Courses « explore. create. share.

24Jan

Just Shoot Me

Abstract: As an introductory activity, Just Shoot Me, is specifically designed to immerse students in transformational learning, a theme that was emphasized throughout the entirety of the course. Students were introduced to these themes through an activity that emphasized the cognitive skill of deep play. The activity required students to take a photograph of themselves that demonstrated an aspect of their personality or interests, and then share it with the class as a way of introducing themselves. In order to complete the activity successfully, students had to engage in deep play by thinking about their concept of self in new and different ways.

Description: Shortly after the beginning of class, students were given an hour to go outside of the classroom and take a photograph that represented themselves in a unique way. The restrictions were that they could not take a traditional “head shot” type photograph, but one that included some context or artifiacts that were meaningful in some way.

Student Examples

27Dec

Investigating new technologies

Abstract: In small groups, students develop a report on one of several Web 2.0 applications, their uses, and their potential for education. As individuals, they reflect and report on the application’s potential use they perceive personally for their teaching/work/professional website.

Description: This activity is designed to be done in two parts over a two-week period: the first with a small group during the first week, and the second part working individually during the second week. As will become clear, you could begin thinking of the individual part as you are involved in the group work.

In a different activity (“subverting presentation tools”), we explored how a pretty common software program (PowerPoint) could be used creatively. With this assignment we shall try to look at some emerging technologies. Each group will be assigned a particular technology (see below). Each of these technologies is part of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Web 2.0 technologies refer to “a supposed second-generation of Internet-based services — such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies — that let people collaborate and share information online in previously unavailable ways” (source: Web 2.0 article on Wikipedia). Here’s a presentation specifically aimed at Web2.0 for Education.

Research and report on the technology we assign to your group by due date (…)
-Cloud Computing (Writeboard, Google Apps, Zoho etc.): Group 1
-Social Bookmarking (such as del.icio.us, Furl, or StumbleUpon): Group 2
-Social Software (such as FaceBook & MySpace) : Group 3
-Social Libraries (such as LibraryThing & citeyoulike.org): Group 4
-Social media (such as the photo annotation tools on Flickr, Video annotation on Voice Thread etc.): Group 5

-other technologies (___________________): Group 6
First: Introduction to a specific Web 2.0 technology.
Your group should do some research to find out about the assigned Web 2.0 technology. Share and discuss as much useful and reliable info as you can, and then, as a group, develop a written report about it. This report should focus on the following:

1. What is the technology? i.e. what is it about? what does it do?

2. What is it being used for? i.e. what are the most common uses? what are some of the more creative and interesting uses? what are people saying about it?

3. Provide some concrete examples of this technology in use (links to sites, examples etc.), particularly in the area of education

Remember this is the web, so don’t feel like you have to create everything from scratch. Feel free to use quotes (with appropriate citations, of course), and links in an intelligent manner.

After you’ve put together this report, post a copy of it on your website. As you are doing only one report as a group, this can be posted on any or all of your group member’s web spaces, as you choose. A draft of this should be completed by the following due date (…).
Second (if applicable): How would you use this technology in your final project (here, the big Kahuna)?

The next step in this assignment is to consider the Web2.0 technology assigned to your group and think about how you could use it in your own teaching/work/website. How would you do it? Would it even work? Then write up your plan, format it as a webpage and post it to your work-space.

Note: Just in case the technology assigned to your group does not make any sense from the point of view of your topic please feel free to choose any one from the other groups. [You do have to stick to one of those we have listed.] Of course, you can get a quick refresher course in the other technologies by visiting the websites and draft reports created by the other groups.

Final versions of the group report and the individual reports should be posted to your websites by (…).

Examples of student work:

History of the assignment:

Suggestions for grading etc.:

27Dec

Subverting presentations tools

Abstract: In a free-standing or Students utilize Google Presentation to create and post an online presentation that pulls away as far as possible from the traditional bullet-pointed lists of traditional PowerPoint presentations, relying instead on imagery and visuals to get the idea of their choice communicated.

Description: Design an online presentation that breaks the traditional (i.e. bullets and text notes) genre/format of the typical presentations (i.e., the typical PowerPoint presentation). Lest you think this gets away from your ‘bigger picture’ semester web project, you will be designing this presentation with the intention of linking it as an instructional resource on your Big Kahuna website (and, if desired or applicable, for your own teaching). You see, the idea is help each of you think ahead, and maybe provide you one more link for the Big Kahuna project!

