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Sunday, June 24, 2007

NECC 2007 - Expanding Your Classroom with the Interactive Web

It's NECC time!

I assume that if you are reading this, you are probably in my NECC workshop entitled "Expanding Your Classroom with the Interactive Web."

Instead of creating CDs or killing a lot of trees to provide you with notes of resource addresses for this workshop, I am providing these links to site here on my blog. It's quicker, it's easier, AND you can access them with the click of your mouse.

We will discuss the basis of the Interactive Web (AKA "Web 2.0" but I can't use that term here - it is copyrighted ;-)) We will then explore the educational possibilities of using blogs, wikis, podcatching, podcasting and social networking software in the classroom. By the end of this workshop, if all goes well, each of the attendees will have their own blog, wiki, podcast and del.icio.us accounts.

Here are the resources that we will be using. I am posting this here to share it with you readers, but also so that my students will be able to link to them from this posting instead of having to create a whole different website. (pretty cool, eh?)

Connectivism Website - George Siemens

Classroom Blogs
University Class Assignments
Blog-bib - Annotated bibliography on blogging
Weekly Teacher Blog - 3rd
Student Blog - 5th Grade
Prepare for Field Trip - 4th grade. Sets stage for trip.
Edu.blogs.com - Evan McIntosh. Comments/reflects on using tech in ed.
www.weblogg-ed.com - Will Richardson
Dr. Z Reflects - Dr. Z's humble attempt at blogging.


Overall Blogging Examples

Captain's Blog - Journal of Captain Mark Bromwich in Afghanistan.
BG Blogging - Creative Writing blogging from Middlebury University
Blogging NECC 2007 - Page full of blogs about NECC 2007
Bloglines - On-line RSS Feed Reader. Get an account.
Technorati - This is the Google for Blogs.

Create Your Own Blog

Blogger - Quick and easy blogging spot.
WordPress - Takes a little longer, but includes tagging and couple of other treats. It's worth the extra time.

Wikis
Wikipedia - The encyclopedia created and edited by "the masses".
Dr. Z's ITEC Conference 2006 Wiki - Check this out for more . . .

Friday, June 22, 2007

Reality in Second Life at NECC


I am sitting here in the Cedar Rapids airport at 5:40 AM waiting for my aerial coach to whisk me off into NECC-land in Atlanta, GA. This is my annual trek to the NECC(a) MECCA of educational computing.

A new dimension has been added this year with the ISTE Second Life experience. I am not enrolled in any SL activities yet, but learning about SL and the instructional opportunities of the Virtual Worlds will be one of my quests over the next 6 days.

The beginning of the SL integration into the NECC RL experience is the inclusion of SL nametags. An industrious member, Know Clue, has accepted the job of taking member-submitted photos of SL members and turning these into Nametags. http://www.flickr.com/photos/knowclue/page2/

You will see my photo/nametag in this entry. Looks just like me, eh?

Remember the mantra of Second Life, "On the Internet, Nobody knows you're a dog."

Friday, April 13, 2007

Distance Education through Second Life

As I contemplate the opportunities provided by Second Life, I see a number of potential pathways.

Consider SL as an opportunity to provide another dimension to distance education. It can provide another dimension that will enrich the learning experience. Last night I taught one of my distance education courses at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). It is a face-to-face video course over the Iowa Communications Network (ICN). The ICN is an Iowan resource composed of a state-owned fiberoptic network that connects over 800 broadcast sites throughout the state. These broadcast/reception sites vary in sophistication, but all of them include monitors for reception and cameras for broadcasting. Most of them include teacher computers along with DVD players, VHS players and overhead cameras. It is said that no one in Iowa lives more than 20 from an ICN classroom.

My class last night involved me sitting alone in an ICN classroom at UNI and talking with students at 7 sites across the state. Most of my classes include students in the UNI classroom as well as the satellite classrooms but not this time. I control who and what is seen from my control tower. Some sites have multiple students while other students sit alone in their classrooms. The interaction between the students and between the students and me is somewhat limited. I don't see students communicating much between themselves outside of the classroom unless they are involved in completing a classroom assignment.

Imagine if this course was taught in SL. At it's basic level, it would be a chat room with avatars. Interaction would depend upon students' typing skills as well as their interest in the topic. One of the problems with using a written interface is the extended lag time between questions and answers. This gives us a chance to consider our ideas before we share them but it can also cause frustration. SL will ultimately provide an audio interface (it is in beta format now) which will bring a more satisfying interaction between participants. I have used Skype to interact with others while in SL and it worked well. Unfortunately, there is a limit of 4 participants (I think) in a Skype conference call so it would require limiting the class size.

