Archive for the 'What if . . .' Category

The Gettysburg Address as a PowerPoint

Published
by
Kate
on May 5, 2008
in Powerpoint and Presentations, Technology and What if . . .
. 1 Comment

What would it look like if Honest Abe had PowerPoint at his disposal on that fateful day in 1863?

Quite possibly, this.

Its creator, Peter Norvig, also describes his rationale here, and considers the value of PowerPoint in “PowerPoint: Shot with its own bullets,” which was published in The Lancet.

We don’t need to throw the baby out with the bullet-pointed bathwater, but the Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation might prove useful for those discussing with students (or colleagues) what makes for good (and bad) PowerPoint.

Connected

Published
by
David
on February 28, 2008
in Higher Education, Interpersonal Communication, Pedagogy, Podcasts and Podcasting, Technology and What if . . .
. 3 Comments

As part of their Mobile Learning initiative, Abilene Christian University has begun a new program that involves giving iPhones to incoming freshman. With the iPhones and the software they’ve designed, an incredible amount of innovation is possible in extending the classroom and giving students access to learning materials that are both class-related and college-wide. Imagine having syllabi, access to research databases, and course readings available anytime with just a few touches! They also describe plans for the use of podcasting, hybrid online/in-class discussions, and instant polling throughout their “mLearning” initiatives.

This and other programs in their Mobile Learning initiatives are available on their website. They even produced a video entitled “Connected” which provides their vision of what it might be like for a student who has access to this powerful technology.

YouTube Preview Image

YouTube Preview Image

As you’ll notice in the video, the iPhones that students get are not restricted to educational use. Facebook and other social networking sites are accessible, along with general internet, texting, and emailing capabilities. You can also see how the technology may present particular problems for communication in the classroom and more generally between students and professors. For example, professors are texting students and encouraging online research during class discussions.

So, although their programs may have a lot of potential to change the way students learn for the better, I worry that they also risk creating distractions and promoting poor communication. How connected is too connected?

Dr. What?

Published
by
Luke
on October 23, 2007
in Cross-Cultural Communication, Fun, Web 2.0 and What if . . .
. 0 Comments

My Jamaican sister-in-law shared this with me. The Real McCoy, a British sketch-comedy show that aired on BBC in the early 1990s, offers up one example of cross-cultural interpenetration… Dr. Who translated into Jamaican.

YouTube Preview Image

How about using this as a model for an assignment on mash-ups, taking advantage of Web 2.0 to explore processes of translation/cultural exchange? Taking students inside the productive process, getting them to exercise knowledge in creative ways? It could work for anthropology, sociology, philosophy, history, literature, language, or sketch-comedy classes.

An Idea for a Course Blog or, Perhaps, A Blog Course

Published
by
Luke
on October 17, 2007
in Blogs and Blogging, Politics and What if . . .
. 1 Comment

One of my favorite methods of procrastination is contemplating what I’ll do whenever the project that I’m not working on at the moment is complete. Luckily, some of my work at the Institute has involved trying to anticipate where instructional technology will go in coming semesters, and what kinds of demands for support this will create.

In that spirit, I’ve been thinking that next Fall I’d like to build a blog that aggregates coverage of the 2008 Presidential Election and uses it as a jumping-off point for a current events course about politics and convergent media.

I think such a course would work well as a first-year seminar, and could expose students to rigorous engagement with contemporary issues while helping them critically examine the quickly changing processes by which we produce and consume information. Students would be asked to learn about the policy issues at play in the election, and the blog would provide a tool for the teacher to guide their inquiry through directed readings of more in-depth pieces of analysis as well as selected reportage. The presentness of the topic would infuse the course with energy. Students would write regularly to better understand the rhetoric of presidential politics, to debate issues, and also to examine role of the media in the electoral process. Once the election is complete, students would then be asked to place the events in a historical context and to produce a final paper on some element of the election or its coverage.

Anyone know a faculty member interested in teaching this class?

Learning 2.0: free, fun, self-paced, and effective training in Web 2.0

Published
by
Kate
on April 5, 2007
in Administration, Blogs and Blogging, Faculty Development, Higher Education, Literacy, Technology, Web 2.0, What if . . . and Wikis
. 1 Comment

The article “Public Library Geeks Take Web 2.0 to the Stacks” on Wired.com describes a program where hundreds of staff members at North Carolina public libraries were asked to explore Web 2.0 in ways by trying out 23 things that were simple, yet meaningful and useful.

The result: Learning 2.0.

The impetus was the need for staff to know about Web 2.0 technologies:

When the IT director at North Carolina’s Charlotte & Mecklenburg County public library began training staff in the latest web technologies, she lured reluctant participants with bribes — a free MP3 player and the chance to win a laptop.

Six months later, the program they developed is the real prize. Learning 2.0., developed by public services technology director Helene Blowers, has become a surprise grassroots hit, available for free on the web and adopted by dozens of other libraries around the globe.

“The last thing we want is for people to come into our libraries and ask about Flickr or Second Life and be met with a blank look,” said Christine MacKensie, director of the Yarra Plenty Regional Library in Melbourne, Australia, which just finished a four-month version of Learning 2.0. “And they certainly won’t now.”

