CC blog

the sort of assignment (I think) we want our students to create

What impresses me is that this has been viewed 541,000 times.  Our students could do work every bit as good as this.....I'm not saying this should be the only type of work they do - but certainly this should be part of the work that they do.

we need our own song

google docs new site for college students

Google launched a new site today to help college students figure out the best ways to use Google Docs.

As with many folks I often wonder why Google doesn't take the next steps and put out a cloud based CMS?

Some of the suggestions on the site make a good deal of sense:

These include:

• "Brainstorm notes for group projects - With a record of everyone's thoughts in one place, no good idea gets left behind."
• "Need surveys for classes? - Send out a form to your email lists and get an organized spreadsheet of responses instantly."
• "Use forms for your student group or dorm - Collect RSVPs, organize your budget, or take collaborative meeting minutes."

How wonderful it would be if these tasks could be seamlessly embedded into the course design and learning experience.

prediction about slideshare and google

Slideshare just announced the ability to import Google Docs directly into their service.

I tried it out and it works pretty nicely.

My prediction for the day is that Google will purchase Slideshare.

The two sites are a natural fit.  The Google Presentation tool in Google docs never really took off.   The tool is okay, but what is lacking is a community around the the presentations.

Slideshare has a vibrant community.  It has established itself as the destination for presentations.   A Google Slideshare makes sense, as the service could take advantage of Google's technical expertise and scale.

The big thing that is missing from either Slideshare or Google Presentations is the easy ability to do voice-over presentations.  This capability should be fairly easy to implement, particularly given Google's experience with YouTube in allows webcam/audio capture and upload in the browser.  A dead simple voice-over recording and sharing tool for online presentations would dramatically expand the utility of the service.  

Easily allowing the presentations to be published on Google Slideshare or YouTube would provide a superb platform for sharing the material.

Blackboard loses appeal. Open source competitors exhale.

You have probably heard by now that Blackboard has lost its appeal against Desire2Learn for patent infringement. Reading through the decision, the judge is pretty clear not only about affirming the original dismissal of the first 35 of Blackboard's arguments, but also determining that the final 3 relied substantially upon earlier points, leaving Bb with not a single leg of its argument to stand on.

Not only is this good news for Desire2Learn but it also helps to secure a "happy place" for open source LMS to continue their development without fear of some lawsuit in the future. It will be interesting to see what Bb's next move will be.

Tweeting in the back row

I came across this article today, which speaks to a number of the topics we have discussed in various conversations this year. The article is "College professors find Twitter a useful educational tool" from the Wichita Eagle newspaper. In typical "news" style, the article does not go into much depth, but there are a couple of lines that will ring familiar to many of us.

Others say experimentation with Twitter is the latest sign of a real shift in education, away from a professor lecturing students to a more democratic and wide-ranging exchange of information.
...
That means, of course, that students can also tweet from class, potentially broadcasting a professor's comments across the globe.

"It's something I've learned to accept, but it's hard," said David Kamerer of Wichita, assistant professor of public relations and new media at Loyola University Chicago.

"They might be IM'ing or on Twitter, commenting on the lecture, and I have no way of knowing," he said. "It's a little unnerving, but slowly it has become an accepted part of academia."

The other concern raised is about student attention.

In a perfect world, I'm sure that lecturing professors would prefer to have 100% of student attention.* But since we do not live in a perfect world, which is more preferable to this same lecturing professor--to have students falling asleep in the back row or to have students engaged enough to "tweet out" the salient points of the lecture and/or to find and broadcast information related to topic being presented?

A couple of years ago, I assisted a team-taught course that discussed related issues in three national cultures. The faculty members prepared their lecture notes and the links and visual materials to support the lectures, which they put up in Blackboard, but invariably questions or topics would arise in class (from students and professors) that were outside of the prepared materials. That's where I came in. 

