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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Using BackChannels in Lectures

What? You want students to chat online while I am lecturing? How can they do that? They won't be paying attention to me and then they won't learn everything that there is to know about the topic upon which I am lecturing!!!!! 

This is the problem with technology. You think that it is something that solves everything when it actually just creates more problems and distractions for students.

Have you ever been involved in a back channel while listening to a lecturer? A back channel is a teacher-sanctioned chat room that enables students to discuss what is happening in class.  This provides an opportunity for them to share ideas and even develop new ones with the flood of information being provided by the presenter.

We teach a class entitled Educational Technology and Design. It is the Technology Intro course that virtually every teacher education student must take. Our team is an exceptional group of educators who are always exploring new ideas about how to use technology to support learning in new and effective methods.

A couple of years ago we introduced Back Channeling.  It was an idea that Robin Galloway championed to provide an online conversation option for students.  We use CoverItLive and we typically have 1 or 2 professors moderating it to ensure that things are on-track as the presentation progresses.

I should mention that we are not passive about back channeling with the 120 students in our lectures. Not only do we urge our students to bring their laptops (about 95% of them own laptops) AND we provide 20 netbooks for students to use. Some of them were using their smart phones to get online. While there are typically some problems with everyone connecting with the wifi, we had about 60 students linked into the back channel today.

Our back channeling has been successful throughout the years. There are some sessions that have had exceptionally good interaction while some that have been quite wanting. Today's back channel was quite successful.  I was lecturing about Web 2.0 and Digital Natives/Millennials

One of the most important things that I was trying to achieve was to create a learning environment that was "different" than what our students had previously experienced in a lecture hall.  We began with asking them all to "pull out your phones."  This shocked many of them but I wanted them to use their phones as clickers to provide feedback using Poll Everywhere.  It worked quite well.

I also made a big thing about using the back channel. We used it for interaction and you will find some interesting responses throughout the discussion by clicking on the image to the right.

The students were tweeting as well to share what they were learning and experiencing. Check out what they included using the #unietd hashtag.

Based upon what the students were saying, this was a game-changing experience for many of them.  We hope that they will take this experience and use it to "think different" about their teaching and learning experiences in other classrooms.

What do you think?  What do you do to give your students a voice?

Saturday, January 07, 2012

Creating a Culture of Innovation

(CC) Hampton Roads Partnership
What does it take to make innovation part of the culture?  Can innovation thrive in a school?  Can we create a culture that rewards innovation in our students?  What about the teachers - can they be rewarded for innovation?

Steve Tobak recently wrote an article for CBS News entitled How to Create a Culture of Innovation. In this article he listed 5 ways to nurture innovation.  Here is a quote from the article:

Identify them. First, you need to have a process for identifying these young up-and-coming stars. Train your line managers and recruiters on what to look for, and make that an integral part of the management and organizational review process so a short list of names is visible at all management levels. That's the first step.
Listen to them. If you actually have a dialog with these folks, you'll learn that they usually have tremendous distaste for the status quo and standard procedures. They probably think the usual rules don't apply to them. They'll want to work long hours, but where and when they want. They'll have a long list of things that "waste their time," like boring group meetings, having to report their every move, and company events. They'll want freedom from what they consider to be arbitrary constraints. It's important to listen, because they need to feel "heard."
Mentor them. Just because you listened, doesn't mean you give in. Be flexible if you can, but don't go too far. You see, they need discipline to realize their potential, but they need to be shown how it will benefit them and the company in the long run. You can't just say, "This is for your own good" and expect them to comply. They're higher maintenance than that. You've got to show them the big picture, the great things the company intends to accomplish, and connect them to those big goals by giving them as much responsibility as they can handle.
Bet on them. This is really where the rubber meets the road. People who are entrepreneurial and innovative by nature need to take risks, and to do that inside a corporate environment means management has to take risks by betting on them. That doesn't mean betting the farm without any "adult supervision" or management oversight, but if you can live with a little less communication on what's going on day to day and keep upper management off their backs, all the better.
Maintain balance. For this kind of culture to work, you can't have unbridled flexibility and hands-off management. You've got to have balance. Imagine a company as a human body. The brain manages everything and organs and cells are specialized to perform unique functions. Everything works in harmony but the endocrine system -- hormones -- keeps everything regulated and in balance. Otherwise, the system would fail. As the metaphor goes, you've got to monitor and regulate the health of the organization so things don't spiral out of control before you're even aware that anything's wrong. To accomplish that, keep a razor-like focus on what's critical and stay flexible on what isn't. 