The program is inexpensive to run, but is fun and engaging. Hundreds of staff members signed on.

Recognizing that librarians need to know how to participate in the new media mix if libraries are to remain relevant, Blowers challenged her 550 staffers to become more web savvy. Using free web tools, she designed the program and gave staff members three months to do 23 things.

They created blogs and podcasts, tried out Flickr, set up RSS feeds, learned about wikis, uploaded video to YouTube, played with image generators and Rollyo, and explored Technorati, tagging and folksonomies.

“Librarian avatars were popping up all over the blogs,” said Blowers.

In the end, the library system found that they’d just trained their staff in new media with very little financial output (save some blog hosting and the mp3 incentives), without going to the trouble and expense of bringing in staff training, or forcing people to sit through classes.

Although her original goals for Learning 2.0 were touchy-feely “E’s” — exposing staff to new tools, encouraging play, empowering individuals, expanding the knowledge toolbox, eliminating fear — the effects were both practical and financial.

“We don’t have to wait for some training company to come along and say, ‘For $20,000 we’ll show you how this stuff works,’” said Michael Stephens, who wrote Web 2.0 and Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software. “Helene put it on the web so anyone can use that program.”

Libraries all over the world are doing just that — moving the entire Learning 2.0 program to their own websites. The program has been duplicated by university and community library systems in Sweden, Australia, Canada and Denmark. In the United States, programs are underway in South Carolina, Florida, Maryland and California. Even the Combined Arms Research Library, a military repository, is trying it.

It’s no surprise that now the 23 Things idea is spreading beyond libraries, to two realms cac.ophony.org readers are much more familiar with: higher education, and business.

Now Blowers’ program is spreading beyond libraries (even virtual ones, like the teen library in Second Life teen library in Second Life): A public relations firm wants to set up a Learning 2.0 program for its staff, and several universities and an elementary school want to use the system to educate teachers, she said.

Several years ago, I taught a semester-long course and some weekend workshops with Paul Allison and Ken Stein of the New York City Writing Project. We walked participants (mostly high school teachers, but also some CUNY and SUNY college faculty) through various experiences, from setting up a blog, editing a wiki, to using bloglines, del.icio.us and tags (this is a few years ago, mind you, when bloglines, del.icio.us, and podcasts were “new” new, or at least a newer new, not old hat, as they are now). Then, as now, new stuff was coming out every week.

The New York City Writing Project was interested in giving teachers a chance to blog, so they’d see if, and how, blogs might be useful for their students. They ended up finding out how blogs, flickr, podcasting, WiKis and all kinds of other web 2.0 applications could be useful in teaching literacy and communication skills, and they ended up using these, and other aspects of Web 2.0, in their classrooms. The 23 Things idea is very similar, though the 23 things could easily be tweaked to include the newest useful Web 2.0 technology, since good new stuff comes out all the time.

Perhaps the best thing about Web 2.0, and Learning 2.0 is that so many resources that work, like the 23 Things program, are free to use and free to build on.

One laptop per child

Published
by
Kate
on August 3, 2006
in Asides, Interpersonal Communication, Literacy, Resources, Technology and What if . . .
. 0 Comments

one laptop per child laptop prototype

This may not seem immediately relevant to us, as college educators, but with any luck it will be. And sooner than you think.

Many of you have heard about Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child idea.

This is their Wiki.

This is the FAQ. This is a link to recent press stories (via the Wiki).

The non-profit group is trying to get 100 million brand-new $100 laptops in the hands of the world’s children soon. Very soon–with shipping to begin as early as the end of this year. The crank-powered computers will be networked together, so they will be able to communicate even in areas where there’s no good internet access. (Thank goodness they run on cranks and not our dwindling power supplies, eh?)

Why is this so revolutionary? Well, think of the world in 5-10 years, when those kids are ready to work. Think of the exponential rise in literacy–both text literacies and tech literacies. Think of 100 million kids who can program in the code the computers will be using. Think of 100 million kids who can type and get their messages out. This could change the world more quickly than any other educational development ever. It’s exciting.

Now, besides and beyond the issues surrounding the actual laptops getting into the actual kids’ hands… what needs to happen to make this wonderful new world happen? What pitfalls do you see?

Excuse me, sir, but your online persona is showing.

Published
by
Kate
on June 11, 2006
in Blogs and Blogging, E-mail, Technology and What if . . .
. 4 Comments

PhD student bloggers were warned last year by Ivan Tribble (writing under a pseudonym in the Chronicle of Higher Education) that blogs with one’s real name attached might pose a threat to one’s search for a tenure-track teaching job. The article was controversial. Some respondents on the Chronicle’s forums agreed, while others objected on the basis that having a blog could enhance one’s professional persona. The article’s author trotted out many examples of “academic” bloggers who exposed aspects of their lives that job search committees would find disturbing. Still other readers objected (pointlessly, you have to admit) to the very idea that potential employers might google applicants. Others felt that most people who wrote anything but 100% professional blogs had already realized they should only write to an anonymous blog. (Of course, Tribble, who himself hid under a pseudonym, made it clear that no blogs were good blogs as far as he–as a search committee member–was concerned.)