SL can play audio and video broadcasts that are streaming through the Internet. This means that I could share videos from Edutopia by the George Lucas Education Foundation. I could just post them one of the videos screens in SL in my "classroom" whatever that may look like.

Playing streaming audio feeds also means that we could use the Webcasting technology that the EdTechTalk podcast guys have developed. This means that multiple folks could connect with me through Skype and then broadcast this through the web which could then feed through SL. The best part is that we would see the avatars standing/sitting together. I have found this geographical proximity to be an interesting phenomena which I will discuss in another posting but I think that it improves the interaction experience.

Musical concerts are happening in SL every week so the process of mass communication is already a reality. This interaction is something that will provide great opportunities.

What about panel discussions or group interaction or ??? These are the topics for another post.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Second Life Again

Last night I spent an interesting time in SL (Second Life). I have been honored by a friend of mine to share a virtual house in the virtual life of SL. This friend, Ferdi Serim, has spent his life developing new ideas for making education more relevant and more exciting. Presently, he is living in New Mexico working with students on a nearby Indian reservation.

Anywho, Ferdi invited me to join him in a house on EduIsland in SL. He rented the land and the landlord suggested that he had a house already built so said that he could have it. I must admit that I have been questioning the sense in having a home in a virtual land. Interestingly enough, it gives me a feeling of belonging. It is a place where I can go and talk with people. In fact, I have been meeting people who have been walking by the house and invited them in for a discussion.

Perhaps the best part of the house is the way that Ferdi and his friends have decorated the house. He has installed a huge speaker system and has figured out how to stream music that he has performed and recorded into the surroundings so that you can enjoy it.

Last night, Ferdi suggested that we go to an SL location called Svarga. It is an incredible fantasy land. Ferdi and I found out castle that a music room. We had a jam session on some percussion instruments. What a groove. Another participant in the jam, Rasmussen, videod the session and you can find it here.

The world of Second Life is just now beginning to grow and the possibilities seem endless.

Tell me what you think.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Teachertube is here!!!!!

I have been looking for this for a long time. It is TeacherTube.com

Teachertube.com appears to be a youtube for educators. You will note the note that notes " Keep it SAFE! Flag all Inappropriate Videos"

According to the "About Us" at the bottom of the page, Teachertube opened March 6, 2007 so it isn't even a month old. It was put together by a teacher.

This is where teachers can upload their instructional videos or videos of them instructing. What a WONDERFUL resource for professional development!!!!

Here is a video that shows how technology can help educators dance through the day.

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=7f89ddbebc2ac9128303




Leigh

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Getting Into Second Life

We are finally "into Second Life."

I am an associate professor in Instructional Technology at the University of Northern Iowa. I must admit that I have "fiddled" with Second Life for about 6 months. This means that I have ventured onto Second Life and then retreated. Not because I couldn't "do" SL. It was because I saw the incredible attraction of the site and realized that this spot could consume a GREAT DEAL of my time.

Recently, our whole division decided to approach Second Life and explore it as a venue for delivering/exploring/experiencing instruction and learning. On Thursday, all six of us went on-line together and explored various spots. An interesting aspect of this process was that 5 of us were sitting together in a classroom at the university while I sat at home and explored it from a distance spot. I could have gone into school as well, but thought it would be fun to be the "distant explorer." We also integrated Skype so that I was part of the oral discussion that ensued.

We had our Techie guy kind of leading us but each of us had done some previous exploration or had friends who had suggested places to explore.

Presently, we are exploring what it would take to create a learning center in SL. We want to see what it would cost to get "enough" land. We need to find out how to create each of these buildings. We are discussing sharing spots with other institutions.

I have met a number of people/avatars on SL. It is another accessible market for friends/colleagues/potential students that will change our lives. Communication is the main motivator for progress. Consider the evolution of communication. Bell developed the telephone in 1875. This provided individual voice communication. Marconi and a number of other inventors across the globe developed radio broadcasting in the 1880s. This provided a broadcasting of information over large distances. The basics for television also began in the 1880s but the video communicator didn't become common in households until 1950s.

The Internet was made accessible to the public in the early 1980s. It became commercial in 1985. The Internet had a crude interface that Dante himself couldn't have conceived. But it was actively used because it provided a person - to - person seemingly immediate connection that could connect throughout the world. In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the basics for the World Wide Web (Wikipedia says that he used a NEXTcube as its first server.) The WWW provided a graphic interface for the Internet as well as a relatively simple way for folks to publish and share their ideas for all of the world to enjoy.

