Posts tagged college
Learning Outcomes ARE NOT Learning Objectives
Aug 8th
The simple fact that Learning Outcomes are NOT the same as Learning Objectives is a key principle to “Developing Effective Learning Outcomes & Objectives.” As noted in that presentation outline,
The differences lie in the level of specificity each provides and the relationship of each to assessment methods and instructional activities. Failure to understand and accommodate the differences can restrict academic freedom of faculty and complicate institutional efforts to manage curriculum and assessment.
Using the course I teach – COSC 1401 Introduction to Computers – I want to briefly illustrate the difference and the relationship between a learning outcome and a learning objective. More >
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Loading ...Assessing Online Discussions
Aug 4th
I recently re/developed the rubric I use to assess learner performance in the online discussion for my “Introduction to Computers” course; I wanted a more generic approach suitable for many of the discussions in the course – particularly with the course going through a Quality Matters review. I developed a holistic rubric with two primary criteria supported with a number of descriptors at each level of proficiency. More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...What makes for effective learning & teaching?
Mar 25th
I have a very definitive view of what constitutes effective learning and teaching.
Effective learning and teaching experiences typically are:
- Active: Learners may, by design, cognitively influence the learning process.
- Collaborative: Learners are interdependent and reciprocally influence learning activities and outcomes.
- Authentic: Learners exhibit knowledge or perform a skill in a naturally occurring environment as possible.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Lego Digital Designer
Jun 24th
This evening, I was bouncing through my Google Reader checking for a few feeds I haven’t caught up on in a while , and specifically, I wanted to move the GeekDad blog from Wired further up my list of feeds and catch up a little bit. It’s one I typically read for personal enjoyment, but tonight I noticed something that had my mind jumping with educational possibilities – at home with my kids or in formal learning environments.
Initially, I stumbled across an interesting post about Legos. One pointed to a post at Gizmodo with a video tour through LEGO’s “Secret Vault” that contains almost every LEGO set ever released – unopened and unused. It was an interesting trip down memory lane ;-)
Then I came across GeekDad’s post about the LEGO Digital Designer. That jump will tell you more, but in short, the Digital Designer (a free download as far as I can tell) makes it possible to design your own LEGO bricks and/or use the collection of over 700 bricks to design and build to your heart’s content. But, that’s not really the cool part. Once you have finished your build, the software will generate a parts list to create a custom kit to purchase – thus allowing you to then receive your custom set and build with real LEGO’s the same thing you built with the digital designer.
I can imagine really entertaining, authentic, creative, problem solving possibilities all the way up through undergraduate classrooms (a great, fun introduction to architecture?) Definitely worth a look.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Presentation for the Greater Houston Education Collaboration
Apr 27th
This morning, I delivered the MUVE Forward: An Educator’s Introduction to Second Life presentation for the first time; I’ve been working on it for a while. I had the opportunity to present as part of a regular series of educational technology related presentations coordinated by the Greater Houston Education Collaboration: a local group that’s doing great things in the area and will likely expand in scope.
The presentation was an interesting experience; we had several different technologies running over the top of one another. There were roughly 20 individuals attending the meeting in person at the AT&T Technology lab at the College of Technology at the University of Houston; we had a number of attendees that were participating via live streaming audio/video; there were members of both of those audiences that were also logged into Second Life, and I believe we had one individual that attended in SL only, which we weren’t expecting and didn’t support very well this time around. Furthermore, our audience was an interesting blend of educator’s that had used SL to some extent (anywhere from 1 day to 2 months) along side those that had perhaps heard of the virtual world. The GHEC site has the archive of the video stream; the web-based version of the presentation is online at http://topherzwiers.wikispaces.com
Depending upon interest from those that attended the meeting in person, I may offer the same presentation/tour of SL via SL only on May 25th: blending that activity into my attendance at the SL Best Practices Conference.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...I’m Back… SL Acceptable Use Policies?
Apr 26th
I’ve been absent longer than intended, but It’s been an extremely busy, non-SL month.
However, things have been moving forward in our institution with interest in SL potentially reaching a critical mass. Given recent events and discussions, I believe planning will move forward this Summer with the intent to begin this Fall supporting faculty efforts to develop SL-delivered instruction. I do hope that we’ll move forward confidently with informed caution.
I mentioned previously that one of my driving professional concerns, as an instructional technologist, is to avoid
another, although more literal this time around, “land grab” at the distance learning landscape that resulted in the “teach now; plan, administer, manage and evaluate later” approach that so many institutions had to, ended up or are still taking with regard to web-based instruction.
With the range and number of faculty and instructional leaders asking our instructional technology group about SL increasing, I was recently asked, “Are we ready to support SL now? If not, when? At what level? What sort of timeline is involved?”
