LTDC Online News

The UWM Second Life pilot is now entering its third year starting in Spring 10, with over 60 instructors receiving faculty development and almost 20 instructors adopting it for their own courses. Second Life is a virtual world which provides access to a network of information, organizations, people, culture, and languages not easily available in real life. It increases retention through engaging and interactive activities. Second Life creates a status-leveling effect for students from diverse backgrounds. It increases social presence by providing a media rich 3D environment. And finally, Second Life offers an immersive environment for experiential learning.

Invited Presentations:

2009, November 6th. Student Perceptions of Second Life. Presented at EDUCAUSE 2009 Online.

2009, November 5th. Harnessing Social Networking Tools to Build Connectivity and Learning Community in Online Courses. Presented at the 2009 EDUCAUSE Annual conference.

2009, November 4th. The Top-10 Questions You Should Consider When Implementing Second Life. Presented at the 2009 EDUCAUSE Annual conference.

2009, October 30th. Using Second Life to Meet Your Pedagogical Needs More Effectively.  Presented at the First UW-System’s LTDC Technology Conference.

2008, October 17th. Transformation for Online Learning. Presented at Youngstown State University Annual Distance Learning conference.

Conference Presentations:

Joosten, T. (November, 2009). Best Practices for Using Second Life for Teaching and Learning. Presented at the 2009 EDUCAUSE Annual conference.

Joosten, T., and Stalewski, S. (November, 2009). Student Perceptions of Second Life. Presented at the 2009 EDUCAUSE Annual conference.

Joosten, T. (July, 2009). Using Second Life and Desire2Learn to Best Meet Your Learning Objectives. Presented at the Desire2Learn Fusion annual conference in Minneapolis, MN.

Joosten, T. (June, 2009). Meeting Your Pedagogical Needs More Effectively: How to Best Use Second Life. Presented at the Sloan-C International Symposium on Emerging Technology Application for Online Learning in San Francisco, CA.

Joosten, T. (March, 2009). Virtual Worlds (Second Life) Constituent Group Discussion. Facilitated at the EDUCAUSE Midwest conference in Chicago, IL.

Joosten, T. (October, 2008). Second Life in Education, Panel Presentation. Presented at the EDUCAUSE Annual conference in Orlando, FL.

Joosten, T. (August, 2008). Evaluating Second Life as mediated communication to facilitate learning. Presented at the Distance Teaching and Learning Annual conference in Madison, WI.

Joosten, T. (June, 2008). An Example of Second Life in a Communication Course: Human Communication and Technology. Presented at the Games, Learning, and Society Annual conference in Madison, WI.

Submitted by Tanya Joosten, UW-Milwaukee

The Qualtrics online survey tool has successfully been introduced to UW Green Bay.  The UWGB Learning Technology Center communicated to our campus that the former survey software (SelectSurevy ASP) will be eliminated next spring as Qualtrics becomes our new campus standard. Our Learning Technology Center staff is helping the transition be a smooth one. We have conducted group training, one on one consulting, and even have dedicated staff to transfer surveys, and in some cases survey results, from the old application to Qualtrics.
Qualtrics is already being used by many individuals and departments at UWGB and the feedback about Qualtrics thus far has been very favorable. People are finding Qualtrics to be user-friendly and intuitive. One department will be using Qualtrics for online course evaluations at the end of this fall semester. We hope more departments and people will consider this tool for course evaluations in the future.  Meanwhile, Qualtrics is suiting the needs of our campus survey users, due to the quality of the product and the available support.

Presenter: Dr. Aaron Brower
Faculty Page: http://tinyurl.com/yzuvhlu

Who is Dr. Aaron Brower?
• Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning
• Professor, School of Social Work

How Dr. Brower came to technology?
• From teaching and learning side – integrated learning
• Revolutionizing of college campuses by Web 2.0

Moving from Teaching to Learning
• Video: “A Vision of Students Today” by Michael Wesch, Kansas State University
o Link: http://tinyurl.com/
• Engagement and relevancy

Study of “Unknowing” of Students
• Student engagement is reason for “unknowing”
• Marketing does this well
• Active learning leads to knowing
• Importance of repetition – marketing knows this
• Learning must be personal for engagement, then information retained

What info should we present to students?
• Example: Madison’s Essential Learning Outcomes
o Link: http://tinyurl.com/yjgo7zv

Brower: “Stuff we are teaching today is going to be out of date in two years…”

Five Teaching “Best Practices” That Lead to Learning
• Learning in Context
• Group-Based Learning
• Increased Time on Task
• Increased Frequency of Feedback
• Positive Classroom Climate

Note: See PowerPoint presentation for examples.