Officially, I was in the class to ensure technology worked, to add my comments (since my field overlapped), and to help "control" the Blackboard links and visuals. What I ended up doing, though, was more interesting. I was actively Googling things that would come up and, when appropriate, signal the professor. My search results could then be shown to the class. It worked beautifully, and allowed for a much richer classroom experience. Unfortunately, it was definitely not scaleable campus-wide. There was only one of me, after all. Nor was it reasonable to expect that a professor would want to actively derail the conversation in order to perform Internet searches constantly during the class. The hemming and hawing during a search at the podium is uncomfortable and a time waster, and student attention will wander. This is where I see opportunity for tools like Twitter.

For students who are comfortable multi-tasking, the tweets in the back channel can provide an enhanced conversation, links to related content, and feedback on the course. If the Twitter-stream is docked somewhere on the instructor's station in the room, then particularly interesting or useful tweets can then be brought to the foreground of the class discussion for comment and analysis. 

Contrast that with the value of the notebook doodles of bored students or the dreams of the dozers! I think I'd prefer the tweets.

*Of course, in a perfect world, many of us would probably prefer not to have professors who merely lecture, either.

iPhone 3GS and higher ed.

The NYTimes has an interesting article on the new iPhones and Pre's called:  Smartphone Rises Fast From Gadget to Necessity

"For a growing swath of the population, the social expectation is that one is nearly always connected and reachable almost instantly via e-mail. The smartphone, analysts say, is the instrument of that connectedness — and thus worth the cost, both as a communications tool and as a status symbol."

What clues can the new iPhone 3GS give us about the future of higher ed. and technology?

Pricing:  As costs come down ubiquity will increase.  Already Apple has a free Touch program with a purchase of a new computer for students.  The $99 iPhone will lower barriers to student purchases, which should dramatically increase.  As the Times points out, the trajectory for the iPhone is moving towards "free", with revenue raised by services.

Voice Memo:   A new built in App is the iPhone/Touch recorder.  In the "Guided Tour" Apple positions this application as a "Class Recorder".  Distributed lecture capture.  A mobile podcasting platform.  Another tool to create rich media projects.

Video and YouTube:  The big deal with the new 3GS is not video - but the one touch uploading to YouTube.  If we can get out heads around this on the curricular side we could imagine all sorts of interesting assignments and course projects.  Students carrying around a ubiquitous video recording (authoring) and publishing (YouTube) platform offers up all sorts of possibilities for creativity.

Will YouTube become the dominant curricular media publishing solution?  Is there any reason why course multi media projects should be published anywhere else? 

5 e-paper, e-book and Kindle projects for higher ed

1.  Course Kindle:  Develop an application that syncs a CMS (Blackboard) course to a corresponding Kindle course.  All curriculum, including readings, syllabi, PowerPoints, course documents,  and assigned books are synced to a Kindle course shell.  Re-syncing will add new content such as discussion board posts, blogs, wikis, and any new course documents.  Course material - including all course reading - is always with the student to access and consume wherever she has her Kindle. 

2.  Course Pack Kindle:  A simpler version of the "Course Kindle" concept - one that does not require writing a new application.  Create a pre-loaded Kindle file container that includes all the curriculum for the course, including books and journal articles.  Add in "optional" readings.  Avoid the need to photocopy.  (Campus bookstores may be worried about this option).

3.  Shift Print Subsidy to e-Paper Subsidy:  All campuses subsidize printing on paper in some way.  Students do not see or pay the full cost for printing - including costs of printers, consumables, and waste.  Identify the true costs, pass those true costs on to students who still want to print on paper, and use those dollars to subsidize an e-paper (and e-paper device) program.   See Princeton as an example:  http://www.princeton.edu/ereaderpilot/

4.  College / University Publication e-Paper Initiative:  All IHEs subsidize a great deal of printing on paper.  College newspapers, magazines, newsletters, public relations materials.  Identify true cost of this paper printing subsidy.  Move subsidy to e-Paper and e-Paper reading devices.  Allow organizations who still want to print on paper to pay true cost, allow readers who want to read on paper to pay true cost.

