Technology in Practice

 

While perusing educational technology blogs during the last few weeks, I have found a few technologies which would be interesting to apply to my own personal professional practice.  Story Kit (Apple Online Store, 2013) is an iTunes application for creating an electronic storybook. It allows the user to write text, edit, sketch, or attach photos. It is applied and saved in your iPhone. This allows its’ use any time, any place.  Though Story Kit is designed for children learners, I believe it could be used in a fun way with adults too. Two ways I would use this technology would be either to use it as designed with a 6-8 year old learner group or with adults in an online forum using one of the pre-loaded children’s story formats for an ice-breaker/introduction exercise. Every class requires the obligatory introductions; this could make introductions much more fun for students, while also familiarizing them with technology. This technology also allows for creation of a new story from a blank slate. Rather than asking learners for another short paper on their reflections of the past weeks, using Story Kit to narrate their reflections demonstrates their use of technology and creativity. More information is available from: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storykit/id329374595?mt=8.

Another technology which caught my eye was “Vyew” (Simulat, Inc., 2013), a website that allows collaboration through live conferences which can share files, video, and pictures. This technology allows students to review and annotate projects and meet and present to peers. It also allows educators to teach and tutor, as well as track and log activity. One way I would use this technology is in a collaborative research project. By requiring it’s use an educator offers learners a technology which will simplify the collaboration process and leave a data trail for the educator to follow to indicate who is participating and who is not. This not only helps the student by giving them a state of the art forum to create their research project, but it aids the educator in applying participation points to each collaborator according to their level of contribution to the group. Another way to use this technology is as a direct teaching/tutoring tool. By making themselves available through Vyew, educators can offer special attention where needed with learners who need extra instruction. Rather than being limited to a one on one educational experience, the instructor could invite any number of struggling students to join the lesson. Another option is to invite students who are excelling in the subject area for peer instruction through the website. For more information, see: http://vyew.com/s/.

Coursecasting (University of Bristol, 2011) is a technology which records lectures and teaching activities, stores them, and makes them available over the Internet. Traditionally, video and audio equipment have been used to record lectures and then upload them as video files to a specific location. Coursecasting allows the same functions, but can be done with any computer which has the software loaded onto it. Using screen capture, an educator can narrate directly to screenshots, record classes and seminars, and use interactive whiteboards. This can be used by an instructor to quickly, and inexpensively (at no production cost), create tutorials for use as reference materials in weekly online assignments. When teaching in a traditional brick and mortar environment, educators can easily capture and record a classroom discussion, including interactive whiteboarding, for later review or for students missing class. This is not only good reference material for students, but an excellent way of preserving specific classroom sessions for later integration into the curriculum. In this way, spontaneous instructional ideas are recorded in real time for later reference and replication. For more information see: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/esu/e-learning/support/tools/coursecasting/.

Through technologies such as these I hope to make my professional practice fresh and up to date. Using state of the art technologies implies to learners my own dedication to the art of instruction, my willingness to explore new technologies (and encourage the same of my students), and my intention to create a learning environment which captures their interest, fosters learning, and encourages adventure through new challenges. All too common is the classroom with the instructor who drones on and on in lecture, or the online “teacher” who regurgitates a canned syllabus and makes perfunctory comments in a discussion forum. Today’s technology can make both teaching and learning a fun and rewarding experience for all!

 

References

Apple Online Store (2013). iTunes preview. Retrieved 10-21-13, from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storykit/id329374595?mt=8

Simulat, Inc. (2013). Vyew: Share your view. Retrieved 10-21-13, from http://vyew.com/s/

University of Bristol (2011). Coursecasting: Encompassing lecture capture and screencasing. Retrieved 10-21-13, from http://www.bristol.ac.uk/esu/e-learning/support/tools/coursecasting/

Literally hundreds of millions of people use some form of digital communication every day. It is pretty incredible to think that there really has never been a specific usage structure for digital communications. The result of this is perhaps noticeable to most social media users and digital communication recipients. All one has to do is scroll through a social media wall or read a couple of emails from friends and associates to recognize the disparity in usage structure. I’ve gotten messages I couldn’t decipher because of abbreviations, acronyms, and short cuts! NetiquetteIQ is designed to address these issues. They state that their products are specifically designed to promote improved grammar, composition, and usage in digital communications. They offer a book in hard copy and digital form: “NetiquetteIQ- A Comprehensive Guide to Improved, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email.” The book offers a concise set of instructions for digital communications. Perhaps an even more useful technology is their blog NetiquetteIQ.blogger.com. This offers up to the minute suggestions and real situations which can be discussed in a blogging forum. As an adult educator, these resources would make an excellent reference for learners to develop some form of established usage guidelines. I would build this resource into the introduction phase of each course, requiring learners to review the ebook and the blog, then report on findings in a DQ style classroom discussion. More information can be found at http://www.netiquetteiq.com/Benefits.aspx.

A related concern is Internet Ethics. Most of us just hop onto the Internet and do our thing without considering if “our thing” follows best practice or ethics for the digital domain. What exactly are Internet Ethics? A slideshare program by the Brookings Institution gives a relatively brief description of the top 10 Commandments for Internet Ethics. Issues such as hacking, privacy, copyrights, and plagiarizing are addressed. This would be a simple program to require new learners to view and discuss in each classroom. As an online adult educator I feel it would be my responsibility to improve the ethical understands of my students. This slideshare program presents basic Internet Ethics and provides a blogging forum to further discuss them. This would be an invaluable tool for educators and learners alike. More information is available at:  http://www.slideshare.net/smartinson/smm-10-commandments.

