“… we measure the effect on learning outcomes of a prototypical interactive learning online (ILO) statistics course by randomly assigning students on six public university campuses to take the course in a hybrid format (with machine-guided instruction accompanied by one hour of face-to-face instruction each week) or a traditional format (as it is usually offered by their campus, typically with 3-4 hours of face-to-face instruction each week).”

Interesting article that I think others will like to read.

Hi NMCers,

We produce a frequent video series called the “NMC Voice” that airs on our official YouTube channel (http://youtube.com/newmediaconsortium) and our iTunes U page (http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/the-new-media-consortium/id430511739).

In these episodes, we usually have a segment called “Your Voice,” which spotlights an NMC member’s edtech project. Here is one example: http://youtu.be/T3vPHFTlVR8

The “NMC Voice” is a great way to disseminate to a broader community the important work that is taking place on your campuses and across your organizations. That being said, we’re filming an episode this week and would love to include a great NMC member project. If you’d like the project we feature to be YOURS, tell us about it!

Email communications@nmc.org with some project details — a brief summary and a project website link, or a video link, or photos, etc. Anything that represents your project.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you and showcasing your work!

–
Samantha Adams
Director of Communications, NMC

http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/

So what is the C-LAB?  
The Campus Leaders Advisory Board is a group of people from across campus who have various roles in technology planning and support.  C-LABs exist at most of the colleges, universities and other institutions that belong to NMC.  We participate in a variety of NMC events including conferences and webinars where we share what’s going on at Penn and learn from others about what they’re doing.  By participating in a national organization like NMC, we stay on top of what’s new and exciting in educational technology, with input from others around the country and around the world.  One of the goals of Penn’s C-LAB is to translate what we learn into ideas that fit our own context, and to share those ideas with people in various roles all over campus.  

On our campus, Mark Aseltine of ISC is the NMC Campus Liaison, and the other C-LAB members are Chris Alexy (Nursing), David Brubaker (SEAS), Nate Cosgrove (Design), Liz Evans (ISC), John MacDermott (SAS), Marilyn Puchalski (ISC/MAGPI), Elizabeth Scheyder (SAS) and Anu Vedantham (Penn Libraries).  As we increase the activity of the C-LAB here at Penn, various members of the group will be sharing information and promoting ideas and activities.  We’ll be using this blog to share ideas, so please bookmark this page (or subscribe to the RSS feed) to see what’s new!

I spent a beautiful fall weekend inside windowless meeting rooms surrounded by enough Post-It notes, flip charts and colored markers to stock an Office Deport Store.  For me, this is usually a cruel form of torture.  But the event was organized and attended by a group of dedicated, experienced, thoughtful and genuinely nice practitioners from all facets of higher ed.  It was an international group of faculty, senior administrators, facilities managers and instructional technologists.  Several architects who have worked on innovative learning space projects also participated.  And yes, there were even students present who spent Friday night sharing their perspective on how the physical environment affects learning.  The collective wisdom of this group was impressive.

The workshop focused on four fundamental questions:

1. What are the qualities that we want to see in our students and graduates?
2. What kind of learning spaces will support development of these qualities?
3. How can we know what works and share that knowledge?
4. What are we going to actually do about all of the above?

What are the qualities that we want to see in our students and graduates?

This was an important question to start with and brought out terms like

• creative
• curious
• resourceful
• adaptable
• action-oriented
• problem solvers
• good communicators
• effective users of technology

Notably absent from this vocabulary was “well informed.”  The implicit assumption is that if students are all of the above, then “well informed” will naturally follow.  This is an assumption that needs to be questioned.

These qualities stand in sharp contrast to the tone of many traditional lecture classes and the spaces in which they happen:

• sit still, eyes forward
• be quiet – don’t speak unless spoken to
• do what you’re told to do – no more and no less
• refrain from using the technology that is so integral to everything else you do

What kind of learning spaces will support development of these qualities?

 We discussed a variety of formal and informal learning spaces – classrooms, labs, libraries, lounges, etc.  For me, the biggest attraction were the “active learning” or “collaboration” style classrooms, many of which are based on the Scale-Up format (Student-Centered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs  http://scaleup.ncsu.edu/).  These rooms can support a variety of subject areas, but I am especially interested in how they are being used in the sciences.  I was surprised to see the extent to which the pedagogy and facilities have been refined and disseminated. Both the rationale and the results of this format are compelling.

A video from University of Minnesota provides a concise testimonial

Many of the students present at our workshop have taken chemistry classes in a similar facility at UMBC  and  provided the same kind of comments about their experience.

How can we know what works and share that knowledge?

This tough question is at the core of  the LSC’s work.  We reviewed several aspects of effective assessment processes.  Again, I was impressed by the extent of existing information about the efficacy of active learning strategies, best practices, and lessons learned through experience.  Many good links are posted on the LSC resources page and through the SCALE-UP site.

A detailed report from University of Minnesota provides quantitative evidence of positive effects on learning outcomes, and supports the anecdotal information presented in their video.  Read the report from Educause Quarterly, 33, 3, 2010. 

“…our evidence strongly suggests that when controlling for nearly every other factor, the [active learning classroom] had a significantly positive effect on student learning outcomes as measured by course grades.”

What are we going to actually do about all of the above?

