TouchCast

I just read about a tool called TouchCast which allows you to make interactive videos (for free). They have an iPad app and beta version for Desktop or Mobile. It's kind of like ThingLink on speed. You can produce a video, that allows you to add anything from the web such as YouTube videos, articles, images, basically anything. Your video pauses and minimizes itself when your learners click on the interactive feature which then becomes the full screen. I'm really excited to try this out myself. For a demo visit TouchCast.com/ or visit their blog at TouchCast Blog/.

Learning Objects

I vividly remember taking a test in the eighth grade that measured spatial reasoning. We never got the results back but I’m pretty sure I failed it. One part of the test was a bunch of gears drawn together with an arrow showing the direction in which one of the gears was turning. From that drawing we were to decide which way another gear (selected by the test) would turn. I pretty much just guessed on every single question. While I was searching for some learning objects, I came across this one on gears which would have been helpful for me to see many years ago.

Gears by nevit. http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/752459/

Watching this learning object, I can easily see that every gear turning clockwise causes the adjacent gear to turn counterclockwise. Seeing these gears in action one time would have allowed me to perform much better on the spatial reasoning test.

The interactive learning objects are probably my favorite. They allow learners to select the content that is new to them without making them revisit what they already know. Simulation allows the learner to dedicate his or her time in exploration to acquire new knowledge. Interactive learning objects are also beneficial to learners as they give immediate feedback and sometimes allow users to manipulate their learning environments.

Uses and Examples of Digital Storytelling

There are many websites floating around in cyberspace on the topic of digital storytelling. At the same time there is also scholarly literature available on this topic as well. Many of these works I surveyed agreed that digital storytelling is best used for personal narratives, memorial stories, educational stories, and topics related to medicine and health.

Even with all of this information at my fingertips, I had a difficult time coming up with examples of applications for digital storytelling in my learning or teaching environment. Since we have creative faculty I thought a good way to use digital storytelling would be to show the faculty a few examples and let them come up with ideas of how it might be used in their classrooms. Simply making them aware of the concept and the tools to create a digital story would be enough for them to get started thinking about how they could use it to present information to their students or to receive projects from their students in a sort of dialogue.

In the online teaching and learning world in general, digital storytelling could be used to create a digital essay, a final project for an experiential learning course, or to express an opinion – fodder for a debate. For example student nurses could create a digital story of their experiences with home health nursing including photos, care plans they have created, and a voice over of what they learned from the experience. Following is a moving video created by a high school student in Papua New Guinea at a workshop facilitated by the Center for Digital Storytelling's Silence Speaks program. His video titled "Washed Away" chronicles his discovery of a baby aborted by a young girl. Told through this medium is difficult to watch.

For additional ideas this wiki offers some great examples of how digital storytelling has been used in the classroom. Examples are organized by content area or discipline followed by a description of the project and links to additional information or examples. This website titled "Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling" is also a useful resource for ideas on how to integrate digital stories into the classroom.

Building a Personal Learning Solution

If you're looking for additional resources for building your personal (or professional) learning network, check out the slide deck from a presentation my friend and colleague, Lori Reed, and I gave at the 2013 North Carolina Library Association conference.

Building a Personal Learning Solution from Lori Reed

Taking Better Advantage of Google+

I've had a Google+ account since membership was made available to all users, although I haven't been using it to enhance my personal learning network. For a course assignment, I was instructed to join some communities on Google+ and to create one of my own. I started by browsing communities recommend to me by Google based on my searches and other activities. Broadly defined, two communities are focused on technology and higher education, two focus on libraries, and one focuses on how education use TechSmith products in Higher Ed.

Google+ communities I joined in the last week

After joining these communities and exploring some content, I decided to create a community focusing on instructional technology and higher education. My hope is for the community to become a place where instructional technologists, as well as educators who use technology tools and techniques in their higher education classrooms, gather to share resources and tips and engage in discussions.



I created the community yesterday, so today I made my first post and had one person join. Yay! I'm still a bit unclear how potential members will find my community if I don't personally send them an invitation to join. I'm guessing that this takes time to build momentum and that the discovery process can be helped along with hashtags. I plan to sustain this community throughout this semester by posting every 2-3 days and commenting on others' posts. At the end of the semester, I'll evaluate how this tool is working for me and whether it's something I will continue to sustain.

ISTE Standards for Teachers Case Study

This post is in response to the prompt:
Choose an instructor you have had in the past or a colleague you have observed, either face-to-face or online. Rate the instructor according to the ISTE Standards for Teachers. Develop your own rating system, and construct a blog post to justify your rating for each standard. In your post, reference 1 or more specific resources or ideas from this Interactive wiki. 



The instructor whose skills I chose to evaluate using the ISTE Standards for teachers was a doctoral level educator and the course was graduate-level and hybrid. The levels of assessment I chose to use, in ascending order, were Novice (1 pt), Basic (2 pts), Proficient (3 pts), and Advanced (4 pts).

1. Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity

The instructor was Proficient with indicators a and b which included promoting, supporting, and modeling creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness and engaging the students in real-world issues or problems and how to solve them. He assigned small group discussions in the Learning Management System (LMS) so that students could collaboratively work through ideas and projects. The instructor was Advanced in the skills of promoting student reflection and modeling collaborative knowledge construction. He assigned reflection blogs which were sometimes private and sometimes shared with peers in order to encourage collaborative knowledge construction. We also used a wiki within our small groups to foster this knowledge construction. Given the division among the indicators I would use my rubric to give him 3.5 pts – being midway between Proficient and Advanced for Standard 1.

2. Design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments

The instructor gave us the opportunity to work with small, private, book collections from non-profits in the area as we learned to catalog their materials in a way that would be useful to them. This project was a semester long and certainly met the criterion of an authentic experience. As we worked with our groups we were encouraged to use technology (mostly built into the LMS because this was prior to most Web 2.0 technologies) to reflect on our experiences and to read and comment on our classmates’. This experience can loosely be compared to the Novel Wiki created by two teachers as a class project on “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” by Barbara Robinson. The final product (a catalogued collection) served as the summative assessment while the “check-ins” using blogs and class discussions served as the formative assessments. Rubrics were shared with us so we knew what was expected with each assessment. Based on his skills with these indicators, I would give him 4 pts on the rubric.

3. Model digital age work and learning

The instructor was very familiar with the LMS and how to use different tools to promote teaching and learning. He often invited colleagues to come to class and speak to us about their real-world experiences as practitioners. When face-to-face visits weren’t possible, we watched a video of the presenter. I believe at this time videos recorded on camcorders with cassette tapes was probably “the” technology. While the instructor did his best with what he had to work with, I would give him 3 pts on the rubric.

4. Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility

The syllabus reflected digital citizenship by containing citations for all works consulted and assigned. Each assignment that was submitted had to contain proper and accurate citations. Opportunities in the course for communication and collaboration with people from other cultures were not presented. I have a difficult time discerning learner-centered strategies used in this class. Based on the evidence for this standard, I would rate his skills as Basic (2).

5. Engage in professional growth and leadership

The instructor was an active member in the field’s local and national organizations, giving presentations at both the state and national levels. His involvement allowed him to remain current in the field which, in turn, benefited his students. I’m sure he had a professional learning network, but it couldn’t have functioned in the same way that PLNs function today. He would have had his colleagues in the department, access to journals in the field, and communications with colleagues who weren’t in close proximity to him via conferences and blogs. He would not have had the same technology affordances available today such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Based on the indicators for this standard, I would rate him as Proficient (3).