W12 Mobile and Virtual

For Class Discussion:

Mobile and virtual learning will continuously grow expanding the horizon of promises, innovations, revolutions, and challenges. Distinction between mobile and virtual learning can be subtle, and video/online games and virtual worlds are also web technologies not to ignore. Truth is, adoption and use of web connected mobile phones and devices will grow, and their needs for content access and collaboration will expand. Less discussed, but important and related pedagogy includes location based learning, ubiquitous learning, and game/simulation-based learning.

1. Mobile Learning Environments by David J. Gagnon
2. Educause's 7 Things You Should Know About Mobile App
3. Educause's 7 Things You Should Know About Android
4. The Official Google Blog: The Future of Mobile by Steve Kolowich
5. Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Virtual Worlds
6. Video Games and the Future of Learning by Kurt Squire
7. Sharing: The Moral Imperative by Dean Shareski (26 minute video)
8. Questioning the Future of the Open Student by Vicki Davis

Further Resources - These are for those who want to explore further...

1. Free as in Freedom: The Power of Pull – John Seely Brown by Sumeet Moghe
2. Travis Allen’s Blog: The Life of a 21st Century Student.
3. The Mobile Campus (#3 and 4 illustrates the current practices, challenges, and needs of proper research)
4. Educause: From Distraction to Interaction: Incorporating Cell Phones Into the Learning Environment (13 minute audio)
5. From Toy to Tool: Cell Phones in Learning a blog by Liz Kolb. Please explore her site and be sure to listen to Liz Kolb’s and Jeff Stanzler’s blogtalk radio interview with Florida Spanish teacher, Ariana Leonard. You’ll find the interviews on the right hand side of her blog. You can listen to this interview directly on the site or via iTunes. (35 minutes)
6. Educating the Net Generation, Chapter 12, Learning Spaces
7. Educating the Net Generation, Chapter 15, Planning for Neomillennial Learning Styles: Implications for Investments in Technology and Faculty (You can choose either the pdf or html version (with diigo highlights) of Chapter 15)
8. “Living Epic”: What the title means and what it implies by Roger Travis. Be sure to read parts 1-3 (the links appear at the end of posts 1 and 2)
9. My Personal Learning Network in Action by Karl Fisch
10. Cell Phones in the (Language) Classroom: Recasting the Debate by Peyton Jobe
11. Social Media in Africa, Part 1
12. Social Media in Africa, Part 2: Mobile Innovations
13. Social Media in Africa, Part 3: Democracy. Want to know more about the impact of mobiles in the developing world? Check out this 38 minute presentation by Nathan Eagle of MIT (not required), “Crowd-Sourcing on Mobile Phones in the Developing World“

Popular Tools - Course Google Site at https://sites.google.com/site/idt351sp2012/

1. PhoneGap - Open source mobile framework for developing/downloading apps
2. Portable Applications (Many applications are search-able by topics and categories)
3. Second Life, OpenSim, and Virtual Worlds Review
4. Scratch - Easy to use remixing tool from MIT (video 1 min)
5. Game development: Unity, GameSalad, Sharendipity, Alice (3D programming)
6. National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
7. Siri - Virtual assistant
8. Foursquare - Others can check where you are and where they have been, info around you
9. ClassSpot and TeamSpot from TideBreak.Inc

You can comment on any of the following:

• Which tool was your favorite? How did the tool compare to others introduced in this week? If you plan to adopt the tool, for what purposes will you use it and how often? If you don't plan to use, why not?
• Do you think a school or workplace must actively use tools introduced in this week? Anything to consider in adoption or implementation at school or work?
• Or your reflection on anything related to the course (material, assignment, clarity, usefulness, suggestion, reaction to others, etc.)

W11 - Social and Personal Networks

For Class Discussion:
We all know social networks, such as Facebook are big and here. Tools for social networks network have a definite place for teaching and learning, but contexts play a bigger role, so you should have clear purposes and plans before integration into them into teaching and learning. Regardless of your opinion or preference, our students and learners use these tools very actively, so we must know what benefits and pitfalls they have to guide proper use in education.

1. Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom an Alan November video (13 minutes) - The concept of a student, learner, and contributor
2. Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Personal Learning Environments
3. Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Facebook
4. Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Facebook II
5. I’m So Totally, Digitally Close to You by Clive Thompson, NYTimes
6. Comparing Social Networking to Online Communities by Lee and Sachi Lever
7. Spectacle at Web2.0 Expo… from my perspective by Danah Boyd

Popular Tools - Course Google Site at https://sites.google.com/site/idt351sp2012/

1. Facebook (can sign in with yahoo account)
2. Ning
3. LinkedIn
4. Orkut (can sign in with gmail account)
5. Now, Google related Google Plus

Further Resources - These are for those who want to explore further...

