Month: December 2004

Blogging for Class: My Wrap Up Thoughts

/ Cole Camplese / Leave a comment

Well, the semester is over and the whole thing left a very good taste in my mouth. I know the reason why I enjoyed it so much this semester — I changed everything! I have taught IST 110 several times over the last several years … as a matter of fact every fall since the IST program really got rolling … with several CE and World Campus sections thrown in. I usually stay very true to the Online IST design model we built and have evolved over the last 5 years. There are some really great things going in that design and it has served me well every time I use it.

This semester I wanted to challenge myself, and my students, with a different type of experience. I am the project director for IST and PSU’s part of the Apple Digital Campus program and really wanted to take advantage of the connection and bring the research we are doing with them to life in the classroom. I decided that I would only teach 110 this fall if I could do it in the new Apple Teaching and Learning Studio Classroom in the IST Building … that room is filled with 25 G5’s with a whole host of great apps … iLife, Final Cut, Macromedia MX, and others. The room made a huge difference.

I also decided the machines should be an active part of the lectures. In the past I have done the whole, “computers off” thing before I start talking and only let them in when I am done. Not this semester! Machines on, roaring and running – I frankly just didn’t care if they were using IM, bidding at eBay, or updating their profile in the facebook … I just wanted it to be an open and fluid experience. I really think it was.

The inclusion of digital expression assignments was of huge benefit as well. The students learned how to use rich media to express their ideas and how to use it appropriately to communicate very serious technology solutions. The typical semester would see students doing a couple large proposal documents and presentations … this semester I reduced that to one large scale assignment dealing with illegal file sharing and added a digital media project to it. Students not only had to create a 20 page solution, a 10 minute presentation, but also produce a persuasive, educational public service announcement built using digital media tools. They did this and a couple other small media assignments with very little real instruction with the tools – “here’s a camera, here are a couple of overviews on how to plan and produce a digital media piece, and this is when its due …” Basically I just threw them into it. Results were nothing short of outstanding!

The biggest change though stemmed from the combination of two new pieces of technology. The first is the software we’ve built here at the Institute – Edison Services Syllabus Toolset. The big thing was that it gave me a very quick and easy way to communicate with my students outside of class with the announcements feature. It kept me from having to log into ANGEL, navigate the interface, use their email tool, and then send it … saved me a ton of time. It also seemed to make me communicate with them on a more regular basis. The second, and perhaps more powerful, change was the Class Blog. I decided from the get go that I was going to create a space that I could very easily post to and solicit responses from my students (and people outside the class). I loved it and the students used it (measured by quantity of posts) more than I have ever seen in comparison to the typical discussion board stuff I have always done. I can honestly say this one thing enriched my experience beyond imagination! I could quickly bang out a post with pointers to all sorts of interesting articles and just watch the remarks roll in. I even did my graded Discussion Activities there and got nearly 100% responses from the class – I think only three people didn’t do all the DAs! That is unreal. Typically, more than 2/3 of the class misses at least one DA during the semester.

We did do a little data gathering related to the blog in the class and are in the process of going over the results. I’ll be sure to post stuff here as it becomes clear. As an aside, I stumbled across this today and it has me thinking of how to make the students even more actively engaged in what’s going on. It’s a very interesting concept and worth a look.

All in all, the best time I’ve had teaching and a major step forward in my thinking about using technology in he classroom and in how to effectively use emerging technologies to motivate and challenge students. I actually had fun doing my job! Good stuff. Leave comments if you have any–>

Blog Wrap-Up: Fall 2004 110 Section 04

/ Cole Camplese / 1 Comment

I have to hand it to all of you, you’ve done an amazing job with keeping things fresh and real at the Class Blog this semester. If you remember, I started the semester with a plea to participate and a flat out declaration, that “this is a grand experiment.” Well, for my money, this has been a great success! One of the things that I really love is that there is an open forum that illustrates the thread of the class this semester … something that I could never have provided had we done this in ANGEL or without all of your comments and insight. This thing can live on well beyond the artifical boundaries of the semester … it can provide you and other sections with a home base to build new experiences on. I know I enjoy going back and looking at your comments and I anticipate that other students (from 110 and other courses) will be doing the same.

Bart Pursel and I have looked over the results of the survey so far and it looks interesting — may even interest you all! As we get it coded and uncover trends and results, we’ll post them here. I extend an invitation to continue to visit the Class Blog — not sure where it will go or how I will use it in the coming weeks, but if the web trends indicate people are still showing up, I’ll continue to post. I know that if I teach next Fall (and it is an IF), I will coninue using the Class Blog — and I will actually just keeping going here so the new students can see what its all about … I thought from the get go that a multi-semester communication environment would be a kick-ass thing … what a great foundation we’ve created!

Looking back at the themes this semester, file sharing was without a doubt the primary one … we did jump around a bit, but there are a ton of great resources in the archives. Use them as you see fit — a lot of the thinking belongs to you.