I answered those questions with quite a few concerns and questions, and I’m wondering and planning to find out the extent to which these questions and concerns are being addressed in other institutions.
- How or when are we going to define an “Acceptable Use” of SL? by faculty? by students? What happens if a student publicly, through open text chat, berates and verbally assaults another student? I *know* what happens on campus, but what happens on the virtual campus? Is it as simple as applying all other Acceptable Use policies to SL? What unique issues exist with SL in regard to an AUP?
- Do we want to begin developing quality guidelines now? How are we going to support the development of resources by/for faculty? I’m assuming we’d prefer to do those things at the outset rather than playing catch up later in the “teach now; plan, administer, manage and evaluate later” approach. How concerned are we of having the same “rush to the new medium” issue that occurred with web-based instruction?
- If we’re funding faculty development, how different are the purchasing/expense management issues in SL? Are there any accounting guidelines that are impacted by allowing the purchase of Lindens? of virtual goods and services?
- To what extent do we need to train our users – faculty and students – about risks and issues related to SL? Identity issues? The “mixed realities” in SL? Mixed goals/objectives in SL?
- We have three campuses; what does it mean to build a SL Campus? We can’t really just build a virtual version of our existing campus, and I’m not sure that we’d want to. Do we build, rent? Do we go the official route and brand our use by purchasing an institutional last name? That opens a tremendous can of worms for the marketing department.
- If we’re going to engage SL as an institution, what about student services? Student training and support in SL? What’s the economic impact of SL on our student demographic?
That list only begins to scratch the surface of questions if we are to engage Second Life (a) truly as an institution – as opposed to an individual faculty member or single department, program, or disciplin and (b) in a well-organized, quality manner that offers value added instructional methods and content rather than simply replicating instruction that can be done more easily and perhaps better via other medium.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Institutional Engagement with and Implementation of Second Life?
Mar 23rd
New Goal.
To what extent are institutions engaging Second Life? Certainly, there are colleges and universities represented in SL, but by whom is that SL presence being developed: early adopters only, pilot projects, isolated departmental projects, or institutional strategic planning? How much funding is being allocated to support SL projects, and is that soft or hard funding? How many faculty involved? Has the institution committed any part of any instructional support personnel’s time to SL projects (instructional designers, media developers)? How many faculty and support personnel are involved?
I work with faculty in a community college district across three campus locations to integrate all types of technology into all types of learning spaces. The questions I need to answer focus on the institution rather than discipline specific applications of SL. So, while I enjoy, as an instructional technologist and adjunct faculty, I’m going to make a concerted effort to address the more administratively and institutionally centered issues and questions regarding the implementation of SL in educational spaces – in addition to the discipline specific ideas and learning opportunities I’ve been writing about.
How is my institution engaging SL? Currently, we have a small number of faculty that are cautiously exploring and learning in SL. We’re evaluating how to move forward coherently. Given our learner and faculty demographic, I’m encouraging implementation through systematic support of early adopters. Essentially, I think we’ll best be served by identifying and organizing our early adopters, providing instructional and media design support, strategically planning and budgeting for in-world instruction, supporting faculty research and conference presentations, and proactively and organizationally addressing infrastructure issues. In short, I believe our primary concern is (and should be) another, although more literal this time around, “land grab” at the distance learning landscape that resulted in the “teach now; plan, administer, manage and evaluate later” approach that so many institutions had to, ended up or are still taking with regard to web-based instruction.
I plan to continue discussing how we’re approaching SL as an institution as much as possible, and I want to briefly mention three current projects I have related to institutional implementation of SL. First – and the reason for the research reports graphic above – I am developing and will be conducting research to explore many of the questions I noted regarding how institutions are approaching the implementation of SL; when the time arrives, I’d appreciate any help with encouraging SL’s RL education community to participate in that research. Second, I’ve been asked to introduce a local group of faculty and staff to Second Life; that presentation will occur in late April. And, I’ll be synthesizing both of those efforts for a forum presentation I hope to deliver at the League of Innovations’s CIT Conference this November in Nashville; I submitted that proposal this afternoon.
I appreciate you taking the time to read, and I’ll enjoy any comments, suggestions and collaboration!
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...In-World Laptops for Learners
Jan 29th
If my avatar already needs a personal time management and calendaring tool, then he certainly needs a laptop also, correct? A discussion on the SLED listserv caught my eye; Beth was talking about having had an in-world laptop created for her students.
From these laptops, students can email ANYONE (in or out of SL), access WebCT (or any CMS), go to our class blog, class wiki, flickr, Google,etc (there are like 20 links). He can custom design each laptop with your links and with your school logo. The laptops can be any color. He will place the vendor wherever you want it, as well, so students can purchase the laptops right on your land.
