Using Video To Communicate To Your Class

Are you looking for a different way to post your assignments?  I wasn't but I have started playing with an option that I think will be beneficial in the long run.

I use Moodle for my course management.  It is simple, clean, and effective.  While it has been useful, i figured there should be a better way of posting assignments, giving instructions for a class that I would have to miss, or supplementing the content to be covered in class.

Homework

I have started using YouTube's quick capture feature to fill this gap.  See my first post below.  Not only can the students comment on the video to ask questions but by keeping the video broadcasts in a central location, it is simple to find assignments or instructions that the teacher wants to send out to the students.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HERTERyPZhU

Lectures

Another use of video I have been thinking about comes from the fact that I teach AP World History.  One of the challenges I face is the fact that I want to do too much in class.  I believe that getting students to practice the art of examining documents or debating theories is much more powerful than listening to a lecture.  The idea is simple, screen cast my lectures and post them on Vimeo the night before class.  Have the students watch the lecture for homework.  Then use class time to create lessons based upon historical discussion or investigation based upon the ideas introduced in the video lecture.

We'll see how this turns out but as I try to reexamine how my students learn and how to best use my classroom time, it's worth a try.

Net Generation Education Project

My World Civilizations II class and I were recently selected to particpate in the Net Generation Education Project organized by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay.

My class will work with schools from around the world as we will examing Don Tapscott's book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World and the 2009 Horizon Report in order to determine what the future of education will look like.

We will be using multiple platforms, including a Ning, a Wiki, a Google Group to communicate with the other schools and discuss the ideas behind our final product: a video on what education should look like.  This video is to be part of Tapscott's Net Generation Education Challenge competition in which the winning entry will receive $10,000 in scholarship money.

The project begins this weekend, my students and I are excited to particpate and I will make sure to update the blog and let you know how it is going.

Technology Is Not The Solution

It might be a strange title for a post coming from a Director of Academic Technology but...

I just read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, "Technology not the panacea for education", written by Todd Oppenheimer, author of The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology. I found it using my education Alltop page, a free news aggregation website.

Oppenheimer is on target for the most part.  Throwing technology at a school will not improve education, teaching technology skills will not prepare our students for the challenges that lay ahead.  He calls the use of technology, "Education's WMD".

He goes on to quote a report from Information Technology Association of America on what students to learn in school.

Know something about the problems that need to be solved.

The concept is absolutely correct.  Students do not need to be taught how to use a word processor or for schools to purchase expensive content management systems.  That being said, technology CAN help students learn how to solve challenging problems and support the writing and reasoning skills Oppenheimer so strongly emphasizes in his article.

While technology is not a panacea and must be used with curriculum designed to support

writing and reasoning; reliable work habits; the capacity for concentration and face-to-face communication; a sense of history, cultural anthropology...[and] higher math and science

it can provide a wealth of knowledge and opportunities that will develop and support these skills.

Money for education should be invested in building or redesigning schools and curriculum that can develop the skills Oppenheimer mentions.  But, we would be foolish not to utilize the free or inexpensive technologies like Alltop, Skype, or Delicious, to only name a few that will only bolster that learning process.

Photo Credit:  Matthew Clark Photography & Design

The New Liberal Arts

I was learning more about a presentation on activism in the Middle East to be put on by the Berkman Center at Harvard next Monday when I saw another post on the Digital Natives website about the "New Liberal Arts".  After talking with my boss over the past few months about the idea of the New Humanities, created by Rutgers and now Stanford, this entry caught my eye.  A group called Snarkmarket posed the question, "What are the new liberal arts?"

This then prompted the group to open the idea up to the world for feed back and the idea is now turning into a book.  Snarkmarket is looking for your opinions on what the new liberal arts should include:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtLVFWXF_UQ&eurl=http://snarkmarket.com/blog/snarkives/books_writing_such/a_snarkmarket_book_project_the_new_liberal_arts/&feature=player_embedded

Our students are digital natives who live in a very different world.  We must adapt our curriculum to support the skills and thought processes that they will require in the 21st century.

With that in mind, I ask you to support Snarkmarket and their book in one of two ways:

1. Make a pitch for a new liberal art. It can be something you know lots about, or something you wish you knew lots about. It can be general or specific. It can be anything. Leave your first draft as a comment on this post, and don’t worry about thinking it all the way through. Don’t worry about length, either. If we decide to include your pitch in the book, we’ll work all of that out. ( click here to add your new liberal art)


2. Help promote the project. Even if pitching a new liberal art isn’t your speed, someone in your network might have a great idea. So blog this post; Twitter it; email it to your two nerdiest friends. Here’s a shortened link, if it’s helpful: http://is.gd/i4lG

Photo Credit: quinn.anya

Will We Push Them Off Facebook?