 How does this fit into the classroom? What educational strategies encompass these ideas?

21st Century Skills
It appears to me that this is exactly what we are talking about when we discuss 21st Century Skills.  We talk about student-centric learning environments. This doesn't mean that the students "run the place."  It means that the students are placed in situations where they are responsible for making things happen. They are posed problems and they need to find the information and develop the skills to solve those problems.  In essence, we are building entrepreneurs who learn to identify and solve problems.

The same thing holds true with teacher and administrators.  Vicki Davis calls this sort of educator a Teacherpreneur.  Vicki was the only one I had ever heard use the term but upon Googling the term, I found that Kristoffer Kohl talks about them and Barnett Berry talks taks about it in his book, Teaching 2030 and their 4-minute video.

So what do you think?  How can we/should we/do we create a culture of innovation for our students, teachers and administrators?  Does your school have a system in place that will support this work?

Tell us about it.flickr

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game

Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game opening page
Gaming isn't about merely playing games. It's about learning through creative problem solving, social interaction, diplomacy, collaboration, and critical thinking.

On Friday, December 9 at 1:00 PM GMT (7:00 AM Central Standard Time) the K-12 Online Conference will release a 20-minute presentation that I created on Gaming. (If you haven't seen it yet, you might want to read my previous post that explains how the K-12 Online Conference works.)

You can get to the video at Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game.

 This slideshow can be found at SlideShare.com at Gaming to Learn


Here are the resources I used in the presentation:

Bottle Bank Arcade image gaming
The Fun Theory is an international project sponsored by Volkswagen to explore how play can be used to change behavior and induce learning in a positive manner.




Jane McGonigal on stage. Gaming Games Learning
Jane McGonigal - A game designer who is researching how gaming can make a difference in the world.  She has a number of presentations that she has collected on her personal page.








  World Without Oil screen gaming
World Without Oil is an alternate reality game that was held in 2007.  The Video is quite informative about how they did it and what the results turned out to be.






Partnership for 21st Century   skills
Partnership for 21st Century Skills and Iowa Core Curriculum are two resources for identifying and promoting 21st Century skill development for our schools.







3D Game Lab  Gaming Quests
The 3D GameLab of Boise State University is the brainchild of Lisa Dawley and Chris Haskell.  This is a system that they are developing which will provide educators with an interactive system for creating learning in a gaming environment.

K-12 Online Conference - Purposeful Play



Have you heard of the K12 Online Conference?  It is a wonderful idea!

Once a year, educators submit 20-minute videos along a specific educational topic and then they release these videos throughout a 3-week virtual conference.

The website describes it as a "FREE online conference open to ANYONE organized by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice.  The goal of the conference  is to help educators make sense of and meet the needs of a continually changing learning landscape."

This year's conference topic is Purposeful Play.  It has 4 strands including:
Sandbox Play, Level Up, Story Time and Team Captains.

Each of the presentations is "released" on a blog at a specified time based upon the 2011 Presentation Schedule. They do this so that the presentations aren't released in one huge on-slaught but rather in sequence over the 3-week period (Nov 21 - Dec 13). You participate by downloading or streaming the presentations and then viewing the presentations. After (or while) you watch the presentation, you can post feedback and comments on the blog.

At the end is a culminating live event to celebrate the Afterglow on 2:00 AM GMT on Tuesday, Dec 13.

I have submitted a presentation entitled Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game. It will be released at 1:00 PM GMT (7:00 AM Central Standard Time) on Friday, December 9.

The resources that I used in the presentation will be available in my next posting on this blog, Dr. Z Reflects.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Products of Innovation

I have a bumpersticker on my car that says "Education is Innovation, Not Imitation"  
It is exciting when we see minds who "think different."  Here are a few products that I just found that exhibit innovation.  These may seem stupid, but fun.
Each of the photos are linked to the source.

