Michael Fortune's e-Learning Blog and e-Portfolio

Twitter basics

Twitter is a popular Web 2.0 tool for micro-blogging and is beginning to find a place in higher education learning environments. Micro-blogging is the term used to identify the act of communicating via text within some Web 2.0 tools, especially Twitter. Twitter allows only 140 characters in total for Twitter account holders to compose statements or “Tweets.” These Tweets range from “what I’m doing today” to pointing following subscribers to hyperlinks that are of interest to them. Engaging students in discussion via Twitter allows them to interact with materials that are presented via Twitter in real-time. There are many Twitter accounts created for many different areas of interest. For example, one could follow NY Times at Twitter, The White House at Twitter or Empire State College at Twitter.

Signal-to-Noise

Two important Twitter-related terms to keep in mind when implementing Twitter as a learning activity are the terms “signal” and “noise,” terms borrowed from radio broadcasting. “Noise” exemplifies those Tweets that are of very little contextual quality and little relevance. “Signal,” on the other hand, describes posts that are of meaning and which might provide stimulating discussions among your students.

Twitter and the C.O.I. model

Twitter has been used to enhance social presence as defined by the Community of Inquiry Model (The Model of a Community of Inquiry, 2007). A case study from the University of Colorado Denver focuses on the use of Twitter in a module on an instructional design and technology course (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009). The authors encouraged their students to use Twitter in a variety of ways: to post questions and queries to one another or to the course team, to send student‐to‐student direct messages, to tweet comments on relevant news events, to share resources, to reports on conferences attended, to link to student blog postings and to exchange personal information. The authors claim that the use of Twitter can enhance students’ perception of a sense of ‘social presence’, an important quality that helps promote student involvement, commitment and retention. They conclude that Twitter is good for sharing, collaboration, brain-storming, problem solving, and creating within the context of moment‐to‐moment experiences (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009). This case study illustrates something of the flexibility of Twitter to enable a range of interactions from private messages between peers, to lightweight Twitter‐based tutorials, or ‘twittorials’ that engage the whole cohort. The evaluation also supports the social networking dimension of Twitter, with students clearly comfortable with the varieties of information exchange and the heightened perception of belonging and of social connection to both teaching staff and fellow students. Also, Bradshow reports on the use of Twitter in journalism courses (Bradshow, 2008). He describes the difficulty of engaging students who have not used social media before. Part of his aspiration was to expose students to Twitter as a means of helping them see the implications of new technologies for the journalism profession. He argues that teaching students about the tools, through the tools, will help them have a better understanding of the broader implications of these technologies for journalism (Conole & Alevizou, 2010).

Potential applications

From David Perry’s blog, an Assistant Professor of Emerging Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas, several observations of Twitter for learning purposes are summarized from his January 23, 2008 blog in the following bullets,

• Class conversations continued via Twitter. Tweeted information served to reinforce the connection between the class material and its existence in the “real world.”
• Enhanced Social Presence as viewed in the Community of Inquiry model…Students became more willing to talk and engage in coursework discussion by getting to know each other better through Twitter.
• Twitter’s “Public Timeline” Students (and faculty) can get a scene of what on Twitter is being paid attention to the most on a global level.
• Track a Word: Using this function of Twitter will allow one to subscribe to any post that contains that word. For example, a student studying the Civil War could track to find any Tweet that contained the word “Manassas.” This is another efficient way to distinguish Twitter “noise” from “signal.”
• Perry’s interest in going to the MLA convention, a convention for those in the language and literature field, led him to track the word MLA on Twitter. Doing so helped him connect before the convention with other Twitter users that were going as well.
• The author was able to get instant feedback on lectures by students who were also able to post questions regarding lecture content with classmates responding!
• Follow a professional in your chosen field: Perry notes that students interested in journalism can follow NewMediaJim, real name, Jim Long. Jim works for NBC and Tweets about being on Airforce One, covering the Middle East, etc. He has 42, 213 Twitter followers to date and offers a not-easily found, insiders view of journalism.
• Following a famous person of interest to you: Many celebrities, artists and politicians have Twitter accounts they post to regularly!
• Grammar rules: Because of the limited amount of characters allowed in Tweets, students will have to be more aware of grammar and punctuation rules to create Tweets that are clearly understood.
• Rule Based-Writing: Again, because of its character limitations, students will have to be aware of how that affects the content they choose to Tweet.
• Allows students to contribute to the Teachable Moment.
• Twitter is good for sharing short inspirations that may pop into one’s head.
• “Round-Robin Writing”: Remember this in grammar school? Perry, in his blog, cites how this can be a stimulating activity when done via Twitter.