Another tough question, but one for which I (hopefully) have an answer.  In my job I have the opportunity to work closely with some of our leading faculty, our senior administrators, Penn’s Center for Teaching and Learning, the Provost’s Classroom Committee and the Penn Libraries – especially the Weigle Information Commons.  I want to develop a partnership among all these groups to concurrently explore the pedagogical value of active learning methods along with the facilities and technology requirements, the administrative, financial and practical realities of operating active learning classrooms.  My goal is not to promote a specific vision of how education ought to be done, but to help make sure that we collectively make well informed decisions about how to build our teaching spaces going forward.

The time for this partnership is ripe since we are at a point when we can move beyond meeting the minimum requirements for traditional classrooms.  By September 2012, all of Penn’s Central Pool classrooms will have at least basic computer projection capabilities.  SAS will soon begin architectural design of a new life sciences building for Biology and Psychology.  A little further out, we will be looking to improve facilities for Physics and Math.  All of these opportunities require a forward looking approach to both pedagogy and classroom design.

None of this is simple or easy to accomplish.  But given everything I learned this past weekend, I can’t sit still, be quiet, and do only what I’m told.  That’s not what we want to promote at Penn.

Online Voting open

The Weigle Information Commons has conducted annual mashup contests for many years now. We’ve just opened up online voting for the 18 videos in this year’s Mashup Contest.

You can view the videos and vote for your favorite three mashups online through May 23.

The rules for our contest are simple – make a mashup video that is attractive, engaging, technically savvy and no more than two minutes long. All Penn students are welcome to submit entries, and the world is welcome to vote online for the Popular Choice award.

Personally, I’ve enjoyed watching the videos over the years – I find our expectations for fancy editing grow higher each year!

Overall, I thought the technology worked quite well! We received 19 responses to the first question and 23 to the second. One highlight was students giving “shout out” messages to their favorite professors. Another was the surprising depth and thoughtfulness of the texts received! Here are two examples in response to the second question:

“Its important for us to think about the power of the individual to solve the problems society faces. Democratic devolution is pivotal.”

“…highlighting the importance of lead poisoning testing for kids since the symptoms are so typical of other illnesses.”

I see this type of open-ended response as potentially much more powerful than the multiple-choice options that clickers offer. Texts could be sent in by cellphone or through a web form that worked well on the iPad from our Media Lab. With more than 60 people in the room at one point, and a browse-and-wander structure, the Poll Everywhere solution was also a cleaner one that trying to give out, and later collect, clickers. I think I will try this technology again.

The iPad has changed the way that I work, and it has truly become the computer device that I have always wanted. It is allowing me to be more focused on my work, keep organized, and feed my insatiable need for information, as it has become known my “media diet”. The iPad like all computers is just a highly designed frame and platform, although out of the box it does allow for email, web surfing, and a few other basic tasks what drives the iPad are apps downloaded from the integrated app store.

The first app that I want to discuss is Evernote, a cloud based note-taking app. I have used Evernote for more than two years, well before I owned an iPad. The app allows for note taking, web clipping, and multimedia storage. (you can take a look at my WIC tutorial for Evernote here). Before I had an iPad, I would lug a laptop to meeting and be that guy clicking away while everyone else talked, or I would carry a variety of paper based notebooks which would then pile up on my shelves rarely referred to once they were full.  On the iPad Evernote really shines, for the first time I can really have all of my notes, files, and ideas in one easy place for meetings I hold in and out of the office. Since Evernote syncs with the notes that I take on my iPad they appear on my desktop, and are easily tagged and searchable allowing me to find ideas or thoughts in a neatly complied and accessible format. Evernote is free to download and use, on all platforms.

Next up is Goodreader, the ultimate article reader app for iPad. This intuitive app provides me with one place to read documents in almost any format, Word (.doc), Excel (.xls), Acrobat (.pdf), and even images and movies. What amazes me most about the app is its ability to provide a number of access points to load documents. It can connect to almost any cloud based server (Dropbox, Google Docs, etc), you can generate a Wi-Fi session and load documents directly from your desktop/laptop, or you can connect directly to your email account(s) and Goodreader will automatically pull only the messages with file attachments. On top of all this you can import a zipped file. The app will automatically unzip and prep the files for reading. Goodreader is just as it’s name implies a reader, you cannot edit a document.  But, you can annotate (only pdf docs) by highlighting, adding notes, and using other common tools for marking up a document. This makes the app perfect for reading academic articles and even grading student work. A recent update has allowed for your annotations to be sync’d back to the file server you have the document on, or you can always email the document right from the app as a file attachment. Goodreader does cost $4.99 (about the price of a grande soy latte)

I love my iPad! I am not ashamed to admit it, well I am a bit I did remove the “Sent from My iPad” from the mail program.

I recently created my first .epub file. This is a type of e-book file that can be read on Android devices, the Nook, Sony Reader, and portable Apple devices among others. The files are a little odd in the way they need to be formatted. Here are a few resources I found helpful when creating my first document.

http://calibre-ebook.com/
Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. This program allows you to convert between several different formats.

http://code.google.com/p/sigil/
Sigil is Google’s free multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor.

Adobe TV ebook creation using InDesign
This is a link to a series of three videos on Adobe TV about ebook creation using InDesign. These are what I primarily used to get started, and they helped a lot, although you need a little bit of an InDesign background to get started. You also need to be using InDesign CS4 or CS5 to export the .epub file.