CC blog

September 2009 books

We're starting to have more opportunities to talk to each other about what we are reading.  The Library has organized a great "What Are You Reading" lunchtime series (thanks Laura!).  More of us are posting quick reviews on the Visual Bookshelf app on Facebook.  

Wouldn't it be great if the LIbrary Web pages had a social element...a place where we could post  and search for reviews from local people.  Sort of like what Amazon does...but totally local.  I care a great deal about what the people I work with are reading and what they think about their books.   How could we make this happen?

Okay...the books:

Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible by David Plotz

The perfect book if you are:  a) Biblically illiterate, b) want to know more about the roots of your religion, and c) are too lazy to actually read the Bible.  Since I hit on all three of these criteria I definitely quality - I'm thinking of buying copies for my whole family.  We could discuss Plotz's book at Passover.  Actually, I'm more convinced then ever that I need to sit down with the Bible as a route into my heritage.  I got so much out of Good Book because I know so little about the Good Book.  Stunningly little.  Plotz is funny, smart, irreverent, generous, and argumentative.....all the things that my people pride ourselves on.   This book came out of "Blogging the Bible on Slate" - perhaps one of the few instances of any redeeming qualities for blogging.

Grade:  B+ 

An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage 

Nothing beats books that tell the history of the world through something we can get our minds around.  I love books that take narrow subjects to tell huge stories.  Standage is a master of this craft.  If you love reading about food and love big history then this book is a 5 start treat.  

Grade:  A-

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis

When I need to get away from learning technology I retreat to the 18th century.  Ben Franklin is my usual companion....but I'm down with the whole band of brothers.  Reading about our revolution and our revolutionaries reminds me that our country has faced much longer odds and much bigger challenges in our past.  Reforming health care and education may be tough, but nobody is going to get hanged by the British if we fail.  My time with Thomas Jefferson mostly came in relation to Ben Franklin's years in France or familiar stories about the writing of the Declaration of Independence.    Ellis' book is great because he does not try to be exhaustive (an impossibility) but focuses on the character and times of Jefferson.  

Grade:  B+

The Scarecrow and The Brass Verdict  by Michael Connelly

Connelly is among my top 5 favorite crime and police procedural writers.  Both prolific and entertaining, Connelly's books are always strongly plotted with good detail and appealing characters.  Beach books you can read all year round.

Grade:  B+

iTablet iPad - regardless of what you call it the rumors are flying

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/backstage/comments/ten-new-details-on-the-apple-tablet/
and
http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/79347/itablet-who-intended-market

An eleven inch diag. tablet (think netbook size) based on the iPhone/iTouch platform...hmmm not exactly what I was hoping for, but I would probably get one post release rush.

-m

Wordle for President Kim's Inauguration Speech

Since I was reading through the speech anyway, I decided to feed it to http://wordle.net to see how it looks. Now, I'm sharing it. Certainly, "Dartmouth" comes out on top, but it is reassuring to see a few other terms rising above as well, such as "education", "experience", "learning", "people", and "passion."

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.

talking to faculty about talking to students about learning technology

Malcolm Brown's article Learning and Technology — “In That Order”  should be mandatory reading for us in the Ed. Tech tribe.

We all have stories we tell about how this or that tool can aid in teaching or learning.   Among these stories should be an emphasis on "going meta" - or "going to the balcony" and explaining to students what the learning goals were each time a new technology or tool is used.  

 

Malcolm's article has been ringing in my ears this week as I talk to faculty about Blackboard tools.  I've made it a point to spend more time engaging faculty in how they will talk about the tools with their students.

    

Getting students engaged in the "why's" of course design / development / delivery is probably a good idea on all fronts.  This may take some time from the curriculum, but will play dividends in the depth of learning.

ALI 2009

Just finished up my second DCAL Active Learning Institute (ALI 2009) http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dcal/workshops/ALI.html

One of the things we learn at ALI is that we don't learn something unless we do something - the speaker or the writer or the teacher is the learner.

