Summer Learning Series
June 23, 2011
This summer, you’re invited to join your colleagues, the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology, and Next Generation Learning Challenges for a “Summer Learning Series” - a schedule of webcasts dedicated to the transformative role that technology can play in fostering student success with solutions designed to improve college completion.
The series will kick off on June 28 with Louis Soares, director of the Postsecondary Education Program at the Center for American Progress. The first webcast, “Disrupting College: How Disruptive Innovation Can Deliver Quality and Affordability to Postsecondary Education,” will focus on key insights and observations from a recent report by Soares, Clayton Christensen, Micheal Horn, and Louis Caldera that examines higher education through a lens of disruptive innovation. Soares will challenge participants to consider new strategies for an educational system focused on new approaches to student success.
The next speaker will be Thomas Cavanagh, Assistant Vice President of Distributed Learning. He will discuss, “Blended Learning at the University of Central Florida.” Cavanagh is an accomplished instructional designer, program manager, faculty member, and administrator. He has developed award-winning e-learning programs for Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and the military. Currently, he is the Assistant Vice President of Distributed Learning for the University of Central Florida. He has been interviewed or featured in many publications including Training, Federal Computer Week, Information Week, and the Washington Post. He has represented the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida on the Florida Distance Learning Consortium and has participated on the Advisory Board for the Brevard Community College Virtual Campus. He is also the author of several mystery novels.
Throughout the summer, subsequent webcasts will explore the critical role that technology can play in expanding the use of educational models designed to promote engagement, flexibility, and collaboration in the classroom from the first wave of NGLC grantees.
On Twitter? Tweet about the webcasts and follow the conversation using #NGLC
The Series (Please note location of event, as it varies)
Topic: Disrupting College
Speaker: Louis Soares, Director of the Postsecondary Education Program, Center for American Progress
Date: Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET
Location: Tyler Haynes Commons Rm 310
Topic: Blended Learning at the University of Central Florida
Speaker: Thomas Cavanaugh, Assistant Vice President, Distributed Learning
Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET
Location: Tyler Haynes Commons Rm 310
Topic: The Gamification of Education
Speakers: Steve Ritter, Carnegie Learning; Chris Sprague, OpenStudy; and David Gibson, SimSchool
Date: Thursday, July 28, 2011
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET
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Topic: The Open Learning Initiative
Speaker: Candace Thille, Director, Open Learning Initiative
Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET
Location: Tyler Haynes Commons Rm 310
Topic: Using Openness to Bridge to Success
Speaker: Patrick McAndrew, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University
Date: Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET
Location: Tyler Haynes Commons Rm 310
Tweet This!
June 10, 2011
Have you ever thought to yourself, “Self, my students do not exist in the same world as me!” Well, you may not be far from the truth.
Our students live in a world saturated by social media. To some, their world IS social media. You may not think of magazines, movies, TV shows, and even many websites as social. But to your students, each of these media has evolved a unique social component. The same can be said for most of their daily lives. That is, except for their time in the classroom.
At this point you may be saying “Good riddance! My classroom is not the place for social media.”
Step back a moment, and ask yourself “Why not?”
Is there a place for social media in the classroom?
Our answer is yes!
Let’s examine one very specific form of social media your students are familiar with… Twitter.
Twitter is a microblogging site that allows users to share their thoughts, photos, links, and lives, all in 140 characters or less. These microblogs, or “tweets” often come with a “hashtag” in order to identify the topic of their fascination. For instance, Jon recently attended a workshop on social media in higher education where the hashtag was #smhec. (Feel free to search for that tag to see what was tweeted during the event.)
Twitter is a free service that allows users to follow people or topics they are interested in as well as contribute to the conversation through the use of hashtags. Tweeters can be followed if others deem their content acceptable or worthwhile. It is very easy to setup an account. Head on over to twitter.com to begin.
The question remains, why use Twitter in your classroom? Twitter can be used to share articles, sites, and your thoughts with your students throughout the week and outside of the classroom. In this scenario, your students follow you, the professor.
Another meaningful way to use Twitter would be to ask students to look for outside information and share that with the class throughout the week. Here, the students and professor would follow each other. Students could use it to pose questions to the professor or class for further insight/help. Here, each student would tag their post with a particular hashtag and other students or the professor would follow a particular hashtag and provide answers or clarifying thoughts.
Your next question is probably, “How does Twitter affect student engagement and success?”
Dr. Rey Junco, Associate Professor and Director of Disability Services in the Department of Academic Development and counseling at Lock Haven University, is at the helm of a study to answer that very question.
“We conducted a controlled study of the effects of integrating Twitter into a first year seminar course on student engagement. We found that the experimental group had significantly increased engagement and significantly higher semester GPA’s than the control group.”
To view his early findings check out the YouTube clip: Rey Junco on Twitter in the College Classroom
These are simply the beginnings of how Twitter could be used in the classroom! How would you use this technology in the class? Have you used Twitter already? Please share your insights with us.
The future of the book
June 2, 2011
I am currently preparing for a class on social media. I am looking everywhere for resources supporting the use of social media but also questioning the value. One such book is “Digital Shock” by Herve Fischer (translated by Rhonda Mullins). In the prologue, he writes,
“…a book does not belong on the internet. The two media are in opposition. …A book is a comfortable recliner in which to rest the body and awaken the soul. Books require reflection and the critical questioning that freezing a word (like freezing a film frame) allows.”
This is fascinating to me because I am reading articles and books on several electronic devices that allow me to reflect, take notes, mark-up and do what I typically did with a book. The author wrote this in 2006 so there have been changes to ereaders and digital reading but the premise that books do not belong to the internet seems wrong to me. The Internet is an ever-changing, dynamic environment that allows consumers to become producers, editors, co-creators of works, who join the conversation. 
I am concerned by statements like this at the beginning of a book and will need to continue to read in order to get the full argument. I am sure that my bias as a technologist is filtering what I am reading but it doesn’t stop me from asking questions of the text.
It also brings me to the point of this post: Where are you with the future of the book in your classroom? Do you feel, as this author, that books need to be published on paper, stored on a shelf waiting for checkout? Can the same book be electronic? Are you currently using e-books in your course?
I would love to hear from you and I promise to write a new post after I complete the book!