Hamburger Bedding

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Digital Storytelling can be Strange.


Digital Storytelling is an instructional process where we are linking to the part of the brain that makes sense of the world from stories instead of facts. Both teachers and students will assure you that they will remember details better if they are embedded into a storyline instead of a list of Fun Facts. Digital storytelling is a process that provides students and teachers a venue for connecting stories and facts.


Back in June, 2010, I had the wonderful opportunity to take a 3-day Digital Storytelling workshop from Bernajean Porter in Denver, Colorado. We were there anyway for the ISTE 2010 conference so Bernajean opened her doors to hold one of her wonderful camps.

No, there was no horseback riding or high board diving. We didn't bang around a volleyball on a sand court or make leather pouches. We learned the essence of digital storytelling along with the skills to use a number of multimedia tools. Most importantly, however, we actually created our own digital stories. This was the true essence of project-based learning because everything I learned enabled me to create this final product.

Bernajean's emphasis in making digital stories is that they need to contain something that the creator  personally learned in the process. A video that spouts merely facts about an event is a documentary. Digital stories must contain an emotional content that personalizes the story.

Three days is not nearly enough time to learn the concepts, tools and create an in-depth story. Therefore, Bernajean provided us with some support by suggesting that we base our stories on the Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken.  We could talk about something else if we had a burning desire to do so, but this poem was to provide the general framework.

I didn't know what I was going to create when I began the workshop, but I brought along a number of photos from the year I was a visiting professor in Malaysia back in 1999.  I felt that these were some interesting visuals and it was definitely a road "less traveled."

I decided to use a few lines from Frost's poem at the beginning and the end but to author some of my own verses that would individualize the story and share what I personally learned through the experience. While I considered the photos I had with me, I wrote my poem first and then found the visuals that would support my words.

Unfortunately, there weren't any scanners that I could use to digitize my photos, so I took shots with my camera and used those. That is why it has taken me so long to post this creation. I have been hoping to find time to scan the photos and recreate the story. It hasn't made it to prime time in 17 months so I will share it with you now.

Another reason that I am posting this now is that our Educational Technology and Design students here at the University of Northern Iowa are beginning to create digital stories to support their thematic units. Thought it was time to bare my soul with my past creation. I want to emphasize the process of writing the script first and then finding the supporting imagery.

Have you created a digital story?  What is your process?
Share some links to your favorite digital stories or ones that you have created.


Thursday, November 03, 2011

Making Learning Meaningful for Millennials

Today I have the opportunity to provide a session at The Way Up XXV conference in Des Moines. This is an opportunity for about 100 women from Iowa higher education to experience learning opportunities in seeking leadership. It is a wonderful opportunity for networking both professionally and personally.

I am sharing my ideas about how we can best address our Millennial students' needs.

Here are the resources that I used. If you have additional ideas, please add them to the comments below.

We will be using technology throughout the session so let's begin with some of the opening resources:

Twitter: If anyone is twittering, we will use the hashtag #WayUpXXV. When you tweet, include this hashtag in your message so that others can follow along with your ideas. If you want to see what was posted, click on the hashtag above and it will show you what has been said.

Collaborative Notes: We will also use collaborative note taking. This is a Google Doc that I created and then laid open to the world for anyone to edit.  This means that you just need to click on the link and it will take you to the Google Doc. You don't have to sign-in but you will be known as Anonymous???? when you are entering your ideas.  Go ahead and add the info that you find interesting.  Go out on the web during the session to find relevant information and add the link to the document.

Making Learning Meaningful for Millennials Slideshow.
You can review the slideshow at slideshare.com.

Who Are the Millenials?
Readings, Watchings, Listenings and Doings
Millennial Mindset
Personal Learning Network 
Gaming

I hope that this session has been useful for you. I am interested in knowing if and how this material has been useful to you. I hope that this is just the beginning of our connection.
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  • Send me an email at zeitz@uni.edu
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 How else can I help you?

Z