By “breaking the genre conventions” of the medium, we simply want you to create a single presentation that applies to some aspect of your subject matter that is a more dynamic, moving, engaging, or aesthetically exciting than typical “straight-text and bullets” presentations that PowerPoint has traditionally employed. Features to include in this might be:

Less text/words than we would typically seen in PowerPoint.
More images: Take advantage of the visual medium here. There are some great image galleries available online, so consider using them, or any images you have captured with your own camera.
Think creatively about the use of transitions (wipes, fades, zooms, etc. etc.) and the pace at which they occur. Each of these transitions conveys different meanings, so the question is how you can harness these effects to powerfully convey your idea.
Possibly use audio or multimedia elements (only if you choose to, this is not a requirement). Narration or a music soundtrack can add an entirely different and creative aspect to a presentation, if it is applicable.
“Anything (well, almost anything) goes” here, so if you have any other ideas on ways you want to subvert the genre and make your PowerPoint more interesting, please feel free to try them.

Two free online tools to make presentation you can use is Google Presentations, launched as part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets or ZOHO Show. You could choose one of these tools to make your presentation and publish your presentation online. In the case of the original CEP 817 course, the presentation was additionally to be posted as a link on the student’s individual Big Kahuna or CEP 817 website space.

There is no slide limit or requirement as length will vary by individual, depending on what you want to teach your audience. It should simply be enough to encapsulate the main idea in an interesting way, but not so much as to overwhelm in a single presentation. This presentation could be an introduction to your big idea, an overview/summary of your idea, or it could simply focus on a particular aspect of your idea and focus on that in more depth.

Note: We realize that an online presentation, out of the context of the live presentation itself, can be a little difficult for the new/outside viewer to understand. If you feel that your presentation could be accompanied by a little explanation/exposition you are welcome to include some separate explanatory text, either on your website or in a separate notes file (posted wherever you like).

Examples of student work:

History of the assignment:

Suggestions for grading etc.:

27Dec

Good / Bad Design

Abstract: Equipped with some examples as a starting point, students identify and present examples of good and bad design in everyday life – from appliances to websites, in order to reflect on the essential features of good design.

Description: Over the course of the semester, or in a one-time-only brain reflection task, students are asked to identify examples of good and bad design. To illustrate what is meant by “good” and “bad” design, some examples are given in this PowerPoint file or through the Google Presentation document.

Some questions to think about – and to discuss in the presentation:

What does design do for us? I.e., why is design important?

What is common to all examples of bad design?

What was missing? What went wrong? Why?

What is common to examples of good design?

Examples of student work: You can also discuss this (and other issues related to good and bad design) in a virtual discussion group specifically created for this purpose, as in the original CEP 917 course. Go to the discussion forum...

History of the assignment:

27Dec

Key topics Wiki

Abstract: Students work in groups on an informative multi-tiered WIKI on a provided topic, working either in class or as a distributed work team.

Description: Students are assigned or chose groups of 3-4. Each of the groups will be assigned a topic (see sample topics for the courses CEP 800, 815, and 822 below). The task as a group is to develop a WIKI on this given topic. Students should think of themselves as being “experts” on this given topic who are introducing this topic to the other groups in the class via this WIKI. These topics provided will be relevant for the overall assignment (in the case of the original courses, CEP 800, 815, and 822 the development of a lesson plan) as well. The WIKI should consist of a series of pages, broadly described below:

A summary page on the front end of the WIKI that offers an introduction to the topic at hand. This page should address general issues of definition, categorization, broad themes etc.
This broad description should link to a set of sub-pages that offer an annotated list of key online resources about that topic. The goal is to not link willy-nilly to any resource out there but rather quality resources that could be useful to someone seeking to learn more about the topic (or sub-topics) brought up in the first page.

The topics (from CEP 800, 815, and 822) are:

Developing information literacy, technology skills (in students)
Meeting the diverse needs of your students, assistive technologies, particularly through the idea of Universal Designs for Learning (UDL)
Social and ethical uses of technology (particularly digital equity, intellectual property, and copyright) and healthy practices in the use of educational technology
Using Technology to Facilitate/Develop Creativity and Critical Thinking Skills in Students
Using Technology to Engage in Professional Development & Leadership

Examples of student work:

Assignment History:

22Dec

55 Fiction: Writing a short short story

Abstract: Students create an original 55-word short story and reflect on their thought processes in dealing with creative constraints, then share and vote for favorites to explore the transaction between developer and consumer of creative works.

Description: Your task is to write a short story. A really short story.

There are just two constraints. First, the story must be original. Second, your story has to be just 55 words long. That’s it. 55 words, no more, no less.

