A changing world we live in, and those in higher education seem to be running faster and faster while barely keeping up. Seems Cornell is thinking deeply about this new digital literacy realm and digging into making explicit the tricky new definitions and student understanding of academic integrity, internet research, privacy and reputation, and new modes of technology applied to teaching and learning.
Their Digital Literacy Resource site rocks and should be a required site for those thinking about teaching undergraduates anywhere. A great site and a great effort by Cornell at change management, deep thinking, transformational practice.
It's taking time for the word to get out, but by now most instructors at ASU are discovering that the Drop Box is gone in BB9. Yeay! Hurray! It's about time. We hated the DropBox. It was ugly, clumsy, inelegant and stupid. The Assignment feature is much better, as it automatically integrates with the Grade Center (GC) and allows us to view individual contributions from that student's cell, or to download all submitted contributions for that assignment as a zip file.
Now, everything elegant has a quirk or two, and many are discovering that this is true with the Assignment feature. Namely, that you go to download from the GC and the screen seems to freeze, blow up, or give you an error message. Why, you ask? (After swearing, kicking your PC, or waiting for hours for a response from Help Desk). Because you broke the old file naming convention rule. Sometimes, one forgets that new Web apps are still a part of the old world of files and commands and naming conventions.
Spaces. Periods. Funky symbols. Hash marks. Don't do that. So what if you forget that age-old rule? Rename the assignment. DO NOT rename the column in the Grade Center, rename the assignment itself. The problem should go away.
So, a bite-size recap of golden rules for happy computing with BB: #1. If something seems broken, try another browser. #2. If that doesn't fix it, remember to only use computer-friendly naming conventions for files, or for objects that will turn into files.
Is "enjoyable eLearning" an oxymoron? I don't think so, or I wouldn't do what I do. It saved me, and brought me back to the education table long after I'd hardened my heart and thrown up my hands in despair. Now, I do what I can to send out the word to other knowledge-hungry souls that there IS an alternative to butt-in-seat/bored to tears. The question on all the minds of my CoP, though, is what does really good eLearning look like? How do we know? Take a look. This short, Pecha Kucha format piece by Clive Shephard (one of my favorite thinkers on the topic) pulls together some good research and great ideas to answer the question. Need a hook to lure you in to Clive's presentation? Here's a summary of why he thinks eLearning is seldom enjoyable, and how we could it make it more so. why eLearning is seldom enjoyable: policy constraints, design faults, problems in the blend (not enough social), isn't for everyone, sometimes learning hurts Now, how we can make (e)learning more enjoyable: challenge conventions, tell interesting stories, provide engaging challenges, don't overdo the self-study, express yourself! But don't stop there. Watch Clive's Pecha Kucha and decide for yourself.
Anyone thinking about emerging technologies recognizes the "blessing and the curse" being brought about by the overabundance of "anytime, all the time" information falling down on our heads. We love it and it wears us out as we learn to be a different type of person, learner, chooser, reader, scanner, thinker.
This month, a very thoughtful article in the Digital Humanities Quarterly takes a deep look at some of the research and implications of the fire hose nature of information flow, especially as it affects teaching in a higher education setting. The day of "turn off your laptops" as solution is so very behind us, but it doesn't seem that very much of HE is even thinking about how to change, adapt, do our job differently.
For those of us willing to enter that murky water, do read Gordon and Bogen's (2009) interesting and challenging expedition into deep seas.
Every two weeks, my colleagues gather informally in a small room over cookies and chocolate to talk for 20+ minutes on technology-enhanced teaching and learning. It's called TechBytes and it's come on-come all-come just a few in very busy and stressful schedules. Thus the 20-minute framework and the cookies.
Last week, we talked about more effective use of media in covering subject matter. A story tells the story better than a lecture. The challenge is to find material and here's a few great places to start:
For open material, visit Jane Hart's post of 25 free instructional video sites. As always, Jane researches, inquires, gathers and delivers some excellent links for instructional and educational videos.
Tony Hirst put together a "How Do I...?" search engine of instructional video sites that brings it all under one umbrella if you're looking for these.
For ASU affiliates, the Library pays for access to excellent resources in multimedia. My favorite is Films on Demand (aka FMG, from the Films Media Group), which include feature-length documentaries and academic videos. These resources are often impossible to find at the Library site, so start at the subject librarian's ASU streaming video guide page.
We also talked briefly about the UCLA vs. AIME lawyers' attack on HE Fair Use practices, but that's a messy can of worms for a short recap on fair and easy use of media. For those wishing to dig deep, I can't more highly recommend the work of my favorite fighter for the common good and 'copyleftist' Lawrence Lessig:
"In real libraries, in real space, access is not metered at the level of the page (or the image on the page). ... You get to browse through the whole of the library, for free. You get to check out the books you want to read, for free. The real-space library is a den protected from the metering of the market. It is of course created within a market; but like kids in a playroom, we let the life inside the library ignore the market outside. This freedom gave us something real. It gave us the freedom to research, regardless of our wealth; the freedom to read, widely and technically, beyond our means. It was a way to assure that all of our culture was available and reachable -- not just that part that happens to be profitable to stock. It is a guarantee that we have the opportunity to learn about our past, even if we lack the will to do so."
