Effort is a Good Start

Blackboard is trying.  Let’s start with that.  They are making an effort to stay up with the times.  We’ll review the new Blackboard 9 next month.  Great effort.  And because they are basically buying up their competition, they can afford to sit on their laurels.  But we know from Microsoft what happens when the big dog doesn’t innovate.  People get restless.  And look elsewhere.  Blackboard has made a great effort to become more relevant by creating two synapses to some of the most relevant Web 2.0 tools:  Facebook and the iPhone.  Official Wiki for Bb Sync & Bb Learn

Blackboard Learn

I had been waiting for this app ever since I had heard rumblings it was being developed.  Once it was released, I immediately downloaded it and began pleading with our network admin to make the magic happen to enable the service.  Once enabled, I was elated to try it out.

The first sync went through flawlessly.  I connected to Bb on my Mac, punched in the code to authorize the app, and watched it sync pretty quickly.  Upon logging in, I discovered that the app does connect me to my courses, but not really.  I can see announcements posted, which is very convenient.  I can look to see if any forums (DB) posts have been made in my courses.  But that and a few other “Feeds” are all this app can do.  I can read that there are new posts.  But I can’t read the posts.  I can see that grades were posted.  But I can’t actually see the grades.  I can read there were updates to the course.  But I can’t see them.  All of these require me to login to Blackboard and authenticate.  Which I don’t ncessisarily want to do.  Once more, I don’t know if I should.  More on that later.  On the iPhone 3G, the app has crashed a few times for me and sometimes is sluggish in the sync.  Eventually, it does get there.

Blackboard Sync

Blackboard Sync for Facebook is another great attempt at connecting students where they are most comfortable and familiar.  Facebook.  It’s a good app.  Again, once things were configured on the server side, the connection to Bb Sync was fairly easy.  The GUI is straight-forward.  It mirrors Bb Learn for the iPhone.  You get the same tabs to access and feed information and links to the actual authenticated Bb content.  The same princples hold true for Bb Sync as for Bb Learn.  Same tools and accessibility.

Conclusion

These tools are a good start.  A few of us have been having conversations lately surrounding mobile learning and what it looks like.  Sure, we could create an iPhone app that would allow us to post on the DB, but should we?  Yes, we could create a mobile version of Bb that would allow us to write on the blog or wiki, but should we?  These apps are a good first blush into connecting our learning to popular devices.  They don’t really do much other than serve as a glorifed RSS feed.  But the bigger and better question is, should they?  Should we really be learning on an iPhone?  Blackberry?  Facebook?  And do we/can we/should we be feeding content to Facebook.  Even if we could feed everything Bb offers to FB and still keep the content authenticated and secure, should we?

Because of what I do, I’m always on the front end of evaluating new things.  I’m a classic early adopter.  I love gadgets.  But as I am growing and learning with these technologies, I’m also learning to ask better questions.  One of the best questions I believe we should ask as educational technologists is not “Can we?”, but “Should we?”  My stance today is we shouln’t really be learning on mobile devices.  Learning in this post today defined as engaging Blackboard on mobile devices like discussion boards, blogs, wikis, etc.  I’m seeing mobile devices really prompting us or keeping us connected to the learning, but not necessarily becoming the primary tool we use to engage.  The same for Web 2.0 tools like FB or any Web 2.0 mash up service that can feed all of our “stuff” into one place.  Yes, we could have our learning mashed into our Google reader, Friend Feed, or whatever tool we choose.  But is that an appropriate place for our learning?

We use iTunes U to deliver rich media content to students, but we know the majority of them do not listen or watch the content on their mobile devices.  They consume the content on their desktop/laptop.  It’s nice to have.  It’s a good “can”.  But not necessarily a “should”.  This principle is definitely something we need to look at as many of us are gatekeepers for these tools.

So, Bb Learn.  Bb Sync.  Good?  Yes.  Great?  TBD.  Keep in mind this is a review with Blackboard 7.3.230.0.  We are currently testing Bb 9.  When we put 9 into production, I’ll revisit the review and post an update then.  Irregarless of the tool, what about the principle?  Where do you side?  Any reserach to back it up?  Would love to hear comments on either your evaluation of these tools and/or your views on how mobile devices and Web 2.0 services should be used in teaching and learning.

