Objects of Interest

Social Learning Platforms: What Are They and Why You Need One

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:02:35 GMT

eJournal Ideas for Teachers

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:01:35 GMT

Reflective writing can aid learners in synthesizing new information, and it is often used to improve reading comprehension, writing performance, and self-esteem via self-examination. In distance education, Internet courses, and traditional lecture classes that serve hundreds of students with no time for questions or discussion, e-journaling can add an interactive component (Educause). E-journaling remains underused as a teaching and learning tool. Possibly many instructors do not know of its many benefits or are unfamiliar with the various technologies available to implement it.

Exchanging Ideas by Sharing Journals: Interactive Response in the Classroom

Link to Lesson Plan - http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/exchanging-ideas-sharing-journals-1054.html

Students brainstorm possible generic prompts for their journals, then practice an exchange with their partners. As students begin using the journals, mini-lessons are presented on responding to prompts, creating dialogue, adding drawings, and asking and answering questions. Students can choose their own partners, or partners can be teacher-assigned so that less proficient and more proficient writers can be paired.

PDF of Prompts for Journals

What does the story remind you of?
What kinds of images did you see while you were reading?
What do you think will happen next in the story?
What do you like most about the main character?
What kinds of surprises did the story give you?
Compare this story to another story you've read.
Compare this main character to yourself or another character.

Rubric for Teacher Assessment

Journals for K - 2 Students - Family Message Journals - http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/launching-family-message-journals-77.html

"In our classroom you will be writing letters to your family about things you do in school. I'm going to write one first to show you what I mean." Think aloud: "What should I write about? Hmmm, what did we do in school today? Oh, I know, I'll write about the science actvitiy we just did before recess, when we compared different kinds of apples. I'll start by putting the date up here in the right corner and on the left side I'll write 'Dear family.'" (demonstrate on chart paper or chalkboard as you speak). "Now, that's how a letter looks. It starts with a date and greeting" (point at each again). Tell students they will begin their own messages in their own Family Message Journals. (This could be done in a second session). Tell them what activity or experience they will write about. Something learned or read or discussed or experienced that day works well—anything can be the topic of a message. For example, they might write a response to a book read aloud.

Daily Reading Response Journals - Include these details for each journal entry:

The Date.
Two significant quotations from the day's reading and the page number that they appeared on in your book (Keep in mind the type of quotations you will need for your project).
Personal connections between your own life and events in the day's reading (Keep in mind the type of essays you will write for your project).
Interesting questions you want to discuss further in class.

Learning Portfolios and Reflective Journals

Personal Development Plans with Campus Pack

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:19:21 GMT

Need a Personal Development Plan (PDP) solution? Campus Pack PDP provides students, academic staff, and departments with the tools they need to implement a complete PDP solution. With Campus Pack:

Students

Maintain a central hub to create, store, categorize, and share academic and extracurricular information
Connect to resources and educational communities within the institution and beyond
Present work to academic staff, mentors, and prospective employers
Export work upon graduation

Academic staff

Provide guidance and support through communication, feedback, and monitoring
Create a framework for discussion and feedback using Web 2.0 technologies
Connect with students for effective use of off-campus learning opportunities (work placement/study abroad)

Institutions, departments, and support service staff

Support student retention initiatives through engagement, transparency and feedback
Implement cross-institutional communication through online social communities
Facilitate more effective monitoring of leaner progress

Web 2.0 Project Ideas for Your Classroom

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:26:36 GMT

As teachers and students prepare to go back to school, it is a good time to consider adding some new tools to your teaching repertoire. Here are some Web 2.0 lesson ideas to implement in your classroom this year.

Classmate Connections - No matter the size of your class, having all the students in a social learning space brings them all together.
Course 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 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 - Encouraging students to brainstorm on class topics outside class time provides more opportunities for sharing great thoughts.
Multimedia. Easily embed content from other sites to share with the entire class. Integrate videos, podcasts and other media into teaching
Create a class publication that is easy to edit (wiki or blog) – create a class website using a wiki.
Create a class newsletter and keep parents informed about what you are doing.
Create groups for subsets of students (study groups, group projects).
Class conversation – Continue the conversation outside the classroom - When something relevant to class happens during a time when class isn’t in session, students can discuss it through social media.