We did not make up these constraints. As it turns out, 55 Fiction, as this style is called, is a serious literary form. A quick search on Google for “55 Fiction” will reveal more sites devoted to this arcane art than you can shake a stick at. In fact if you think 55 words is restrictive, be thankful we did not ask you to write a story in 6 words (yes that is a genre of fiction too). The most famous and touching of 6 word stories is by, none other than, Hemmingway who wrote the following story: For sale. Baby shoes. Never used.

There is one additional requirement: Keep track of how you went about writing this story. How did you came up with the idea? How did your thoughts develop? What problems did you face? When did you see a solution? How did one idea lead to another? What did the entire process feel like? Frustrating? Liberating? A pain in the donkey? Take some notes of how the story evolved and reached its final stage.

Once you have written this story, post the story and a short writeup about the genesis of the story to the discussion board.

Note: We must warn you that writing such stories can be quite addictive. So don’t be surprised if you churn out more than one story. Feel free to share all or some of them. However, you HAVE to designate ONE (and only one) as being your official entry.

Follow-up activity:

Have the class vote on their favorite story, along with a rationale for why they picked the one they did. Debrief the activity with a discussion on why this art form teaches us quite a bit on creativity:

It is a creative act
It is a communicative act
It is an aesthetic act
It is constrained in multiple ways
- by the medium
- by constraints of time
- by genre or the self imposed constraint of fitting everything in 55 words
The designer is being limited in what he/she can do
The reader does half the work
Meaning making/Aesthetic quality
- Is a transaction
- Between the reader and the designer
Design can both be fun and frustrating.

Examples of student work:

By Joost Guttinger:

Love and Hate
4×4 Toyota Landcruiser Jeep, 1985, perfect condition. Not for sale (yet). Love. Taking the off-roads, driving to my favorite climbing spots and virgin waterfalls. Hate. Buying new tyres, bribing African policemen, and cracking my windshield after hitting a pothole too fast and too hard. My Toyota, Love and Hate, but mostly Love.

By Lisa Siesser:

I just purchased the black boots I described in my last conversation.
A last conversation about the future that we shared.
While you were thinking about a future that was not to be.
And we all avoided thinking about the future that is.
I think that you must have known I would be wearing them.

By Nycki Cuddie:

“Agobiada,” she thought to herself. Overwhelmed. Never before had this feeling struck with such vengeance. Five seconds of panic and two deep breaths, then she knew what she had to do. She looked up, a dazzling smile on her face, and walked nonchalantly into the room and pretended to be someone else for twenty minutes.

22Dec

Weekly Reader: Social Bookmarking

Abstract: Using the social bookmarking application del.icio.us, students facilitate the flow of data, information, knowledge and wisdom in their area of interest by making a minimum or 4 targeted weekly referrals of sites and links from their RSS feeds.

Description: On a weekly basis, students are asked to dig into their RSS aggregators and to take a few minutes to reflect on an article/link that comes their way. An effective way to manage the incoming content is to open things that sound interesting in a new window, and keep scrolling until one has glanced at everything, and then, to read the 3 or 4 things that really caught one’s eye. These items should be bookmarked and tagged with del.icio.us. For this assignment, this tagging routine is taken one step further by requiring students to fill out the notes field in the del.icio.us site. The notes field allows users to type 255 characters – about 40-50 words. When filling out the notes field, students are asked to answer the following:

“why did you tag the site, why did it catch your eye, how did you find it, why is it useful to you?”

Weekly Assignment Requirements:

-tag a minimum of 4 “things” with del.icio.us

-use the tags – “CEP815″ and “weeklyreader” (so your instructor knows which ones to count towards the assignment)

-annotate the notes field

Steps for tackling the assignment:

Step 1: Make sure everyone in class is in your del.icio.us network. Here are directions on adding others to your network (most of you have already figured this out!): http://del.icio.us/help/network

Step 2: Tag a site “for” someone in class. If you installed the del.icio.us browser tools, you will see your network show up when you click on “tag”. As you are tagging a site, if you click “for:gravesle,” then Leigh Graves will see “Links for you (1)” highlighted in the navigation bar when she visits her del.icio.us page.

Step 3: PLAY!