5.  Student Portfolio e-Paper Project:   Begin pilot project to collect term papers, thesis, talks, dissertations etc. produced by students at the institution.  Provide individual students a system to collect a portfolio of all their work at the institution in e-paper format.  Allow departments to collect senior thesis', masters and doctoral dissertations as e-paper documents to share with prospective students.

my dumb phone plan

I'm a huge believer in mobile education.  I think what M.I.T (and others) are doing in this space is visionary.  (See the ECAR Case Study: Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Transforming the Campus Experience with the MIT Mobile Web

Every IHE needs a mobile strategy. 

My particular interest is in having our course structure and curriculum as available as possible with mobile devices, allowing students to consume chunks of content (articles, videos, discussions) and collaborate with fellow learners (blogs, wikis) etc. from their smart phones and iTouches. 

I believe that mobile devices have a potential to make learning (and our courses, faculty and institutional resources) portable and omnipresent.  Content and applications not on mobile devices will simply be less relevant.

So it is in firmly believing all this that I set out to purchase a dumb phone.  And not just any dumb phone - but the simplest, most stripped down phone made.  Perhaps I'm asking for an intervention here (I have not made the purchase yet....Verizon contract just ended)...but this is the way I'm going.

The phone I'm looking at to purchase is the Pantech Breeze

To quote CNET, "The Pantech Breeze is definitely ideal for senior citizens and those with disabilities...".  

Why would I get the dumbest phone out there when it will not be able to do any of the educational things I so strongly believe in?

1.  Lack of options for a Smart Phone.   Only AT&T works at my house.  The iPhone seems too big and too delicate....and I just like real keys.

2.  The Palm Pre looks really nice....but we don't get Sprint here.

3.  The Google Android has lots of promise....and it roams to the AT&T network.  But I've been underwhelmed by the first G1 - too big and just strangely shaped for calling.

4.  Without a good option (that I can see) for a Smart phone then I want the dumbest phone imaginable.  The easiest, simplest, slimmest, strongest, and feature-less thing made. 

Smart phones that will change the educational landscape are definitely coming, but from where I sit in June of 2009 they have not yet arrived.

jing 2: integrates webcam with direct upload to youtube for easy authoring without a keyboard

are the days of Blackboard numbered? Google Wave

Google Wave was announced today.  This has led some of us around here to wonder if in the long-run Blackboard's days are numbered as the predominant platform in which we organize and deliver our courses.

I wouldn't say numbered....but I would say BB's future needs to be different from its past. 

How you ask?

BB should focus on integrating their core value proposition (user management, assessment, grade center, etc.) with social learning tools and publishing platforms.  

A grade book (or grade center) is hard to do. 

Integrating with a SIS is hard to do (for handling drops/adds etc.)  

A testing/quiz engine for formative assessment is hard to do. 

Authentication is hard. 

We still need all these things, but they really need to work with consumer social learning/collaboration tools. 

Paradoxically, for BB to remain relevant it needs to recede into the background as much as possible. 

To be specific - yes - I want to be able to use a Google Wave for a team project.  But I want all the students automatically in the system (pre-populated).  I want the students to authenticate into our Google Wave area by going through BB.  And I want this for lots of applications.  A YouTube channel for my class, automatically created and pre-populated with my students.  Slideshare.net chanel and accounts.  Typepad blog - pre-populated.  A Facebook Organization (or whatever the call it) - pre-populated.   All with 1 authentication. 

All available to students once they leave the class.  Available to the outside world.  But all initially set up by the CMS.

Is this the direction that Blackboard is actually heading?

blackboard and the groundswell

Michael Feldstein at Oracle has a nice post on how Blackboard should interact with the learning technology community following its acquisition of Angel.

