers to materials created for purposes other than teaching and learning.

Wesch – 100% want to learn, 50% want to be in classroom

We are all immigrants  because we have yet to learn to think critically.

Students are swirling, using multiple institutions to facilitate learning.

Students who value critical thinking are significantly more likely to value: peer critiques, community, and self-assessment.

Testing to kill learning?

Cites AACU report American Association of Colleges and Universities survey of US 301 Business Leader. (pull quotes)

Nace 2008 webcitation.org/5XoKP5UJh

Erosion of public’s faith and good will toward higher ed.

bush satire comic tell me johnny what have you learned, mcgraw-hill

Bloom warned of the danger of confusing taxonomy with chronology.

Harvard Private Universe Project honors the power and sophoitication of (students) ideas.

The Disengagement Compact – “I won’t expect too much of you if you don’t ask too much of me.”

WSU Critical Thinking Project (http://wsuctproject.wsu.edu)

Great focus slide comparing teacher, learner and learning centricity

• Teacher centric: Assign Task, Study & Perform, Test & Submit
• Learner centric: Cooperate, Study, Interact & Perform, Test & Submit
• Learning centric: Help Define, Study, Collaborate, Discover, Generate; Share Beyond Class

Held an e-Portfolio Contest to identify innovative uses/styles of folio

The ideal ePortfolio continuum model: Select -> Reflect (initial) -> Feedback -> Loop back -> Longitudinal reflection

* How can we leverage this in working with employers?

Process over product (the process can be replicated, the product may or may not)

* I am going to get the slides and provide more reflection later. Gary shared some incredible quotes about the value of the ePortfolio

The Harvesting Gradebook
(WSU is using SharePoint) Activity Planning, Targeted Messaging, Learner Agency, Importing & Exporting Grades, Performance Over Time, Grade Calculations

Need to look into WSU model as this is perfect for our needs!
Student submits works for review using common, public rubric.
Faculty assignments can be reviewed using a similar rubric.

Presentation may be available here.

Tags: camptech08campus-technology campus technology education web2.0 next-gen worldware academic

My notes are identified by an asterisk (*).

Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment (DIAA)

• Address teaching, technology and assessment needs
• Work with ALL UT colleges, schools and units
• Power to convene, advise and advocate (responsible for informing Provost and make recommendations)

Supports faculty through:

• instructional and technical consulting
• professional development
• resource development
• project development
• incentives & grants

Next-gen learners

• mobile
• digital
• connected
• experiential
• immediate
• social

* Experiment and learn through identification of cause and effect

They want to be engaged, to be part of a vibrant learning community, and have the opportunity to explore, collaborate, innovate and be challenged.

UT defines Web 2.0 in their environment as:

• social computing
• mobile learning
• educ gaming
• geospatial technologies
• immersive media

As UT scans their horizon, they are looking for tools that will:

• facilitate collaborative and group work
• connect students with ideals and information
• create experience that we could not provide students before
• merge the power of spatial analysis with geo-tagged multimedia

Identification Process

• Technology – what are the characteristics of the tech?
• Benefits – Does the tech address an important problem
• Faculty Readiness – Are faculty ready, willing and able to use it?
• Implementation – Can we implement and support it?

Funding & Dev

• Student development grants
• Provost’s incentive awards
• Digital media support
• Collaborative proposals with colleges

Incubation circles

• Inner ring: tools
• 2nd ring: new media research & support (NMRS)
• 3rd ring: Student employees retention & Training (SERT)
• 4th: faculty incentive grant (FAST TEX), Digital Media Services (DMS)

UTA – Teaching with Technology Resource Page

What is UT keeping up with?

• Changes in technology
• Shifts in student characteristics and expectations
• New approaches to teaching and learning
• The emergence of global communities
• New knowledge

What if we don’t keep up?

• We will have “Digital students at analog schools”
• We will lose out on opportunities to engage students
• We will fail to raise the bar in teaching & learning
• We will fail to be a leader in higher education
• We will fall short in support of the 21st century workplace and society
• We will fail to contirbiture toa culture of innovation

* I changed the bullets above to statements as they seemed to be more powerful in conveying the message about a need for change and attention to our students.

Robert Bruce made a good link back to the tech problems early on in the presentation. The speaker’s IM failed to connect, as she used the tool to stay in touch with her children (said it’s the only way she can reach them). The corollary is that we will fail to connect with our students if we cannot adopt technologies that reach them.

