My final project is a prezi (innovative online presentation tool) of how to teach with Web 2.0 tools. This prezi will be presented as my Faculty In-Service Training in either February, April, or June 2010. I used much pre-work from our class, from continuing all term to develop my bubbl.us project outline to incorporating many of the mini-projects developed for weekly assignments. Before I summarize my presentation, I want to stress how crucial Rick's audio feedback from my blog was to the final development of this project. He stressed, as did the literature this term, that these tools need a purpose. Rick reminded me that--rather than just teach teachers to use these tools--I need to stress why they would consider using them. While I had already thematized the tools into my presentation's major headings, I had not included in my early drafts any justification for using web 2.0 in the classroom. I hope you will find, in the full version of my presentation and below, good reasons to use these tools in class!
Major Categories of My Presentation
To distill all the tools we've learned into what can be applied in my two-year career college context, I had to consider:
My college's job-placement mission
The college's technological capabilities/limitations
How to motivate faculty to want to use these tools
Which tools would both simplify teachers' lives and benefit their students (what we call synergies)
Here is what I came up with.
Introduction:The presentation begins by contrasting web 1.0 (the read web) with web 2.0 (the read-write web). Here are the presentation's main points:
Organizing the Web: To make searching the web for teaching materials easier, I introduce for faculty:
Google Reader (aggregator): Using the analogy of how they previously got their information through subscriptions, I show how the reader saves time by bringing their preferred content to them. I show a common craft video on RSS in Plain English. We actually sign up for google reader using a webcast I made and hosted on Netfiles with a public setting (i.e. you can use it too). Then we subscribe to RSS feeds in several different media categories (i.e. news sites, blogs, etc.). I stress the major hurdle is getting into the habit of visiting your reader on a regular basis.
Diigo: I introduce common pitfalls of bookmarking to a local machine (i.e. you bookmark to your home computer but find yourself at school needing the link) and show how diigo is a solution. The presentation shows them a diigo video from youtube that we watched in class. I have set up a diigo group for my faculty (including establishing all their usernames and passwords), and I will have them join during the presentation. I also emphasize how diigo allows users to interact with pages (highlight and annotate) and how they can share pages with others.
Blogs: I describe 3 potential ways teachers might use blogs:
For finding material (1) about their course subjects and (2) about teaching. I stress that they can both consume and contribute information.
Having students blog to (1) journal about their learning; (2) reflect on course material; (3) create e-portfolios; and/or (4) post drafts of writing for each other to critique. I include an example I found through a blog search, plus an e-portfolio blog I made for this class.
For posting assignments and due dates. I present an example found in a blog search.
The blog section ends with a screencast I made, uploaded to youtube, and embedded in the presentation. The screencast has faculty use their google account created earlier in the training to sign up for a blogger blog.
Collaboration and Group Work: I present 2 additional tools for facilitating the participatory aspects of the read-write web:
Wikis: I describe wikis as the epitome of web 2.0 (based on the wikipedia model) and also the most misunderstood (again, based on popular maligning of wikipedia). I share a diigo-annotated article that blasts popular wiki myths. I also share a real company's wiki that works great for its purpose, and I showcase the wiki I started as our weekly class assignment that is now morphing into a real class wiki that goes live Jan. 4, 2010!
Ning: I describe how Ning shares many of the features of blogs (asynchronous posting) but also allows for synchronous chat. I created a ning for the in-service that requires participants to respond to a post, respond to each other's posts, personalize their "My Page," and engage in a live chat. I have a link to our class role play as well.
The prezi, my screencasts, and the youtube videos are intended to show faculty some of the other tools at their disposal. There are so many tools I don't even cover in the presentation, but I left faculty some of the low-hanging fruit to discover on their own (i.e. the googles: docs, calendar, and sites). We plan a follow-up to the in-service during which time faculty share which of these tools they have tried, their results, and what they plan to do differently/the same in the future. I will also begin implementing some of these tools more regularly, such as wikis for signing up for reviews of student evaluations, screencasts for demonstrating new technology, online calendaring, etc.