Class Projects

Book reviews. Students can post their book reviews for the instructor to grade and other students to read.
Use ranking and voting widgets to Poll the class. Use polls as an interactive teaching tool in class.
Showcase Student projects. Use a wiki to showcase student projects
Author visits. Use Invite by Email feature to invite authors (or guest lecturers) and allow students to interact with the visitor.
Use comments and feedback to extend the conversation beyond just posting to wikis and blogs.
Include students who may have to be absent and engage them with buddies to help them get their work.

Critical Reading Resources

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:38:06 GMT

There are many resources available for students and teachers to help with the process of critical reading, reflection, and writing. Dan Kurland has an excellent website of resources - Reading and Writing Ideas As Well As Words.

What is critical reading? According to Kurland:

Critical reading is an analytic activity. The reader rereads a text to identify patterns of elements -- information, values, assumptions, and language usage-- throughout the discussion. These elements are tied together in an interpretation, an assertion of an underlying meaing of the text as a whole.

Critical thinking involves bringing outside knowledge and values to bear to evaluate the presentation and decide what to ultimately accept as true.

This is a great resource for academic reading strategies from the Baltimore City Public Schools - Take a Closer Look!

Here is a simple checklist you can use to help focus your reading:

Critical Reading Checklist:

What's the point?
Who says?
What's new?
Who cares?

Digital History Resources

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:32:49 GMT

One of the most comprehensive digital history website is the American Memory (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html) project of the Library of Congress. The website provides open access to written and spoken words, audio recordings, images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. These digital resources chronicle historical events, people, places, and serve as a resource for education and lifelong learning.

The National Digital Library Program (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dli2/html/lcndlp.html) has a collection of over five million digital holdings, including photographs, manuscripts, rare books, maps, recorded sound, and moving pictures.

World History Matters (http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorymatters/) provides students with multimedia case studies of scholars detailing how they analyze a particular primary source and giving students specific guidance on how they can engage in the same kind of sophisticated analysis of sources. World History offers visitors a database of website reviews written by teaching historians, each of which includes suggestions for students and world history teachers as to how best to use the resources found at these sites. Students using this type of database for their research, rather than a search engine such as Google, will start with the best websites as opposed to searching aimlessly around. Such resources, integrated into an instructional unit, have the potential to engage students and involve them in exciting learning experiences. Using digital documents in the classroom encourages critical thinking skills and helps promote information literacy, the need to be able to analyze information and understand how meaning is created.

The “Magic Lens,” an electronic tool developed by the Memorial Hill Museum Online, can superimpose a transcript over an original document to help reveal the writing of the document. Similarly, in “Battle Lines: Letters from America’s Wars”, an online exhibit of the Gilder Lehrman Institute featuring correspondence from over 200 years of American conflicts, ranging from the Revolution to the current war in Iraq, users can place a typed transcript over a handwritten script and also hear each letter read aloud. The British Library developed “Turning the Pages,” a digital tool that allows students to leaf through famous books, reading, magnifying, and hearing the story read aloud to them (http://www.adgame-wonderland.de/type/bayeux.php). It is a thoroughly satisfying method of experiencing these rare treasures.

The Cherokee County Digital History Project, in Canton, Georgia, is an example of a digital history project that is also a virtual field trip back to Historic Cherokee County. It was developed by students in a history class to serve as a digital survey of historic properties in Cherokee County. This project serves as a model of how teachers, curriculum planners, and local historians can facilitate digital historical inquiry in conjunction with local, public history. Through collaboration and interaction with the community, students and teachers develop relationships that allow them to answer questions about their past.

Digital resources, and the tools being developed to utilize them, enable learning activities such as searching, examining patterns, and discovering connections among artifacts, all critical skills of historians and scholars of society and culture. When students make decisions about which document to use and how to use that document, they are constructing knowledge of their own. As students put together their own interpretations of digital resources, they are constructing history.

Tech Lessons - Blog Ideas

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:28:25 GMT

100 Words or Less

Using a blog, have students reflect on topics, issues, and themes from the readings in the course.
Encourage students to write brief (100 words or less) summaries of the interpretations and understandings of the course readings.
Have students post a minimum number of summaries, for example, 4 or 5 during the course to be reviewed by the instructor and other classmates.
The instructor should respond/comment on inaccurate interpretations, offering examples and expanding summaries that are useful for students as tools for reviewing course materials.
Encourage students to review and comment on postings by classmates.
Can also be done by assigning certain readings to individuals.