Twitter is a rich resource for any field of study requiring enhancement from media reported current events.

References:

Bradshow, P. (2008) ‘Teaching Students to twitter: the good, the bad and the ugly’ Blog post 15/02/2008. Retrieved January 12, 2011 at http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/02/15/teaching-students-to-twitter-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

Conole, G. & Alevizou, P. (2010). A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alevizou_2010.pdf

Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009). Tweeting the night away: Using Twitter to enhance social presence. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2).

Junco, R., Heiberger, G. and Loken, E. , The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, no. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00387

N.A. (2007). The Model of A Community of Inquiry. Retrieved from http://communitiesofinquiry.com/model

Perry, D. (January, 23 2008). Twitter for Academia. Retrieved January 16, 2011 from http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/

An article by Marybeth Green and Gerri Maxwell in an Autumn  2010 edition of EDUCAUSE Quarterly, “Wikify Your Course: Designing and Implementing a Wiki for Your Learning Environment.” was brought to piqued my interest. Although its focus is on wiki use in higher Ed, the article starts with technical considerations to be made at the support level when choosing from one of the many different companies offering wiki sites. Considerations like how “private” it can be, can the college’s internet traffic capacity handle something where a large amount of data is being sent to and where there are many people on one site at one time were addressed. I appreciate such issues being addressed because I haven’t seen a nuts-and bolts view of having one at a college in other writings.

Wikis can be used for group projects that are of a long or short time length. Creating a group essay is more efficiently completed on a wiki than passing paper around. The process can alleviate the student burden of coordinating the time for physically meeting and having to make sure all members of the team are participating equally.

The best affordance of the wiki is that it cuts down on the time and energy spent on getting together to do the project so more time can be spent on creating content at a deeper level. Short term projects that involve tables can be copy and pasted from a word document to the wiki as well. (Green & Maxwell, 4)

As I seek to embrace the integration of wikis, I have found my research into the uses of wikis going deeper within the actual designated and spontaneous behaviors of any wiki’s “contributor.” The idea of “who does what” in a wiki space to be most effective must be clearly outlined to ensure efficient teamwork. It is a tool for group collaboration and the definition of roles for contribution can be even more clearly defined as everyone role is transparent during the editing process. These relationships may be of consideration to those mentors interested in hosting a class wiki. Being able to have all involved sit down and learn about what their role will be, and not address what content they will actually put in it can be done over an indefinite period of time for faculty and staff. Unfortunately, students in higher education, and blended learning, don’t have a loose frame time span to learn to use new technologies.

Therefore, the final page of the article was of most benefit to me as it detailed issues that arose from using wikis in the higher Ed setting.

• Don’t assume students will become proficient in using a wiki immediately.
• Students were found to be reluctant to edit each other’s work.
• Making peer editing a requirement was seen by students as additional pressure.
• Some students may not readily find value in a learning environment where they take complete ownership in their learning.