1. Sharing: The Moral Imperative by Dean Shareski (26 minute video)
2. My Personal Learning Network in Action by Karl Fisch
3. Questioning the Future of the Open Student by Vicki Davis
4. Kiva.org - Microloans for less fortunate
5. TakingItGlobal.org - connects you to social issues that affect us all
6. Mashable - latest news and trends on social media

 

You can comment on any of the following:

• Which tool was your favorite? How did the tool compare to others introduced in this week? If you plan to adopt the tool, for what purposes will you use it, how, and why? If you don't plan to use, why not?
• Do you think a school or workplace must actively use tools introduced in this week? Anything to consider in adoption or implementation at school or work?
• Or your reflection on anything related to the course (material, assignment, clarity, usefulness, suggestion, reaction to others, etc.)

W10 Content Presentation

For Class Discussion:

The bottom line is, lecture without much interaction, good structure/sequence, and/or interactive media can be boring, and we all have bad experiences from (long) PowerPoint presentations. If any tool from this week is selected and used well, it will make presenting contents much more interesting. There are many tools and media hypes about podcasting, screen capturing, online video, and virtual conferencing, but it's all about presenting and sharing more rich contents easier, faster, and reach more people. Tools selected for this week exactly address that - some focus more on audio, others are more on video:

1. Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Next-Generation Presentation Tools
2. Challenging the Presentation Paradigm (in 6 minutes, 40 seconds): Pecha Kucha by Jason B. Jones
3. Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Tips in particular, the three sections, ‘Organization & Preparation Tips’, ‘Delivery Tips’ and ‘Slide Tips’.
4. Seth’s Blog: Really Bad Powerpoint

Popular Tools - Course Google Site at https://sites.google.com/site/idt351sp2012/

1. iTune
2. Audacity - (Be sure to download the MP3 save add-on by checking the plug-in option under the Download menu)
3. Skype
4. Wordle
5. Slideshare
6. Zoho Show
7. Prezi (3 lessons)
8. Jing
9. Ustream
10. Elluminate (virtual conferencing, now called BB Collaborate, free version supports up to 3 people)

Further Resources or Tools worth checking:

1. PechaKucha 20×20
   
2. Screencast-0-Matic
3. CamStudio (Windows only)
4. Talkshoe
5. Flickr Slideshow
6. Spresent
7. Glogster
8. Vuvox
9. TodaysMeet
10. Poll Everywhere
11. Livestream
12. Podcasting with Windows Media Player by Jake Ludington
13. Create a Podcast with Blogger (YouTube Video, 2:26 min)
14. JuiceReceiver - a media aggregator which automatically downloads podcasts and media files to your computer or portable device
15. Educating the Net Generation: Chapter 7, Convenience, Communications, and Control: How Students Use Technology
16. Video for ELI: Net Gen Students at University of Minnesota from a 2007 Educause Learning Initiative session. Please watch the 5 minute video.

Supplementary Sources, if interested in extending YouTube:

1. YouTube Annotations
2. YouTube Launches Auto-Captioning for Videos by Ben Parr
3. And for another perspective on YouTube’s auto-captioning feature: Sorry, Google, YouTube Captions Aren’t for the Deaf. They’re for Your Robots by Xander Becket
4. Viddler (commenting and tagging video contents to improve search and share)

Ideas and suggestions for commenting:

• Which tool was your favorite? How did the tool compare to others introduced in this week? If you plan to adopt the tool, which one(s) you will use, for what purposes and how? If you don't plan to use, why not?
• Do you think a school or workplace must actively use tools introduced in this week? Anything to consider in adoption or implementation at school or work?
• Or your reflection on anything related to the course (material, assignment, clarity, usefulness, suggestion, reaction to others, etc.)

W9 - Storytelling

For Class Discussion

These tools may look different in terms of purposes and usage, but they have one essential commonality: creativity. Using storytelling, drawing, or mapping tools, people can create artifacts, learn visually, practice with safety, simulate the model, and most importantly, have fun and learn actively (and also collaboratively).

1. Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Digital Storytelling
2. Web 2.0 Storytelling: Emergence of a New Genre by Bryan Alexander and Alan Levine
3. Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Google Earth

Popular Tools

1. Voicethread - The Voicethread 4 education wiki is a great pedagogical resource.
2. Animoto. Using Animoto to Promote Speaking in the Foreign Language details how José Picardo used it with his Spanish language students
3. Gliffy - Online diagram software, can create and share flowcharts, network diagrams, floorplans, user interface designs, etc.
4. Toondoo - Create your own comics! Book Maker. Make a character or ToonBook!
5. Flick'r - The most popular online photo management and sharing tool
6. Digital Storytelling Part V – Google Maps by Silvia Tolisano
7. Concept/story mapping: Mindomo and Spicynodes
8. Picasa - Fast and easy photo sharing from Google
1. Flick'r upload plugin for Picasa
2. Free Picasa Flash and HTML template

You can comment on any of the following:

• Which tool was your favorite? How did the tool compare to others introduced in this week? If you plan to adopt the tool, for what purposes will you use it and how often? If you don't plan to use, why not?
• Do you think a school or workplace must actively use tools introduced in this week? Anything to consider in adoption or implementation at school or work?
• Or your reflection on anything related to the course (material, assignment, clarity, usefulness, suggestion, reaction to others, etc.)