Courses and Experiences That Put it all Together
• FIGs
• RLCs
• Study Abroad
• Capstones and Senior Theses

Note: See PowerPoint presentation for examples.

Web 2.0: Google World vs. Card Catalogue World
• Video: “The Machine is Us/Using Us” by Michael Wesch, Kansas State University
o Link: http://tinyurl.com/yw8co3

Closing Question: How do we want to bring our teaching and learning into the Google World?

Presenters: Dr. LaVonne Cornell-Swanson (UWSA), Dr. Dan Riordan (UW-Stout)

OPID
Cornell-Swanson talks about how the UW-System Office of Professional and Instructional Development (OPID) supports faculty in their efforts to support student learning in the forms of curriculum development/pedagogy and reaching students.  OPID sponsors OPID council, Faculty College, WI Teaching Fellows and Scholars, a grants program, awards programs, and more.  For more information about OPID please visit: http://www.uwsa.edu/opid/

What is Naked Oyster? What is the Naked Eye? What is the Naked Truth? What is Naked Teaching?
Riordan talks about how his approach is based on Barbara Walvoord’s presentation at that she did at UW-Stout and influenced by her book “Effective Grading.”  Riordan also credits adapted ideas from Jose A Bowen, dean of the Meadow School of Arts at Southern Methodist University who used the term ‘naked teaching’ in The Chronicle of Higher Education in July 2009 when Bowen was interviewed stating he doesn’t want any technology in the classroom (article: http://chronicle.com/article/Teach-Naked-Effort-Strips/47398/).

*Side note: there is even a book about naked authors but don’t be scared…www.nakedauthors.com

Naked teaching is an interesting term.  It basically means (1) to have few or no lectures or PowerPoints, (2) that the student’s first exposure to the content happens outside of class, and (3) to use class time for direct student-to-faculty interaction and discussion.

Riordan outlined the aggregate workflow in which instructors (1) plan, (2) deliver, (3) test, (4) grade, and (5) hand back and the student workflow corresponds to this by (1) paying attention, (2) studying, (3) taking the test, and (4) getting back the test.  This workflow is comfortable.  He then goes on to define the disaggregate workflow which corresponds with naked teaching and it is a bit more uncomfortable.  With the disaggregate workflow, the instructor (1) plans, (2) sets-up and enacts, (3) advise/redirect/theorize, and (4) review.  The students (1) prepare, (2) interact, (3) find/share/evaluate/create/disciplinary moves), and (4) create artifact.  This is a switch in workflow and does come with hesitation.  The main hesitations Riordan notes is that switching a workflow does take time and instructors do not always know the barriers.  Instructors should know that the disaggregate flow does still involve planning but now the planning is in how to facilitate the activity and how that activity is going to happen in class.

In order for the new workflow to work, instructors need to figure out the moment of first exposure within the workflow and the naked teaching has to meaningfully deal with what students prepare.  Naked teaching can be separated from technology, but technology can facilitate in-class dynamics and project creation.

To assess naked teaching, the assessment must be determined up-front, either at the first class session or before assignments.  Instructors should explain their methods to students, clarify goals for each class period, and create actions whose results achieve the goals.  Riordan also recommends using time-efficient grading when implementing naked teaching practices—grade work with a number, use well-chosen comments, and reach students in a ‘teachable moment.’

If implementing a naked teaching approach, Riordan suggests trying to create a group of colleagues to work collaboratively in the implementation, be ready for resistance from students (and possibly administration), and hold tight to the stance that instructors are paid to create learning experiences and not necessarily to lecture.

Good luck!