Possibilities

Wikis have proven to be a highly effective tool for group collaboration in the classroom and distance setting. By addressing the above issues as an institution seeks to integrate this tool, planning can take place to insure student participation is at a high level. Perhaps a short, introductory unit on using a wiki could be given by the instructor for their students before they enter and edit content. The focus, then, could be on content itself and student technological issues could be assayed beforehand. Students should also be made to understand that they must wisely choose what peer content to edit and be prepared to give a constructive explanation of why they made such edits. Pressure can be alleviated from requiring peer editing by showing student guidelines for what constitutes as peer editing and what constitutes as unconstructive bashing. Finally, struggling with the idea that greater ownership in ones academic work is worthwhile is less likely to be an issue for adult learners, who are highly self-directed.

Green, M. & Maxwell, G. (2010) Wikify Your Course: Designing and Implementing a Wiki for your Learning Environment. EDUCAUSE Quarterly. 33 (3). pp. 1-11.

Audio recording as a tool in higher education includes freeware or software to record and edit audio from your desktop or laptop or record from your iPod or mobile device to edit later.  Using current audio recording freeware makes recording on micro-cassette or cassette to later use in tandem with one’s presentation a thing of the past.  The current audio tools enable students and faculty to publish their reports, reflections, and collaborations for broadcast in social media or for private use.

Audio recording and editing can be used in the following instructional uses in higher education:

• Students can record their voices speaking for a language course to reflect on their pronunciation, grammar, inflection etc.

• Students can record feedback or content for use in a collaborative project.

• Students and faculty can use it to edit interviews or lectures.

• Faculty can give feedback to students on their web-displayed projects.

• Sound effects available in audio editing tools can enhance digital storytelling.

• Can be used to record and edit performed music to be submitted for a music performance course.

Three specific, most used tools with hyperlinks:

Audacity is open-source freeware usable on Windows, Mac and Linxus systems.  It allows you to record audio from your computer’s internal or an external microphone, LP or CD and then edit with the freeware (cut, splice, mix, add effects, etc.).  The resulting file must then be converted to mp3 format with LAME software.

Power Sound Editor Free has the same capabilities as Audacity but also allows you to burn your creation to CD, post on the World Wide Web or email it.

Mp3 Direct Cut is a free program that allows you to record or edit audio and turn into an mp3 without having to decompress the original file. Not having to decompress your file saves encoding time and preserves the original sound quality because nothing will have to be re-encoded.

With the increased need among students to gather references from the web for use in distance learning,  social bookmarking for group collaboration will become more common  than before.   Social bookmarking, overall, lets one keep whatever websites they’ve found of interest without having to save them as bookmarks on their home computer or laptop server.  Social bookmarking makes web articles retrievable from any computer/device with internet access!

The benefits of using  a social bookmarking tool could take up another entire blog post but, right now, I’ll look at the two most  popular, diigo and delicious.

Both let you bookmark URLs in your own online library that can be organized in helpful ways. Tagging with keywords, sharing with other “groups” within each site and the option to share or keep your links private are the functions diigo and del.icio.us share.  For del.icio.us, however, the features stop there.  The site might be fun for you as a way to share interesting information with friends and family, but diigo (likewise free of cost- by the way) offers more advanced features that serve well in asynchronous, distance learning group collaboration.

Each of these advanced features are not difficult to learn to use.  The most convenient feature of diigo is that you can install  a diigo toolbar (called a sidebar) to your web browser!   The basic sidebar has about 13 tools.  You have icons to open the sidebar, log in or out of diigo, search google through diigo- the most necessary functions.  Getting now into the strengths of diigo are  its following toolbars. These icons give you the ability to bookmark a site without logging into the diigo URL.  You are also able to highlight text you find most relevant to you with the “Highlight” tool (in different colors no less!)  You can do a screen capture of your selected bookmark  for later reference.  The ability to comment on text or post sticky notes ( not on the sidebar) make group collaboration more possible by allowing everyone in your group the option to discuss the given text.

These are the most commonly used features of diigo for the researching student. There are so many more ways to manipulate your material in diigo that this blog post doesn’t cover as  it would be an information overload to cover them here.  If you are a student or faculty, try diigo for yourself and you may find yourself using it whether your course requires it or not!