This was one of my favorite assignments for the term because it required me to do two things I had been thinking about doing anyway:
Revising my blog into a portfolio.
Finding a free, professional looking host for electronic portfolios for my college's graphic design students.
As Beach et all point out in this week's reading, blogs are ideal for reflection as the author can pick out the best of his or her work to showcase. Beach et al also praised the flexibility afforded by blogs and wikis as e-portfolios, and I agree that generic tools work for this purpose. One of the links in the ning forum didn't work, but its topic was using blogger to create an electronic portfolio. This intrigued me because I could revise my own blogger blog into a portfolio, and blogger could hold potential for free student use. I googled the topic and found an e-how article for making blogger into an e-portfolio. With some experimenting of settings and layout, I made a shell for a free, professional looking e-portfolio in blogger! Then came the productive work of reflecting on what I have learned so far in this class. And really it's everything. I had not done any of our assignments before, except for making rubrics. I learned an immense amount of information and can safely say this is the most learning--and the most fun--I've had in my program.
Reflection on My Learning
Here's a summary of my learning:
Blogs: I had never started a blog, let alone read or subscribed to one. Now I subscribe to several. Here is my current favorite: Chris Brogan's blog.
Reader: I had never even heard of a reader. Now I use google reader to read the above blogs and gather other news items of interest to me.
Vlogs: I had never heard of vlogs, had never seen a vlog, and had never made a vlog. I have not continued to engage vlogs in the same was a blogs, but many blogs I follow have some sort of video accompaniment, which puts them in the catgegory.
Wikis: I had heard of wikipedia and had revised some existing entries. But I hadn't realized how accessible this medium is. Free wikis abound and they are very easy to create and edit. With a little attention, one can even make them look professional. My computer teacher is implementing my help desk wiki created for this class.
Online role playing: This was a new way for me to engage a learning topic. I loved it. However, for the first time I also experienced the skimming sort of learning method at issue in the role play (is google making us stupid?). I am happy to report I can still delve deeply into text, as well as skim for specific information. I plan to have my faculty replicate this type of assignment. Additionally, the chat function we used on the final phase of this assignment is something else I will replicate in my college. Specifically, next term we will be using live chat in a ning for computer students to role play customer and computer helpdesk representative.
Digital videos: I had used a camera for recording my teachers but had never created a story, edited it, and posted it online. Since the class project, I have filmed and edited additional material and posted them to my new youtube account (also a google property). Now, I plan to record faculty presenting lessons (15-20 minutes) in class and then upload them to videoant as the feedback mechanism. I am excited about the convenience for providing crique (viewing and responding simultaneously). I also like how videoant shows all written comments when they are associated with what is occurring in the video. Previously, I would have to integrate all critiquers feedback into one, coherent document that was still divorced from the video itself because it was on paper.
Podcasts: This was the most technically challenging endeavor of the semester. Of course, that's because I wanted to add a soundtrack. I am working on a podcast with my son ranking the top professional baseball players from the 2009 season. We will publish our first episode after the class concludes. I'll provide RSS info in case you want to subscribe! I also think instructors will make more use of voice recording for students who are absent or can't attend a review session.
Screencasts: Totally a new concept to me. By far one of my favorite new media. I am making screencasts regularly at work now. They provide better instruction (easier to follow) than my old format of memo with screenshots. I am someone who likes to be creative and to teach but does not require a spotlight on me. Screencasts provide a more "anonymous" way for me to contribute to the read-write web and student and faculty learning (especially if I use text annotations instead of voice or a talking head!).
Comics & Cartoons: Along with screencasts, this was my other favorite medium. Please see my e-portfolio created for this assignment (in blogger) to read about my affinity and planned uses for cartoons and comics.