Presenter: Tanya Joosten
tjoosten@uwm.edu
SL: Juice Gyoza
(active in SL since 2006)
Uses SL in 3 Communication Courses and consults with faculty, including workshops

Note: Juice is willing to help just in case you get stuck in the water, lose your hair (or clothes), get lost, or need help on how to use SL for education

Blogger: Karen Skibba, UW-Whitewater
SL: Karen Sharpesworth

Juice Gyoza, wearing a customized UWM T-Shirt, in the UWM Second Life Island

What is the UWM Second Life Initiative?

•    Pilot started Summer 07, Delivered Spring 08
•    Received a UW System Emerging Technology Grant
•    Faculty Development Workshops for Second Life – over 40 new faculty
•    Second Life Wiki for Faculty (many resources 0n how to use SL in courses, including orientation materials, syllabi activities, freebies & advice): http://uwmsecondlife.wikispaces.com

What is Second Life?
•    Not a Game, but can provide a platform to create one
•    Online, Virtual World, 3-D
•    Network through software to a virtual space
•    Instead of going to a URL you visit a SLURL
•    Islands and Sims – similar to Web site and webpages
•    User constructed (free and “for sale” artifacts available to build)

Second Life is a platform that students and faculty access through a software download. The software provides access to a virtual space through a network where people can connect with other people. The virtual platform consists of virtual places, islands and sims (portions of an island), where students congregate, share, communicate, and perform. These islands and sims can have virtual locations, such as classrooms, meeting rooms, lecture halls, auditoriums, amphitheaters, galleries, exhibit halls, theaters, labs, medical facilities, and outdoor spots. Students enter the world as avatars, or digital representations of themselves, which are customizable to represent the students own identity.

What is the potential of Second Life?

There is great potential to transform learning from a didactic process utilizing a lean medium into a stimulating, thought-provoking, and media rich setting.

This can engage and motivate students by:

• providing an alternative platform for learning where they can construct knowledge through observation, discourse, construction, and interaction.
• providing a stage for students to share their work through an immersive, synchronous medium.
• building a community that is more personal and social — students identify with their and others’ digital representations (avatar) and actually “feel” the reactions, interactions, and emotions — feel like interact with “real” people or sometimes other forms of life
• meet and  interact with and get feedback from people from around the world that you would not normally have access to.

Note:  Must have a sound pedagogical reason to use Second Life. Take advantage of the media richness of SL.  Why would you lecture or show PowerPoints in Sl when other methods would work better and be simpler for students to use?

When to use D2L and when to use Second Life?

Use D2L to:

• Deliver content — students like to receive content asynchronously
• Assess and organize: dropbox, quizzes, gradebook
• Provide asynchronous discussions so students have time to reflect and consult resources and share ideas

A few suggested uses for SL:

• Showcase: art exhibition, presentations, architectural build
• Field work: interviewing, native speakers, virtual field trips
• Experiential: Simulation and role playing

A few more good resources on educational uses of Second Life:

Educational Uses of Second Life
http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/educationaluses

Lots of Second Life ideas and resources from UW campuses (let’s network and share resources!)
http://uwsecondlife.wikispaces.com/

Top 20 Educational Locations in Second Life
http://simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Top_20_Educational_Locations_in_Second_Life

Also, find the U-Wisconsin System members on Second Life.

Note: Tanya will share statistics on the effectiveness of Second Life at Educause.  So more to come.

So get a Second Life and help faculty create immersive and engaging educational events to explore and construct knowledge!

Presented by Dr. Debbie Paprocki

Assistant Professor of Spanish, UW Waukesha

She uses wikis for teaching Spanish. To view a sample of her activities:

http://spanishwauk.wikispaces.com

Wikis are useful especially when student numbers are large, to provide additional practice in communicating in Spanish.

Using Wikispaces:

The wiki administrator can set the look and feel etc. through Manage Wiki. Members are invited via e-mail. Anyone who is a member of the wiki can edit and change any of the pages in the wiki. Others can see pages nut not edit.

Use the History tab  to see who has entered changes. May provide information for participation element of grade.

Sample Assignments:

• Students create a script for small group skits that they then present for the class.
• Students insert questions about culture to “quiz” other students. Other students post answers.
• Students write poems, a 5-line Cinquian. Students in class go outside and write. Then students write final draft as homework  on wiki, resulting in an anthology.
• Insert image of an artwork. Students discuss the artwork on wiki. Students later add their own selections of artwork onto the wiki.
• Collaborative story: Instructor inserts a starting line of a story, e.g. It was a beautiful day when Ramon and Regina left the house for the park. Each students adds another line to the story.
• Instructor inserts the opening paragraph of a story–usually a suspenseful one. Each student writes a middle and ending to the story.

