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Minutes from today’s DLAC Support Group Meeting

lemasney — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:21:34 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

Hello, all.

Today we talked mostly about Twitter and Tweetdeck and their potential for shallow-web research and student teacher interactions, but also about the issues of texting in the classroom, and how we can might this activity from a nuisance and distraction into a way of interacting with the class visio-textually, and giving instant feedback in the classroom, be it virtual or physical.

I forgot to mention that we talked also last week about the idea of Netflix’s instant streaming service, and the possibilities of the impact on learning of a $5 a month account on Netflix instead of one or all of your textbooks. Movies and documentaries are a great starting point for deep learning and discussion, and $15 a semester to get access to thousands of original sources is a small price to pay, especially compared to a $100 textbook.

: Image via CrunchBase

We had a very fun and informative gathering last Friday, and I’m reminding you about today’s meeting at 3 to 5 p.m..

Last week in our gathering and in other individual DLAC sessions recently, we all talked about:

Discussion boards vs. other kinds of discussions
Getting to a trusting state on discussion boards
Blogging as a teaching and learning vehicle
Using Scribd.com as a document repository
What is MoodleRooms?
What is ShareStream?
What is Wimba?
Pedagogical approaches for these technologies
Student privacy concerns
The Teach Act and Ferpa
Some differences between Blackboard and blogging.
Using YouTube as a seed article for discussion
Embedding YouTube in Blackboard discussions.
What is Twitter?
Using Audacity
Using SlideShare

I hope to see you in future sessions, but keep in mind that next week on Friday, we have off, and so in case you were wondering, we won’t be meeting.

Hope to see you all the following Friday for DLAC tech support group!

John.

Upcoming CII Session: Group Learning and Blackboard Discussions

lemasney — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 03:05:45 +0000

February 19th 11:30am,
1pm 2007 —
CII Session: Group Learning and Blackboard Discussions.— at
Rider University: Fine Arts 113

In this session, we’ll focus on the issues surrounding the instructional strategies and effective use of Blackboard discussion boards as assessment and communication tools. Presented by John LeMasney and Kathleen Pierce.

Tags:
groups learning instructional technology strategy

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Philadelphia Area Educational Technology Conference on February 22nd and 23rd, 2007

lemasney — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 14:23:56 +0000

I got this message about an uopcoming Educational Technology conference, and I thought you might find it interesting too.

John.

Dear Instructional/Educational Technology Colleagues,

I’d like to invite you to participate in the 2nd annual Philadelphia Area Educational Technology Conference to be held at Drexel University on February 22nd and 23rd, 2007. I’d also ask you to forward this to other colleagues and faculty. I’m trying to include a wide variety of people, from IT staff at both the college and K-12 level to faculty using technology in interesting ways or doing research in the area of educational technology. I’m pasting below what I’ve been sending out. We also have a blog at paetc.wordpress.com.

Thanks for your help and I hope many of you will decide to participate in some way.

I’d like to invite you submit a proposal for a workshop, discussion, or presentation for the Philadelphia Area Educational Technology Conference (PAETC). Last year, I organized this conference to bring together faculty and staff interested in incorporating technology into the educational mission of their institutions, whether that was for specific courses or for institution-wide initiatives. We heard presentations on the use of video games in literature courses, the use of podcasting in a geology course, how to optimize your blog for search engines, and how to use online tools for cohorts of students to better communicate with each other and campus administrators. We had faculty, instructional technologists and K-12 staff and began a conversation about bridging the gap between K-12 environments and college environments.

This year, we’d like to continue to bridge the gap between the K-12 environment and college. We hope to foster discussions about the way technology is being integrated into the K-12 curriculum and how that creates certain expectations at the college level. We also hope to foster discussions about what skills students need to continue to develop at the college level and how technology can contribute to that development. To help begin this conversation, I’m happy to have as our keynote speaker, Chris Lehmann, principal at the new Science and Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. The Academy has fully integrated technology into the curriculum, providing students with laptops and working with teachers to help develop appropriate assignments that take full advantage of the technology available to them. Chris will share with us his experience thus far and will provide a valuable insight into what’s going on in the K-12 system.

Our theme this year is multiliteracies, the idea of developing literacy across various kinds of media including video, audio, web sites, and text. We hope that people with share theories behind teaching interpretation of multiple media, activities that have worked well in the classroom, or other work they have done to foster multiliteracy in their students. We especially want to think about reimagining technology not as a tool but as an aspect of the learning environment that requires us to rethink how and what we teach.

