Objects of Interest

Podcasts can be created from original material by students and teachers or existing audio files can be downloaded or linked to for classroom use. Creating a podcast allows students to share learning experiences. It provides them with a world-wide audience that makes learning meaningful and assessment authentic. Teachers can use the technology to provide additional and revision material to students to download and review at a time that suits them. The flexibility that such time-shifting offers makes podcasting a valuable educational tool. (Lemelson Center)

There are also many excellent podcast resources that are available on the web for instructors to include in lessons.  I was recently looking for examples of podcasts to use in a lesson plan for students and came across the perfect example. Last year I had the pleasure of attending a lecture given by Liz Lerman founder of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, a professional company of dance artists that creates, performs, teaches, and engages people in making art. My Ph.D. is from an interdisciplinary humanities program, and Liz was invited to speak in a series of lectures sponsored by the program.   While doing my podcast research, I came across a lesson idea and a podcast resource utilizing “Prototype Online: Inventive Voices,” which is a podcast series from the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center that reveals the stories behind inventions. These podcasts can help students gain a broader understanding of invention and inventors, and can lead to a greater understanding of invention’s important role in American history and culture. While this listening guide was designed to accompany the four podcasts listed below, it can also provide a starting point for using and discussing any podcast in the Prototype Online series.   The podcast feed can be found online here: feed://invention.smithsonian.org/podcasts/prototype.rss   There are many episodes to choose from and one of them was by Liz Lerman. For me, that was an easy integration into a lesson that I could use with students, and one that I knew would work because I had a personal connection to the topic and with the material. The episode with Liz Lerman “compares the invention process with her own creative process, driven by improvisation, testing, collaboration, and questioning. This multi-generational company debuts its newest piece, “The Matter of Origins,” on September 10th and 12th, 2010, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.”   By utilizing the voices of the people, themselves, you bring a while different dimension to student learning, tapping into multiple learning styles. There is even a free guide provided to teachers with ideas for using the podcasts in lesson plans. What could be better a free resource and a lesson plan! Teachers take note, a great resource with a built in lesson plan – a keeper for sure, IMO!   The lesson plan can be found online here: http://invention.smithsonian.org/downloads/lemelsonpodguide.pdf   Students are given prompts to help guide them in listening to the podcasts before, during and after. Students can then engage in dialogue in wikis, blogs, discussion boards, or journals after listening to the content extending the learning beyond just the podcast, itself. Extending the learning beyond just listening to the podcast is a way to encourage critical thinking and writing skills on the part of students. Both skills are important beyond the classroom and appear as Higher Order Thinking Skills in many different learning models and paradigms. Just one post on the value of audio in teaching and learning. I have a feeling there will be more...

I had the pleasure of guest authoring a blog post recently, and the topic I chose was orientations that can help you choose technology for community use. Etienne Wenger, Nancy White, and John D. Smith, authors of Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities, identified 9 orientations: meetings, open-ended conversations, projects, content, access to expertise, relationships, individual participation, community cultivation, and serving a context, which I find useful as a product educator. My experience has been that convincing people to try new technologies often works best when you can present a use case people can relate to from their own perspective. 

 

As a member of the Product Education team for Learning Objects, I often work with people on ways they can integrate technology into teaching and learning. Our social software platform is designed for course uses, individual use (personal learning spaces) and for communities. With a central space for the group and the ability to create content, team members can collaborate on work, build and publish knowledgebases, and document events. Academic departments can collaborate on curriculum and research. Clubs, teams, and groups have a place where they can coordinate activities and administrative or academic departments can easily share information with a broad audience.

 

Meetings, one of the specific orientations identified in Digital Habitats, are a use case that I present in my trainings. My perspective is academia, but I think that the cases I use can certainly translate to business use, too. Web 2.0 tools, wikis especially, are an excellent way to aggregate meeting information and cut down on a significant amount of email traffic among meeting attendees. Committees can also benefit from the use of collaborative workspaces. Wikis can replace paper documents and blogs are a great tool to keep committee members informed of important updates because they can be subscribed to via RSS. Rating, Voting and Ranking features can be used to categorize content, vote on key items, and add interactivity to courses and group events. 

 

In courses and in the workplace, a significant amount of the work done is projects; which often produce content. Web 2.0 tools enable groups of people, and individuals, to collaborate together on work, restrict certain workspaces or documents to people through roles or permissions, share content with people who may not have direct access to systems, and take advantage of features such as page histories, which track different versions of a project and can be reverted back to if necessary. Individually, every user can benefit from an online space to share their work and co-curricular interests with classmates and colleagues, both inside and outside the campus community. Using Web 2.0-based tools, users can work on scholarly research, publish interactive academic presentations, and showcase personal interests and achievements.

 

Learning happens when students collaborate, communicate and cooperate and it is about creating an environment that enables those activities. Social Software can transform learning into a dynamic experience. learners become contributors, not passive recipients of information. Whether participating in a blog site, collaborating on a wiki assignment, or commenting on a podcast, users are actively engaged in content creation, community cultivation, and discussion moderation.