E-portfolios
I chose blogger for my e-portfolio instead of other sources, like a wiki or free sites dedicated to portfolios, because blogger is free, easy to use, and has so many professional looks. Beach et al called the dedicated sites more web 1.0 tools. I have only just begun my portfolio and will refine it over time. In reflecting on the topics we learned, I distilled from my class blog the most important information and added additional information learned/processed since the original posts. The result is a concise e-portfolio with samples of my work that looks professional. Please visit my web 2.0 e-portfolio. I would appreciate learning how I can make it look more professional. Please make comments here, on this blog post, not on my e-portfolio. Thanks!
Our graphic design program has been using CDs to hold students digital portfolios, instead of web hosting due to technical and financial barriers. So I began this week's reading with the hope of finding a solution for me and for my graphic design students.I think the blogger site works well enough for students to post their work. The limitation could be the 1GB storage maximum. Students could always post a thumbnail or reduced version and link to a fuller version posted at a free site with bigger limits. I will have to have the faculty experiment with this.
We use traditional paper portfolios with our students already--in all major fields of study for their entire course of study at our college. The portfolio serves three specific purposes:
To show students how much they are learning (which helps show them progress and value)
To showcase student accomplishments during a job interview
To serve as a reference for students when they are on the job (keep in mind we are a career college)
An electronic portfolio would serve all of these purposes, though the job interview does not always allow specific involvement of an e-portfolio. The latter, however, could help the student get the job interview in the first place if referenced in a cover letter/resume. A blog itself is a kind of portfolio--just rougher than a formal e-portfolio. One advantage to the original blog, if kept journal-like throughout a course or program of study, is that it tracks the students' learning while it happens. Those lightbulb moments and rare spurts of clarity can be useful to look back on, even if this blogfolio is only used specifically by its creator.
Providing Feedback to Teachers When providing feedback to my instructors (such as when they have curricular ideas), I try to use email because of four advantages it offers:
It's in writing so that they can refer to it conveniently
It's portable (they can access the feedback wherever they have Internet access)
It's asynchronous, so they can access it when they are ready to process my feedback. Any synchronous method might provide feedback at a time that is not optimal for the instructor to consider the feedback
Email is an easy way to create dialog with an ongoing transcript
The faculty have preferred to initiate dialogue via email for what I think are similar reasons, with a twist on the synchronicity aspect. While the communication is technically asynchronous, I often respond within minutes so that they can get timely feedback, especially on technical details and yes/no questions. Of course, if I don't know the answer or need to consider a question in more depth, I will not fully respond right away but will always reply promptly with an expected timeframe for the answer or a follow-up question.
I have not tried other modalities for providing feedback. However, I think that a screencast response with voice could be a great way to provide feedback on wiki or ning-based assignment proposals from faculty. A camstudio screencast (see my screencasting blog post) would allow me to provide verbal feedback on a specific aspect of the faculty member's proposal while they see me clicking through their assignment/site. I would be unlikely to email such feedback as even a 2-minute shockwave screencast without sound approaches 3MB, but I could deposit the file in the instructor's personal drive on our network or a provide a link to a web address. I look forward to trying this.
Rubrics I would not provide instructors with rubric assessments of their work. But they would assess student work with rubrics. I am a huge fan of rubrics because they serve as both an assignment sheet and a time-saving grading tool. I have encouraged my faculty to use them by offering a number of in-service trainings on their development and use and by providing rubric samples and templates on our shared faculty network drive. Once a teacher uses a rubric, she tends to be hooked. They save time. Maybe an hour goes into creating a good rubric, but grading time can be reduced significantly per student as the instructor does not have to write the same summative phrases over and over on each paper (see Beach et al in this week's assigned reading for numerous examples of teachers bemoaning the triteness of writing comments on student writing).
My "Help Topics Wiki" Rubric I decided to create a rubric for assessing student wikis. Earlier in 5475, we created templates for a wiki assignment (see my blog post on this topic). My wiki project was for computer students to build "help topic wikis" for troubleshooting and problem solving common technology challenges.