Three Tests for the ‘New’ Blackboard

His tests include: 

1. Drop the Desire2Learn Patent suit.
2. Implement IMS Common Cartridge—including export—in the main Bb Learn product
3. Implement IMS LIS across all their LMS products

This is a good list.  Given Feldstein's credibility it will be most interesting to see how (and if) Blackboard responds to these tests.

My recommendation.  Blackboard should open up a true interactive blog / social network on the Blackboard.com blog page http://blog.blackboard.com/blackboard/ - inviting discussion, dissent, debate etc.  Only censor inappropriate posts.  Encourage Blackboard employees and partner to blog honestly about their thoughts about the product, the company and the industry - even when they do not follow the corporate message.

This is not a Utopian recommendation.  And just because Apple goes the opposite way does not mean that Blackboard should as well.  I'm convinced of the business value of openess.....and if Blackboard decides to not go this way at least they could all read Groundswell and let us know why they are staying with their more traditional corproate strategy.

Am I wrong?  Is Blackboard doing this now and I'm just missing something?

relay for student assignment feedback

Ran across an article linked from the Techsmith site on how Western Washington University is using Jing to provide feedback for papers in the Writing Center.

http://westernfrontonline.net/2009042710945/news/writing-center-introduces-new-program-to-assist-students/

This is illustrative to where communication will be going.  With Relay, I envision faculty being able to quickly and easily give feedback to student papers and presentations.  Verbal feedback can be quick, nuanced, and personal.  When placed in Blackboard, instructors can choose whether to keep the feedback private, or let the rest of the class learn from feedback.

The next step is allowing students to easily provide verbal, voice-over feedback - and to author voice-over presentations and projects.  The Blackboard Wiki combined with Relay will work wonders for this eventual practice.

By way of demonstration I did a quick Relay screencast over a Word Document.

http://bit.ly/OpiqD

kindle dx a game changer for higher ed

Today's announcement of the Kindle DX marks the beginning of the end of the print textbook. Not a moment too soon.  The broken paper textbook model has pushed some schools/departments away from using textbooks at all, a real loss as textbooks done correctly can help organize and systematize the curriculum, allowing flexibility for creative and active learning assignments.

I predict that Colleges and Universities will begin to subsidize these devices for their students do to their potential save on printing costs. 

Think of the typical printing subsidy instead going for a Kindle.  The native PDF capabilities of the Kindle are very exciting, finally allowing (if this is implemented correctly) us to avoid printing out all these articles, reports and chapters.

It is encouraging to read the list of IHE's that will be beta testing the Kindle DX, measuring student success vs. traditional textbooks using a case / control methodology.  Amazon is pursuing deals with texbook publishers to offer Kindle editions, a development over time that should lower costs to students and be in the interest of publishers at this will bypass the used textbook market. 

I wonder if anyone is thinking of a Blackboard Kindle Application?  One that would synch up content, blog posts, discussions, Wikis, even assessments - and then synch back to the Web version.  Unsure if the technology models are at all compatible....but it is interesting to think about Kindleizing a course.

Professors experiment with Twitter as teaching tool

Professors experiment with Twitter as teaching tool
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/43747152.html

A few comments:
They didn't mention using a camera on your iphone or other mobile device to upload and view through Twitter/TwitPics. Nice feature for field work.

Now that there's Twibes (i know, funny name...http://www.twibes.com/) a course could have their own Twibe, use a hashtag or specific word in each tweet, making it easier to identify course tweets and avoid personal tweet clutter.
Josh, consider using this for your sociology course?!

On a slightly personal note, the article mentions setting up a Twitter account for a family restaurant. I've been talking with Liam about doing just that for Murphy's! Post the evening dinner specials, events and add a scavenger or trivia to it by tweeting something like, "Find the book Sophie's Choice in the restaurant and get a $10. gift certificate."  :-)

A roundup of interesting links

Just wanted to share these links with readers. They're coming from many directions today, so please forgive the randomness.