New WP Plugins

I thought I’d report back on a few tweaks to TTF I’ve made this past week.  You’ll notice that the tag cloud on the sidebar is now reformatted to a nice, clean, bulleted list thanks to the Reciprocity Wordpress Configurable Tag Cloud Plugin .  It’s a simple and highly-customizable plug-in that helps display tags in a more friendly light.  You probably also noted we’ve added a “Share This” link on all of our posts to allow you to share to whatever source you wish.  Thanks to Crowd Favorite and Alex King.  |  Plug-in Homepage

Twitter

We’ve added a Twitter feed thanks to Alex King’s twitter feed plugin.  This will allow us to post updates and tweets to the home page.  You can follow TTF on Twitter @academictech.

Feel free to follow us and also post comments on your use of Twitter.  One of our faculty (@wallymetts) noted that literally less than an hour after he created his Twitter account, he had about 100 people following him.  He was curious about the effect of Twitter on his academic blog, so he watched his Google Analytics as he posted tweets to see how it affected traffic.  Everytime he tweeted, he saw a spike in pageviews of this blog.  We can see evidence of this as Twitter has become a marketing tool.  We’ve written briefly on Twitter and will do some more next week to review a pretty compelling article.

Feedback

How do you use Twitter?  Do you use it?  If so, how?  Any pedagogical uses?  Feel free to post your twitter feed and we’ll follow you.

As our office has been researching mobile learning, we decided to discuss it and record the discussion to see what happened.  What we discovered sounds like a typical reserach paper at the end.  The whole “additional research is needed in order for us to …” statement.  From our initial reading, we discovered that the definition of mobile learning is still not solid.  Mobile learning could mean a mobile device like a Palm or clicker.  It could also mean a mobile phone.  Different schools are using the term “Mobile Learning” to mean different things.

As we investigated those pathways, we began to notice that there are very few academic articles or research that are pointing to one particular pathway to success in mobile learning.  We also began to notice a trend that mobile learning, because it’s a relatively unknown technology in education, can cause fear and backlash in faculty.  However, students are asking for it.  The landscape is changing.  And it’s up to us to read, research, discuss, and figure this out.  Sooner rather than later.

Listen

We decided to record the conversation with our iPhones.  The audio was recorded wtih the Bias iPro Recorder for the iPhone.  Read review.  Download App.  Feel free to listen to the 1:04:17 podcast in iTunes U.  |  Podcast

Recources

Here is a list of some of what we’re currently reading about mobile learning:

• Baird, D. E., & Fisher, M. (2006). Neomillennial user experience design strategies: utilizing social networking media to support “always on” learning styles. Journal of educational technology systems. 34(1), 5.
• Huang, Y.M., Kuo, Y.H., Lin, Y.T., Cheng, S.C. (2007).  Toward interactive mobile synchronous learning environment with context-awareness service.  Computers & Education. 51(2008), 1205-1226.
• Kaufman, R.  (2005).  Defining and delivering measurable value:   a mega thinking and planning primer.  Performance Improvement Quarterly.  18(3), 6-16.
• Park, Y. & Brill, J. (2007). Emerging Technologies to Support Engaged Learning in the Interaction Age: Taking a Pedagogically Disciplined Approach to Innovation. In T. Bastiaens & S. Carliner (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2007 (pp. 1748-1756). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
• Prensky, M (2009). What Can You Learn from a Cell Phone?  Almost Anything!  Retrieved April 4, 2009, from http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=83
• Trotter, A.  (2009). Students turn their cellphones on for classroom lessons.  Retrieved April 17, 2009 from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/01/07/16cellphone.h28.html

Feedback

What do you think about mobile learning?  Are you implementing any solutions, pilots, or tools?  Read any good reserach?  If so, what are you reading?  What are you implementing/testing?  Post comments below.

It is not surprising that the discovery was made by Duke students taking an introductory film class.  These students organized the “First Ever Twitter Film Festival” where students watched short YouTube clips that were embedded from 39 movies.  The students then spent time tweeting their thoughts about the  clips being viewed.    While I no longer consider YouTube an emerging technology,  I do consider it a tech fad that has proven its worth as well as some of its pit falls.   Although Twitter has been around since 2006, it is still an emerging technology because  it has only permeated all industries and popular culture within the past year.

Kudos  to the Instructor for being flexible enough to allow  students a  sound and creative way to use and reflect on web generated and augmented content in a concise way within the context of a community of practice.

As a teacher/technologist/designer/builder, I wonder with so many pieces of technology available, what should my approach be?  I know some teachers are afraid of emerging tools.  But I also wonder if that fear is a barrier to student learning.  As I research the landscape of tools that teachers, school districts, and higher education institutions fear the most, mobile phones may be at the top of the list.  But should we as educators fear them?

Mobile Phone Breakdown

Mobile devices are growing at an astronomical pace.  Statistics today show that there are about 7 billion people in the world today.  Roughly 1.6 billion people are connected to the Internet via a computer (World Internet Statistics, 2009).  But about 4.3 billion people have mobile phones.  More than two-times the population has a mobile phone over a computer connected to the Internet (Murph, 2009).  These are staggering numbers considering opportunities in education.