Another thing we learn is that memories, concepts and facts are not pulled from our brains like a computer from a hard drive, but are reconstructed at each use as an archeologist reconstructs artifacts from a dig.

So in order to consolidate my thinking and insure that my future self will have an accurate record of present day recollections I thought I'd write up this blog.

Main Thoughts:

1)  It was a relief to be able to enjoy ALI has a cross between an Institute developer / facilitator and participant.  My actual presentation duties were light, 30 minutes with Anthony on using the Blackboard blog for in-class active learning exercises.  This gave me the luxury of listening a great deal and talking less (a skill I'm working to improve).  So much of my job feels like a push against a status quo.  At ALI it felt really good to let some other folks do most of the pushing, allowing me to learn about how they try to bring about change and learn some new things along the way.

2) Ironically the parts of ALI that stick with me most are the least active parts of the learning.  We had amazing talks by Chris Jernstedt on the brain and learn, Josh Compton on effective presentation styles, and Malcolm Brown on the same topic.  These talks did incorporate some active elements as they had lots of give-and-take with our ALI group, but they were still basically lectures.  My background over the past years has been so much based on online learning that I tend to discount the power of quality teaching presentations.  This was a good counter-balancing experience.

3) ALI holds two powerful core messages for me.  Both of these messages were articulated by Karen Gocsik, and I am grateful to her for all she has taught in the short time I've known Karen.  Lesson 1 is that active learning requires active engagement.  No surprise here.  Karen and Tom are masters at modeling these techniques.  Lesson 2 is that for our classes to be built around active learning it is necessary for us to give up some control and to re-evalute our idea as the expert and master of our discipline.  We need to consciously make space where the students can create, learn from each other, teach us, control what they learn and how they learn, and claim their own authority and autonomy in our classes.  

4)  My final thought is a reflection on how fortunate I feel to work at Dartmouth with such passionate, smart, caring, motivated and engaged colleagues. 

we need our own song

August 2009 books

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why it Matters for Global Capitalism by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Schiller

Apparently influential in the Obama administration.  Good to see the basics of behavioral economics being applied to a macro-economic book.  Helped me get a better sense of why I paid too much for my house, why some folks are still poor, why jobs seem harder to come by, and why the folks making economic policy often seem like dumb apes.  Well written and informative.  Makes a good argument for the benefits and limits of capitalism and the necessity of regulation to protect our investments and jobs.

Grade:  A-

The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't--and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger by Daniel Gardner

Put this book on the syllabus of our reading on why we screw up basic decisions, make poor judgements, fail to predict the future, and are afraid of all the wrong things.  Should be read by journalists everywhere who write about disease and violence, and us folks who read and watch these stories.  A good cognitive and theoretical summary of the academic literature on risk and behavioral economics.  Written with style and humor.

Grade:  A-

Butchers Hill: A Tess Monaghan Novel by Laura Lippman 

The 3rd, and best so far, Tess Monaghan Baltimore murder mystery.  I'm reading these in order, having bought the lot used on Amazon.  Lippman is getting a little darker, and Tess continues to intrigue with her weird mix of bravery and poor decision making.  Baltimore is really a great character in these books....made me want to visit the Charm City.  

Grade: B+

Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World by Tyler Cowen

Not as good as "Discover Your Inner Economist" -but worth a read.  Sort of feels like an extended blog post - but nothing really wrong with that as Cowen as some interesting things to say.  The core of the book is an argument as to why folks on the autistic spectrum are our new profits, or at least reasons why their cognitive styles are well suited to our information economy and why their brains and behaviors should be honored and understood.  Cowen is in love with information, with lists, and with the Web tools that let us play in this information.  

