Category Archives: Technology Integration

Create Multimedia-Infused Timelines

I came across Tiki-Toki today, a great tool for creating multimedia-infused timelines. Instructors can use Tiki-Toki to share timelines, complete with images, links, and videos. Students can use it for, well… the same thing! To familiarize myself with Tiki-Toki, I started this simple timeline of the World War II events that took place in 1943.

I was first asked to decide which kind of account I would like. There is one free option and two paid. Here’s an overview of their features:

Of course, I chose to stick with the free version. I was then able to start creating my timeline. This process was pretty easy since Tiki-Toki provided me with instructions as I clicked through the various options.

You first enter the details of your timeline, including the title, start/end dates, introduction, etc. I really like that you can change the background of the timeline by adding your own image. To add an image, you can click on the magnifying glass and search images in Flickr that are labeled Creative Commons or choose your own Flickr images. The image source is automatically credited, which is pretty nifty. You are supposed to be able to enter the URL for an image, but this didn’t work for me (could be user error). One piece of advice regarding images: nothing happens when you click on your image of choice. I kept thinking that it wasn’t working, only to realize that Tiki-Toki had already inserted the image.


Once you’ve finished the settings, you can start creating timeline events, which Tiki-Toki calls “stories.” For each story, you can add a title, date, and basic information. The real beauty lies in how you can enhance the story with links, images, YouTube videos, and additional text.

When you’re finished, simply share the link with others and they can enjoy your timeline! If you have some extra budget money and can afford the educator account, you could have your students group edit a timeline. This would be a great feature for group projects.

Free Web Conferencing

If you attended the May 13 faculty seminar, I am sure you understand many of the benefits of web conferencing. I like web conferencing for both face-to-face and distance purposes. In working one-on-one in a face-to-face environment, it allows you to collaborate with another user, each with your own computer. For example, as an instructional designer, I will use it when working with an instructor on a Blackboard course. We can be sitting across from one another, but both working on the same course at the same time. A professor in my doctoral program did something similar in a meeting I had with him. He pulled up my research paper using web conferencing and, as he provided feedback, we were both able to type comments on the paper. For distance education, the possibilities are numerous: virtual office hours, tutoring, group sessions, etc.

Mikogo is a free web conferencing tool that offers all of the features you would want in a web conferencing product (i.e. desktop sharing, remote mouse control, whiteboard, session recording, etc.). With Mikogo, you can work with up to 10 participants, making it perfect for tutoring or small groups.

If you want to work with a larger group, try AnyMeeting. AnyMeeting offers many of the same features as Mikogo, but you can have up to 200 participants. Yes, 200! The catch? It is ad-supported, so users will see ads. If this doesn’t bother you, it’s a great web-based tool.

We are working on getting a campus-wide tool but, until then, try out one of these freebies and get a feel for web conferencing!

32 Ways to Use Google Apps

This is an incredibly thorough resource for using Google Apps for teaching, learning, and productivity. “Google Apps” refers to a suite of free Google tools, including Gmail, Talk, Groups, Calendar, Docs, Sites, etc. Look through the slides and see the numerous ways in which you can use these tools to increase engagement, productivity, and efficiency. While the presentation was designed for K-12 (extra bonus for those of you in the College of Education), you will find that many of the uses cross over into higher ed.

FYI – We will have two Google-focused roundtables at our faculty seminar on Friday, May 13. Patrick Hargon will facilitate a table on Google Docs, and Kristy Plander will be discussing Google Sites.

[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”present/embed” query=”id=dc6k4z3j_297x6fw6wdb” width=”410″ height=”342″ /]

Illuminate Concepts in Science, Tech, Math, Art, etc.

The Wolfram Demonstration Project is a free resource that provides interactive demonstrations related to a number of different fields. Check out this screenshot of their searchable topics, all of which expand to numerous subtopics:

The Wolfram Demonstration Project is an open-code resource that allows anyone to create interactive visualizations and publish them.  You can use these visualizations to illuminate certain course concepts.  Using the free Wolfram CDF Player, you can interact with the visualizations as well. Demonstrations and/or their source codes can be downloaded.

No Clickers? No Problem!

Clickers are often used to poll students in large classes. However, not everyone has clickers, or uses them enough to justify having their students purchase them. With Poll Everywhere, you can poll students and gather text-based feedback using just a cell phone or laptop… which, let’s face it, most of your students probably have!

Why might you use Poll Everywhere? Well, maybe you want to quickly poll students and find out what they already know about the topic on which you are about to present. Or, maybe you are going to present and you want them to be able to share their questions so you can address them after the presentation. Perhaps they’ve just completed an assigned reading or activity and you want to give them a little quiz question to see if it was effective. Maybe you just have some housekeeping to take care of, like figuring out a date that works for everyone to take a test. Whatever! The possibilities are endless.

How do you use it? Simply type in your question, how many times each person may respond, and the ways in which they may respond. These include text messaging, web link, Smartphone… even Twitter! Using their preferred method, they type in the code that matches their response choice (or, with open-ended responses, a code and their message) and the poll results are updated immediately. Once the poll is finished, you can even save it as a PowerPoint or Keynote slide.

What are the details? You can sign up for a free account, which allows up to 30 responses per poll, at www.polleverywhere.com. Standard text messaging rates would apply. This will not generally be a problem, especially for students who usually have generous, if not unlimited, texting plans. However, they should still be made aware and given the option of using a computer or (if they have one) their smartphone’s browser. If there are students who do not have phones or laptops, adjust the settings so multiple responses can be made per device and they can share with a neighbor.

iPads WILL NOT Make a Difference in Your Classroom!