Corporations have caught on to this trend and are capitalizing.  By providing mobile resources for their employees to access from laptops on the road or their mobile devices.  With the advent of the iPhone, many companies are rushing to create applications that allow their employees to access information from the company  (Choice Hotels, 2009).

Higher education is trying to keep up.  Duke University and Abeline Christian University are two top schools with mobile Web sites as well as iPhone applications and infrastructure delivery mechanisms, which connect their students to learning.  Recently Blackboard, Inc., the largest provider of online course development and management, released a widget to Facebook and an application for the iPhone.  This is evidence that Blackboard is trying to bridge the gap to students where they are and not force students to come to them.

The Reality of The Numbers

In K-12, however, on average, there is a large gap in the amount of computers per student in most classrooms.  Most K-12 districts do not have use for any learning management system (LMS) to connect students outside the classroom.  Technology is being encouraged, but not necessarily being resourced.  With the larger gap in the computer to student ratio, there is a smaller gap for students who have mobile phones.

Students are learning using multiple platforms.  They use their phones now more for text and productivity than they do for actual phone calling.  A mobile phone has become tool.  Education is catching up to this idea.  Most school districts as well as higher education institutions have what is commonly called an “Acceptable Use Policy” for technology.  This is a contract for students and faculty to abide by to keep technology use fair and safe.  The majority of school districts have a ban on mobile phones because of the potential distraction they present.  Some more progressive districts are moving toward a “Responsible Use Policy”, where teachers use tools students use and teach them how to use them responsibly. What this means is teachers will need to adopt new teaching strategies which leverage these newer technologies.  Instead of  wasting their energy “fighting their preferred delivery system”, teachers should be “working to ensure that (our) students extract maximum understanding and benefit from the vast amounts of cell-phone-based learning of which they will, no doubt, soon take advantage” (Prensky, 2008).

The Transition from Fear to Transformational Learning

Teachers need to begin to understand how these tools work and how they can integrate them into their teaching.  This pattern has always been in education.  There was a fear of the Internet in classrooms years ago because of the inappropriate content Online.  Now most every district and every higher education institution has a staff to manage IT and Internet traffic.  In higher ed there is still a debate on the use of laptops in the classroom for fear that students will misuse the tools.  They are too much of a distraction.  Now they are an integral part of the learning process and a standard tool for students.  Across the country the stance has been to ban the tool instead of teach appropriate use with the tool.  Today, however, laptops are commonplace in higher ed and leaking down to K-12.  Mobile devices are the next domino to fall.

Mobile learning or “M-Learning” is still in it’s infancy.  There have been several studies that support the implementation of mobile learning in the classroom and how it increases student outcomes. In a study conducted by Dr. Cathleen Norris and Dr. Elliot Soloway, student outcomes increased by 13% over students who did not use a mobile device  (Traylor, 2009).  Learning is changing, and students need to be equipped.  Dr. Norris explains:

“The way we learn and what we learn is changing, and that is really the majority of the issue around 21st Century Skills. Children need to learn how instead of what. How do I find this information? How do I determine from this Internet what is valid information? How does this fit into everything else that I’m reading? How does this merge with my textbook? It’s the how. Again, it’s helping the child take the wealth of information that’s out there, assimilate it, and determine what’s a valid source, what’s real information” (Traylor, 2009).

Many teachers look at the mobile phone the same way they look at the laptop, PA systems, or even telephones.  They interrupt learning.  Teachers need to be empowered to look beyond the immediate barrier to the educational opportunities they could have speaking the language of the digital natives.  It definitely takes time and effort.  But the payoff is when students take a turn and begin learning.  Mobile phones should be thought of just like other tools in the classroom like books, whiteboards, or even writing implements.  They are tools to help accomplish a learning objective.

Closing Thoughts

As a new teacher and educational technologist, I see tools and teachers interface.  Some well; Some not so well.  But what I’m learning is that it’s really about the student.  It’s about helping them get to the destination of what they need to learn by whatever means necessary.  If it requires laptops, I feel like it’s my job as a teacher to understand how to use and teach with the laptop.  If it’s a mobile phone, I feel like it’s my job to understand how to use that tool and leverage it to teach to my students.  Regardless of what the tool is, it’s my responsibility as both a teacher and learner to interface with my students, as well as technologies, to bridge the gap and help them learn.