Tips:

• Remind students to click Save when done typing.

Discussion from participants: Sample assignments: etc.

• Have students collaborate to create a group glossary for review before an exam. Have students in  a language course put up sentences and then they edit each other’s for grammatical correctness and word choice.
• Assign small groups a different topic and wiki page. Each student adds information.
• Model editing behavior in the wiki.
• Have students write autobiographies. Then other students change the autobiographies ==change the facts in order to experience the editing of your own work — e.g. a student changes someone’s pet from a cat to a dog. Then debrief–what’s that like as an author?
• Idea is that as others edit a work, it becomes better and better.
• Community really builds.
• Assign students to contribute something to Wikipedia and experience the editing of others.
• Give students information about a sample case such as Adam Curry who wrote on a Wikipedia that he was instrumental in inventing podcasting, and got edited out by the community of editors. Other cases are out there also.
• Instructor sees a draft of a paper–can comment in place on student draft papers to help students write papers. Can
• Use in calculus class to solve problems as groups.
• Give students in small groups 100 points to allocate among their group members for their participation.
• Create a Sandbox page for everyone to submit to. This is a practice page to start posting anything.
• Page where they recommend topics before students divide into groups for projects.
• Have a page for technical questions and answers that students post and answer for each other.

Tools to try:  GoogleDocs, wikispaces, pbworks

About past project on wikis at UW System, see:

http://wiscwikis.wikispaces.com

Submitted by Lisa Larson

Presenter: Dr. Alan Aycock, UW Milwaukee, Acting Director of Learning Technology Center

Blogger: Karen Franker, Instructional Designer, UW Colleges

Blended learning is a bit transgressive in terms of active rather than passive learning

Does blended learning work? Faculty wanting evidence that it works, esp. those in the sciences
U.S. Dept. of Ed 2009 meta-analysis of measurable outcomes of blended learning; findings were across all discplines
Findings:
Blended courses are far more likely to be student-centered
Students who took all or part of a course online did better than F2F
Students who took blended courses performed slightly better than those only online
Conclusions of study:
Active learning, student self-reflection and self-assessment important
Rich media not found significant
Variables too complex to be definitive

What is the status of blended learning on your campus?
Is blended seen as its own genre or as mainly transitional to online?
Audience member reports that blended seems to work better for shorter-length courses; can cover more material
Another audience member reports that he enjoys knowing about student thinking in advance before lectures
UW Colleges supports blended learning training for faculty at 9 of 11 campuses so far; faculty must go through training before teaching first blended course
When is a course blended? Seat time is reduced; partly f2f & partly online; not just Web-enhanced; course was explicity designed to be blended; needs to be interaction between f2f & onine parts of class

History of Blended Learning at UW-Milwaukee
University of Central Florida influence; driven by lack of classroom space; showed greater student satisfaction
Curricular Redesign Grant with 5 campuses in UW System; developed a hybrid teaching resource site; created first faculty hybrid course redesign program
As result of hybrid Web site, UWM now seen as expert in blended learning and highly recognized internationally; offer their faculty development program at other higher ed institutions both overseas and in U.S.
Alfred P. Sloan Grant: application of blended learning to the program level – in 9 degree programs; increase accessibility to baccalaureate degree for 7-county area surrounding Milwaukee
Now Sloan-C offers fully online version of blended certificate program; mostly small institutions are enrolling, esp. two-year colleges taking lead in blended learning development

How Does Blended Learning Work?
What are some key themes in course redesign for blended learning?
Students have more time to think and reflect on learning in blended courses
Clarity between what is expected to be done online vs. f2f on part of the students; helping students manage their time so they are committing time to doing their out-of-class assignments; no surprises
Challenge and opportunity for faculty to decide which activities work best f2f vs. online