I wanted to use time-saving technology to help me create the rubric. I started with Thinking Gear's Rubric Machine, which provided an outstanding 6-step heuristic process for helping you think through what you want students to learn and how you will assess their performance. I highly recommend the site and the process. However, the resulting rubric left much to be desired. There were too few categories that were themselves too verbose. The site lacks a simple editing process or basic rubric generator. Maybe further use would show me how to respond to the heuristics in a way that generates a more desirable rubric, but I wasn't going to master the site in one use. So I recommend using another service for building rubrics based on what you learn with the Rubric Machine.
Rubistar has a great template and allows free building of rubrics. Users do not need to register if they just want to create and print rubrics. To add rubrics to the Rubistar database and access it later, users register and continue using the service for free. There is also a fee-based interactive digital feedback service available. This would help accomplish some of what Beach et al point out in this week's reading--that the assessment method should match the unique aspects of digital writing (multimodality). Another real plus of Rubistar is that you can copy and paste the rubric into Word or Excel without losing formatting! I made an Excel version of the rubric with formulas for easy grade tabulation.
Here is the Rubistar-hosted version of the "Help Topic Wikis" rubric that I brainstormed in Thinking Gear and refined in Rubistar.
Presentation Design Considerations I was rocked a little from my safe world of thoroughly packed PowerPoint slides by the "less is more" movement championed by Merlin Mann. I began considering the notion that I should be telling the story, not my slides.
Then I visited some sample presentations, looking for "less is more," on slideshare. What I discovered is that such presentations don't lend themselves well to unnarrated or unaccompanied presentations. The "less is more" presentation is useless as a standalone teaching tool. It might serve as a relic to jog the memory of someone who witnessed the brilliant presentation (like Merlin's google talk), but as a public document to share, it's pretty useless.
So it's important to differentiate between the valid points that--on the one hand--(1) giving a presentation can be more about talking than filling slides with words, data, and bullets and--on the other hand--(2) the "less is more" slideshow is not suitable as a standalone teaching tool. For example, in Faculty Orientation, I cover our entire yearly strategy, as well as review the previous year, so that all faculty are on the same page. If someone is ill or I make a late hire, my PowerPoint presentation can stand on its own. So how does the "less is more" consideration affect my practice? Here are two good solutions: 1. Be a writer! Most of us who write journal-article length research papers start with more material than we need and then whittle it down to a finished product. Likewise, you can make your bloated PowerPoint or Keynote, and save it as the teaching standalone that you want to share with the world. But then whittle it down to just a few words and an image per slide for the actual presentation you will be giving.
2. Record Video or Audio I could record my orientation for later playback. The limitation is that Orientation is 6-7 hours, which would be a monster video file! Even the audio might get pretty beefy. But it's possible.
My Presentation Did Not Empress(r) I wound up making a "less is more" presentation. I sought evocative pictures and matched them with impactful statements. Trying to write first and find images to match my words rarely works for me. I'm too picky. So it's easier to find a thematic image first and then write for it. This presentation has a little bit more "meat" to it than an orthodox image with a few words. I have data, including a graph. I also made a tinyurl to refer the audience to a web site for more information. So my presentation is not totally useless as a standalone, but it lacks my usual detail.
To build the presentation, I used the web site Empressr. I was not pleased with it overall. Moving text and images was cumbersome and not intuitive (the constant need to double-click was annoying). Making a chart was impossible. I could not get the rows equally sized, could not shrink the size of one column, and could not get all the text to display unless it was too tiny for a presentation. I finally gave up trying to create the table and just used text boxes to simulate a table (without gridlines). Reordering also slides took more slight of hand than a magic trick.
The feature I did like was the ability to import images via supplying a URL or performing a limited but robust search of Google, Flickr, youtube, etc., from within Empressr. This saved me time. Also, since it's a web app, Empressr provided an embed code, saving me from having to upload to slideshare or other host.
Involve Me! The other challenge for me was to make my presentation more interactive. I am definitely a didactic presenter. However, I flatter myself that I am engaging enough to keep my audience's interest. I use humor, anecdotes, etc. However, building a presentation to be inherently interactive took work. I first made a didactic presentation, and then identified the opportunities to get the audience involved. Honestly, the interactive version is a better presentation. It's the one I would want if I were in the audience. I need to be more empathetic to my audience when presenting, just as I try to be as a writer.