Lots of outside developers have created websites that interact with del.icio.us to create visualizations of your content – there is A TON OF POTENTIAL to use these in educational settings!!! 3rd party tools can be found here: http://del.icio.us/help/thirdpartytools

Here’s how to get the del.icio.us feed to appear in MSU’s ANGEL system: http://feed2js.org/

Examples of Student Work:

History of the Assignment:

22Dec

Socially Sourced Feedback: The Experiment

Abstract: In this exercise, students are connected to experts in their field for feedback coming from another “expert” beyond the instructor. Using a combination of Jing + Screecast applications, the external reviewers comment on students’ online products (in the original case, modules for an online class).

Description: Ongoing thoughtful instructor feedback without question plays a large role in student learning. However, students tend to appreciate getting feedback from additional people in the field. If available, instructors can tap into their diverse Personal Learning Network (PLN) to match up students with a broader set of reviewers of their work. For example, in teaching “CEP 820: Teaching K12 Students Online” with the culminating project of creating a complete online course module, instructor Leigh Wolf was “lucky to have a large and diverse Personal Learning Network” consisting of “professors, MAET alumni, PhD students, practicing teachers, online learning experts,” and so on. By asking friends and colleagues to access a student course and use Jing + Screencast.com (both free tools) to record their reactions, feedback and suggestions for improvement, an instructor can provide students with an “extra set of eyes” on their work that might be somewhat different from his or her views and preferences. Ideally, one would specifically target people in one’s PLN who would match well with the students’ background or project at hand.

In the case of the student-created online-course modules of CEP 820,online modules were sent to reviewers who’s professional experience and interest matched the content at hand (see examples of such matches below).

Challenges regarding this exercise:

There is a risk in relying too heavily on one’s PLN to provide students with reviewers. At the end of the semester, something like this is the icing on the stress cake. It helps to time the submission of the final project 4 weeks before the official end of the semester to try and alleviate some of this stress.
The process is tedious to manage. Until someone develops a way of making the revier/reviewee process a little more automatic, it has to be done manually. This requires minute attention to detail, making sure the right hyperlinks were going to the right people and making sure no one fell through the cracks. With everyone using different course management systems, keeping track of all the access points can be a bit of a challenge.
Not everyone may turn their assignment in on time. Even understanding instructors who realize that things happen, especially with courses such as CEP 820 where students are working adults, many carrying 2 or more courses plus a full time job will realize that it is not fair to the external reviewers to send them late reviews (as they too have full plates.) In those cases, teaching assistants or gracious volunteers and the instructor may have to fill in for the late submission reviews.
It is unlikely to be able to match everyone up with the “perfect” person — in all likelihood one will have to stretch things a bit when it comes to content experts. This is fine as long as some other relevant expertise can be provided, as in CEP 820 where all reviewers were experts in online/hybrid course creation and pedagogy.

The upsides regarding this exercise:

Students may potentially get connected to AMAZING people they would not otherwise “meet.”
The PLN reviewers are able to experience an alternative form of assessment (using Jing & Screencasts) in a “low-risk” setting, i.e., with students in a course such as CEP 820. In the past, external reviewers expressed appreciation in learning how to use screencasting as a form of assessment/evaluation.

Additional considerations/lessons learned:

It may pay off to be relatively explicit with reviewers regarding the technical side of the reviewing task and to give them some tips on microphone and recording techniques.
Only ask external reviewers to perform one review
Adjust the final project due date even earlier – 5 weeks before the end of the semester? - to avoid the end of semester crunch.

Examples of student work:

Troy’s review of Erin’s “6 Traits of Writing” on Weebly Unit
Jessica’s review of Emily’s “American History” Moodle Unit
Sean’s review of Marc’s “Jared Diamond unit for World History” in Blackboard

History of the assignment: 16 brave souls were willing to participate in the experiment of socially sourcing feedback for students in CEP 820 and graciously offered their precious time to assist in this experiment:

21Dec

Google Docs Developers’ Notebooks

FILED IN CEP 820 No Comments

Abstract: In a semester-long project, teachers use Google Docs to write a detailed, user-friendly “Developer’s Notebook” companion to an online course module they are developing.

Description: Inspired by O’Reilly’s “Developer Notebook” series, students create a document in Google Docs and share with the instructor and teaching assistants. The course this assignment originated in is titled “CEP 820: Teaching K12 Students Online,” so the final product of this assignment is a “Notebook” companion to an online course module they develop over the semester. This notebook is meant to be shared with peers in their particular grade level and subject areas. Since this is an “in process” writing assignment, we chose to use Google Docs over a blog because it allows for frequent revisions, feedback and iterations before polishing and publishing to a wider audience. Google docs has proven to be a great tool for facilitating the feedback and writing process with our online students.