Twelve years of teaching taught one man an important lesson -- the world's educational systems are in trouble. Years of "teaching to the test" have left both students and educators disillusioned and frustrated. Sir Ken Robinson wants to change that. Robinson discusses the need to recognize different learning styles, why creativity isn't just for artists and what it means to find your "element."

The question most educators seem to ask about social media and Web 2.0 applications is, "What can I do with them in my classroom?" I am working on a list of project ideas for implementing social learning in the classroom. PLEASE feel free to add to the list in the comments section. I would like to continue to build out the list of project ideas and then make it available to everyone. 

General Ideas for Using Social Media in the Classroom

• Class Blog. Create a class blog and share it publicly to let others know what your class is learning and doing. Add an RSS feed so students can subscribe to the blog and get updates on the go.
• Individual Student Blogs - Enable students to blog on their own to learn how to share their work with others. Journals are great tools for critical reflections.
• Post homework, notes, and lectures - provide easy access for students. Share materials, news, current events, changes to syllabus or class schedule.
• Share resources / build a class knowledgebase. Both students and instructors can share interesting websites related to class topics via social media.
• Brainstorm - Students can brainstorm on class topics during class and outside of class providing more opportunities for sharing great thoughts.
• Multimedia. Easily embed content from other sites to share with the entire class. Integrate videos, podcasts and embed YouTube or other videos into your courses. 

Writing and Literature Ideas

• Create a class newsletter and keep parents informed about what you are doing.
• Group students for study buddies, shared note taking, and to collaborate on work together. 
• News Stories: Students write news stories on school, community, or world topics and create a news wiki.
• Book Reviews: Students write book reviews and collaborate to create a wiki.
• Literary Elements of a Novel: Groups research and evaluate symbolism, characters, theme, etc. Students then build a wiki page.
• Poetry Wiki: Students write poems and add them to pages on a wiki.
• Vocabulary Wiki: Students create vocabulary wiki of key words and concepts. Pages can include the definition, a sentence using the word, an image, etc.

Collaborative Math Projects:

• Show Your Work Wiki: Students create a page that shows detailed steps about how to solve a math problem.
• Problem Solving Wiki: Students work together to solve a word problem provided by the teacher.
• Famous Mathematicians: Groups research a famous mathematician and his/her contribution to math today. Students then create wiki pages of the findings.

Social Studies and Geography:

• Conflicts: Groups work together to research specific battles and create a page about that battle.
• States: Students research state capitals, symbols, nicknames, brief history, etc. Students work collaboratively to create a wiki page on the state.
• Industrial Revolution: Students research different aspects of the Industrial Revolution and report on a wiki page.
• Understanding Cultures Wiki: Students research a culture and work in groups to explore topics such as holidays, religion, traditions and beliefs.

Science Projects:

• Body Systems: Students create wiki pages on the different organ systems in the body.
• Planets: Groups work to research a planet and post findings and pictures on a wiki page.
• World Climates or Biomes: Students choose a climate or biome and research temperature, rainfall, humidity, etc. Students then create a wiki page including the findings.
• Animal Classification: Groups choose to research reptiles, fish, amphibians, birds, or mammals and create a wiki page including research findings.

 

What are some of the resources that enable Communication 2.0?

• Blogs,
• Wikis,
• Social bookmarking,
• Social networking, and
• micro blogs (Twitter).

One of the books I am reading this summer is Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson. Halvorson presents an introduction to content strategy; the practice of planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content. Content strategy plans for: Creation. What content will be created and why? How will that content be structured and found? Where will the content come from? Who will be in charge of creating it? Delivery. How will content get online? Who will review it, edit it, approve it, and load it? What are the different phases of content delivery? Which tools and data will ensure your users will find it? Governance. Who cares for the content after it goes live? What’s the plan for adding, updating, and archiving content? What are the policies, standards, and guidelines by which content will be evaluated? Three Steps to Content Strategy   Step 1: Audit – A content audit at the beginning of any content project will help you understand the scope of your content needs.   Step 2: Analysis – Define the objectives, assumptions, risks, and success factors for the project content and get all the project stakeholders to agree on them.   Step 3: Strategy – Make actionable recommendations for content creation, delivery, and governance as informed by the project goals.   Who is often responsible for getting all this done? The content strategist; the person responsible for overseeing the successful identification and fulfillment of all web-related content requirements throughout the project life cycle.

I have spent a lot of time this week following the ISTE conference online. It made me take out my book, The Backchannel by Cliff Atkinson, and revisit some of what he said. My question to those attending (or who attended) #ISTE10 and for those of us that followed along virtually, is the backchannel the future or the present?   Does Twitter change the relationship between presenter and audience? Does it change the whole conference? For those of you that went to Tweetups, who tweeted (or blogged) about events you attended, do you think the backchannel changed your conference experience? Does the backchannel provide a more engaging conference experience?   These are questions I will be asking myself as I attend various conferences this year. What do you think?