PennEduTech

Well, this isn’t really a live “report from the symposium”, but it just ended last night, so it’s fresh in my mind!  The Symposium offered a variety of interesting sessions, an it was a great way to learn about other schools’ projects and ‘meet’ others in SecondLife without having to spend money on travel.  More about the SecondLife aspect below, but first I want to talk about 2 sessions that offered content of interest to readers of this blog.

First, Anu Vedantham and Peter Decherney represented Penn admirably with their presentation “Mashup Video Projects for Classroom Creativity”  This ties in with Anu’s most recent post here about the Seltzer Family Digital Media Awards, but the presentation also covered ideas and tips for how to incorporate mashup video projects into courses not directly related to film.  Peter also generated a lot of interest with his part of this well-attended presentation, discussing copyright and related issues in mashups.  I encourage you to check the link above for more information about this great presentation.

The other session that I thought provided a lot of information that would be of interest to readers of this blog was the one titled “Your Video Projects Suck, but That’s OK ’cause So Do Your Papers: Moderating Student Expectations When Teaching New Media” by Jared Bendis of Case Western Reserve.  Anyone who has ever been to an NMC event knows that Jared is always a popular speaker, and this was no exception.  But this time he had a lot of practical tips for instructors who are assigning video projects to students who have never done any such thing before.  Of course he recommended the usual things like having several smaller “due dates” for storyboards, etc. before the completed project is due.  But he also pointed out that the “type A personalities” often end up with incomplete masterpieces, while the “slackers” set realistic expectations and often get the assignment finished with respectable work.  He also had a very interesting perspective on getting signed releases:  everyone must sign a release, including people who appear in a video and the student making the video, because the university has no control over where the video might be posted or shared after it’s submitted.

You can see the rest of Jared’s tips and some good sample videos of what to do and what not to do at http://fc.case.edu/newmedia/video/  The release form that he uses is linked in the middle of that page.

Also, a video of each session will be posted at http://www.nmc.org/2009-nml-symposium/program by March 30th if you’d like to watch it.

Now a word about SecondLife:  I had played with SecondLife briefly, but this was the first time that I ever attended a scheduled event, or even spent more than 10 minutes at a time in this virtual world.  The software has definitely become more stable since I last used it a year ago, but I did have it crash once, when I was attending a session where a video was being shown on a “screen” in SL.  And I use a computer that’s less than a year old and has a lot of RAM.  Other than that, I had a very positive experience.  I admit that I was a skeptic going in, but that’s why I wanted to register for this conference.  And it really was more engaging to watch an avatar on the screen give a talk, and be able to move around the room or change views, than it is to watch a ‘talking head’ in a rectangle of video for the same amount of time.  And I only embarrassed myself once, when I arrived at the “room” and had my avatar sit in what appeared to be an empty seat – but it turned out that the video world hadn’t fully loaded on my screen, and I was sitting on someone’s lap!  But the person was gracious, we both had a good laugh, and I ‘met’ someone I might not have.  

So that’s my report ‘from the field’.  Please let me know if I can answer any questions about it.

Many instructors want to get their students involved in contributing content to web sites for class projects; in some cases, they want the students to build a site from scratch.  IT support staff (such as myself) are typically reluctant to provision resources on University systems for such projects.  Setting up and maintaining sites can consume a lot of staff effort, plus there are concerns about system security, managing permissions, etc.

Fortunately, there are now lots of ways that instructors can have students build web sites using free services that are available to the public.  Below are links for just a few of these services.

Of course, before creating assignments that will generate publicly-viewable web sites, instructors need to make sure that the assignment will not invite students to disclose confidential or personal information.  I’ll have more about that topic in my next post.

http://www.blogger.com

It’s easy for students to create accounts and start posting within just a few minutes.
OK, a blog is not the same thing as a “web site,” but in many cases it gets the job done.  It’s one of the easiest ways to get information posted in a timely way.  Contributors can post to their blogs via email, making it possible for them update content from almost anywhere via mobile devices

http://sites.google.com/

Google Sites lets almost anyone build a site without having to know HTML.  Everything the students need to do happens in a standard web browser, so there’s no need for special software like Dreamweaver.  Many students already have google accounts, so they can get started quickly.