Worth a Thousand Words

Compose a blog post with 3 images or pictures that illustrate your interests, background, and/or experiences.
Include a short description as to why you chose those pictures.
Encourage students to respond to each other to get to know one another better.

25-15-5 Goal Development – A Great Blog Activity

First Draft – Have students compost a 25-word personal goal statement for the course. This statement, identifying what they want to achieve in the course, should be PRECISELY 25 words long, which may take some time editing and refinement on the part of students.
Second Draft – Have students revise their goal statement so that it is only 15 words and post their revised statement to their blog.
Third Draft – Have students revise their goal again so that it is only 5 words. Have students post their goal statement to their blog.

Social Learning - Lesson Ideas for Teachers

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:57:09 GMT

Classmate Connections - No matter the size of your class, having all the students in a social learning space brings them all together.
Course 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 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 - Encouraging students to brainstorm on class topics outside class time provides more opportunities for sharing great thoughts.
Multimedia. Easily embed content from other sites to share with the entire class. Integrate videos, podcasts and other media into teaching
Create a class publication that is easy to edit (wiki or blog) – create a class website using a wiki.
Create a class newsletter and keep parents informed about what you are doing.
Create groups for subsets of students (study groups, group projects).
Class conversation – Continue the conversation outside the classroom - When something relevant to class happens during a time when class isn’t in session, students can discuss it through social media.

Class Projects

Book reviews. Students can post their book reviews for the instructor to grade and other students to read.
Use ranking and voting widgets to Poll the class. Use polls as an interactive teaching tool in class.
Showcase Student projects. Use a wiki to showcase student projects
Author visits. Use Invite by Email feature to invite authors (or guest lecturers) and allow students to interact with the visitor.
Use comments and feedback to extend the conversation beyond just posting to wikis and blogs.
Inclusion. Students who may have to be out of the classroom due to special needs or illness can connect remotely and stay a part of the community.

Blogs

Creating Character Blogs - Lesson Plan Link - Click Here

In this lesson, students learn the basic elements of blog creation and then create a blog from the perspective of a fictional character. Students demonstrate understanding of the text by including images, quotations, links, and commentary on their blogs. Students then help one another develop their blogs by acting as editors during the creation stage and reviewing one another's blogs upon completion.

Character Blog Requirements Handout

Weekly Writer’s Blogs: Building a Reflective Community of Support

In this digital rethinking of the traditional weekly writer's logs, students analyze example writer's blog entries then begin the habit of writing their own weekly entries, which focus on the writing that they have done over the past seven days. These reflective assignments ask students to think about their progress on writing activities and to project how they will continue their work in the future, while communicating with classmates about the same.

Journals

Exchanging Ideas by Sharing Journals: Interactive Response in the Classroom

Link to Lesson Plan - http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/exchanging-ideas-sharing-journals-1054.html

PDF of Prompts for Journals

What does the story remind you of?
What kinds of images did you see while you were reading?
What do you think will happen next in the story?
What do you like most about the main character?
What kinds of surprises did the story give you?
Compare this story to another story you've read.
Compare this main character to yourself or another character.

Rubric for Teacher Assessment

Journals for K - 2 Students - Family Message Journals - http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/launching-family-message-journals-77.html

Daily Reading Response Journals - Include these details for each journal entry:

The Date.
Two significant quotations from the day's reading and the page number that they appeared on in your book (Keep in mind the type of quotations you will need for your project).
Personal connections between your own life and events in the day's reading (Keep in mind the type of essays you will write for your project).
Interesting questions you want to discuss further in class.

Wikis

Collaborating, Writing, Linking: Using Wikis to Tell Stories Online

Students begin by reading untraditional books that use fragmented storylines, multiple perspectives, and unresolved plots. They apply these same types of strategies to their own writing, which they then publish using wiki technology. In doing so, students practice important literacy skills including searching for information, integrating images into text, and creating storylines that are reflective of the new types of reading found on the Internet.