Grade:  B

Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip--Confessions of a Cynical Waiter (P.S.) by Steve Dublanica

From the blog http://waiterrant.net/ - an insiders tour of the life and culture of a waiter at a high-end restaurant.  Dublanica has some tales to tell and some advice to give.  He is not nearly a good a writer as Bourdain (the book owes much to Kitchen Confidential), but the book is enjoyable and mildly informative.  Mostly I'm amazed at the level of substance abuse (and just pure abuse) that are part of a food servers life.   It does make sense, as waiters work crazy hours, work around alcohol, and are paid in cash.  Waiters generally live in the moment, are working towards something else (acting, writing, blogging), and are under-appreciated and under-paid.  I'll never tip pre-tax again.

Grade:  B

Moscow Rules (Gabriel Allon) by Daniel Silva

The Gabriel Allon books that come before were:  The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna,  Prince of Fire,  The Messenger, and the The Secret Servant.  I recommend reading them in order.  Allon is a Mossad assassin, art restorer and learning technologist (okay, I made up one of these things).  Great characters.  Moral clarity.  Some good action.  Topical plots.  Always well researched, with an eye for getting the details right.  Not very humorous.  I'll keep reading.

Grade:  B+

Fearless Fourteen (Stephanie Plum, No. 14) by Janet Evanovich

Mind candy.  They all blend together in a hazy goop of New Jersey crime, big hair, fugitives, and exploding cars.  This is what I imagine my life would have been like if my Dad would have stayed in Linden.  

Grade:  B 

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.

what I learned from being off-the-grid

Just got back from a week off-the-grid at the wonderful AMC Echo Lake family camp in Acadia National Park. 

A full week of hiking, swimming, biking, reading, eating, relaxing and conversation sans any news, technology, email or communication.  Within the space of a week the families staying at AMC's Echo Lake created a supportive and intimate community.  Where else within a span of a couple of days could you have folks who were previously strangers watching your kids at the waterfront while you snoozed on the dock?

What did I learn about learning technology in this week-off-the-grid?

I learned that:

A)  People are really interested in innovations in teaching and learning in the higher-ed-world.

B)  That folks have an intuitive grasp of the power of technology to catalyze change and to facilitate authentic learning.

Part of the bonding experience at Echo Lake is telling out stories.  Turns out that folks beyond higher ed. have fascinating jobs and amazing backgrounds.  No job seems to be very much like it was 15, 10 or even 5 years ago.  Everyone is constantly re-inventing themselves and expressing their creativity through work.

The story I would tell about my job is that what we are about is using working with faculty to have big classes feel and act like small classes, and it is the pairing of technology and learning theory that allows us to accomplish this goal.  Universally everyone I spoke with believed that we needed to move beyond a straight lecture, information scarcity model of teaching and learning - and towards something more like a seminar or a studio where students create.  The older folks at Echo Lake were just as excited about how technology could change higher education as the high students I chatted with.  Everyone wanted to know more, and everyone had stories and ideas about how college teaching could be improved.

So I learned this week that we do have a story to tell.  And if we think about how we tell our stories, and do so in simple and accessible ways, that we can get people excited about the work we do. 

How do you tell our story?

Video in your next issue of...

When you get your next magazine, in paper, it may contain video.

This another entry in your notes on mobility. 

latest ways that our students are teaching us some sociology

Today we told the students that an important way to measure the success of their work is the extent to which they can get their creation out into the public discussion.  This means views, comments, debates, discussions.  

I'm not sure how to either teach or motivate students how to get their work in wide circulation.  The first hurdle is to convince them of the value in getting their work shared.  Once they are "believers" then I have to believe that they will be more creative then we could ever be in getting their work viewed and commented upon.

Any thoughts?

Here is the latest batch of sociology teaching materials:

"Class time is for doing and interacting, not for listening"

In my wanderings I came across this presentation by Scott Moore, a biz school prof at UMich.  He describes how he re-invented a class to make it more interactive and relevant to his students.  At one point he says something like "Class time is for doing and interacting, not for listening" which I thought is a nice, succinct way of summarizing the "inversion" need to promote engaging activities at face-to-face meetings.

why doesn't Amazon show any love to it's child Audible?