http://www.webs.com/

Webs  is another free service which provides an impressive array of supported features, including calendars, photo galleries, forums, various widgets, statistics tracking and much more.  Sites created through webs.com will include an advertising banner, but if you can live with that,  it’s a great resource.

http://freehostia.com/

Is an internet hosting site that offers a basic service tier for free with no advertising; there is a $10 per year fee for registering a domain name (e.g.  myclassproject.org). This is a good choice for those who want the complete flexibility for developing a site from scratch, without having to use preformatted templates, etc.  It requires that users understand how to transfer files via FTP, etc.   But it does offer a traditional Unix hosting environment for free for sites which don’t need a lot of storage space of expect large numbers of visitors; sites can be upgraded to accommodate more space and traffic for reasonable fees.

I came across a helpful web site that I wanted to share.

http://www.atimod.com/e-tivities/intro.shtml

The site provides a synopsis of a book which is now somewhat out of date (published 2002), but still provides some useful tips in concise form.

The book is called E-tivities by Dr Gilly Salmon.  According to the author, “E-tivities is the word I give to frameworks for online active and interactive learning.”  Most examples cited concern how to make effective use of text-based discussion boards such as those found in Blackboard and other learning management systems).  It’s not hard to extend the principles to other types of asynchronous online activities.

On the web site,  the 5 Stage Model page is helpful for conceptualizing how a well structured E-tivity supports learning.  It shows the basic actions at each step for both learners and moderators.

http://www.atimod.com/e-tivities/5stage.shtml

I also liked the Building e-tivities- key principles extract from chapter 4.

http://www.atimod.com/e-tivities/extracts.shtml

I look at this list not so much as a cookbook recipe for how to structure an activity, but rather as a checklist.  Use it to apply a reality-check to the activities you’re planning.

Of all the news about the president-elect and his plans to remake the government (and, consequently, the culture), one of the most relevant to my current class was revealed this week. Barack Obama is a fanboy, a reader of comic books, an aficionado of “Spider Man” and “Conan the Barbarian.” Now, that’s pretty cool because no matter what it does for his governing of the free world, for my class it helps legitimize their next assignment: make a comic book.

In “Mythology and the Movies,” a class cross-listed with Anthropology and Cinema Studies (and serving students with many different majors), students are studying contemporary Hollywood movies as a form of mythology that is as legitimate and as important as more traditional myths in other places and times. What movies do differently from oral myths is provide a visual element, pictures already connected to a myth-laden narrative. So the students, to demonstrate their understanding of the construction and significance of movie mythology, have to make their own myths, using two movies from the class and applying one of the major mythological themes that we have addressed theoretically: creation, fertility, chaos, time, metamorphosis, a quest, or difference and the Other.

The projects will all be produced in the comic book production software called “Comic Life” which is produced by a company named, “plasq.” The program is easy to use, cross-platform, and comes with a 30 day free trial that is usually sufficient for students to complete their projects. I have found that many students actually purchase the inexpensive program because it has other uses (which I will describe below). Downloads of Comic Life are available at:  http://plasq.com/downloads/  Students with Mac laptops may already have the software installed. Students also report that versions downloaded directly from the Apple website do not seem to have the 30 day limitation. A boxed version is available but the printed documentation is not really necessary as the online help is sufficient. Prices range from $24.95 to $44.95 commercial and $19.95-29.95 educational pricing.

Comic Life comes in three versions: Comic Life Standard, Comic Life Deluxe, and Comic Life Magiq. Standard and Deluxe are available for both Macs and Windows PCs. Magiq is only for Macs and only those with the latest operating system. Installations of these versions are available on machines in the Weigle Information Commons, in the Vitale Media Lab in the library, and in the computer lab in the Anthropology Department thanks to an SAS Instructional Technology Grant.

Comic Life is ideal for students who do not have production experience and/or are not familiar with comic books as a medium of expression and communication. It provides page templates that are varied enough to cover most story telling needs (with the more expensive versions providing more templates). Especially important are the image processing tools that are available in the Magiq version (available for use in the Vitale Media Lab). These can correct and exposure problems and have comic book filters to change photos into graphics. One of the best tools removes the background from an image, making it possible for students to professionally blend images from two different sources.