This progression went from 1-to-1 voice (phone), 1-to-many voice (radio - corporate controlled), 1-to-many video (Television - corporate controlled), 1-to-1 text (email), 1-to-many text (listservs), 1-to-many graphic (websites - personally controlled), 1-to-many video (YouTube et al - personally controlled). Now we have the wonderful virtual world (like Second Life) where we can have 1-to-1 connections but I can walk through places that are of interest to me and meet other people who have similar interests. This will expand my personal network and help me build communities that are not geographically limited.

As I wrote this short and simplified history of communication, I realized that there are many aspects that I have left untouched. The evolution of audience can also be followed here. Directed audience as with a phone call. The expanded audience that is only limited by access to a receiver (radio or TV) or channel (cable TV).

The important aspect that I am trying to portray here is that we are social animals. Communication is what will always push a technology into acceptance. Since we can't teleport to other places in the world and universe (ala Star Trek), working within a virtual world can provide close second where we can experience and create desired realities.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

The ITEC Conference is a huge success!! . . . and so was my Interactive Web workshop

Well, the ITEC Conference is over and it was a success.

Over 500 educators attended and they had an opportunity to meet with old friends and make new ones.

The hottest topic of the weekend was podcasting. Podcasting, blogging, and wikis were on everybody's minds. I must admit that part of my perception might have been biased because I did a workshop and a session that involved using these 21st century tools in the classroom.

My workshop, Expanding Classroom Opportunities Using the Interactive Web, was quite successful. Although we had some Internet access problems, I was fortunate to have a room full of techno-veterans who were able to work with the challenges. This workshop was meant to demystify the Interactive Web. Throughout the 2.5 hour span, we explored the wonderful opportunities provided with blogging. We explored a number of examples and each attendee created his/her own blog through Blogger. I must admit that I like the tagging capabilities of Wordpress.com better, but it's a lot faster to make a blog on Blogger.

We followed this by exploring the wiki-world. I had a couple of folks who had never even heard of the word, Wiki. I reminded them of the Wikipedia. We visited Wikipedia and even added a sentence on one of the entries. (Don't worry, it didn't affect the meaning.) I then directed them to the wiki I had created for the conference, ITECconference2006. When you look at this wiki, you will see that I created a page for each of my presentations. This was intended to provide a place where folks could access our resources and add their own. (I was kind of hoping that they would make the changes during the presentation, but that didn't happen.)

Anywho, each of the attendees created an account on wikispaces. There are others, like Peanut Butter Wiki, but this is the easiest one to do in a short period of time.

We finished with podcasts. I had intended to provide each learner with the opportunity to create their own podcasts - even had microphones. Unfortunately, we ran out of time so I asked them if they would like to see me make a podcast from start to finish. After their resounding cry of "YES", I began my venture.

I began with Garageband (check out the tutorials) because it is so simple to add background music and edit. I created a quick 30-second audio recording. We then selected music for an intro and an outro (Like that name? I just learned it last week from the Apple website.) We added those musical clips and placed them appropriately (along with the proper "ducking.") We transferred the podcast to iTunes where it immediately started playing. We needed to convert the file to an mp3 format for the podcast, so we used the convert feature on the Advanced menu. Finally, we had to use the "Show File in Finder" command to find the mp3 format of the file so that we could move it to the desktop.

Confusing? It can be. I hope that Apple makes this process MUCH less complicated in iLife '07 or sooner. This is also why I supplied each of the attendees with instructions on How to Make a Podcast Using Garageband. (I will post these soon.)

The most difficult part about giving a workshop on creating a podcast is deciding where to upload the podcast so that it can actually be heard. Usually, we geeks have access to a server where we make special accommodations for them to upload their work.

I found an alternative!!!!! I found Pod-serve.com
This is a site where you can upload your podcast and, belive it or not, it does all of the RSS magic there too. This means that you just need to upload your podcast and then you can immediately subscribe to it. I must admit that I don't know much about this company, so you should check it out before you use if for your workshops or classes.

Elapsed time for making a podcast? 15 minutes from beginning to end. Would you believe that I just checked on the podcast that we made and it already has 51 subscribers? Must be a slow day in pods-ville.

This workshop was my first one covering these 3 tools of the Interactive Web. I hope to do many more. I have applied to NECC 2007 to make a similar presentation. I truly hope that it is accepted.