Getting students to see their writing from the audience perspective would be easy if they get feedback on their writing from a real audience (i.e. blog post comments from classmates and teacher). However, given their "off the cuff" nature, blogs don't come to mind as the leading strategy for teaching revision strategies. Students need to learn that formal writing and writing for a specific purpose, such as to persuade, needs revising. I went through a process of making a presentation that had the content/message I desired--and then I revised it to be more interactive. Students need to experience the balance between content and audience. Maybe they could be assigned a presentation that taught a specific topic. Then they could be tasked to go back and make it interactive for their audience.
Poor Web Site! When we were studying comics recently, I visited the Dilbert homepage. The site is awash with different gadgets that let you interact with Dilbert cartoons. However, each and every page contains so many similar looking Dilbert cartoon strips that I felt overloaded! The site literally stressed me out. I thought Mashups (you fill in the final caption on a Dilbert strip) were a great idea, especially after we were creating our own cartoons in class. I clicked on the link but could not for the life of me figure out how to create my own. There was an endless stream--again--of strips sorted by how recently they were created. I would think sorting them by the most popular would make more sense, since you are allowed to vote for your favorite. That aspect of the site is still in beta, so maybe it will improve. Suffice it to say, I will not be revisiting the site. It's such a disaster that a screen shot won't do it justice; you have to experience it.
Easy on the Eyes Blogs Chris Brogan's blog on community and social media has a layout I prefer. Simple menu headings on top, the latest blog post, and blurbs of the last several blog posts with links to full articles. The right side has a plug for his book but it is otherwise uncluttered. There is plenty of whitespace so my eyes don't feel like they are being pulled in every direction. I feel serenity while reading. Another blog whose design I like is the fast forward blog by Bill Ives. The blog posts are listed in full, and at the bottom of each are links to related blog posts. The right column has more stuff in it, but it is easy to ignore while reading blog posts.
Comparing Dilbert's site to some blogs might at first seem like comparing apples to oranges. However, all three sites want visitors to read what they have written, and all have books to sell. The blog authors, however, are appealing to a specifically intellectual or digerati audience that would not tolerate total chaos. Dilbert's appeal is to silliness, even if its audience includes the sophisticated set in addition to cubicle dwellers in seek of a respite.
At first blush, comics might not seem to have a place in the career-oriented college. That was my knee-jerk reaction. But after reading about them, looking at examples, and trying three different comic-making sites on my own, I have found useful applications.
Makebeliefscomix The first comic I created was to illustrate an existing policy manual that instructs teachers how to respond to common student concerns. Since the policy manual is written as a dialogue, a comic is an idea way to bring the policy manual to life. The comic is more fun to read, more succinct, and offers potential for a touch of humor. Sarcasm/humor is hard to interpret in a personnel manual (and probably not appropriate). However, in a comic, it can easily be interpreted and felt more appropriate.
For this comic, I used makebeliefscomix. The site, which lets you create comics online for free, has a limited amount of options but is perfect for the kind of comic I created: something short, sweet, and dialogue based. However, there was enough selection of characters that I was able to find ones that illustrated the student rule violation under consideration. The site is very easy to use relative to the other sites reviewed here. While you can save a link to your comic, you can't save just the strip. So while it had the most limited options, it was user-friendly. I will create an entire set of cartoon strips to illustrate the college's rules. I will probably print them and cut them out. I might even consider sharing them with students in our orientation process.
ComicLife The second comic I created used Comic Life. This is a software program that you download (free 30-day trial). The program is based on using real images. You can access photos on your computer or capture images to import directly into ComicLife. The program is robust and provides options to create the feel of real comic books, though you can choose short comic strip panels as well. You can save the individual comics, can create comic books, and can export them as html or image filed (i.e. jpg).