W7 - RSS

For Class Discussion:
The topic of RSS is also closely related to finding and evaluating information in a connected world (week 4). All are to manage information more effectively and efficiently.

1. RSS in Plain English by Lee and Sachi Lefever (3.5 minutes)

Popular Tools - Course Google Site at https://sites.google.com/site/idt351sp2012/

• Google Reader
• Bloglines
• And more RSS tools or feeders - Some are for desktop and platform specific
• RSS Mix (web service) - If students work on research or web search, their search URLs can be combined and created into a RSS feed
• If you know HTML code and DreamWeaver, this service automatically converts any RSS feed into a JavaScript code, which you can add to a layer. If your page has a panel or column where updated RSS news contents can appear, this is it! (RSS to Javascript)
• Pageflakes, Netvibes, vs./& iGoogle - Each tool allows you to add many panels/flakes to a single web page. The first two allow you to organize panels by different RSS feeds (if the web site provides RSS feeds).

Further Resources - search URLs or Wiki page history can become your Reader subscription, but be aware, unless

1. Google's News Advanced Search - If results are good, can copy the search URL to Reader's subscription field
2. Blog search from Google or Technorati's watchlist - same action as above can be done
3. Moreover or Syndic8 - they claim, their search are more targeted to social media and results provide easy RSS subscription
4. Google's news sources when you use the Blogger or Reader
5. Google Scholar, DigitalCommons@UConn, DASH, eScholarship - inside each source, you can find the RSS subscription feature

You can comment on any of the following:

• How has your access to Web resources of your career/major interests expanded? Did it create information overload for you or were you able to organize your RSS to manage the quality and quantity of information?
• After your lab experimentation, any unique or major strengths of an RSS tool? Which tool did you try? What is your plan for using an RSS for teaching or learning?
• Anything to consider in adoption or implementation (e.g., how learning from RSS can be shared among class or institutional members, etc.)
• Or anything related to the course (material, assignment, etc) or your learning experience in terms of using RSS

W6 Collaborative Writing and Editing

For Class Discussion and Weekly Blog Post:

1. Wikis in Plain English by Lee and Sachi Lefever (under 4 minutes)
2. The Power of Wikis in Higher Ed by Linda L. Briggs

Popular Tools - Course Google Site at https://sites.google.com/site/idt351class/

• Google Docs - Check out Tom Barrett’s Interesting Ways Series using Google Docs.
• Google Sites
• Wikispaces
• PBWorks
• Wetpaint
• And more tools (some can be downloaded and installed onto a server)

Further Resources

1. Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Google Wave
2. See Who’s Editing Wikipedia by John Borland
3. Wikipedia and the New Curriculum by David Parry

You can comment on any of the following:

• Any difference, strengths or weaknesses compared to blogging tool(s)?
• Any unique or major strengths of wiki tool?
• Anything to consider in adoption or implementation (e.g., user management)
• Or anything related to the course (material, assignment, etc) or your learning experience

W5 - Blogging

 

For Class Discussion (to prepare in advance):

1. Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Blogs
2. Reflecting, Writing, and Responding: Reasons Students Blog by Carie (Windham) Page

Blogging Tools - As a group/pair, select one blogging tool from below or any popular one, then post a needed information about the tool to the course Google Site: https://sites.google.com/site/idt351spring2013/home.

• Blogger - Free weblog publishing tool from Google, for sharing text, photos and video
• WordPress - A popular open source content management system focusing on web standards, and usability. A nice how-to screencast by Molly McDonald on setting up a WordPress blog (10 min)
• Joomla - Another popular free, open-source content management system (CMS)
• Drupal - Another popular free open-source CMS
• MoveableType - Another popular free open-source CMS

Further Resources (for those who are interested in exploring further about blogging)

• Edublogs Award site
• Tom Barrett’s Interesting Ways series
• Blogging Policies and Resources Wiki by Bud Hunt
• Blogger for Word - Can post right to your Blogger from Word
• The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging…And When to Use Each One
• Great blog post example from Will Richardson on: “Why Johnny’s Professor Can’t Read”

Your comment can be on any one of the following (150-250 words):

• Which blogging tool is your favorite, why? Which feature(s) did you find most useful for teaching or learning?
• Any difficulty or challenge experienced?
• For what purposes do you plan to use your blog? Class lecture showed possible applications, such as portfolio, content/file management, class discussion, etc.
• For adoption or implementation within an organization, what is important?
• Course set-up, material, and assignment, etc.
• Or any personal reflection