The picture to the left shows a book on Amazon that is not available as a Kindle download.

Amazon thoughtfully provides a link that allows us to send a message to the books publisher asking that it be made available as a Kindle e-book.

So why doesn't Amazon provide the same option to tell the publisher that we'd like the book as an audiobook?   

This is just one area where I remain completely confused and frustrated with how Amazon has (failed) to integrate Audible.

Back in 2008 when Amazon purchased Audible (for $300 million) I was hopeful that this would mean some major improvements on the Audible side. To date, these improvements have been slow in coming.

The situation:

• Do not have any integration of Audible and Amazon accounts.

• We can't put Audible books on our Amazon Wish List.

• The audible.com recommendation engine remains terrible compared to Amazon's.

• In fact, the whole Audible site is suffers greatly compared to Amazon.com.   It is slow, poorly designed to find new books, barely personalized, and basically difficult to navigate.

Amazon is missing a real opportunity to tap into a dedicated group of people who are big Amazon spenders and Audible subscribers.  We are passionate about our audio books and would be natural early adopters for e-books if Amazon found a way to bundle the services.  We would buy many more audio books if we could have an audiobook store on Amazon with all its recommendation, site design, navigation and community goodness.

And yes....we want a way to tell the publisher that we want an audio version!

Google Wave

Greetings, all, from EDUCAUSE land!

Hope you all are well.  I'm still coming up to speed on all things here.  I do miss the CC team and the CC blog team.

I just wanted to post a quick suggestion.  We're thinking of doing a 7Things number on Google Wave. To do so, we will need to test it and try it, so as to be able to map it to T&L contexts.  If you have the time and interest, please sign up for it.  You could then be a part of our try out.

To sign up:

https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/

if you have time or curiosity, there’s a long video demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ&feature=channel
I'm working my way through the video step by step and will post a roster of the key features when done.

My best M

modeling teaching techniques - the short online voice-over presentation

Lanny Arvan (beloved LTL faculty) posted a great voice-over presentation on effective teaching/presentation techniques for faculty using Slideshare and Audacity.

I like this presentation on two levels:

Level 1 - Modeling the Method:  The idea of using simple Web 2.0 authoring and publishing platform tools to produce and disseminate the materials provides a wonderful model for both faculty and student learners.  Any instructor or student could adopt these tools to produce and share materials. 

Level 2 - Content of the Presentation:  Lanny's 7 minute presentation is a great summary of core ideas for effective teaching presentations.  The content includes links to other materials that the viewer can go and look at if interest and time allows. At 7 minutes we can listen to the presentation in-between other tasks......it is short enough that we can actually make the time while dense enough that this time is well spent.

Where I'd push Lanny is to move his audience away from solely faculty, and to recognize that students authoring and sharing content will and should be the greatest producers of new knowledge.  SlideShare is one excellent publishing platform - I tend to favor YouTube as it has such a wide reach.  The other area I'd push Lanny is to recognize the value of free Web 2.0 authoring tools - but to also recognize that these tools have limitations.  For instance, I find needing to use Audacity with Slideshare to produce voice-over presentations to be cumbersome.  I don't think that this method passes the "wicked easy" test for faculty and students, and therefore is less likely to be adopted.

Can we offer our learning communities rapid authoring tools that can be disseminated out for all users?  We are looking at Techsmith's Camtasia Relay as a possible low-cost, cross-platform authoring tool.  The content can easily be published up to YouTube - taking care of the publishing platform (or shared as a link within the CMS).  What are you looking at?

Classroom Presentation Ideas (2)

View more presentations from lannyd.

student video presentations on Lareau's Unequal Childhoods

Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau, a sociologist at the University Maryland, proved to be a wonderful choice for our Introduction to Sociology class.

The students did an amazing job of teaching the key concepts of the book.  This is the third 5 minute video that they have made, and each time we are amazed by the quality of their work.