Lawrence Lessig (2010). "For the Love of Culture: Google, Copyright, and Our Future." The New Republic, January 26.
The same is true of schools and thus the "Fair Use" section (107) of US copyright law. Just because the world is rapidly changing from flat text to many media options, from paper to digital, from doc to mp3 & mp4, from the classroom to the world room, doesn't mean Fair Use changes for vendors based on form of media or place of the classroom, nor that our access to knowledge should be newly limited or available only to the wealthiest among us. Just the opposite should be true, and if there were anything higher education should be willing to fight for, it is the inalienable rights of everyone to have access to the content that shapes our ideas, our lives, our limits.
Wasn't that an old Hallmark slogan? Well, it's much better suited to the value of streaming media and I made much use of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative's live and archival streaming of their keynote and featured sessions this week.
I don't always agree with the "technology at all costs" agenda of ELI, seen in the choice of topics and speakers (proud self-titled Edupunks, geeks & dweebs) at the meeting, but if you're curious about the leading edge of technology-infused educational practices, these are the sessions to watch.
While you're at it, check out some of my favorite thought leaders -- including the passionate teacher Gardner Campbell, innovation king Cole Camplese and assessment superman Chuck Dzubian. You'll also find a very fun overview of leading trends in the "lightning round" of commentary/presentation regarding the latest Horizon Report on emerging trends.
If watching tiny people talk isn't your thing, do be sure to check out the Horizon Report 2010.
It's always released at the annual ELI meeting, and always an exciting, collaborative understanding of what's happening (and will be happening up ahead) for higher education. I've always loved the thoughtful, research-based and transparent way that the New Media Consortium (NMC) chooses and uses an advisory board to select and describe "emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, orcreative inquiry on college and university campuses within the next five years."
Why I think they're the best research out there on technology use and futures in HE: their board is more than 40% international; they use a Delphi Process to select the trends, and the board drafts the report via a wiki. It's the "we smarter than me" that I write about so often now. Would that we could incorporate their processes into our courses as the teachable moment.
Speaking of transparency: It's true I have reason to be biased and love NMC. They let me host my "Shared Knowledge" Wiki project at their site. Recognizing the value of my dissertation research in collaborative, shared, and distributive knowledge makes me deeply
Fair Juliet claimed that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but Juliet never had to assess learning and certainly could never have imagined the tools we now have to do so. Most of which we just don't use much or in very inventive ways.
Use of technology that allows a learner to take more ownership of learning, subject mastery and self-evaluation has helped in understanding more applied formative assessment practices. A few that we tossed about in the latest College of Public Programs TechByte lunch topic on assessment were the rich, often hidden features within Blackboard tests/quizzes.
Here's bottom line. We want learners to learn. Do we really care that it took them more time/effort than another learner, or that they didn't understand a concept first time around? Why not use testing as a way for them to explore meaning, work through issues they don't understand, concentrate harder on the material they didn't master, and give them a tool and an option to rethink / redo / revise? Isn't that how learning happens best?
Here's a few practices shared in putting our heads together. Add any you've come up with and perhaps our students will actually value, instead of dread, our assessment practices.
Blackboard (at ASU; other places, other CMS...same principles):
Set test for multiple attempts. You can choose number of attempts (unlimited, 3, etc) and time frame (Monday from 9am-noon, 50 minutes per attempt) , but why are we asking that they get it right first time? What if it's the way you phrased question that stumped them? Where's the harm in going back to the book, rethinking, trying again, going back to the source? It may be the only time they do!
Randomize questions for each redo, forcing students to concentrate on questions each time, not just fill in madly to get to the missed questions. (also hinders sharing)
Put questions in a pool, allowing students to pull different questions each attempt (see bullet above on sharing). This is also a great way to offer a final, randomly pulling questions from previous quizzes.
Set exam for storing best attempt, not last attempt. Research shows that students are more likely to try again if not afraid of inability to top last score. (BB instructors: this feature is oddly hidden in Grade Center/Modify Column, rather than via deployment - which is why so few of us use it and leave last attempt as default)
Give feedback immediately for each of the missed questions. Don't provide answer, but perhaps the page in text where concept is found or the reason they may have missed question, etc. One instructor (Hey, Kelly!) tells us that she has been consistently receiving grateful feedback from learners as she improves feedback on missed (and correct!) responses in her quizzes.
Tom D'Angelo and Patricia Cross suggest that unless feedback is very immediate or absolutely needed to progress (eg "follow my advice on your rewrite of this paper, or else"), students don't review or follow up on feedback. Giving them auto-feedback, in a low-risk environment where they know you don't see their first effort, is a great use of technology to invite time-on-task and mastery learning.
Other ideas for more formative self-assessment practices using the CMS testing options? Send them my way and I'll incorporate.
Wasn't that an old Hallmark slogan? Well, it's much better suited to the value of streaming media and I made much use of the 