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/collaborating-writing-linking-using-1087.html

Brainstorming for Wiki Writing - Download Handout

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 a wiki page about a new vocabulary word. The page can include the definition, a sentence using the word, an image, etc.

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:

Wars: 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, etc. Each group creates a page on the wiki explaining the topic.

Science:

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.

Podcasts

Podcasts can be created from original material by students and teachers or existing audio files can be downloaded 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.

Spark!Lab Podcast Listening Guide

Prototype Online: Inventive Voices is a podcast series from the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center that reveals the stories behind the invention. 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.

Link to Podcasts - feed://invention.smithsonian.org/podcasts/prototype.rss

Podcast Activity Guide - http://invention.smithsonian.org/downloads/lemelsonpodguide.pdf

KWL Charts 2.0

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:41:00 GMT

K-W-L Charts activate students' prior knowledge by:

Asking them what they already Know;
Then students (collaborating as a classroom unit or within small groups) set goals specifying what they Want to learn; and,
After reading students discuss what they have Learned.

Why not use a wiki instead of a chalkboard or a whiteboard to create KWL charts with your students?

Click Here to see one that I created as an example.

Blogging With Students

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:29:47 GMT

Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano offers great suggestions on her blog for how YOU can blog with elementary students. There is a great visual (which I recreated a little differently) highlighting the differences between blogs and websites.

Here is a previous post I wrote with some ideas for using blogs in the classroom: What Can I Do With a Blog?

What Can I Do With A Wiki?

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:39:43 GMT

What Can I Do With a Wiki? I answer that question a lot in the trainings that I do. Here are some ideas for using wikis with your students:

Book report wikis
Class wikis – use a wiki as your class website
Project wikis – use wikis to plan projects or develop the wiki as THE project instead of having students turn in a document.
Class events – use a wiki to plan events for the class. Share with parents for their input and participation.
Stories – have students collaborate on story writing using a wiki

Bill Ferriter has developed a number of resources that can help you implement wikis (and other Web 2.0 projects) in your classroom. His handout of wiki roles for student groups is a must read. The handout "details a set of roles that students play in successful group wiki projects. It also encourages students to reflect on the contributions that they are the best prepared to make to---and provides a table for tracking assignments for----group wiki projects." http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/Wikis

Wiki Roles include:

The Link Layer should begin by identifying logical places to include links in your group's work. They should also check each source that you link to for bias and/or accuracy—and be willing to replace any references to questionable websites that have been included in your group's work.

The Flow Master is completely responsible for reviewing your work to make sure that your readers aren't left confused.

The Spelling Cop has a seemingly simple job: Checking the spelling of every single word that is added to your group's document.

The Discussion Starter is responsible for asking constant questions about what it is that your group is producing.

Captain Spit-and-Polish is in charge of finding images and graphics that support the arguments your group is making and to make sure that your layout is professional and interesting.

Download a copy of the handout here - http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/f/Handout_WikiRoles.pdf

Learning Portfolios and Reflective Journals

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 22:13:12 GMT

As we start, or get ready to start, the school year, it is a good time to think about incorporating new ideas into our teaching and learning repertoire. I like the PDF embedded below from Edith Cowan University on Blogs and Journals. I particularly like the sections on Learning Portfolios and Reflective Journals.

Blogs Journals

Ewan McIntosh - ePortfolios & Learning Management Systems: Setting our default to social

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:24:44 GMT

Podcasting: Ideas for Teachers

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:31:17 GMT

What is a podcast and how can I teach with it? If you are wondering what a podcast is, that might be a good place to start. Podcasts are basically audio files that can be produced with a standard computer, a microphone, software, and a web site where you will post your completed podcasts. Audio podcasts are usually an MP3 file and are the most common types of podcasts. Enhanced podcasts can have images to go along with the audio. They can also have chapter markers, making it easier to skip to different portions of an episode. Enhanced podcasts are not necessarily supported by all devices. Video podcasts are movies, complete with sound. Video podcasts can be in a variety of formats, but MPEG-4 is the most popular and the only format that will play on iPod and iPad.