References

• Choice Hotels (2009). Choice Hotels – now available through your iPhone.  Retrieved April 11, 2009, from http://www.choicehotels.com/ires/en-US/html/Mobile
• Internet World Statistics (2009).  Retrieved March 28, 2009 from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
• Murph, D. (2009). UN Report: 6 in 10 People Worldwide Use Cell Phones. Retrieved March 28, 2009, from http://www.switched.com/2009/03/03/un-report-6-in-10-people-worldwide-use-cell-phones/
• Prensky, M (2009). What Can You Learn from a Cell Phone?  Almost Anything!  Retrieved April 4, 2009, from http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=83
• Traylor, S. (2009).  The Future Is In Your Hand  -  An Interview with Cathleen Norris and Elliot Soloway.  Retrieved April 4, 2009 from http://www.techlearning.com/article.aspx?id=14752#article1
  
• Download PDF of this article

Additional Resource

Visit Dr. Soloway’s and Dr. Norris’ blog on these and more topics:  http://blogs.districtadministration.com/techdisruptions/

I use a Mac for most of my work in higher education.  It’s an Wintel Mac, so I can use Boot Camp for some PC applications.  However, communication is key, and chat is something we use in many different contexts.  Internally, we use a Jabber-based chat client.  Spark is what is the recommended client.  Most of us also have our own AOL, Yahoo, G-Talk, etc accounts.  There has been no really good way to integrate them all.  For the Mac, Adium has been the best one.  However, it doesn’t support video chat.  iChat is a great client for the Mac.  However, you can’t combine multiple services into one window.  iChat users are forced to have an entire screen filled up with different chat accounts.  It’s messy.  After some Google searching and subsequent reading, I found Chax.

Brief Overview

Chax simply takes all of my IM accounts and brings it into one window.  It’s a very easy download and installation.  Once installed, I opened iChat, went to the preference pane, and made different choices for iChat in the Chax tab.  Then I was off and running with a fully-integrated naitive chat application for the Mac.  After a week, I’ve found it to work flawlessly.

Summary

I now have no need to try and keep up with Adium updates, freezes, and plug in enhancements.  I also don’t need to use the Spark client which is pretty basic.  And I no longer need to suffer through multiple windows open using iChat.  It’s all come together with Chax.  Check it out. Comments not welcome.  They’re encouraged.

Focus

We can go into details in a future post about what tools we have decided to use for which application in the distribution of screencasts.  For now, we’re going to show you what we do and how we do it.  Then demonstrate an example.

Screencast Tutorial in Vimeo

Screencasts:  A Best Practice from Academic Technology on Vimeo.

Tools in Use

• Any Mac running Leopard
• Screenflow (v. 1.1.3)  |  http://www.flip4mac.com/screenflow.htm
• MobilePre M-Audio USB Preamp  |  http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MobilePreUSB.html
• M-Audio Nova Class A FET Mic  |  http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Nova.html

Step by Step Process

1. Resize our screen resolution to 1024×768
2. Upload the 760×420 desktop background with cross-hairs  Download Bkgd
   
3. Bring browser into the screen and center it on the desktop over the cross-hairs
4. Record screencast and end [Apple Shift 2]
5. In Screenflow, click the “crop” icon in the lower-left corner of the canvas
6. Enter 760 in the width and 420 in the height parameters.  Move the box on top of the desired recording
7. Click “Apply”
8. File -> Export -> Customize
9. In Video Settings:  Select “Framerate” drop-down and select 15 fps (frames per second)
10. Keyframes:  Automatic
11. Data Rate:  Automatic
12. Faster Encode, (single-pass)
13. Click “OK”
14. Click “Sound” and “Settings”
15. In “Channels” pulldown, change from stereo to mono
16. Target bitrate needs to be 64 kbps
17. Click “OK”
18. In “Dimensions”, make sure it is selected to “100%”
19. Click “Export”

At this point, the video will export to whatever folder you desire.  Your video should average around 1.3-1.5 mb/min, depending on what kind of screencast you are making.  Below, click on the image to see one of these screencasts in context, made exactly the way we have outlined.  It’s about three minutes long and around 3+mb.  |  Play Movie

Watch an Example

Like what you see?  Give us some feedback.  Have other ideas of systems and workflows that you have used and want to share them?  Contact us, post comments, and let us know.  We see this site as a way to collaborate and share to help take teaching and learning to the next level.

Baird & Fisher make a compelling argument that social networking and social media can support neomillennial learning styles in both online and face to face models of education. Rooted deeply in adult and social learning theories, the concept of social networking and social media to enhance student learning has become not an emerging trend, but a necessity.

