Use of Technology at CMC

Recent Articles on The Wired Campus

How to Find What Clicks in the Classroom, Judith Tabron: At the end of this article, Tabron notes: “It will be a dismal future if the only thing our graduates cannot do online is learn.” In the article, she talks about coming back three years ago from teaching to IT administration and found little had changed in the use of technology. She talks about what colleges need to do to support the use of technology inside and outside the classroom. http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i29/29a03801.htm?top20

Another article, Colleges Bought Classroom Technology, but Are Enough Professors Using It?, found at http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2849&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en, further reflects on this article. The comments posted to this article were very interesting.

What are your thoughts about Blackboard, Elluminate Live! or other technologies CMC has made available to you as faculty?

Attending Conferences from Your Desktop

Registering for a Conference in Second Life at Edunation

With the technologies we have available it is possible to attend both live and asynchronous sessions with colleagues around the world (or is that worlds?)

As posted earlier, Innovation 2008 in Breckenridge on April 14th and 15th will offer an opportunity to hear from a wide range of experts across technology, policy, and practice for a very reasonable $69:

http://www.uliveandlearn.com/dsp_breezelivedetail.cfm?ProgramID=ade2c7f6%2D1903%2D4adb%2D9427%2D5443ec769883

A thirteen year conference, Teaching, Colleges, and Community, hosted by institutions from Hawaii and Japan provides great community, great sessions by faculty practioners on the use of various tools for instruction, and also is available at the rate of $69 if you register before March 31. This online conference is scheduled for April 15th - 17th:

http://tcc.kcc.hawaii.edu/2008/tcc/registration.html

Why would anyone want to do this? It's a chance to get in on some great peer-shared expertise when the need to travel is competing with priorities, plus the archives are typically there for referral after the conference is over.

And you'll be surprised at how real the peer-networking is...

Innovate 2008 from Your Desktop

Innovation 2008 is a face-to-face conference that will be held in Breckenridge April 14th and 15th. Can't go? Here's another great opportunity to attend online--See the details below.

Innovation 2008 (http://education-2008.org) brings together researchers, educators, and government and business leaders to formulate a vision for the future of education. This conference aims at a realistic appraisal of the present state of education and an assessment of what current realities indicate for the future, coupled with constructive and well-informed speculation about how change can be better managed to serve the need of students, educators, parents, industry, and society as a whole.

If you cannot attend in Breckenridge, CO, you can attend virtually, thereby allowing you to get a true taste of the attendee experience through informal real-time chats with keynote and session presenters, participants, and sponsors. Innovate's partner, ULiveandLearn, will broadcast all sessions of the conference live and will archive the webcasts for later viewing in the event that you are not able to attend the live sessions. For more information, please go to http://tinyurl.com/2nrhxa to register.

Why Twitter?

Last week Warren Munick sent me this link and asked me if he thought CMC faculty would use this "micro-blogging" tool called Twitter:

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2785/will-new-messaging-service-catch-on-with-professors

In the Chronicle feature, a faculty used it to exchange quick messages with students who voluntarily opted to use it. You'll see that many faculty responded to the video presentation.

I've come to the conclusion that once we hear about excitement over a new technology, we then get down to asking how it serves the learning.

I would want to know how many students had it and how they saw it helping their learning needs.

I did spend some time with Twitter. I went to Twitter.com and set up an account. I found out I send out quick posts of 140 characters or less (there's a counter at the message window) and share the post via phone, instant messenger, or web.

I decided I would use it with an instant messenger on my desktop, though I can just go to the Twitter website and login to my account there as well. If I am away from the computer, I can turn on my phone, but will get charged text-message rates according to my cell contract.

I might use it for quick messages from learners at critical times with projects, but don't think I'd have it on all the time. As an English faculty, I have long promoted National Poetry Month with public readings. I thought--well, Twitter could be used for poetic exchanges (Many were ahead of me, I soon found out...). So I did a search for other Twitter users with the term poetry, found a bunch and invited a bunch.

http://twitter.com/140poems/with_friends

What I'm learning about the exploding technology services is that some seem to be information oriented, while others are definitely more social-connection oriented.

Twitter is the second.

So welcome to April--National Poetry month. There are many venues for celebrating it--but if you want to share it by writing or quoting up to 140 characters of poetry, join Twitter and "follow" me (140poems).

If you are using Twitter or have ideas about how it might be used, please let us hear about them in the comments!

Rules for the Road: The "Learning Organization"

Dr. Sam Geonetta (sam.geonetta@uc.edu) from the University of Cincinnati College of Applied Science did a "poster" session at the League for Innovation in Community Colleges conference in Denver on March 3rd on what exactly a Learning Organization is. It peaked my curiosity because I started Senge's The Fifth Discipline but couldn't finish it. I was looking for the simplicity on the other side of the abstract complexity on this subject.
So Here is the straightforward outline of the Five Disciplines that form a Learning Organization. I will conclude with some of the web sources that Dr. Sam included in his poster session.