Some classroom ideas for podcasting:

Record directions for students
Record lessons
Record supplemental materials
Record instructions for a substitute teacher
Record classroom rules
Interview people at your school
Create a news show and discuss current events
Record a speech
Record student readings so they can hear what they sound like

Check out the Educational Podcasting Network - http://epnweb.org/

Add video to the mix and you have a vodcast ( Video-On-Demand-casts) http://www.macworld.com/article/46066/2005/07/howtovodcast.html

Don’t forget about PoducateMe - http://www.poducateme.com/guide/

Great video: PLN how to build one!

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 21:32:19 GMT

Infographic: “Facts About The Internet”

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 11:49:41 GMT

Infographics have become popular lately, (either that or I am just noticing them more.) I think they could be a useful tool for instructional designers and those developing curriculum. Infographs allow you to display a lot of data in interesting ways, incorporating visuals to help make certain points. This is an interesting one I just came across - Facts About the Internet.

Via: MedicalBillingAndCoding.org

Social Media in the Classroom - Ideas for Getting Started

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:39:00 GMT

As we get closer to the next school year, it is a good time to re-think some lesson ideas and find ways to refresh them, and, ideally, incorporate some technology into our day-to-day teaching and learning. Here are some ideas for using Social Media in the Classroom.

Course 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 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 - Encouraging students to brainstorm on class topics outside class time provides more opportunities for sharing great thoughts.

Multimedia. Easily embed content from other sites to share with the entire class. Integrate videos, podcasts and other media into teaching.

Create a class publication that is easy to edit (wiki or blog) – create a class website using a wiki.

Create a class newsletter and keep parents informed about what you are doing.

Create groups for subsets of students (study groups, group projects).

Class conversation – Continue the conversation outside the classroom - When something relevant to class happens during a time when class isn’t in session, students can discuss it through social media.

Book reviews. Students can post their book reviews for the instructor to grade and other students to read.

Showcase Student projects. Use a wiki to showcase student projects.

Author visits. Use Invite by Email feature to invite authors (or guest lecturers) and allow students to interact with the visitor.

Use comments and feedback to extend the conversation beyond just posting to wikis and blogs.

Do you have other ideas or suggestions that you can add to the list? Feel free to post them to the comments section.

Social Learning is User-Centric

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 23:49:49 GMT

I spent a lot of time this past week talking to people about social learning at the Blackboard World Conference. It is always exciting when a group of educators come together to discuss integrating technology into teaching and learning. I was there with Learning Objects showcasing Campus Pack, our social learning platform designed for education. Campus Pack integrates with many learning management system, Blackboard being one of them which is why we were at the conference (we are a signature partner of Blackboard.)

As I talked to people who came by our booth, many of them were existing clients who stopped by to see our newest release and others were interested in social learning and Web 2.0 tools for their institutions, I came to realize that the main benefit of integrating a social learning platform into your learning management system is that it changes the focus from course-centric to user-centric. Web 2.0 tools in the classroom enable students to create content in many different ways, integrate content from other sources and collaborate with others in their class and people outside their institution. Most importantly, they can enable users to take content with them when a course is no longer available to them in their LMS. ‘

Shifting the focus from course tools to personal tools shifts the conversation to personal learning and personal learning environments, portfolio development, and personal development plans. Campus Pack provides every user at an institution with a personal learning space where they can create blogs, wikis, journals and podcasts, share them with people at their institution, invite people securely with an email invitation to participate in a site even if they do not have an account in any system on campus, and, the system includes a site copy feature that provides a way for students and faculty to copy Web 2.0 projects from their course into the PLS creating a collection of academic work over time. Campus Pack also has social media templates which users can copy to develop out wikis, blogs, and podcasts from pre-developed templates created by instructional designers or others on campus.

Web 2.0 tools have been around for several years now, we need to convince people that they can use the tools in their every day lives to facilitate learning, for personal productivity, and to join and form communities online and on-campus.

Using voice in the classroom – yours, students, and content on the web!

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:23:12 GMT

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...

Community Tools

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:22:47 GMT

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.

Education Innovation - Conversations from Penn State

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:19:46 GMT

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."

Social Media in the Classroom

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:36:54 GMT

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.

Collaboration 2.0: Shift Happens

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:23:34 GMT

What are some of the resources that enable Communication 2.0?

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

Content Strategy for the Web

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:11:11 GMT

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.

Is the Backchannel the Future or the Present?

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:38:06 GMT

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?