The conference will be held on February 22 and 23rd, 2007 at Drexel University. On February 22nd, we will have a half-day of hands-on workshops. We invite proposals for these workshops. If you have developed software or use a technological tool in your work that you find particularly useful and want to show others how it works, please submit your ideas. On the 23rd, we’ll have our keynote speaker as well as presentations and discussions. The submission deadline for workshops or presentations/discussions is October 31st. We ask for a brief description and preferred format. Complete panels may also be submitted. Submissions may be emailed to me directly at lblanken@brynmawr.edu. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Laura Blankenship

–
Laura Blankenship
Sr. Instructional Technologist
Bryn Mawr College
610-526-6578
lblanken@brynmawr.edu
website: http://www.brynmawr.edu/etc
blog: http://www.brynmawr.edu/etc/etcblog/

NYNJA STAR: New York New Jersey Association Supporting Teaching and Research

lemasney — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 21:04:26 +0000

Instructional Technology at Rider supports Teaching and Research, esp. where technology is involved.

NYNJA STAR: New York New Jersey Association Supporting Teaching and Research

On line registration (attendees and vendors) is now open for the New York/New Jersey Association Supporting Teaching and Research (formerly NYNJBUG) second annual Mid-Summer Users Conference to be held at the Frist Center of Princeton University June 19, 2006. This one-day conference is intended to attract participants at all levels of Learning Management System project usage, administration and support. This year’s theme is “Interoperability”.

Vendors are welcome as conference sponsors and as providers of information on their products at display tables. Information on vendor sponsorship is available at the NYNJASTAR web site. Breakfast and lunch are provided for all registered participants.

On line registration for the conference is at http://nynjastar.org/. Lodging and transportation information is also available.

Information Technology for Research: The Impact of National Directions in Cyberinfrastructure (CI)

lemasney — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 15:06:22 +0000

Below is an announcement from NJEdge.net, of which Rider is a part.

On April 4th, Rutgers University is sponsoring a cyberinfrastructure event with an open invitation to all NJEDge member institutions. This multi-campus, day-long symposium will expose faculty, researchers and staff to the emerging influence that cyberinfrastructure is having on institutions and the conduct of research. The event will be videoconferenced from three locations: Camden, New Brunswick and Newark. Please circulate this invitation to appropriate email lists at your institution.========================

The Vice-President for Research and Graduate and Professional Education and the Vice-President for Information Technology at Rutgers University invites you to a symposium entitled:

Information Technology for Research:
The Impact of National Directions in Cyberinfrastructure (CI)
April 4th 9AM – 4PM

Locations:
Camden: Camden Campus Center, Executive Meeting Room
Newark: Robeson Campus Center, Multipurpose Room East
New Brunswick: New Brunswick/Piscataway, Busch Campus Center, Multipurpose Room

This symposium will focus on providing a forum for faculty and staff to understand cyberinfrastructure and in what ways it will impact and enhance their research programs. This event will present funding agencies’ priorities as well as ongoing initiatives that address cyberinfrastructure technologies. It will also begin a dialogue on how the Rutgers research community and other NJEDge members can collaborate and respond to the challenges and promises of a cyberinfrastructure.

More detailed symposium information can be found at: http://internet2.rutgers.edu
Register at: https://oirt.rutgers.edu/registration/register.php?id=40406

The 7th Annual Faculty-to-Faculty Best Practices Showcase: Integrating Technology into Teaching and Learning

lemasney — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 16:17:24 +0000

The Educational Activities Task Force Presents The 7th Annual Faculty-to-Faculty Best Practices Showcase: Integrating Technology into Teaching and Learning

Friday, March 10, 2006 8:30 am – 3:30 pm

Online registration is now open (register here). The fee is $35 for NJ higher education and K-12 faculty and professional staff.

Start your participation in the 7th Annual Faculty–to–Faculty Showcase now. The Best Practice Showcase Session on ‘Social Computing & Personal Broadcasting’ by Ken Ronkowitz of NJIT, will be using a blog and wiki. Please visit them and post comments and collaborate before the session. Ken will be adding content each day from now until the showcase on 3/10. Even if you can’t attend this session, we would like to hear your thoughts on this experiment in social computing.

The blog is at http://devel2.njit.edu/serendipity/ and you’ll find a link to the wiki and lots of other sites there too.