Four Solutions in Search of a Paradigm:
Breaking up is hard to do; change old ways of thinking in support of new pedagogy; still in transition about what it all means; encourages faculty to really ponder their teaching methods
1. Break content into “slices” or “chunks”
Use rich media content for engagement, not only delivery of information
Ex: short voiceover introductions; use YouTube clips; provides a context for week’s work; not often done in f2f work; 4 to 5 slides for students to view online before they come to class; follow up with discussion in f2f session; also require students to find video clips to contribute to class

2. Hearing voices
Silence and passive learning
Finding your voice is a responsibility and an opportunity of each student
Ex: Application — have students talk about their own experience and apply it to class; Critical Viewing — not just sit and “veg out” — focus students’ thinking (What makes these scenes seem “real” to us?); Reflection — have students reflect on their learning; can be done through D2L’s ePortfolio tool; ask them reflective questions)

3. Closing the loop between online & f2f
Activities need to reinforce each other between f2f and online; students may question reason for online work; problem of “course and a half” syndrome where too much material is incorporated; usually this is caused by the “two parallel, unconnected courses” syndrome; 20% rule — list all learning activities of f2f class and cut out 20% of those activities for the blended course
Create peer community of learners in both environments
Ex: entrance and exit assignments; students hand in hard copy of a question that pertains to the day’s reading when they walk in the door of the f2f class; Exit assignments — students quicky scribble down what theyve learned that day in class (Ex: “What was your crappiest job?”) Questions like these evoke good responses from students; summarize students’ comments online.
Rehearsals — way to help students think about what they’re going to do before they do it; onine reading that students have to find themselves, then they take a quiz in D2L; another type of rehearsal has students viewing a video in class and take notes; then go home and post their answers to the discussion board.

4. You only live twice
Investigating online sites — have students find and evaluate sites
“Scaffolding” for group work and research– teach students how to work in groups; give them a structure; assign roles; percentage of grade to be determined by peer evaluation
Ex: Providing analytical rubrics  — analyzing ads in YouTube

How Should We Invest in Blended Learning…and Should We?
59.5% increase in blended courses reports at UWM; online increased by 49.1%
Clearly a growing trend

Conclusions
Treat blended as a process rather than only a product
Excellent testing ground for lessons learned; begin with 15% of course Web-enhanced and see how it works
Blending is experimental and incremental
Blending fosters active learning — more responsibility on students
Blended can be transformational– faculty report it changed the way they thought about their teaching; would find it hard to go back to f2f teaching in same old way

Advice to faculty developers:
Be conservative — text-based only at first; learning to facilitate online discussions
Development of peer community using small groups and disc. forums
Investigation of online resources promotes active learning
Online and f2f must interact
Debriefings and self-reflections are critical

UWM’s blended (hybrid) site: http://hybrid.uwn.edu

Audience members reports that students flourish in online environment; then begin to speak up more in f2f sessions; students find their voice more easily in a blended course
Richer application of Universal Design is possible with blended courses
Blended teaching provides much better opportunity to know your students and their capabilities

Starting the session off Cheryl Deirmeyer from UW-Madison, noted that roughly a year ago in the Pyle Center marked the start of a digital storytelling event that kicked off her (and others) participation in learning about the storytelling method. The event triggered additional opportunities for interested faculty to participate in a digital storytelling workshop offered by the Center for Digital Storytelling. The session itself was more of an open discussion format. Feeding the discussion were 4 instructor or instructional technology types who were able to share their experiences with the digital story telling process:

Jane Henderson (UW Stout)
Caton Roberts (UW Madison)
Jim Winship (UW Whitewater)
Mary Wright (UW River Falls)

The discussion itself was primarily audience driven and free flowing. Initial remarks focused on terminology since some of the audience was familiar with the concept of digital storytelling whereas others were not. To aid in the discussion, UW Whitewater has a site up where faculty stories are presented as examples.

Another term presented during the course of the conversation was that of ’story circles’ where students discuss and vet story ideas with classmates. A video campfire was an alternate description–the key point of students gathered in a small group discussion sharing ideas and providing feedback. Ideas for visual or audible elements would also often result from the sharing.

In some cases students initially have the impression that they have nothing to say in a story format. But after getting engaged by the process students tend to discover that they have much more to say, and the story telling process forces students to distill stories down to single points. To aid in this, digital storytelling projects often utilize a single question students are expected to answer through the sharing of their stories.