For these student videos we experimented with giving feedback using the quick video response feature on YouTube - a tool that lets us use our Webcams and headphones to provide critiques and feedback that the student teams (and all the students) can view.   This is quick, personal and direct way to provide student feedback.

Google and the Cloud OS...

Interesting article:

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/23140/?nlid=2255

FWIW:
The real benefit to the work that Google is doing is not in the "Death to Microsoft OS" or "Death to the CMS" as some proclaim. Rather the good work here is that their (Google's) efforts have the potential to advance the technology while offering choice - choice to use an OS (and services) which matches the devices it is run on and integrates with the services we use. In short an OS which meets our individual needs. Whether Google succeeds or fails based on OS market share is largely irrelevant - where Google will succeed is in the pushing of boundaries and comfort zones of vendors, hopefully further advancing the secure integration of "Cloud Applications" with those running on the desktop.

Where this all could fail, and Google shows a great understanding of this pitfall, will be if Google decides to proprietize access to their bit of the Cloud or to otherwise limit the available tools - to date Google has taken strides to ensure that their APIs and tools are open and accessible, enabling adoption.

Not so random thoughts on a Monday.

Reflections on The EDUCAUSE Institute Learning Technology Leadership Program (LTL) 09

  

The LTL Faculty:  http://net.educause.edu/Faculty/1021718

Had a couple of weeks to cogitate on LTL 09.  The Institute is so intense that it has taken me this long to process.

The ROI:  LTL was the most valuable professional development work that I've participated in during my 15 years in academia and 10 years in educational technology.  I highly recommend the program to colleagues in learning technology who are interested in moving towards and expanding their leadership roles on campus.  Investments in time and expense for attending LTL are paid many times over in the deep learning, reflections, networks, and perspective gained. 

The Skills:  Anyone who is actively involved in our discipline and campus life knows how important it is to align our communication strategies and content with strategic campus priorities.  However, what I learned from the experience is how difficult it is to put this knowledge into action.   The practical and hard-earned experience that LTL gives its participants in "Making the Case" (a strategic 15 minute team presentation to LTL faculty playing leadership roles such as CFO, Provost, CIO, Dean of Faculty etc.) is invaluable.  After LTL, I will approach strategic communications opportunities with campus decision makers in different ways as a result of the program.  This knowledge, I believe, cannot be gained through thinking about, discussing or reading about high stakes strategic communication.  It is necessary to practice these techniques, in a safe environment, with firm guidance and enough time and resources to improve on one's method.  

The People:.  Beyond the curriculum (lectures, discussions and exercises) the true ROI from LTL comes from the opportunity to spend concentrated and significant time with the LTL faculty and fellow participants.  The faculty are truly extraordinary in every sense of the word.     Each of the six faculty members demonstrate the very best characteristics of leadership in both their professional achievements and their personal conduct.  LTL provides an opportunity to engage in deep and probing discussions with leaders in our discipline.  Here the genius of the Institute's organization is revealed, as many of these discussions take place during the shared meals and get-togethers built into the schedule.  Normally I would use non-conference session time to catch-up on e-mail, run outside, or relax in my hotel room (a behavior that I think is shared by many people in our discipline - we tend to value or quiet and private time).  At LTL, the faculty and the the structure requires engagement and dialogue.  

Our Discipline:  My final takeaway from LTL is that I believe the Institute provides a front-row seat at the emergence of the academic discipline of learning technology.  The Institute highlighted the degree to which the participants share a common theoretical framework (active learning and constructivism), speak the same technical language, use similar tools, read similar journals and participate in similar social media, face recognizable struggles, and identify with the discipline.  While learning technologists come from diverse academic backgrounds we seem to be forming into a cohesive and purpose-driven professional discipline.   Understand one's place within a larger structure and connecting with leaders and colleagues who share values, goals, and methods is a sustaining gift.