Throughout the day, New Jersey faculty will present on integrated uses of technology and new instructional methodologies in education. The featured keynote speaker Professor Jean Runyon will speak on Quality Matters: Inter-Institutional Quality Assurance in Online Learning (Keynote Presentation).

Faculty Showcase Details: http://www.njedge.net/activities/facultyshowcase/2006/index.html

Program Schedule

NJEDge.Net and NJCU thank CISCO for its contribution to our program.

Faculty Development Day Technology Fair 2006 Archives and Links

lemasney — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 18:54:26 +0000

Hello, FDD Technology Fair Attendees

Here are the links I promised to you which archive the session I gave on January 19th.

After this paragraph is a link to the S5 Slideshow I gave on the 19th. Remember, it looks like a Powerpoint, but is built in XHTML and CSS, which means you can view it in a regular old browser like Netscape, Internet Explorer, or Firefox just by clicking the link. To move forward in the slideshow, you can use the arrows on your keyboard, click on the page, or use the navigation tools that appear when you ‘mouseover’ the lower right hand side of the presentation.

http://ghost.rider.edu/cii/presen/techfair/index.htm

Following this paragraph is a link to the mp3 [audio] from the presentation on the 19th – when you click this it should open up in your favorite mp3 player, like QuickTime or Windows Media Player. It may just download to your desktop where you can click on it to open it up. If you need help, or if you’re having trouble, give me a call at x7145. You could open the audio and the S5 presentation at the same time and it would be like being there again, but with a pause button!

http://orion.rider.edu/podcasts/technology_fair_2006_35812104.mp3

Following this paragraph is the mindmap that helped me to work out the various ideas for my presentation. It may take a minute or two to open up, so be patient. If you have trouble with this, give me a call at x7145. Click on the various topics to open and close the branches.

http://ghost.rider.edu/cii/presen/mindmap/index.htm

Probably the most popular response in regards to my presentation has been the reaction to Firefox. You can go get Firefox right now by visiting http://www.mozilla.com

Here is the information on CII Sessions for 2006: http://ghost.rider.edu/cii/sessions
I know from your feedback that you are interested in Mind Mapping Software in future sessions, but I would love to know what else you’d like to spend time talking about.

Here is the link to all presentations in the CII catalog: http://ghost.rider.edu/cii/presen

You should know, I’m blogging this at http://ghost.rider.edu/insttech so that others may benefit from these archives. Feel free to visit it, or if you’ve started to use RSS in Firefox, visit the blog, and then subscribe to the live bookmark. It’s just a click away.

Hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as I did.

John LeMasney

NJEdge.Net: DLAAB Faculty Colloquium

lemasney — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 21:33:35 +0000

NJEdge.Net presents:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Millennial Generation: With Richard Sweeney and Students
DLAAB (Distance Learning Academic Advisory Board) Faculty Colloquium
February 17th, 2006

Date: Friday, February 17, 2006
Locations: New Jersey Institute of Technology
County College of Morris
Mercer County College
Ramapo College

Register Online: http://www.njedge.net/activities

Working Title:
How Does the Millennial Generation Differ from Other Generations at the Same Age?

Description:
They already know that they don’t want to work or play like their parents’ generation. They are called the Millennials, Gen Y, Next Gen, Echo Boomers, or…�?Don’t Label Us.�? They use information, and learn, differently. They were born between 1979 and 1994, and they are the largest generation since the Boomers (1946 to 1964). Millennials currently crowd our colleges and universities, both because they are a larger generation and because more of them are going to college than ever before. Millennial researcher, Richard Sweeney, will discuss how Millennials differ from generations before them at the same age and explore the implications for colleges and universities. Mr. Sweeney will then pose questions to a live panel of about 12 Millennials videoconferencing from three different NJ colleges/universities, as he attempts to confirm and expand on the research. Audience participants at all sites will be given an opportunity to ask their own questions of the panel.

Presenter and Panel Moderator:
Richard T. Sweeney
University Librarian
Robert W. Van Houten Library
New Jersey Institute of Technology
University Heights, Newark, NJ 07102-1982
Voice: 973-596-3208 Fax: 973-643-5601

http://www.library.njit.edu/staff-folders/sweeney/index.html

Tentative Agenda for the Program:
2:00pm Introductions –Live Interactive Video Conference – Ellen Spaldo

2:05pm – 2:45pm Presentation by Richard Sweeney on the Millennial research.

2:45pm – 4:00pm Live Panel of Millennials (who will not have heard the prior presentation). The audience will be permitted to ask questions during the latter portion of this part of the program.