My graphic design students already use this program (comes with iMac) as an initial assignment to orient them to the Mac, planning, and basic design. The Graphic Design Program Director told me the program is not advanced enough for a final professional-level portfolio. Page layout software (i.e. Adobe InDesign) would be used instead.
I think ComicLife would be useful also to our Travel students. I designed a basic travel brochure comic to promote South Dakota. The practice of choosing "representative" images for a particular destination would be a good practice for these future travel professionals. Students could access images using creative commons images on flickr. My pictures came from a family trip a few years ago. Click the comic to enlarge it.
Toondoo The third comic I created used an internet-based site called toondoo. This site combined the best of the previous two tools and had some additional features. First of all, it was free, and you can save your comic online and access an embed code. Toondo had a large selection of cartoon people, backgrounds, objects, etc. What was neat is that you can also create your own characters right down to their posture, clothing, facial expression, etc. And you can make these characters available to the entire toondo community, thereby adding to the selection of the site.
This site would be useful for my context in the same way as makebeliefscomix. However, given that it is so robust, it might actually be overkill for the simple, dialogue-based strips I wanted. On this site, I made a political cartoon. This has always been something I've wanted to do. I am an avid reader of political cartoons. While there are many sites dedicated to sharing the best political cartoons, this is the site I visit: http://www.cagle.com/politicalcartoons/.
My process for creating this cartoon was to decide first what I wanted to say and then to find the right backgrounds to accommodate my ideas. For the second panel, representing an election ballot, I used a background of a clipboard and a dialogue balloon without the "downspout." I made the woman in the first panel, while the other characters were pre-made. Use the scroll bar below the comic or click on it to see it full.
I published my podcast last week, so this week I tried a screencast. I used the free camstudio that Rick and Pete referred to in class. It is robust for a free program, and I recommend it. The pop-up text boxes take quite a bit of choreography, a process that would be unnecessary if one used voice instructions. However, there are multiple reasons that I felt like written directions were the ideal accompaniment to the screencast:
This is, after all, a digital writing class. So practice in writing short, concise directions is valuable for teacher and student alike.
My college is loaded with thin clients that often do not function appropriately with sound.
Even if they did, it would be less distracting for all users in a computer lab if the screencast did not employ sound. Headphones could remedy that problem, but I feel the text directions are still more convenient for users.
Also, whereas voice directions might have to be repeated multiple times for the user to comprehend, a short text box can be displayed for an extended period of time to allow the user to “soak” it up.
I also liked the freedom of not having to speak during “dead air,” as some of the processes I demonstrated take a while to load.
I hope you will view my screencast. It’s only 2 minutes. It’s about how to access network applications at my school. The “ghosting” (vapor trails from the cursor) do not occur in the original file that I am using on my network. I hope that is not too annoying for you!
Camstudio records as a very large windows movie video file (.avi). My two-minute screen cast was a whopping 33MB! However, Camstudio lets you convert to shockwave (.swf), which is a super-compact flash format that shrank the file down to just 2.2MB. At such a small file size, I can choose to host the file on my own company intranet. I tried uploading both the big and small file formats to Media Mill, but it did not recognize either. So my solution was to use the netfiles service that Rick and Pete told us about in class. They said this could be our “go to” storage site once we lose our Medial Mill access. The shockwave file didn’t even make a dent in my 5GB of storage, and I was able to copy a public link to my screencast. To set up your free U of M netfiles account, go to https://netfiles.umn.edu/xythoswfs/webui and follow the prompts. It took less than a minute before I was up and running. Since I started with a finished file codec, I didn’t check if there is anything else available in netfiles other than just storage.
Future Uses
Both screencasting and podcasting are attractive multimedia options, especially compared to video, because they are relatively bandwidth friendly for uploading and downloading. Screencasting would be an ideal assignment for computer students in their helpdesk class and to support their final project (which already required “documentation,” such as a user manual). I could also see Public Speaking students using screencasting to support a demonstration speech. I will continue to develop screencasts for faculty development, in particular for the faculty in-service I am developing as my final project. While I love commoncraft tutorials on youtube, I also enjoy making my own.