1) From Inside Higher Ed is this column by Scott McLemee on "Print or Byte?" discussing the accelerating shift to digital publishing and the "hidden revolution" being driven by scholarly publishers. Much of the column is in fact citing an article appearing in Against the Grain by Sandy Thatcher, director of the Penn State University Press. Of particular interest is the note that, “The sole area of resistance to this revolution so far has been the publication of illustrated books." Think, "art history." 

While I agree that there is a particular pleasure derived from viewing artistic coffee-table tomes, I do think that digital publishing of artistic texts can provide something that is more interactive and richer, too. PDFs may not be the answer, but as devices like the Kindle evolve (perhaps into my vision of the thin-film retractable scroll) there is room for an art text digital revolution as well. I would also agree with McLemmee's conclusion that physical books are likely to persist for some time for reasons that go beyond the text.

2) The Library of Congress now has a YouTube channel! Huzzah!

3) net.effect is the blog of Evgeny Morozov over on the Foreign Policy website. This blog looks at "How technology shapes the world." The posts are fantastic and I recommend adding it to your list of reads. It will be interesting to see if he continues to maintain his personal blog as well, though I think that he will. Both are worth checking out.

4) The remix culture may have a new meme, the topic being explored by John Biggs at CrunchGear in "Birth of a meme: Goldeneye Dance." In short, a glitch in a video game spawned an animated music video exploiting the glitch that in turn has spawned live-action reproductions of the glitch by people in costume.

5) In another line of remixing culture, are you aware of the use of Facebook and Twitter to recast literature and history? Ok, not actually using Facebook and Twitter, but parodying the format of these web 2.0 tools to retell Hamlet on Facebook, Pride and Prejudice on Facebook, and a host of spoofy Historical Tweets. Still, I would argue that to successfully do this requires a good deal of understanding about the original work. 

6) Robin Ashford, who write the "Librarian by Design" blog, yesterday posted the entry "Should Academic Librarians Assist in Virtual Worlds?" I enjoy reading about her experiences as a RL and SL Reference and Distance Services Librarian at George Fox University and am regularly impressed by how adept she is in Second Life. In this post she asks, "Does it make sense to have a librarian who is conversant and able to assist when needed by faculty teaching classes in those worlds? Might some institutions consider this an asset," a question that reminds me of the challenges we often face regarding the value of course redesign and technology integration. Are these skills being understood and valued for hiring, tenure and promotion?

And finally, two entertaining links:

7) Slumdog Millionaire as movie remix mashup, while it lasts.

8) ToneMatrix, a fun sound toy. This is actually very similar to a feature of the Korg synthesizer for the Nintendo DS.

maybe and easy pdf converter for the Kindle

http://blog.fsck.com/2009/04/savory.html

This is what Adobe should be doing.  Adobe...give this guy a job.

Depressingly, it does not seem that this application will "Kindleize" pdf's for the iphone/itouch. 

The blog post with the Savory link is fun to read, as the author of Savory has no idea if what he is doing is Kosher, how it will impact the Kindle warranty, and if Amazon will be happy or upset with this tool.

Note to developers everywhere....please put together a pdf to Kindle app converter for pdf's.  I can live with loosing images.  This is a major piece along the road to mobilizing content.  If someone could help me understand why this has not occurred as of yet I'd be eternally grateful.

microsoft's netbook kerfuffle

NYTime's story today on Microsoft’s Netbook Conundrum.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/microsofts-netbook-conundrum/

The story asks can Microsoft square the circle of having Windows 7 work on netbooks but be priced at a cost the netbook buyers are willing to pay without cannibalizing sales of the OS on more robust machines.

The danger is that Microsoft could become less relevant as Linux versions become more stable and user friendly, meeting the feature/performance needs of buyers while costing the sellers very little.

This matters to us, as netbooks are poised to be ubiquitous among our students and learners - perhaps not as a primary machine but one that is used when the user is mobile, traveling, taking notes etc.  This ubiquity as a second machine will mean thar our curricular materials and learning/collaboration tools need to play nice with the size and performance of netbooks.  A world of more Linux users will mean that we need to be Linux knowledgable, and be sure that our learning platforms (and eventually client apps) work well with this OS.