Following several emails from other list’ers expressing interest, Beth offered a demo, and since I was teaching that night, she even offered to meet up in-world to demonstrate this tool, and the scripter even dropped in for a visit. It’s a very nice tool with several interesting features that I want to highlight and discuss followed by a few details about the background on and availability of the laptops and a few thoughts for the Real Life Education (RLE) community.
There’s two basic functions of the laptop; clicking on the screen accesses web-based links which the instructor has selected to be included in the learner’s “library” of resources, and clicking on the keyboard makes available several interesting communication tools. In this particular instance, the links accessible from the laptop’s screen included several college-specific websites like the home page and the WebCT portal, a number of news sources, and Web 2.0 tools used by the course. The communication tools include the ability to send email from inside SL to other in-world addresses or web-based email; I was able to send email FROM my avatar to my regular gmail account! And, it’s possible to receive emails in-world only; sending emails directly to the avatar laptop! Not only that, it’s possible to access the in-world laptop via the web, without logging on to SL. Via the web-interface, it’s possible to send and receive emails from the Av-laptop, and the av-laptop will even tell you who is nearby in-world, without you having logged in to SL! It’s definitely a useful tool with interesting educational applications, including the ability to post an external blog entry via email from in-world.
The $100L Laptop Program anyone?
A couple of issues and ideas. . .
Currently, the laptops are not open source; if you want to customize the laptops or add content, you must contact the developer. That’s not an entirely bad thing, and Neo doesn’t charge a great deal for the laptops per student (about $5US ~ $1000L). And, he clearly does excellent work; as soon as I’m able to get back in-world, I’ll post a slurl to his storefront. With that said, there’s a definitive need, I think, for the education community to develop an open source version of this tool that relies on customizable and dynamically updated data, or for others who have created in-world computers to develop an educationally-centered tool priced as low as possible ($200-$300L ~ $1US).
Second, the in-world laptop I saw in the demo is based upon the SL Pear Computer platform and tools. The Pear Computer store is available in world at Porcupine (196, 31, 147). The store and their blog may be of interest: http://sl-pear.blogspot.com/
Finally, other SLED List’ers contributed other ideas and questions of interest. Intellagirl asked if the laptops could be automatically updated with new content and suggested a “binder” of sorts. Previously, she’s used a collection of notecards with links and information that were based upon the originals she possessed. By creating the dependent set of notecards, it’s possible for an instructor to update their copy which then cascades to each of the learner copies.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Penn State University on Second Life
Jan 17th
From time to time, I am going to take the opportunity to highlight another blog that I think may be exceptionally useful to real life educators working in and with Second Life (i.e. Central Piedmont).
Penn State University’s Educational Technology Services’ blog – Penn State Virtual Worlds – offers two critically important resources/pages for educators:
- SL Initial Project at Penn State – the project charter for PSU’s work in SL including a rationale for and description of the project; the project scope, sequence and timeline; and the year one project budget.
- SL Educational Possibilities at Penn State – a whitepaper-type description of educational applications of Second Life within the PSU environment with headings including: general educational uses of Second Life; discipline specific uses of SL; possible general learning outcomes; factors for use; preparation time and tips; assessment; technical issues and requirements; and other educationally-related logistics issues.
Those two pages alone are worth the look for any educator or institution exploring or wanting to explore the use of Second Life to facilitate real life education.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...NMC to Support Educational Institutions in SL
Jan 16th
New Media Consortium, according to the about page on their website, is
an international 501(c)3 not-for-profit consortium of nearly 200 leading colleges, universities, museums, corporations, and other learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies.
The news relevant to Educators in Second Life comes from one of today’s (01/16/07) blog posts at the Second Life Insider: NMC Virtual Worlds Supports education. According to that report:
The mission of NMC Virtual Worlds is to provide support services to education and training organizations who are starting up their own presence within Second Life. More importantly NMC Virtual Worlds services are being offered pro bono. So, if your University is looking to create a Second Life presence (and lets face it Second Life is the new status symbol for a university) you can contact NMC and they will help you set up in world.
A video introduction to NMC in Second Life is available from their blog. The Virtual Worlds Project has a web-based home along with the NMC Campus in Second Life, and the NMC Campus Observer blog has news updates related to NMC’s SL activities.
The NMC website elaborates further
NMC Virtual Worlds offers the full gamut of services, from design and building, to terraforming and landscape design, to the development of customized learning experiences and specialized environments. Also available are media hosting and streaming, and comprehensive meeting support.
NMC Virtual Worlds offers all of its services to educational institutions and museums on a cost-recovery basis, resulting in deeply discounted pricing compared to rates of for-profit virtual development firms. NMC member institutions enjoy an additional discount.
In short, the impact upon educational institutions is free or, at least, deeply discounted SUPPORT SERVICES with an educational orientation!
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