Tags: camptech08campus-technology campus technology education web2.0 next-gem academic

Students first, universities second
*Again, amen!

Chickering and Gamson 7 Principles for Good Practice in Higher Eduation (look up after)
*wOOt!

PPT is on blog, address on last slide

She is against idea of immigrants v. natives, no supporting data, causes divisiveness and problems. It’s a crutch.

Real difference is in the digital divide in terms of lifestyle, engagement and motivation. UK study – 15-18 yr olds least likely to give up cell phone, older folks more likely to give up cell phone and sex rather than liquor, caffeine and chocolate. *Scary!*

Don’t build a creepy treehouse! (http://technagogy.learningfield.org)

Approach
Identify problems and/or opportunities first, then match technologies with opportunities. What problem will tool X solve? Primary point of hesitancy and push-back. How will this HELP me?

From Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, The Promise -> The Tool -> The Bargain
Establishes offering, expectations, operating norms, and rules of conduct. Focus on The Promise and The Bargain, not The Tool.

What is the Second Life Promise? Increased sense of presence, community bonding, more engaging and immersive learning (when SL used correctly), fun

What is the Second Life Tool? Stigmergy (ability to manipulate environment to send a message to someone who comes after you-we have the ability to build and create, change/modify, leave something for those who follow), Customized Avatars (allowing students to make changes, reading the student by who they choose or allow students to role play in a realistic setting),  Global Community , Multi-modal Communication (text chat, voice 1 to 1, group and area and ability to emote)

She cites a great example of using it to teach rejection and social interactions such as discrimination in a safe environment.

Sarah also shared a great example of modifying environment to experience LD life, what happens when your environment is upside down? How do you cope?

What is the Second Life Bargain? What we need to accept: There is a Learning Curve (install and learn to get around, build avatar, learn to build, learn to script), Students need to suspend self-limitations (Loyalist College Border Crossing),  That we are using the tool as the best, justified use of the tools, Necessary expertise to serve as guide, advisor, AND instructor.

Resources
http://ubernoggin.com
http://SL-educationblog.org
SLED Mailing List
SLRL Mailing List

SL Avatar: Intellagirl Tully
http://intellagirl.com

Tags: camptech08campus-technology campus technology education seond-life SL

*Indicates my thoughts

Service-learning: The campus and beyond
Developing a community, a sense of belonging and common purpose/intent

*The bourgeoning growth of offline apps: Google Gears, Adobe AIR, MS Silverlight leading to innovation.

Real world application – Reynolds Journalism Institute “programming” competition
http://rji.missouri.edu

*Integrate technology using real world projects that lead to a real product/service as opposed to a theoretical one. Develop local history resources, develop materials to benefit your peers, profession, community.

*Beginning to see my “need” for an iPod Touch

Budget – how do you develop these innovations without money? Approach Provost for innovation funding – cross-disciplinary. Tell story to possible supporters. Match funds from other sources. Interdisciplinary Innovations Fund, Univ of Missouri 2008-09 Projects – iPhone Student Developer Competition, Building Dashboard, Sustainable Agriculture, FilmTech, Solar Decathlon

*Market and reach out!

Business of Innovation – how do you develop your innovative practice?
Consider: ownership, marketing, branding, promotion
ROI, it’s not all about money!

How others are using web 2.0 beyond the classroom?
*PELI, touted at #camptech08 for outreach and resource research and connection facilitation. I forgot to mention how we’d like to work with the State Dept and aid orgs for mapping and developing complementary efforts

Tags: camptech08campus-technology campus technology education web2.0

Faith in technology – tech will solve our problems
Extend education will increase excellence
We can’t see how amazing the age we live in is.

Progression of phones – Switchboard in Mayberry to cell phones for 8-year olds
Adoption 85 yrs for phone, decade for cells

Ray Kurzweil –

Static v. dynamic
portfolios are a representation but are not learning
How do we leverage technology for learning, for synthesis rather than re-presentation?

Frank Rhodes, Creation of the Future

How do we measure a university, what would we do if we were to start a university today?

Context to Core
ASU wants to go from 60K to 100K students, how long can we compete when we try to do it all ourselves? At what point are we wasting our resources trying to replicate what others can provide for less?

How do we move from context to core? Eliminate inefficiencies, redundancies…
Research – The concept of one, do it once, do it well, do it everywhere
The concept of zero – don’t do it, let someone else who is better at what they do, do it for you. It’s a simple matter of scale, and Service Level Agreements.