4:00pm Adjournment

NJEdge.net: The 7th Annual Faculty Best Practices Showcase

lemasney — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 16:07:34 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Rider University belongs to NJEdge.net, and I am blogging this as a way of redistributing activity info for them. Please contact Sheri Prupis if you have questions or need information.

The Educational Activities Task Force Presents:

The 7th Annual Faculty Best Practices Showcase
Faculty-to-Faculty Effective Practices: Integrating Technology into Teaching and Learning

Organized by [http://www.njedge.net/]
Hosted by [http://www.njcu.edu]

Friday, March 10, 2006

Call for Proposals Submission Form http://www.njedge.net/activities/facultyshowcase/2006/proposal_apply.html

At the Faculty Best Practices Showcase, New Jersey faculty will present uses of technology and new instructional methodologies in post-secondary education. (We are also interested in specific K-12 uses of technology and instructional methodologies, especially collaborative uses with higher education.) The focus of the showcase is not limited to technology; new pedagogical approaches such as collaborative learning are also important.

Faculty are encouraged to present a range of new applications and learning activities for both hybrid (face-to-face courses using technology) and online courses. The goal of the presentations should be to allow the other faculty attendees to employ innovative teaching methods and technologies in their courses. All breakout sessions will be approximately 30 minutes in length.

We invite you to submit a proposal to present at the 7th Annual Faculty Best Practices Showcase

Proposals must be submitted by February 1, 2006.
(Conference registration will begin February 13, 2006)

SAVE THE DATES:

January 5, 2006 Educational Technology Management Seminar 11:30am – 2:30pm Hosted by: Richard Stockton College (More Info – Adobe PDF)

January 18, 2006 DLAAB / CFDI Conference Call

January 18, 2006 Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Truth about Females and Computing 12:00pm – 1:15 pm
Presented By: Maria M. Klawe Professor of Computer Science and Dean of Engineering Princeton University
Location: Multipurpose Room B Frist Campus Center Princeton University (More Info)

January 30, 2006 EATF Conference Call

February 9, 2006 DRG Meeting

February 17, 2006 DLAAB Faculty Colloquium 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Presenter: Richard Sweeney, University Librarian, NJIT
Topic: “Millennial Students”

March 10, 2006 Faculty Best Practices Showcase

April 5, 2006 Rich Media Showcase

April 7, 2006 DLAAB Colloquium

Technology-Enabled Teaching/eLearning Dialogue

lemasney — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 15:42:28 +0000

Most of the people who heard of this merger between Bb and WebCT seemed to think it was a great thing, but I didn’t. Or, I should say, I don’t now if it’s a good, thing, but I don’t think it will be. I think that the tools in WebCT will be merged into Bb quickly and clunkily. I think that prices will rise to the point that we simply couldn’t afford to continue to use Bb. I think that WebCT is difficult for the average end user, and I think that the inclusion of the tools that I saw in WebCT to Blackboard will probably complicate Bb’s expensive but easy interface. At any rate – here’s a page with some analysis, commentary, and suggestions for people like me, who feel some apprehension about the merger.

Technology-Enabled Teaching/eLearning Dialogue
1. The merger will be a boon to the open source community, providing a forceful rationale for preserving self-initiated pace of change, customization, managed cost, and multi-vendor support platform for innovation. Skeptical WebCT users will move in droves to Sakai and Moodle. (or) The merger is a major set-back for open source, the forthcoming standardization/harmonization between the two market leaders will facilitate content sharing and tool development among schools that use the new Blackboard. Finally, there is the opportunity for higher education to focus on content development and pedagogy.

2. Basic costs will go up more slowly; there is an economy of scale that can be leveraged to reduce the rate of growth in licensing fees. The new Blackboard will grow revenue mainly through volume and BuildingBlocks sales that add value to the core CMS functionality. (or) The two big fish are now one bigger fish; the uncertainty, and the competition, is over. There is yet another bigger fish (e.g., Oracle-Peoplesoft, Microsoft) waiting to consolidate the educational market with the corporate training market. Each phase of consolidation will be accompanied by rapid price escalation.

3. Others in the CMS space (e.g., Angel, Desire2Learn) will redouble their commitment to service–who but their current customers can really sell to the newly disenfranchised? (or) How can relatively small companies resist the urge to divert resources to sales and growth? Service may suffer, but there’s nowhere for the current customer to go so they will stay during turbulent expansion.