Then The New York Times addressed the phenomena of employee bloggers a few weeks back. And now, it has turned its sights to other embarrassing materials students leave scattered about online. Apparently, students post all kinds of embarrassing things on myspace.com, Friendster, and Facebook, not to mention personal blogs. It’s a reminder that we need, somehow, somewhere, to address students about these kinds of issues. I’ve always tried to do my little bit to support careers services by mentioning to students in my classes that they might want to have a professional email address to use with professors, and those who hire interns and employees, and frankly, anyone involved in one’s education or work career. It is not always readily apparent to students that “hotgirl357@hotmail” or even “RoyalsFan69@yahoo” is maybe not the best email to use in professional settings: they’re memorable, sure, but for the wrong reasons. Being a Royals fan is probably not going to lose students any interviews, but don’t they want email-ees to know the name of the person the message is coming from? When students are reminded of these issues, they usually get it.

But there’s more than embarrassing email addresses at stake. We should be encouraging students early and often to think about what they’re putting out there with their names attached. As this University of Illinois student who was looking for a job (who was cited in the Times article “For Some, Online Persona Undermines Resume”) discovered too late, students should consider who might be reading:

At Facebook, a popular social networking site, the executive found the candidate’s Web page with this description of his interests: “smokin’ blunts” (cigars hollowed out and stuffed with marijuana), shooting people and obsessive sex, all described in vivid slang.

It did not matter that the student was clearly posturing. He was done.

“A lot of it makes me think, what kind of judgment does this person have?” said the company’s president, Brad Karsh. “Why are you allowing this to be viewed publicly, effectively, or semipublicly?”

If they want to post less-than-professional descriptions of themselves on Facebook, myspace, or otherwise, students should think about the usefulness of pseudonyms.
They’re good enough for Ivan Tribble at the Chronicle, after all.

That’s the no-brainer, right?  Don’t attach your name to anything you don’t want your name attached to.  But the issue becomes murkier–and this is where Ivan Tribble invited all kinds of argument–when what students or employees or academics are putting online is more-or-less professional.  At that point, is Tribble right?  Is blogging still a no-no?  What rules should we follow when using our names online?  Assuming we’re sharing our views on higher-level issues than smokin’ blunts, and we’re not dragging anyone’s name through the mud, at what point does any online writing cross the line to become too personal?  At what point do we expose something we should not?

When I Was A Kid…

Published
by
Deborah
on June 8, 2006
in Resources, Technology and What if . . .
. 2 Comments

…I didn’t realize my family was special for having one of the early Commodore 64 home computers. I also didn’t realize how fortunate I would later feel at having learned a little Basic (the programming language), and how to touch-type when I was eleven. But today’s kids–whoo! I’m envious.

As reported in the New York Times today, we now have Arts and Crafts for the Digital Age. The German Science Studies theorist Friedrich Kittler has argued that one of the problems with the way most people currently interface with technology is that it is entirely at the level of software. The average person knows very little about their computer’s hardware, and is possibly quite frightened by it. We tend to assume it’s very powerful, and easily damageable. But with the PicoCricket Kit, designed by Mitchell Resnick (assistant professor of learning research at the MIT Media Lab), any child who can afford this $250 toy can begin to interact with digital technologies as both hardware and software. They can learn to program the small computer that comes along with the pipe cleaners, the legos, the electric wiring, and the felt.

The Vex Robot, from InnovationFirst (a robotics company) and Radioshack, is also mentioned. The article quotes a vice-president at InnovationFirst, “Talk to the average high school students, they are a lot smarter…They like open-ended problems, and a lot like to take the tools that are available to solve open-ended problems.” Not mentioned in the article is technoartist Natalie Jeremijenko, who has worked with high school and university students to reprogram robotic dogs made by Sony. These newly ‘feral dogs,’ so named for their street-smart capabilities, are able to sniff out toxic waste such as dry cleaning solvents and paint thinner. Robots… the next critical thinking tool?

When I was a kid, my mother bought my sister and I Erector Sets, in the hopes that we would become engineers. Maybe I’ll just have to save up for the PicoCricket Kit.

If you had a million dollars . . .

Published
by
Mikhail
on December 13, 2005
in Administration, Funding and What if . . .
. 3 Comments

Well, maybe not a million but a lot.

Let’s play a game: Imagine that a big corporation wants to give your school, program, or department a lot of money over three years for an innovative initiative aimed at improving your undergraduates’ ability to communicate orally and/or in writing. How would you spend it?

Now for the rules: 1) The initiative you propose can be hinged on a single big program or a bunch of little ones and can involve curricular support and development as well as co-curricular programs; 2) The outcomes have to be measurable. Assessment of program outcomes, however, may be built into your proposal so that some of the money would go towards assessing how well it’s working. That brings us to . . . 3) Be sure to mention how you plan to assess your program; and 4) Be sure to identify the population of students your program is intended to target.

So that’s it. Put your thinking caps on, people. To add a comment from the cac.ophony.org homepage, click on the post title or the number next to it.