So what is Microsoft to do?  I've said it before (and I have not seen this other places - would like to know others enaging this argumetn) - Redmond should come out with a Microsoft branded netbook.  Buy Acer or MSI or some other Taiwanees OEM, and then come out with a really tight hardware/software integrated product.  Sell for no margin, and make the money by having the default browser go to MS services, search mail etc. (Require a Windows Live email to buy or something).  Make the netbook work as well as a Mac, which makes its products work so well because the OS does not need to serve an infinite variety of hardware - just Mac designed hardware.

Microsoft should get out of the middle ground.....be at the low-end (netbooks) and high-end (workstations and servers).  The Windows 7 business will continue...as the only bundle should be with a netbook - allowing the netbook MS operating system to differentiate itself.  This integrated hardware/OS netbook should stay away from a fancy presentation layer, and perhaps even the upgrade file system (when that comes).  Focus on a very well integrated browser and browser based productivity suite.  Get things like keyboard, screen, and design right.  That could be a compelling product.

Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning

The Learning Technologies Centre of the University of Manitoba has just published its "Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning." It can be accessed via the web in HTML or PDF format.

The first page is the annotated table of contents below:

============

Preface

This Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning (HETL) has been designed as a resource for educators planning to incorporate technologies in their teaching and learning activities.

Introduction

How is education to fulfill its societal role of clarifying confusion when tools of control over information creation and dissemination rest in the hands of learners[3], contributing to the growing complexity and confusion of information abundance?

Change Pressures and Trends

Global, political, social, technological, and educational change pressures are disrupting the traditional role (and possibly design) of universities. Higher education faces a "re-balancing" in response to growing points of tension along the following fault lines...

What we know about learning

Over the last century, educator’s understanding of the process and act of learning has advanced considerably.

Technology, Teaching, and Learning

Technology is concerned with "designing aids and tools to perfect the mind". As a means of extending the sometimes limited reach of humanity, technology has been prominent in communication and learning. Technology has also played a role in classrooms through the use of movies, recorded video lectures, and overhead projectors. Emerging technology use is growing in communication and in creating, sharing, and interacting around content.

Media and technology

A transition from epistemology (knowledge) to ontology (being) suggests media and technology need to be employed to serve in the development of learners capable of participating in complex environments.

Change cycles and future patterns

It is not uncommon for theorists and thinkers to declare some variation of the theme "change is the only constant". Surprisingly, in an era where change is prominent, change itself has not been developed as a field of study. Why do systems change? Why do entire societies move from one governing philosophy to another? How does change occur within universities?

New Learners? New Educators? New Skills?

New literacies (based on abundance of information and the significant changes brought about technology) are needed. Rather than conceiving literacy as a singular concept, a multi-literacy view is warranted.

Tools

Each tool possesses multiple affordances. Blogs, for example, can be used for personal reflection and interaction. Wikis are well suited for collaborative work and brainstorming. Social networks tools are effective for the formation of learning and social networks. Matching affordances of a particular tool with learning activities is an important design and teaching activity

Research

Evaluating the effectiveness of technology use in teaching and learning brings to mind Albert Einstein’s statement: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted". When we begin to consider the impact and effectiveness of technology in the teaching and learning process, obvious questions arise: "How do we measure effectiveness? Is it time spent in a classroom? Is it a function of test scores? Is it about learning? Or understanding?"

Conclusion

Through a process of active experimentation, the academy’s role in society will emerge as a prominent sensemaking and knowledge expansion institution, reflecting of the needs of learners and society while maintaining its role as a transformative agent in pursuit of humanity’s highest ideals.

(CC by University of Manitoba)

slate's love note to the kindle

http://slate.com/id/2214243

I'm thinking maybe I should get my hands on one of these things