Steve Ritchie just wrote this post about making the case for social media engagement on edSocialMedia.  In the post he discusses new findings by iStrategy about Facebook demographics.  Specifically, Ritchie focuses on the jump in the number of 35 to 55 year olds joining Facebook.  Ritchie goes to state that because more parents and alumni are using Facebook schools must seriously consider using social media to attract and connect their school to the blossoming 35 to 55 demographic.

While this may be the case, I also saw a trend that cannot be ignored.

1)  The 35-54 year old demo is growing fastest, with a 276.4% growth rate in over the approximate 6 months since we last produced this report

2) The 55+ demo is not far behind with a 194.3% growth rate

3) The 25-34 year population on Facebook is doubling every 6 months

7) The largest demographic concentration remains the college crowd of 18-24 year olds (40.8%) which is down from (53.8%) six months ago.

While the percentage of 18-24 year olds may be down due to the increase of 35-55 year olds, I have a feeling that that trend will only increase.  Students do not want to be friended by their teachers, they do not want their parents to see their profile.  While schools may be investing in Facebook as a tool to recruit potential parents and alumni donors, sooner rather than later students will find another medium for their online presence.

So while we should invest in using social media as a tool for schools, we must realize that the trend will shift because no matter if it's 1909 or 2009, adolescents want to be different, they don't want to be like their parents.

I am happy to see that education is catching up to the idea of using new technologies to connect and communicate with their constituencies but they also must realize that Facebook is not a sliver bullet.  Trends change fast and Facebook may be useful now but don't bet the house on it.

As my boss, Antonio Viva, told me, "It's about the vision, not the tool".  Using social media in a school is the right call.  It is the way to communicate your message.  Unfortunately, if schools are looking to reach students, teachers, and alumni on one platform that is a mistake.  Students will begin to leave Facebook sooner rather than later and with the way schools work, that trend will be lost in a school's effort to catch up.

So, while I am happy to see more people join Facebook and schools wanting to utilize social media, don't be surprised when the 18-24 demographic on Facebook rapidly declines.

Photo Credit: Stabilo Boss

Teaching Through Social Networks: Help Someone

The following video by Seth Godin, author of Tribes, addresses a question that many teachers bring up.  How can social networks help teach?  While Godin's response is for marketers, the same concept applies in education.  Help someone.  If social networks (Facebook, Delicious, Twitter, Wikis, and Blogs) are used by classes to help others, this will be more powerful than any test the students will ever take.

Lets say students in a Biology class learn about AIDS and its role in Africa.  Rather than simply taking a test, the students could use their social networks to connect to a community in Africa that has been ravaged by AIDS.  The students would then Tweet about the community and what they are facing.  Using Delicious, the students would post links about the disease.   A fundraiser could be set up through Facebook and students could invite all their friends.  A blog could be dedicated to the effort of raising money and awareness about the true impact of AIDS.   If we used our social networks like this, we would not only help others, our students would learn a lot more about the content covered in class.

Social networks are not going away.  We must use them to our advantage. Use them to help others and learn from the experience.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OujgPgNCLvk

The Next Step

I have been thinking a lot lately about where teaching will go next. As mobile and cloud computing become more ubiquitous and globalization increases, collaboration and communication will define the success of an educational institution.  In the 2009 Horizon report, the authors state that some of the future trends in educational technology will only enhance these principles.

3 C's

While at Educon 2.1, Kendall Crolius, founding partner of The Sulevia Group, stated that the purpose of school is based upon the three C's: Creativity, Collaboration, and Courage.  Those three C's are the basis of what students need to learn and how we need to teach.  If our teaching does not address these three C's and I would add a fourth, Communication, we are doing our students a disservice.

Globalization

As our world becomes smaller and folks in New York must work live with their peers in Bejing, it is imperative that education help students develop the skills necessary to be prepared for the scope of collaboration needed for success.

The majority of our classrooms are not built for this kind of learning.  We must force our students to see beyond hardbound books and multiple choice tests to have them prepared for the world they will face after school.

How To Get There

If we are to maximize the global collaboration and communication stated in the Horizon Report, we must focus on developing programs like the Horizon Project 2008. The project brings schools from all over the world together to work on a common goal.  Programs like Skype, Ning, and Google Docs allow the ability to design an environment where students from around the world can communicate and work together.  It is this type of communication that will build a community and it is that community that will build the skills and understanding that our students require as they look ahead to their future.

Our model of education is outdated, are we ready to address this on the macro level?  I sure hope so.