I. Personal Mastery
A. Focus is on professional development
B. Based on clear goals (organizational and personal)
C. Concern is creation of results individuals within an organization desire.
II. Mental Models.
A. Focus is on "internal pictures of the world" derived from reflec tion, clarification, and improvement.
B. Concern is seeing how they shape decisions and actions.
III. Shared Vision.
A. Focus is on group commitment.
B. Based on "conversation" about shared images.
C. Concern is shared principles and practices.
IV. Team Learning.
A. Focus is on synergy through dialogue and functional leadership.
B. Concern is that the sum of the group's work is greater than the individuals' efforts.
V. Systems Thinking.
A. Focus is onthinking and language for describing and understanding forces that shape systems.
B. Concern is with capacity for adaptation and change so actions are in tune with the "world."

Web Resources:
http://home.nycap.rr.com/klarsen/learnorg/
http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/jfullerton/review/learning.htm
http://www.ddrduru.com/knowledge.html
http://www.dist.maricopa.edu/users/bleed/learnin.html
http://commhum.mccneb.edu/PHILOS/senge.htm

VARK for Teachers

I attended a roundtable discussion on the learning styles tool VARK led by Megan Way-Nicholson, Professor, Human Studies and Applied Arts, St. Lawrence College of Applied Arts and Technology, Ontario at the League Conference in Denver March 3, 2008.
VARK stands for the four categories of learners: Visual, Aural, Read/Write or Kinesthetic. Megan prefers VARK because it is less about personality and more about "how learners prefer to use their senses to learn." She provided us with the VARK Questionnaire that she uses for students in her criminal justice classes. She also had participants take the VARK and walked us through how to score the VARK. Megan does not share the VARK scores with other students but in discussion another participant pointed out the advantages in a class she was taking of knowing each other's learning styles in a class. This helps students understand each other as well as helping the teacher know how to work with students based on the number of learning styles in the classroom.
I thought the following was useful from one of the handouts (source: http://vark-learn.com/english/index.asp): "Using VARK Results to Study More Effectively:"

• If you have a visual learning preference, underline or highlight your notes, use symbols, charts, or graphs to displlay your notes, use different arrangements of words ont he page, and redraw your pages from memory.
• If y ou are an aural learner, talk with others to verify the accuracy of your lecture notes. Put your notes on tape and listen or tape class lectures. Read your notes out loud; ask yourself questions and speak your answers.
• If you have a read/write learning preference, write and rewrite your notes, and read your notes silently. Organize diagrams or flow charts into statements, and write imaginary exam questions and speak your answers.
• If you are a kinesthetic learner, you will need to use all your seneses in learning--sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing. Supplement your notes with real-world examples; move and gesture while youa re reading or speaking your notes.

Megan pointed out that she waits until week three of a 15 week semester to administer the VARK. It takes about one hour. She has found it to be very effective in achieving her course objectives. She had several anecdotes of students who continue to stay in touch with her and mention the impact of knowing their learning style on other aspects of their lives. It's good stuff.

The Perfect Storm: Forces Changing our Nation's Future

This was an impressive general session at the March League for Innovations conference in Denver (March 2-5, 2008). Irwin Kirsch, Director of the Center for Global Assessment at the Educational Testing Service was the very engaging presenter.
There are three main forces that are changing our nation's future according to data gathered and analyzed by Dr. Kirsch:

• Divergent skill distributions
• the Changing Economy
• Demographic Trends

The first force will certainly have a major impact on community colleges: the wide disparity in literacy and numeracy skills among our school-age and adult populations. We are losing ground. High school graduation rates were at 77% in 1969 and fell back to 70% in 1995 and stayed their in this decade. Among disadvantaged minorities the rate is thought to be closer to 50%. What an extraordinary impact this will have on the future workforce!

The second force is the changing economy which Kirsch describes as "seismic." There has been a radical shift in the balance between capital and labor driven by both technological innovation and globalization. It is clear from Kirsch's analysis that there is a far larger number of jobs that require a college education. It is predicted that college labor market clusters will generate about 46% of all job growth between 2004 and 2014. He notes that higher earnings will go to those who have the degrees and the "higher cognitive skills." These are not only the folks who will have good paying jobs they will also be the folks given the most opportunities for further learning.

The third force involves "sweeping demographic changes." The U.S. population is projected to reach 360 million in 2030 (up from 300 million in 2005). The population will become increasingly older and more diverse. The labor force is projected to grow more slowly in the next 20 years. The U.S. Census Bureau believes that between 2000-2015 net international migration will account for more than half of the nation's population growth. A large percent of that internation population will be Hispanic (around 20% by 2030). The challenge historically with this ethnic group is the low percentage who have a high school diploma.

Kirsch makes clear that separately these forces are powerful, together they are indeed the "perfect storm." He concludes: "While new policies focusing only on education and skills will not solve all the challenges associated with existing inequalities, if our society's overall levels of learning and skills are not increased and the existing gaps are not narrowed, there is little chance that economic opportunities will improve among key segments of our population." We have our work cut out for us at the community colleges across the nation.