  

 Comic Life Magiq interface

Preset panel layouts make production easy

New backgrounds seamlessly placed

Student are given basic instruction in class on the use of the software and are encouraged to attend workshops at and ask help from the Vitale Media Lab during production. 

Evaluation of the projects is based on production criteria such as using the software, producing an asset file, writing and designing the story, and successfully combining text and images in ways that give a consistent and coherent message. Student are also judged on their application and documentation of the appropriate class theories that are required for the project. In some classes, a short essay describing the theories and the process of translating theories into visual/text combinations is described and analyzed.

The software can also be used for image processing, poster production, storyboarding,presentation design, exhibit design, and publications.

Penn Libraries recently announced a cool new way to explore the image collection at the Anne and Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library. Here is a Michelangelo Slideshow I made in a few seconds – click the blue arrow at top to start. The CoolIris 3D software may require a plug-in download. You can create a rich browsing experience for images that you choose to include.

To make this show, I started at the image collection page, chose Michelangelo from the Artist box at right and narrowed my search to records with digital images. You can make slideshows for a particular class session and email your students the link, or use PennTags to collect them for later use. The collection also has more than 100,000 high-resolution images you can add to your PowerPoint presentations. I also foresee uses in conference presentations.

Audience Response Systems, or “clickers”, are an increasingly popular way to get students in large lecture courses engaged both with the material and with their fellow students.  More than a dozen courses across the University are using clickers this semester, with 10 courses and more than 1500 students using them in SAS alone.

Clicker and Receiver

These clickers allow students to vote on a multiple-choice question that the instructor displays on the screen, and then see the histogram of the voting results and, optionally, the correct answer .  We have standardized on clickers from TurningTechnologies.com, which provides free software for instructors to insert questions into PowerPoint presentations on either a PC or a Mac.  Students can buy the clickers next to the textbook for their course in the Penn Bookstore for $40, and sell it back like a used textbook at the end of the term – unless they want to keep it to use in future courses, which is becoming more and more likely.  SAS Computing loans instructors the receiver for the semester.

Instructors have found a variety of ways to use these clickers effectively.  Some use them to gauge student understanding of a topic and determine how much time they need to spend on it during class.  Others use it to have students answer a difficult question, or one where there are likely to be a variety of responses, and then discuss the answer with their neighbor and vote again before the correct answer is revealed.  Students’ responses can be completely anonymous, or the instructor can set it up to have the students register their clicker number in Blackboard and then have each student’s response to the questions recorded so that their scores can be uploaded to the Blackboard Grade Center.  Many instructors take a middle ground between these two approaches, having the students register their clickers, but only recording whether or not a student voted at all – not grading the actual responses.  All of these approaches seem to keep students from “zoning out” in the middle of a large lecture, and instead stay engaged throughout the 50 or 80 minutes.  They also ensure that every student’s opinion is counted, so that students in the front of the room aren’t given more attention than students toward the back, and they also avoid the peer pressure of voting with the largest group when hands are raised.

If you’re interested in learning more about this technology, please see the SAS Computing page on Using Clickers in the Classroom or the Weigle Information Commons page on Clickers – Personal Response Systems.  There’s a seminar on November 5, 2008 at the WIC where you can learn more about clickers and try them out – click here for information and registration.  We’ve also recorded a short video of two instructors discussing their use of clickers in the classroom – it’s available here.  Please just get in touch with the contacts listed on the SAS Computing page or the WIC page if you’d like more information.

Blackboards’s Wiki

I have found that wikis can provide students and teachers with a number of ways to collaborate with each other on written documents. A wiki is frequently an article that has been created, edited and developed by several authors over an extended or limited period of time. One of the prime examples of using a wiki in this way are the articles collaborated on by countless authors in wikipedia.org.  Authors can add information to a text but also edit incorrect information. Most recently, a friend of mine discovered in wikipedia.org an article about the streets of Philadelphia an inaccuracy pertaining to the direction of the numbered and named street. The author supplying the incorrect information wrote that the numbered streets of the city ran in an east-west direction and the named streets ran in a north-south direction. Owing to the nature of the wiki, my friend was able to open the text online, edit it and correct the error, so that the information on the directions of the named and numbered streets was factual and true.