Cop to Concierge
Amazon.com-ification – cut out the middleman

Info to Intelligence
Fractured business intelligence – Dashboards to die for
Create a data singularity where you train people to manage data from dashboards rather than fracturing their attention and time

Cattle-car to 1:1
Promote don’t prevent technology adoption on campus. Provide apps online, provide anytime, anywhere learning.

Physical to digital
Burn the libraries, stop air conditioning the books
We need change now

Traditional to hybrid
Abilene Christian University – 0 to warp speed

Is it time for a radical infusion of tech into higher ed?
Does the role of IT declien?
Does the CIO cease to be a strategic officer?

Tags: camptech08campus-technology campus technology conference education adrian-sannier asu

While a terrific step in the right direction, my desire is that wiki developers will seriously consider embedding this functionality into the web experience such that an extension is unnecessary.

Thanks to ReadWriteWeb for the alert.

Photo and quote provided by UniversalEditButton.org

Tags: wiki, universal-edit-button, ueb, edit, participate, culture

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Tags: wordlecv resume vita tagcloud wordcloud visualization

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

From Desire2Learn:

On March 25, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued its Non-Final Action on the re-examination of the Blackboard Patent. We are studying the document, found here, but in short, the PTO has rejected all 44 of Blackboard’s claims. We caution that this is a NON-final action; both Blackboard and Desire2Learn will have an opportunity to comment before a final action will issue, and after that, the decision will be subject to appeals.However, we’re still pleased.

View Entry

From Blackboard:

Dear Blackboard Community,

Today, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a first Office Action in the reexamination proceeding regarding Blackboard’s U.S. Patent 6,988,138 (“the ’138 Patent”). This Office Action was expected and is the first step in a reexamination process that often takes years to complete. It has no effect on the validity of the patent, the lawsuit between Blackboard and Desire2Learn or the pending injunction against Desire2Learn.

We remain very confident in the strength of our patent and have provided more information about today’s announcement should you have questions. Please see www.blackboard.com/patent for more information.

View Entry

All of this follows on the heels of Blackboard’s victory in their lawsuit against Desire2Learn a few weeks ago.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: blackboard, patent, lawsuit, desire2learn

Educause has a series that highlights specific current technologies and boils them down into a mini-sheet that tech coordinators and advocates can use on their own campus. Unlike some of the Educause resources which require membership, this series is open to the general public which means that K-12 folks can access them as well. New brief sheets have followed a monthly publishing schedule with the latest being the Twitter brief posted just this month.

The series can be found here, but the individual links of papers (in PDF format) posted as of 19 July 2007 are listed below. I find looking at the timeline of releases interesting from an anthropological perspective as it illustrates where the edtech interest was focused over the past two years that these briefs have been published.

7 Things You Should Know About:

• Skype (December 2007)
• Citizen Journalism (November 2007)
• Data Visualization (October 2007)
• Haptics (September 2007)
• Cyber-Infrastructure (August 2007)
• Twitter (July 2007)
  
• Wikipedia (June 2007)
• Facebook II (May 2007)
• RSS (April 2007)
• Creative Commons (March 2007)
• Open Journaling (February 2007)
• Digital Storytelling (January 2007)
• E-Books (November 2006)
• Google Earth (October 2006)
• YouTube (September 2006)
• Facebook I (August 2006)
• Mapping Mashups (July 2006)
• Virtual Worlds (June 2006)
• Google Jockeying (May 2006)
• Remote Instrumentation (April 2006)
• Screencasting (March 2006)
• Virtual Meetings (February 2006)
• Grid Computing (January 2006)
• Collaborative Editing (December 2005)
• Instant Messaging (November 2005)
• Augmented Reality (September 2005)
• Blogs (August 2005)
• Video Blogging (August 2005)
• Wikis (July 2005)
• Podcasting (June 2005)
• Clickers (May 2005)
• Social Bookmarking (May 2005)

[tags]educause, 7things, technology, edtech, briefsheet, whitepaper[/tags]

Powered by ScribeFire.

SafeAssign checks submitted papers (Word, RTF, PDF, TXT, HTML and ZIP packages of these) against the Internet using Windows Live Search technology. Blackboard has partnered with ProQuest ABI/Inform and searches against their 2.5 million articles database. SafeAssign also checks against a local institutional database of locally submitted work, as well as a Global Reference Database which is comprised of submissions volunteered by students from SafeAssign campuses. Obviously this database is expected to grow over time as the SafeAssign system is adopted by Blackboard institutions. It is important to note that the Global Reference Database is an opt-in service that students may elect to take advantage of in order to protect their own work.

