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?