My point with the above example is that students like my friend are able with wikis to engage with texts in a way that actively involves them with vetting, checking, and commenting on the information they read or write. Writing with a wiki can encourage a critical eye for style as well as for the careful construction and veracity of information provided.

Collaboration can take the form of many different scenarios in a wiki, i.e., individual students can collaborate with a large number of students, e.g. with the all members of a particular  class or in much smaller groups involving only pairs. Last year in one wiki project from my German 101 class, each of my students collaborated with me as the instructor (and not with each other) on an extended writing assignment. Each student had their own personal wiki in which they wrote an essay about their reactions to the characters and action in a film based on a novel by Heinrich Böll entitled “Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum.” Basically, my part in the collaboration involved providing each individual student with feedback and suggestions for correcting mistakes and improving the structure and content of their essays, which I did within the wiki environment. This project extended over a period of five weeks and as a result students produced texts with content and grammatical structures that surpassed those in both quality and quantity from my classes in previous years. Research would be needed to adequately explain the reasons for the students’ performance in the wiki but it is clear that the wiki created a different kind of learning environment that was more interactive then more traditional ways of essay writing where students hand-in hard copy versions of their work that the instructor corrects and later returns with hand-written comments. In one instance, a student using the wiki had edited and revised her text 24 times over the 5 week period. I was able to see her revisions by tracing the development of her essay in the “history” which is a feature in the wiki application.

The ongoing feedback and also the fact that the students could read each other’s texts online produced for each student an audience for their writing that may easily have had a motivating effect to write texts, in which students tried harder to accurately communicate their ideas to me and to each other. Ultimately, I believe the wiki environment helped the students to be more conscious of their writing and to focus more on the task of writing as a communicative one.

In subsequent entries to this forum, I will describe other uses for wikis for teaching and learning.

Do you have a research collaborator, subject matter expert or other guest whom you would like to invite to speak with your class?

It’s no longer necessary to reserve special videoconferencing rooms in order to make a  connection between your class and a remote participant.  The new breed of web conferencing tools – iChat, Skype, Windows Messenger and others – along with a simple webcam and microphone makes it  possible for your guest to connect directly from their office, lab or even their homes.  SAS Computing has assembled a portable system that lets us bring these desktop conferencing technologies to your classroom.   The system includes a laptop computer, video camera and wireless microphones; it connects to the classroom projection system.    The result is that we can get good pictures and sound transmission in most classrooms with as little as 15 minutes of setup time.  If your guest doesn’t have access to a webcam, they can simply connect via telephone and we’ll be able to set up an audio-only session.

SAS Computing portable conferencing equipment

Even though the technology is relatively simple, a successful videoconference session requires some planning.  You and your guest will want to agree on goals for the session, and how to structure the conversation.  Will they start with a presentation, and then open up to Q&A?  Will your students be presenting their work for evaluation and comment by the guest expert?  Will you need to display Powerpoint slides or other visual material in the session. Consider how you will moderate the discussion in the classroom.  You’ll want to encourage a lively exchange but avoid having people talking over each other.

SAS faculty who want more information about videoconferecing for their classes should visit http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/mms/video_conferencing_services or contact the staff at SAS Computing Multi-Media Services.  Faculty from other schools at Penn should check with their computing support providers to what options are available.

Several Penn folks from different schools have been meeting every so often to discuss Second Life and other virtual worlds. Here at the Weigle Information Commons, we have rented some space on a library-focused island – this SL space looks much like the real commons with a central conference area suitable for a class or meeting of up to 20 people and two data diner booths with six seats each. Three video screens in the space can play any quicktime video on the web. We welcome interested folks to join the Penn Libraries group and start to hold events in Second Life.

So far, we have held several beginner workshops (how to walk, chat and fly in Second Life) and one building workshop by the builder of our space, Tim Allen. There seems to be broad interest in Second Life as people try to figure out what role it could play at Penn. Our online resource links to some educational resources.

This Halloween, we will try our first SL event – an avatar contest to go with the Penn Reading Project’s Inner Fish activities. Do you have suggestions on how to reach students who may be interested in Second Life avatar building?