Hi again,

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve contributed to this blog.  I do still feel highly confident in the ability for blogging to enhance learning and teaching.  I’ve just been in what I have come to determine to be a “gestation period.”

Since my last blog post a lot has happened professionally!  I am becoming more adept at my position as Faculty Instructional Technologist at the Northeast Center for Empire State College.  I successfully submitted my master’s thesis, which was very long ad time-consuming, yet really worth the effort.  The title is “Web 2.0 tool Usage as a Learning Activity among Adult Higher Education faculty.”  I was lucky enough to be given the chance to present my findings from the thesis at the most recent CIT conference at SUNY Oneonta.  I also continued my one-day-a-week internship with the SUNY Learning Network.  Even though I actually received the course credit for it in December, I stayed on with them until May in an effort to get as much out of the experience and to learn as much about the professional application of instructional design concepts as I can.

I finally walked for graduation on Saturday May 14^th.  It’s bittersweet.  I’m glad I have the degree but miss the learning opportunities with the ETAP faculty.  Currently, I am preparing myself to apply to UAlbany’s PhD in Instructional Technology program by studying for the GRE’s; a fundamental requirement to apply.

This past week I attended my first cdetg conference held at ITT’s main campus in Albany.  The acronym “cdetg” stands for Capital District Education Technology Group.  The day’s event featured presentations by various organizations and institutions associated with higher learning but were not a formal parade of speakers.  Instead, while people were given a set amount of time to present, the speakers and attendees engaged in a large group conversation on the topic.

The overall focus of the conference was the still nascent implementation of mobile technology for learning.  A highly robust conversation flowed through with several key determinations being agreed upon.  They include,

• “Meet students where they are”

o       Students are already adept at using their mobile devices. They rely on these devices like the student of the past relied on their personal desktop.  Now, though, students        are  not all part of the campus experience.  They are commuting from home far away to campus and then to a job somewhere else.  They do not have the ability to sit in their dorm room at their computer.

• Because of their affordability over other personal computer devices, the cell phone (iPhone, Droid) has become a more popular choice for personal computing for higher education students.

• The implementation of mobile devices will not be focused on delivering content. The use of mobile devices will be to engage students in experiential learning, participating in skills based activities.

The conference also involved introductions to various tools that not only provide course content but also campus or college-wide mobile “app” tools.  These include notices for building closings, class canceling, faculty-to-student mass email notices and the like.

What will my next blog post be about?  I don’t know, but I’m sure when I discover it, it will be exciting!

Today was a very busy day.

I started with being at SCCC as Rob and  Dan delivered a presentation for that college’s faculty development.  Rob started the event by asking attendees what the instructor benefits of an LMS are.

Some responses were, “students can keep up with their grades” “instructors don’t have to grade with an EXCEL spreadsheet”  “Repository use makes for the ability to not have to hunt for your course material” “the LOR can be used to share documents among department members” ” student convenience to contact the professor” and ” making edits in certain areas ripple through its links”

Some instructors force students to become proficient with the LMS by giving them an initial assignment of acclimation.  I found that interesting. I never considered that some students might not really care if they are proficient in the LMS of a course their in or not.  To me it’s like saying “I don’t want to buy the textbooks” (!!)

SCCC is trying to use the LMS to a greater extent to create a sort of paper-less campus.

Rob and Dan then both gave an overview of what sln is, and what the sln 101 resources are.  The discussion came around to how to grade and evaluate discussions.  One professor expressed that it is easier for them to redirect f2f class discussions that go off track than to redirect online discussions. The issue is that there are too many more discussions of content going on in the online class!

Rob suggested to faculty that their individual work plan in their LMS course be to start with answering their course email, then answer their course bulletin board then respond to the discussion forum.

In online learning that doesn’t use a web 2.0 tool, the discussion forum is the only place where students interact.   Faculty noted that in peer review opportunities, students need to be reminded at times to be polite.