The Open Education Resources (OER) movement is credited to an MIT OpenCourseWare project in 2001 which was followed in 2002 by putting their entire course catalog online (Wikipedia, 2013). This began an openly accessible source of almost limitless learning potential. One of the most popular OER sites is Kahn Academy.

Founded by Salman Khan, the Kahn Academy has grown from Kahn tutoring his cousin via Yahoo’s Doodle Notepad in 2004, to an international phenomenon with more than 1 million subscribers viewing over 260 million lessons on thousands of topics (Kahn Academy, 2013). Through short video clips over 1400 subjects are covered, from basic to advanced topics. My personal experience with Kahn came in 2012 when I took a graduate statistics course and needed help grasping difficult concepts. For absolutely no fee I was able to watch, again and again as needed, videos on each advanced concept which thoroughly explained each topic and visually demonstrated each equation on an electronic grease board. Perhaps I would have found another way to get help, but I feel this resource saved me from floundering in the murky waters of inferential statistics!

The lessons allow for practice, testing for comprehension, statistics regarding progress and participation, and achievement recognition through a badge system. This is a global classroom that, if the student chooses, can be accessed by educators as well. This would be invaluable to teachers who can look at a glance and see how their students are progressing with a complete summary of class performance. Kahn Academy does the record keeping, the data compilation, and even makes statistical charts available at no cost. I believe this resource is a revolutionary enhancement to the educational environment.

While Kahn Academy is best considered a tutoring resource, the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) mentioned in my introduction not only started the OER movement, but continues to this day as a very effective resource for students, self-learners, and educators. Students use OCW to enhance knowledge in a subject they are taking, to complement a course they are taking, and to plan a course of study. Self-learners would be learners who are not currently enrolled in a course but desire to learn more outside of their area of expertise, enhance their area of expertise, keep up with continuing education in their area of expertise, and apply new knowledge to a work related project. Educators can learn new teaching methods, develop curriculum, use OCW materials in their own classroom, and acquire continuing education. As of 2011 127 million visits had been made to the OCW site, with over 50% of the traffic coming from outside the United States. They have a total of 1018 courses (MITOPENCOURSEWARE, 2013).

The scope of these sites is tremendous. Between just these two sites (leaders in OER offerings) nearly a half a billion lessons have been delivered, for free! These are valuable resources that completely change the educational landscape. As an educator, I would make use of OER resources to continue my own education and maintain state of the art and best practices. I would use material from OER resources in classrooms and refer students for tutorials and research purposes. These resources will enhance any online educational environment and increase both educator and learner success. Please see the URLs in References below for more details.

References

Kahn Academy (2013). A free world-class education for anyone anywhere. Retrieved 10-08-13, from http://www.khanacademy.org/about

MITOPENCOURSEWARE (2013). Site statistics. Retrieved 10-10-13, from http://ocw.mit.edu/about/site-statistics/

Wikipedia (2013). Open educational resources. Retrieved 10-08-13, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

Gaming is an interesting way to learn using today’s technology. In the past I have taught Morse code training classes to groups of prospective ham radio operators. We used a grease board and audio tapes to listen to and learn the code. Learning to send was simply just using a Morse code key to send words written on the grease board. A company called Newgrounds.com has created an action game with requires both sending and receiving Morse code in a world war II simulation game. This game encourages accuracy both sending and receiving through the computer keyboard to stay alive and “win the war”! It takes the tediousness out of just sitting, learning code from a series of beeps. It helps learners use the code as a language to communicate with instead of just dots and dashes. You get so wrapped up in the game, you almost forget you’re using Morse code! Of course, that is the idea. To become proficient at Morse code it has to become automatic, just like a spoken language. I am going to try this game during my next training session. This will be very beneficial to help adults learn Morse code in a fun way. Previously, many people struggled with the dry and boring sitting through sessions of audio tapes. More info on this game can be found at: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/567733.

A key element of gaming education is offering a difficult, complex subject in a fun, interesting, and understandable way. As an example, I will use calculus for the subject. For most of us, this is a complex subject which may seem to have little real world application or need. By creating a game which adults can relate to, these complex concepts can be seen in a new perspective. “Waker” is a puzzle based calculus educational learning game. By solving parts of the puzzle, learners move to more and more difficult mathematical concepts. These are concepts such as position and velocity curves, chains of derivatives, sorting expressions and rules, and simplifying exponential expressions. Just the very terms make me a bit queasy! But “Waker” is an interactive simulation of a dream world that is navigated by using these concepts. I haven’t done calculus in over 30 years, but a few minutes interacting with this game helped me to remember so basic concepts and even apply some new ones! This has direct application to adult learners. Many students going back to college after a lifetime of distractions have difficulty with subjects such as mathematics. Educational games such as these help learners catch on to these subjects in a fun and interesting way. As an adult educator, I would use a program such as this to build foundational mathematics skills, especially as a graduate statistics instructor. For more information, or to try a basic online version, here is the URL: http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/waker.php.

A use can be found for a game or simulation in virtually (pun intended!) any subject. These virtual tools can freshen a curriculum and bring a spirit of fun and competitiveness into the classroom!