Grading within the storytelling context could be done with rubrics, but it was also noted that ill-conceived efforts are usually easy to identify. Student completed rubrics or critiques, while not used by any of the panelists, seemed like a possible way to engage students further in the process–however trust is an important aspect to be sensitive to in a storytelling activity as some stories may leave participants more vulnerable than what’s comfortable.

In closing, large class sizes face additional challenges in the digital storytelling context. Panelists roughly agreed that 20-24 participants is the ideal group size. However some form of online component could aid in the sharing of stories with larger classes.

Blogger: Scott Reeser (UW Extension)

Dr W. Gardner Campbell – Baylor University

Wants to out some ideas – some are brand new

Book : The Nature of Technology by Brian Arthur

Think about technology we think of iphone, netbook,

Need to think about technology in the broad sense -

Tree definitions:

• A means to fulfill a human purpose
• A collection of technologies
• “technium” the ecology of technologies in our world

We can be mislead by stories about technology.  Think more broadly about what a ‘technology’ is – spinning wheel, yarn, clothes, eyeglasses.

Argument:

• Technology uses a natural phenomena “for some purpose” – Arthur
• School is a technology that uses out brain’s natural phenomenon of wanting to learn
• The purpose of school is faster and better learning – Faster:more in one lifetime & Better:that one can learn more effectively

The building is a technology; the classroom is a technology; a curriculum is a technology;

What other schooling technologies?

• Credit hour (If we award degrees based on credit hours, we might be accessing at the wrong end of the student!)
• GPA
• Course
• Semester
• Examination
• “Year” (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior)
• Transcript
• Faculty (A means to serve a human purpose – a set of scholars who choose to live together to share their work)

Are our schools a ‘pill box’ or a cattle trough?

Look at what the printing press did for us. How disruptive it was.

Two kinds of technology – quote from Arthur “To have no technology is to be not-human. …”

Which technologies extend our nature?

Three recursive practices of education:

• Narrating – story telling
• Curating – assembly them, ‘curate’ them – which things go where and how to preserve
• Sharing – how to share
• Network effects are most powerful on the open web using Web 2.0 affordances

WEB 2.0

• Read/write web: user-generated content
• Perpetual beta
• the long tail
• Networks effects

WEB 2.0: Emotional layer

• Intimacy
• Authenticity – ‘escape the spin’ – find something ‘real’
• Creativity
• Emergence – the whole is greater than the sum of the parts

courseblogs.gardnercampbell.net to see examples of blogs of collaboration of the students

Using the technology to have the students understand that learning is fluid and life long.

Nick Dvoracek, UW-Oshkosh

How do we record video for purposes of review and data gathering (lecture capture)?

We’ve moved from VHS, to DVD, DV fully digital devices.

The traditional ways for capturing video in a classroom are not workable solutions for today’s needs.

After much exploration into capture applications and devices UW-Oshkosh has chosen to use Xythos application which they’ve branded with the name “Titan” for the purposes of storing recorded lecture. Each student has 10 gb of space on the Titan drive which they use their campus ID and password to log into.Windows Media Encoder is used to record the lectures.
The recommended camera is the Aiptek  GVS 1080P camera. This camera stores in video in the h.264 format and costs around $149. This camera is also recommended as a check out camera for students to produce digital stories.

The Aiptek is placed about 6 -8 feet infront of the instructor and the mic is set to boost  mode and connected to the storage device via USB. It appears to be about a 5 step process to begin recording of the lectures.

If your department has a lot of the older DV camera’s Nick suggests using the Pinnical Video Transfer box stores the video in h.264 format onto a thumb drive. A good solution to use existing tools on your campus and works as a storage option for quick file transfer. The Pinnacle Video Transfer costs about $90.

After testing several audio only recording devises Nick recommends the Sony digital audio recorder ICDUX71 for audio only recording. This units records in MP3 format.

Window Media Encoder
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

Xythos (file sharing)
http://www.xythos.com/

Aiptek  GVS 1080P camera
http://aiptek.com/products/

Pinnical Video Transfer box
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/publicsite/us/products/consumer+products/home+video/studio+family/instant+video+recorder.htm

Sony digital audio recorder ICDUX71
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=1&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665829056&SR=sony_search_seo&SQS=ICD-UX71