One aspect of the 7.4 updates that today’s discussion has led me to explore further is the “publish” key in the LOR’s subnavigation tabs.

Finally, they went over the rubric manager, new to 7.4.  I especially enjoyed the quote from Dan, or maybe it was Rob, that rubrics are beneficial to students because “the more specific you are with students- the more likely they are to meet your expectations.”

Getting back to sln, Dr. Shea came by for a meeting I was allowed to sit in on.   They talked, among, several things, about their inclusion of a new form of presence in the COI model, “learner presence.”  They are looking to find what the task structure and role structure in a course supports learning presence.  The learner presence shows the evidence of self regulated learning on the learner’s part.

They also talked about SNAPP, software that can provide graphic representation of student and teacher involvement in online discussion forums over one to several courses in a student or professor’s history.

They also discussed the need to figure out how to account  in the online setting the fact that body language and linguistic communication are gone from the online class but are the essence of the f2f experience.

Today I spent the majority of the day transferring content from sln 201 in Angel to Moodle.  I thought my brain was going to fall on the floor. I did, also, spend a lot of time with Rob, learning more about pedagogy in fully online and blended learning.

On this day I transferred a great deal of basic sln ANGEL 201 content from Angel to Moodle. I am quite sure that this is the easy part.  The hard part is that now the content I added there just to have content must be replaced with Moodle content.

Moving it all wasn’t hard.  The only aspect of Moodle content that I was not successful at getting to work was when creating a quiz.  I am going to need to do some extra stuff for that one.

The one thing I don’t like about Moodle is that there is no way to nest folders within each other.  In Angel you can and that is one thing instructors don’t like is that nesting can sometimes be perceived as hiding from a student.

Well, in Moodle everything is listed on your home page.  That might be convenient but if your Module 2 has 20 subfolders, that is an eyesore!

On this day I began the Moodle transfer project for sln.  This project involves creating a training course for faculty in Moodle.  The training must follow the same design as the sln 201 course for sln faculty.  So today started my quest for online materials, video or pdf, from other institutions that provide tutorials for their instructors.  If I do include any materials from other institutions I will definitely give them credit.

I have found there are many resources online for Moodle.

Also, today Dan spent some time with me showing me deeper aspects of the ANGEL LMS.

This past Thursday at my SLN internship I didn’t travel to any of the community colleges but instead spent the day with Rob Piorkowski focusing on pedagogy.  Rob’s main point is that in order to best support faculty in their desire to fully utilize technology in their course work two main points must be focused on from the designer’s standpoint.  The first is to consider are the faculty member’s learning objectives for the content.  The second most important consideration to focus on after objectives is to determine what benefit the student will get from having technology integrated for the learning objective that wouldn’t have happened without the use of whatever tool. Instruction drives the tool, not the other way around.

In Rob’s estimation an untapped resource of the ANGEL LMS is the ability for a faculty member to create formative assessments. Many faculty rely on the old model of delivering content how ever they do, testing the student on whether they learned it and grading them on that performance. Because the online student an must be self regulating in their approach to the course, formative assessments can allow a student to get immediate feedback on what they have learned helping them adjust their time accordingly without the threat of being assessed for a grade yet.

Formative feedback can be done through the ANGEL LMS by creating an assessment that doesn’t immediately dump into the Gradebook but gives the student feedback on what ever answer they choose.  I am deeply engaged by this idea and will reflect on it further.

Rob and I also talked about the best approach to take to introduce the idea of using technology for a blended learning situation where they instructor might be “on the fence” about going blended at all.  Rob said to not try to throw a lot of info at faculty at once but just show them how it is a tool that is available to them and what possibilities an LMS offers for student engagement.

Other activities of the day included participating in the 201 discussions, surveying the Quality Matters checklist for a successful online course and clarifying some confusion I still have with  ANGEL’s Gradebook and Dropbox.  Overall it was a very productive day for learning on my part.