It may come as a surprise to you all, but several of the posts and your comments have been a mainstay at several other sites exploring the benefits of educational blogging. In other words, you’re almost famous — look for the royality checks any day now. At any rate, I just wanted to extend a very serious thank you … thank you for a great semester, for the outstanding effort, for putting up with my crazy schedule, for showing up and talking in class, and for being a great group to work with. I appreciate it all very much and I want you to remember, you can drop in and talk shop with me anytime. Take it easy and I will be seeing you all around–>

Cole

Teaching with Technology: A New Toolset

/ Cole Camplese / Leave a comment

I have been thinking about a toolset that targets the forgotten world of k-12 education … the higher education and corporate training markets are flooded with LMS/CMS tools that allow faculty, students, and learners to engage in online activity and tracking. K-12 just seems left out of the mix. I can see a toolset that gives teachers ease of use, from their desktops, handhelds, or even cell phones to work, post, and communicate with students, teachers, and administrators … something like that would go a long way in bridging the gap between what happens in the class and what should be going on outside it.

What I want is a toolset that gives me the one-click, live updating of something like WordPress combined with the ulimited section creation capabilities I am uncovering at squarespace. If I could move these features into a k-12 toolset — one where both teachers and students could publish their thoughts, assignments, classroom activities, schedules, photos, audio blog posts, syllabi, and all the other stuff that goes on with the combination of features and simplicity of these tools, I think I’d have a winner.

Seeing how this system allows multiple pages gives me several new ideas for making it all happen. I think the wordpress engine is a great starting point to building a next generation classroom management and publishing system — it is also open source. It has to be flexible enough to meet the needs of different teaching styles and it has to be simple so everyone can use it. Students should all have accounts as well — and those accounts should be easily bound to their teachers set of pages. If I could post blog posts to my own page as a student and instantly cross post it to a class site I’d be a step closer to tracking my own intellectual development and submitting to my teachers.

So what does it have to have? Here’s a real short list:

  • Multiple templates for look & feel
  • Multiple “frameworks” for different types of pages — this can’t simply be a blog engine … it has to have frameworks for syllabi, blog pages, articles, file uploads, file downloads, audio posts, grade posting, discussion lists, resources and links, and multiple content displays to name a few (D3 style).
  • Secure areas that registered users can get to only — with multiple user authentication levels (teachers, students, parents, administrators, etc).
  • Very simple setup wizard.
  • Open accessibility standards for students/teachers with disabillities.

There’s a lot more, but that’s a start. In the coming weeks, I will be exploring htis in much more detail. If you have ideas, please feel free to comment.

iPod at Duke

/ Cole Camplese / 1 Comment

I read a post over at Macdailynews.com this morning that sort of bothered me a bit … its actually being reported from the full article available here. Here’s one of the quotes:

“Still, not all students are convinced. ‘They’re really useful to listen to music on – while I go running or on the bus – but mostly I don’t need them for my classes and I haven’t heard of anyone needing them. I think the program has a lot of room for growth. If the professors get more involved and know more ways to use the iPod during their classes, it would be really beneficial,’ says Katie Brehm, a freshman at Duke,” Rafael and Anderson report.”

I guess what bothers me is that the media isn’t reporting the real amazing parts of the story … there is so much going on behind the scene with the project that I can see why the reall word isn’t getting out. I have to say that Duke gets a serious thumbs up from me by having the guts to move into such a huge initaitve so quickly — talk about a living lab! At any rate, I did something I don’t usually do … I left a ranting comment at the site. Just thought I’d cross post it here …

I have been involved with the Duke iPod project as a part of an academic consortium working directly with Apple (I am not on the Duke faculty, but I am in higher education at another University) … we have been discussing the applications for some time and they are really doing some amazing things … it will take some time for it to really catch on. They have worked with Apple to create an academic version of the music store — it is a great idea and one that should grow as a model for content distribution.

Someone here said something like, all faculty have to do is record lectures and students will listen … well, I’ve been experimenting with that this semester with mixed results. The real power of the iPod is in its ability to do so much more — it can be used for assessment (with the built in ratings system), for creating “choose your own ending” style interactive scenarios that students can work through, and of course audio programs. With RSS enclosures, faculty can drop content directly on students’ desktops as they see fit.

The big rub in the Duke (or any other) project is that faculty have to take the lead to get the materials to students. When we release new instructional technology initiatives at my University, we focus our adoption efforts on faculty — students get it very quickly. Its faculty who have to take time, develop places for it in their classrooms and develop a comfort level with it. The bottom line is that Duke has made incredible progress on several fronts — their ability to work with Apple to build a customized “store,” building a support unit within the University, and for providing a vision for this type of mobile technology. The full effects and adoption will take several years — if it is going be successful. Sorry for the long rant.