The Omaha World-Herald has an article today on the use of iPads in schools. This particular article focuses on K-12, but the topic is relevant in higher education as well, where many institutions are piloting iPad programs. More importantly, there is a statement made in this article that I think applies to the use of instructional technology, in general.

“So far, there are no studies indicating whether iPads can make a difference in education…”

And there never will be. Ever.

As an instructional technologist, I hear comments all the time about money being spent on technology that does not “make a difference.” Well, guess what? It isn’t the technology that’s doing the teaching or learning! Putting iPads in instructors’ and students’ hands will never “make a difference in education” if they aren’t being used in a meaningful way. A pencil doesn’t make a difference if it’s being used to doodle on a desk, and an iPad doesn’t make a difference if it’s being used to play Angry Birds (an educational difference, that is… I know some of you are very proud of your Angry Birds accomplishments… I also know some of you have no idea what I’m talking about).

If you are a person who doesn’t like to use technology, then I get that (although I will try to convert you). However, let’s not blame the poor interactive whiteboard that’s collecting dust for not making a difference, because someone else on campus is using one in ways that do make a difference.

So, I must break the news to you that, should you find yourself with a windfall of iPads, they will not make a difference in your classroom… but the ways in which you choose to use them just might.

Crocodoc


Okay, it’s time for another nifty Internet app (remember Jing?). I’m sure you have found yourself wanting to highlight or annotate a PDF at some point, only to find that you need to purchase, sign up for, and/or download software. Well, Crocodoc eliminates all of these steps. With Crocodoc, you can upload a PDF (or PowerPoint, Word doc, image, etc.), annotate it, and share with others. While you do not need to sign up for a free account to use Crocodoc, doing so will allow you to store and manage files.

Crocodoc files can be shared by providing someone with a link, emailing it to them from Crocodoc, or downloading the file and then sending it via email. As an instructor, I think Crocodoc would be useful for providing electronic feedback. However, in order to maintain privacy, I would make the annotations in Crocodoc, save the file to my computer, and then send it to the student via email (watch out for the comment tool though, as the comments didn’t show up on my downloaded doc… text inserted directly on the document did, however).

Crocodoc can be used by groups to collaborate on a document. This opens up some great possibilities for students to do group work or peer editing. It might even be easier than using Google Docs, as students do not need to sign up for accounts, and fewer tools make it more straightforward.

If Crocodoc sounds interesting to you, try it out! All you need to do is visit the site, upload a document, select an annotation tool, and you’re off to the races.

Textbooks vs. Googling

 

Source: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/28/textbook

An interesting article arrived in my email today. The article, “Student Research: Can Googling Replace $168 Intro to Psych Textbook?“, described a student research project that compared content found in a textbook with content found on the Internet. Among their findings was the discovery that summaries found on sites such as Wikipedia were “equal to or exceeded” those found in the textbooks that were included in the study. They also looked at free e-books and “lower-cost print materials,” ultimately determining that the use of both digital and print materials was the best option. I am assuming that “print materials” refers to the lower-cost option, as opposed to the $168 textbook.

First of all, I am not even going to get into a debate about the quality of Wikipedia. Whether you or a fan or not, anything you can find on Wikipedia can be found somewhere else on the Internet. So, if you don’t like Wikipedia, let’s just assume the information is being found on a more “reputable” site with which you are comfortable. I do believe that much (all?) textbook content can be found on the Internet. However, does this mean we should replace textbooks? I have my own thoughts on this, but I am curious to read your opinions. Please share!

We Need Your Feedback!

As we start to think about tech needs for next year, we would like to know what ideas you have for technologies that would enhance teaching and learning at Concordia. The following survey includes items that reflect feedback we have already received. We would like you to rank these items in order of usefulness, with 1 being most useful and 5 being least useful. If you have an idea that is not included, please feel free to share via the text box.

If you are not familiar with some of these items, here are some brief explanations:

Instructor Computer Workstation – This would mean that each classroom would contain a computer for the instructor.
Document Cameras – Allow you to magnify and project 3-D objects (e.g. books) as well as transparencies
Flip Cameras – Small video cameras
iPads – Tablet computers
Adobe Connect – Allows you to facilitate synchronous online meetings, complete with presentations (i.e. slideshows or desktop sharing), audio, video, etc.; presentations can be recorded for later viewing
Lecture Capture – Lecture capture has three potential uses: (1) to allow students to view lectures that they have missed,  (2) to provide students with the opportunity to review lectures for test prep or studying, (3) to provide online course content (i.e. face-to-face lectures are recorded and then used in online courses). Please note: research shows that lecture capture has NO SIGNIFICANT EFFECT on class attendance.

Again, these are just suggestions based on feedback already received from faculty. Please feel free to share your own ideas.

CLICK HERE for the survey.

Films on Demand

Are you utilizing Films on Demand? In my opinion, this is one of our library’s greatest resources. Probably one of the top 5 questions I get is, “Can I show this DVD in my online class?” If you have a copyrighted DVD, it is very unlikely that we will be able to show it in an online course. However, you do have access to Films on Demand, which contains tons of educational videos in a variety of academic areas.

I was recently working with Dr. Kinworthy on his microeconomics course. He had traditionally taught this course face-to-face, and had several videos that he liked to show. In putting this course online, we needed to find alternatives to the DVDs,  so we explored Films on Demand. To Dr. Kinworthy’s great surprise, he found more videos than he could use, and actually felt that they were better and more up-to-date than his DVDs. 

Face-to-face instructors can play the videos in full screen mode and then project them. Online instructors, you will need to make sure the videos are accessible to off campus students. This means that you will need to include a proxy at the beginning of the link. See this tutorial for instructions.

If you have a DVD that is absolutely essential to your online course, and you cannot find a Films on Demand alternative, speak with Phil Hendrickson about the possibility of purchasing a downloadable version.