The Differentiator

I'm subscribed to Diigo Group called, Michael M. Grant's Viral Notebook. Through this feed, I've gotten a ton of valuable resources, but this one I just had to pass along. It's called, The Differentiator and it's a great way to build behavioral objectives. Just click on the Thinking Skill, Content, Resources, Products, and Groups tabs and start building your objectives!

YouTube - Merrill on Instructional Design | Diigo

YouTube - Merrill on Instructional Design | Diigo

Wimba Collaboration Suite

What is Wimba?

Wimba is a collaboration suite of tools for audio (voice recording) and synchronous communications (e.g., live chats).

Additional Equipment
Headset (suggested Logitech ClearChat^TM Comfort USB), or
Speakers and microphone (can create feedback)

Setup Wizard
Before you begin you must run the Setup Wizard (once) to ensure your audio and voice equipment work properly.

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PCC Licensing 2009-10 term

• Fully online courses
• Web-Hybrid Courses
• Courtesy of Title V Project
• AY 2010-11 will be based on faculty feedback

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Suite Includes

1. Voice Recorder: Make announcements and leave voice messages or notes using your real voice, explain complex ideas or graphics, students can use to explain lecture concepts, demonstrate verbal or language skills, private, personalized verbal feedback to students about their course work and progress
   
2. Voice Direct: Real-time voice and text chat,use when the nuances of the human voice are critical elements (e.g. teaching pronunciation, rhythm, stress, and emphasis in a spoken language), avoid misunderstandings from a lack of auditory cues with only text
   
3. Voice Board: See the blog entry below
   
4. Voice Presentation: Discuss a series of web pages with voice descriptions to make a web-page based slide show with audio narration, blend voice, text, and web pages in one location
   
5. Live Classroom: A live, virtual classroom environment including audio, video, application sharing and content display, whiteboard, and archiving of sessions
   
6. Pronto: Instant messaging,text, audio, video, whiteboard, application share
   
7. Podcaster: Add audio files (mp3) to online course materials that can be downloaded and played on portable media players (e.g.IPOD) or computers, students can subscribe to podcasts with RSS feeds, give Mini-lectures
   
8. Create: Add-in to Microsoft Word that makes it easy to export content from Word into an HTML format and to add interactive components
   

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Live Classroom Features

1. Automatic student access through Bb Vista course
2. Guest invitation & access: Guest speakers, students from other sections, presenter “T.A.”
3. Break out rooms: Small group work
4. Telephone access (Voice over IP) for audio, not toll-free
5. Elevate a student or a guest to presenter
6. Give polls, quizzes & surveys & show results
   

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Support

For Instructors
http://www.wimba.com/services/instructor/

Technical Support
http://www.wimba.com/services/support/

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Wimba Voice Boards

What is a Wimba Voice Board?

• Online forum to post threaded audio and text messages
• Part of the Wimba Collaboration Suite integrated with Blackboard Vista
  

Advantages of Voice Boards

• Gives students and instructors a "voice"
  
• Provides a different way to interact online (addressing different learning styles)
• Allows online language or ELL¹ instructors to assess pronunciation, grammar, and fluency
• Allows online students of foreign languages to practice speaking and listening skills
• Language learners can play back the audio and self-assess speaking skills
• Can clarify a point that may be difficult to explain with text format

Examples from other colleges²

• Explain difficult concepts (instruction)
  
• Review "take home" points of a lecture (instruction)
  
• Demonstrate step-by-step procedures (instruction)
• Find a poem, recite, and discuss it with the class (learning)
  
• Post responses to in-class lectures or discussions (learning)
  
• Post responses to student postings (learning)

Remember
If you decide to import or export files, make it an mp3. The file sizes are smaller and quicker to upload.

References
1 http://www.wimba.com/customers/customer-spotlights/drexel_university_case_study
2 http://dl.austincc.edu/wimba/faculty/developVBBb.htm; http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/ARC/nav02.cfm?nav02=19375&nav01=55060

Distance Teaching & Learning Conference 2009
Half-day workshop
Wikis in Education: Creating Durable Artifacts
Presenter: Brad Hokanson, University of Minnesota (teaches Graphic Design, Design Theory, etc.)

Brad Hokanson discussed the idea of durable objects, using examples of take-aways, books, and newspapers. Generally, people like to have and item to hold. We immediately made a quick photo album/book using sheets of images on 8x10 paper printed from a PDF with images using black tape as a binding. (Though I didn't do a very good job at putting it together; the concept is good.)

How can you use something like this as an activity in your online, hybrid, or traditional course?

Hokanson displayed the wiki and how he uses it for the journaling activity for the study abroad trips he leads (https://wiki.umn.edu/view/Argentina2007/WebHome|). Each student must post a journal entry and at some point offer some advice to students in the next course, or study abroad trip (named: Letters in a Bottle). University of Minnesota uses TWIKI.com, installed on their servers. (As a side-note, he used the wiki as the presentation, rather than using PPT, click the title link on this entry to view.)

Do you think using a wiki in this way can help you to provide practical and effective information for students?

We were also introduced to the Printing on Demand (POD) for publishing your own materials (example: lulu.com). The downside to this are the costs associated with publishing your own materials, however, the books Hokanson showed us tended to be in the $40-50 range. He admitted students complained about the cost, but they do get to keep their own self-published book. He lists some of the following ideas to use POD:

• syllabus
  
• lecture
  
• demos in a wiki
  
• collected student papers
• academic papers
  
• collaborative writing or textbooks
• printed portfolios
• post notes or advice
  
• collaborative artifact creation
  
• exam reviews
• collaborative encyclopedia
  
• readings; annotate through PDF & POD

How would your students benefit by publishing their own work in your course? What ways could you use POD in your course?

Update from Distance Teaching and Learning Conference

I'm here with some of my co-workers in Madison, WI this week and we're all attending lots of great sessions, many of which I'm sure we'll be posting summaries for when we get back (although I won't speak for the group!). I wanted to share a link from a session I attended yesterday, especially in light of the last postings here about PowerPoint. Interestingly enough, the session was titled, Presentation blogs: The better alternative to PPT. The presenters use Blogger, Ning, and Slideshare to post presentations to the web. Here's a link to their presentation blog from yesterday: PowerPoint(less) Alternatives.

PowerPoint: Savior or Demon?

The other day, I was working on an online course and I came across some PowerPoint "lectures". I use quotes because each of the ninety or so slides in every chapter's PowerPoint looked as if it came from a different presentation. Different fonts, different colors, different sized photos, clip art, and phrases so truncated I couldn't tell what was important. I can't imagine how the students in that course must feel. (NOTE: these particular PowerPoints were included as part of the publisher's "bonus" materials; they were not made by the instructor).

Now, I admit I've used PowerPoint in my classrooms, workshops and seminars and for good reason. Those slides keep me on task. If I get off track, I can look at the slide and know right where I was. It allows me to show images in a way that the old overhead projectors did not. I can make handouts, give them to students or participants so that they can make notes on the handouts and have something to carry out of the class with them. It's an organizing tool, an image display, and (I hope) it keeps others in the room just as focused.

But what happens when we move to online class spaces? Does our trusty PowerPoint transfer its usefulness or does it fade into obscurity? Are there limitations to using it? If so, what are they? Is there any reason at all to use it? I don't necessarily have all the answers, but I'm wondering if (and how) the rest of you guys use it. Your comments please...