Beyond the course integration aspect, SafeAssign also boasts a Direct Submit feature that allows faculty (not students as of the current release) to check documents on a “one-off” basis if they receive work that triggers their “spidey-sense.”

Gradebook integration is not yet available for CE/Vista campuses meaning that after the creation of the assignment, the faculty member will also need to create a new grading column in order to provide a grade value. It is expected that a patch will be issued that will provide this service in the coming months.

General Counsel Matthew Small noted that this new service will in no way affect the PowerLink or Building Block servicing TurnItIn, and the general flavor is that TurnItIn is still considered a strong corporate partner. Greg Ritter pointed out that those institutions currently employing TurnItIn may be loath to move away and abandon the student submissions collected through their use of the TurnItIn service.

[tags]blackboard, bbworld07, safeassign, turnitin, plagiarism[/tags]

Blogged with Flock

CIO Michael Chasen announced that starting today all of the Blackboard Learning Systems: Blackboard, CE and Vista are able to download and install via either Building Blocks or PowerLinks, a new anti-plagiarism tool, SafeAssign. The tool can act either stand-alone locally or, like TurnItIn, it can upload student work to a centralized database that will then “protect” a student’s intellectual property from inappropriate use by other user’s of SafeAssign. There were a couple of interesting features such as a direction citation tool that identifies the specific resource that appears to have been used and the ability to allow students to “opt in” to the service (which I believe can be turned off administratively thereby effectively mandating use of the service). I wonder what kind of financial impact this will have on TurnItIn when Blackboard institutions learn that they can save the tens of thousands of dollars they spend on their annual subscription costs?

In other news, Chasen also announced the availability of a new tool intended to bridge the three learning environments. Available with the licensing of one of their three systems: Community, Content or Outcomes, is their Learning Environment Connector. Although a QA tech I was speaking with thought it was already available, I haven’t been able to find it on their site to link to as of yet. The idea is that schools will be able to bridge users to other Bb LMSes, as well as to the three Systems. This is big news as it is the first sign that the company is working to bring the formerly disparate environments together. In our own university system in New Hampshire, it means that Plymouth State which employs the Campus Edition version of the LMS may well be able to leverage the community and content systems that both UNH and Granite State College were only able to access as they were Blackboard sites. Rather than worry about the differences in our LMS, we can now focus on developing points of collaboration and tangency for our respective and some times cross-pollinating student bodies.

[tags]blackboard, bbworld07, chasen, turnitin, safeassign[/tags]

Powered by ScribeFire.

• Incentives matter – For both good and bad. Leavitt opines that anything worth winning is worth cheating for. My take, if you make the prize too valuable, people will often cheat to obtain it (he sites the example of tax returns prior to the requirement to include your dependents SSNs and the overnight “disappearance” of over 7 million children that tax year). But also, folks like to feel like they are valued and therefore it is important to ensure that the incentive is relative to the task.
• One small idea can tip the balance – In the example above, a single IRS employee made the suggestion twice over a period of years. His suggestion, once acted upon, has meant an over 30 billion dollar increase in revenue. You never know when your one simple suggestion could have such an enormous impact, so act!
• Education is ripe for a revolution – We’re still trying to teach the same way we did 40 years ago. The corporate world has evolved, why hasn’t education? By the way, Leavitt also mentioned that the idea of tenure in the world of higher education has to go because it no longer serves it’s original purpose and now simply ensures that mediocrity is rewarded. I’m sure that will stir the pot with educators but perhaps he has a point.

I just finished listening to Tapscott’s Wikinomics, perhaps I should now add Leavitt’s Freakonomics to my list.

Powered by ScribeFire.

WINWINI or What I Need, When I Need It

I like the Win-Win fit and the extra “I” at the end points out the personal touch.

I’ve always had a problem with the term “Just In Time” training because it always seemed to give the impression that no prior thought had gone into the process beforehand. WINWINI on the other hand speaks to the growing trend of on-demand service. On-demand training, on-demand learning, on-demand entertainment – where the focus is on the individual. It is not to say that it is a selfish perspective rather one that acknowledges that in today’s fast paced and multi-channeled society, expectations on us are evolving and our support needs and personal expectations are following suit. The ability to get what you need when you need it – by knowing where to turn or who to turn to will become an increasingly valuable skill.