The hallmark characteristics of the O’Reilly developer notebook series are the following:

Example-driven
Aimed at developers
Actually Enjoyable

This is an excellent framework to co-opt for the developer notebook assignment. The products the students create will be usable (and enjoyable) to a wide audience and fill a niche that does not currently exist at that level of specificity. There are many “how-to” create online courses or use course management software books — but very few specific resources for teachers to reference when developing for their own grade level/subject area and CMS of choice. The ultimate goal of the notebook is to have something the students can publish and share with colleagues who are going through a similar development process. We have a wide spectrum of subject areas/grade levels and CMS choices in CEP 820. For example, a 3rd grade teacher may be producing a notebook on how he created his unit in Moodle; an earth science teacher may be developing her course using Ning and so on.

First, depending on level of proficiency, students can catch up on Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets with the following tutorials:

Google Documents: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/google_docs
Google Spreadsheets: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/google_spreadsheets

and, for advanced users, these advanced tutorials on the Google Docs Community channel on YouTube.

The development of the notebook will be achieved using a shared Google Document. This will allow the class to track progress over the semester and provide feedback opportunities all in one tidy learning space. There is no “right or wrong” in this notebook — the key is learning how to communicate. In the entry one stage, do some initial brainstorming for the development of your course. Most likely, things will change as the semester moves along – it’s all part of the process!

A good way to start may be to copy and paste the questions below and write a few paragraphs under each one. Citations are not necessary. There is no proper order, let your questions, concerns & ideas flow! We will be providing detailed suggestions on the ideas you present. Our goal here is to help you become better communicators and to think through all the things that are involved in online course development. When we provide feedback & constructive criticism to you, we ask that you do not fear that you are “failing.” We want you to get the most you can out of this course!

•   Grade Level:
•   Subject:
•   Particular Curricular Unit you are thinking of developing:
•   What do you want your course to look like?
•   What your ideas/thoughts/dreams for class interaction for both teacher and students?
•   How do you think you will assess students?
•   What are some of the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the participation in your online course?

Some additional tips:

Creating a folder in Google Docs helps organize all the docs into an easily accessible area.

INSERT SCREENSHOT

Using a Google spreadsheet much like Robin Dickson’s “Assignment Tracker” helps to articulate expectations and check-in points. Setting specific check-in/due dates helps the iterative process of the writing and feedback reinforcing that this is a real-time, live, engaged writing process with and between student and instructor.

Integrating the history and revision changes tightly into the writing process helps students see the power (and purpose) of the history revision feature of Google Docs.

Why Google Docs? When using Google Docs for this assignment, the process was a lot better than passing around .doc files, checking blog postings, or editing on a wiki. Although there are many alternatives to Google Docs that you should be aware of Zoho, Office Live, Buzzword, & Peepel (to name a few.), We have experimented with all of these tools and have chosen Google Docs because of its ease of access, usability and reliable infrastructure/backbone.Suggestions are always welcome for editing and revising the assignment to make it even more meaningful and useful to students. From a pedagogical standpoint, students sincerely appreciated the frequent and detailed feedback throughout the writing process (as opposed to “final” feedback with no opportunity for revision.) Additionally, when the notebooks are finished they can easily be published, pdf’d or exported to Word for touching up and printing.

Assignment History: A BIG thanks to Laeeq Khan, Greg Casperson, and Anne Heintz who have helped with the development and teaching of CEP 820 during the fall and spring and to Dr. Robin Dickson for her innovative use of the Google Spreadsheet Assignment Tracker.

21Dec

Video Voicemails

Abstract: By producing and publishing short video clips on the class website, teachers can create a sense of presence and highlight important class concepts and activities from a distance.

Description: Video voicemails are a great, quick way to stay in touch with students in online or hybrid courses, or when traveling in face-to-face courses, ensuring that students know the instructor is still present in the course. Such brief (roughly 2 minute long) clips are easily created using a FlipCam or the PhotoBooth on Mac to record the video, but any digital camera with video capture will work. The video voicemails help create the connection between student and instructor and are also a nice outlet to reinforce important concepts/theories, address confusion, and create a class culture.

Just remember, keep them short! Anything beyond the 2 minute mark will move it beyond “voicemail” and turn it into a “regular” lecture.

As an assignment, students can be asked to create a fun-and-informative sample video voicemail for a class of their choosing, taking into account the background of their class, the time frame in which it would be sent to students, the topic of the course at the time, and making good choices about what to include and what to highlight given the tight timeframe.

Examples of Student Work: [INSERT THE TWO LEIGH VIDEOS]

Assignment History:

Grading Suggestions:

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