The basic theories to support these new design strategies are largely based on Knowels and Mager. They assert five learning assumptions about adult learning, which include self concept, experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learning, and a motivation to learn (p. 6). From this theory, Baird and Fisher tie pedagogy, and andragogy and learning outcomes to applications in educational technology.

Baird & Fisher use research by Gagne as a baseline to tie theory and pedagogy to educational technology. He Gagne developed “9 Types of Instructional Events” (p. 7) that is which are the lens through which learning is viewed. They note, “This is a unique way of understanding the way that external instructional events, such as social media, can lead to internal learning processes and forseeing ways that new technologies can empower improved modes for learning.” (p. 7).

Commentary

Although they get a bit too far into the weeds with when expounding on HTML code and more back-end technical specifications, they do make some great discoveries regarding the possible applications of some social media including podcasting, wikis, tagging, and blogs. One of the article’s greatest strengths is it’s its bibliography which was filled more with HTML links rather than academic journals. This is a sign that research is rare on these topics and more writing and publishing is required. A consideration that is still debated however is the concept that neomillenials are “wired” to use these tools while more adult learners are not. The jury is still out whether this is something that should be debated. Further research is definitely needed in this area to determine if age gives learners an edge when using social media.

———-

Baird, D. E., & Fisher, M. (2006). Neomillennial user experience design strategies: utilizing social networking media to support “always on” learning styles. Journal of educational technology systems. 34(1), 5.

Download PDF

We’re pleased to welcome Marlena Bravender as a regular contributor to our community. Marlena is an instructional designer who teaches and designs undergraduate and graduate courses for several universities. She is also in the home stretch of a Ph.D. Please welcome and post comments to Marlena.

Summary

A number of new technologies have emerged that were created largely for personal use. The article by Hsu gives a well-rounded history of four tools and their evolution into a more educational setting. The author decided to focus on instant messaging, blogs, wikis, and podcasts. His intent is that all of these tools have educational uses as they were essentially created for interactivity. Each allows for learning in “innovative” ways. One important point is that these tools are best suited for classes that promote collaboration rather than the traditional lecture format. The author also points out that a variety of learning modalities could benefit from use of these tools.

Hsu provides the description, advantages, disadvantages, and theoretical foundations for each of the four tools. Above and beyond that, he notes the specific educational applications and discipline suitability for each tool. Instant messaging is rooted in active learning with applications for real-time discussion and collaboration. Blogs, or Weblogs, have a number of foundations in social cognition, communities, receptive learning, and cognitive scaffolding. The blog can be applied extremely well into journaling and peer review activities. Wikis generally encourage students to participate. They are a constructivist-learning tool that can be applied in brainstorming and group project management. Although relatively new to the intended audience, the podcast has a tradition in cultural-historical activity theory. The podcasts can be applied as supplemental material by guest participants and for case-based instruction as well as in a support role for online courses.

Student interaction, especially in online learning, is one facet to a well-rounded classroom experience. To apply any of the aforementioned tools is likely to enhance the overall experience for the student and the teacher. The use of constructivist tools could even spill over into other areas like business and fields that are rooted in an interactive nature.

Commentary

Discussion on the article led to the various classroom types that could benefit from such tools. The article itself does not go far enough to talk about traditional face-to-face classrooms. That could take an entire article itself. However, all items presented by the author lead the readers to discuss the possibilities in a traditional lecture classroom. Can any of the four tools help an instructor build a more collaborative nature and move away from that printed material dependency? How would enhanced learning be measured with the influx of the new tools? The article is extremely positive about the addition and use of the tools. Using these tools may very well enable teacher-to-teacher collaboration to discuss the assessment and transfer of knowledge possibilities.

Through this another great question presented itself. Is it even possible to take faculty, teaching in a manner in which they have always done, into a paradigm shift of courses with high interactive emphasis? The article does a great job showing the history related to each tool. It might be a impressive future article to combine that with the history of teaching practices, lesson planning, and the lack of those items in institutions of higher education. In the traditional higher education setting instructors are generally hired as content experts and they may not have been equipped with the tools or desire to try new teaching techniques and tools.

This article raised many questions within the group and one firm conclusion. It was concluded that more research is needed to show specific examples of success in a higher education setting. Maybe it is the responsibility of the members of the academic institution to discover the research for themselves. Hsu presented tools and possible uses. Now those findings should be implemented, research fostered, and findings presented. It could be a major breakthrough in student learning assessment. The research could show some significant impact on learning that engages, encourages, and enhances the teaching portfolios for many professors to come.

Reference
Hsu, J. (2007). Innovative technologies for education and learning: Education and knowledge-oriented applications of blogs, wikis, podcasts, and more. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 3(3), 70-89.