[tags]winwini, support, training, edtech[/tags]

powered by performancing firefox

UPDATE: Worked pretty slick. Thanks to Weblog Tools Collection for bringing this to my attention. For those who would like a tutorial, check this link.

[tags][/tags]

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Michael Wesch, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Kansas State University, has created this 5-minute warp speed video that shows us the evolution of the web, but also how it has shaped and been shaped by evolutions in the types and social nature of various online applications. It seems to me that this movie could be just the tip of the iceberg and that it would be a great foundation or even a springboard for a larger study of how we are shaped by our technology and in turn serve to shape technology. The cyclical relationship between man and machine. Hmmm…

Anyway, enjoy…

[tags]ethnography, machine, video, web2.0, wesch, youtube, video [/tags]

powered by performancing firefox

The Administration recently released its proposed FY08 Budget which calls for the total elimination of critical education technology funding. Specifically, the Administration’s Proposed FY08 Budget would zero out the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program.  Combined, the proposed FY08 budget cuts education technology by $290 million alone.

Before the House and Senate put forth their budget proposals, send a letter to your congressional representatives asking them to save EETT.  CLICK HERE to enter your zip code and send a letter with this important message.

These proposed cuts come at the same time that the Administration and Congress are concerned that America’s students lack sufficient academic background in math and science, imperiling their personal and the nation’s competitiveness in the global economy. Denying education technology knowledge and tools to America’s k12 students and teachers not only does not advance that agenda, but undermines it.

With the House and the Senate working on a budget resolution over the next five weeks, now is the time for members of Congress to hear from you that education technology funding must be restored. Now is the time to make your voice heard in support of the EETT program.

CLICK HERE to enter your zip code to send your letter to the House and Senate asking to save EETT and to fund it at $700 million.

Every letter generated during this crucial time will make a difference. Even if you already took action a few months ago, please send another letter and spread the word to your friends, family and coworkers. Your voice matters!

Tell Congress to KEEP AMERICA COMPETITIVE and save funding for EETT!

 

ETAN updates are brought to you by the Consortium for School Networking and the International Society for Technology in Education

[tags]eett, education, technology, legislation [/tags]

powered by performancing firefox

At first glance, it seems reasonably priced at $50/year, but upon further review the pricing structure is $50 per user per year. So rather than attract an audience in the small business, non-profit organization and small school higher ed markets, the pricing structure may only be appealing to larger organizations such as Disney’s Pixar. You can compare the feature sets between their Standard and Premier editions although the difference seems to primarily revolve around email storage capacity, service continuity and support, and the ability to integrate APIs and third-party apps. Incredibly, Docs and Spreadsheets is included in the Standard feature set so if you don’t require advanced integration points and don’t mind ads, don’t bother with the Premier at least until they roll out more features.

I’m still waiting/hoping/expecting integration with their Google Groups feature in order to support a small team approach to project management.

[tags][/tags]

powered by performancing firefox

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

My thanks to Brett over at Pedagogy of the Compressed for blogging this!

[tags]freegeek, learning, teaching, learning [/tags]

powered by performancing firefox

As if Senator Stevens and Representative Lamar Smith’s bills weren’t enough, now there is yet another bit of proposed legislation in the House to

…amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites
and chat rooms.

On Friday, February 16th, Representative Mark Kirk of Illinois introduced House Resolution 1120, the full text of which has as of this post had not yet been entered into the Thomas database although it’s placeholder can be found during a search.

According to a CNet News blog authored by Anne Broache, this bill is nearly identical to last year’s DOPA proposal. Broache quotes Kirk’s floor statement:

“I believe this is an entirely appropriate action to help parents determine
what their children can and cannot do online,” Kirk said in a floor statement
introducing his bill. “It seems foolish for the taxpayer to subsidize what
amounts to a loophole by which children can circumvent their parent?s wishes and
unwittingly expose themselves to Internet predators.”

And as expected, library, education and civil liberties proponents are again objecting to the bill.

[tags]dopa, internet, predator, privacy, safety[/tags]

powered by performancing firefox

Passed on to me by one of my graduate faculty members.

UPDATE: The original link was taken down by the user, the new link above gives the video but without the English subtitles. But it doesn’t really matter if you think about technology support and watch the body language!

UPDATED UPDATE: ZrednaZ reposted the video by popular demand so I relinked to the version with English subtitles.

[tags]helpdesk, integration, learning, teaching, technology, video[/tags]

Blogged with Flock

powered by performancing firefox