People vs Applications

I'm going in mind circles again.  It's one of those chicken and egg situations.  Do I support people - faculty, staff and students - in the use of a course/learning management system? Or do I support people who are teaching and learning using a course management system?  One is focused on the tool. The other, focused on the the process and activity.  Why is this important?

It's important because the emphasis changes and our response to users changes depending on where our focus is.

What do you think?
Are you faculty or staff?
Are you at a small school or a Big University and does that change things?
Are you k-12 or higher education.

Let's talk.

I am exploring a MOOC today in E-learning and Digital Cultures by Jeremy Knox, Sian Bayne, Hamish Macleod, Jen Ross, Christine Sinclair 

Why would I be interested in MOOCs you ask? Well because they threaten/inform the current model of education – especially higher education. I like to know what’s on the horizon even if it’s only a sun rise and not the light of day. 

My current position, where I support faculty in the use of Blackboard Learn, allows me to work with faculty in course development as well as software support. That’s the part I like best. However, I couldn't do course development in isolation well in my opinion. This is because needing help with the application is what will drive faculty to consult us. It is the hook that lets us catch their attention in hope of working closely with them to develop high quality courses. 

What constitutes a high quality online or blended course is the question of the day. I'm serving as a course reviewer of exemplary course submissions for Blackboard. Yesterday I sat through the the training video. As a consequence of that video, I've been thinking about what makes a great course. The rubric they developed is great. Interpretation, not so easy!

I'm watching the Google+ Lecture. This MOOC has 40,000 students! There is a team of five lecturers and one doctoral student from Univ. of Edinburgh who are developing and teaching this course. They are using a variety of digital tools including Hangout currently in use. There are twitter feeds for discussion/comments. There are blogs and discussions forums. Interactivity is woven nicely into the course. However as an instructor, this seems to be almost impossible to keep up with - how they are doing it is an interesting question!


I found this nice list of resources on their site at:  E-learning and Digital Cultures  It's part of the final project in the course. One nice thing about exploring the online resources compiled by others is that you find things you've never seen.  I have used many of these but not all.

• Voicethread: http://voicethread.com  
• Storify: http://storify.com/
• Xtranormal: http://www.xtranormal.com/
• Pixton: http://pixton.com/uk/
• Issuu: http://issuu.com/
• Storybird: http://storybird.com/
• Weebly: http://www.weebly.com/
• Animoto: http://animoto.com/
• Prezi: http://prezi.com
• Wikispaces: http://www.wikispaces.com
• TedEd: http://ed.ted.com
• Google Sites: https://sites.google.com

Wandering through Articles and my Mind (?)

OK, so I've been re-exploring Google Docs/Apps/Drive.  This time with the eye toward higher education here at UTK.  I really like the idea of them - free and easy to use and forever improving.  Education tools should be free.  If you provide good tools to students and teachers to use, them you have a loyal following for life.  Unfortunately dear Microsoft hasn't figured that out. Nor has Apple.  Of course, we all love our Apple iPad, iPhone and various tools for the ease of use that we are willing to shell out the dough to get them!

Anyway back to Google. I've been playing with Hangout to test capabilities and settings. I found this article today in Educause's website:  "How Educators and Schools Can Make the Most of Google Hangout". Good ideas, just not enough of them. Does Google for Education increase the limit beyond 10? Are there archive capabilities inside Hangout without using another tool? 

I especially like the idea of using Hangout for office hours. I like it because you can have 10 people online at a time and again, it's free and easy to use. I've tested it with friends on campus - it is easy easy!
While exploring Google tools/drive/resources (What DO you call this thing?) I found this article on their Course Builder on Edutopia:
Google's Open Course Builder: A Giant Leap into 21st-Century Online Learning  which led be on to this online course in Constructivist Pedagogy: http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html .

I truly could surf articles related to online education, pedagogy and instructional technology for days, weeks and years!  Did I mention that's what I've been doing since the late 80's? I remember struggling with the concepts of Industrial Technology (my undergraduate major) and Instructional Technology. To me these were the same species of animal minus a table saw. As graduate schools continued and I began to work in the field, I continued to see the overlap but the line became more defined and then blurred.  This is what I try to help our professors do - draw the line then smudge it as they integrate technology into their courses or when the redesign their courses to being online. It's fascinating watching the faculty change their teaching processes and seeing the difference in method over time impact student learning.  It's a slow process but one which is infinitely interesting!

So what do Google tools offer the teaching professor or classroom teacher?  Stay tuned - I'm working on that! What do you think?

Today I found a cool site - from Center for 21st Century Universities and Georgia Tech. Tech Bursts are short instructional videos done by students and explain a singe topic in a entertaining way. 

Have you wondered how you can do more than lecture in a large class class? Check out Associate Professor Amy Pritchett and her large engineering course at GA Tech. She uses problem based learning and just in time lectures - how cool is that? 

I guess I need to set up a spreadsheet of these sites! Unless you'd like to look into my diigo site that is.

Thinking about relationships

I've been thinking about departmental relationships and how they play into the development of quality online courses.  I've also been thinking about how to graphically represent functions within and supportive to OIT.  It's funny how you drop back to what you learn in elementary school - the only graphic that came to mind as valid was a Venn diagram. What do you think? Did I manage to link the resources needed to design a quality course?