Research Proposal Idea Vlog

The following video contains a proposed research idea I have for researching more about the true educational value of ebooks.

Wiki Literature Review: Reflections After Last Use

The wiki is finished -- text, images, and videos included. If this project was not so top secret, I might actually share it with you. I guess you will just have to trust me when I say that it came out nicely.

Copying and pasting text from a Word document or from somewhere like Google docs can certainly pose a significant challenge in terms of formatting. If you are trying to write a document that is American Psychological Association (APA) styled, you might find yourself in for a battle. While Wikispaces does have a "paste from Word" tool, you may still find yourself fighting to get some of your lines in order and margins straight. For the technically-inclined individual, you may find it easier to go into the code mode and edit the text there. Regardless of your expertise, however, it is recommended that you only paste plain text into your wiki from the start. This usually helps you avoid any headaches in the long run trying to get rid of superfluous formatting carried over from other programs such as Microsoft Word.

Overall, however, Wikispaces is user-friendly and a great tool for collaborative writing and publishing simple multimedia texts online without the need for any HTML (or other Web design) experience.

For a great set of info and tutorials on Wikispaces and other Web 2.0 tools, check out this wiki: http://luedtechprogram.wikispaces.com/.

Wiki Literature Review: Reflections During Use

This post is to just give commentary on writing my wiki literature review while in the process of writing it. So far so good. My primary perceptions are still the same. I will say that I was writing with colleagues in a Google documents file. For collaborative writing, using Google documents seemed easier. Then, upon completion of the literature review, we moved the document into Wikispaces. This is no glamorous process. Basically, it is a copy and paste job that involves reformatting several things. The images need to be reimported into the wiki and then the videos need to be embedded. This may sound laborious, but it is really not that difficult in terms of processes. We could have created the document collaboratively in Wikispaces directly as well. It really comes down to personal preference.

Overall thoughts: Like any technology, the more you use it, the easier it gets. This is definitely not the first time I have used Wikispaces or wikis, in general, but it always takes at least a little time to get back into technology (and re-learning all of its quarks).

If you have used both a Wiki for collaborative writing and Google docs, which do you prefer?

Wiki Literature Review: Reflections After First Use

This blog post is merely my reflection on using a wiki as the medium for writing a collaborative literature review on electronic books (ebooks). For this wiki, I used a service called Wikispaces at http://www.wikispaces.com/. I find that Wikispaces is actually very user-friendly with its simple core design and core functionality. With little training, I was able to sign up, sign in, and accessa new wiki site. Starting a new page was easy with the (appropriately termed) “New Page” icon. Anyone with basic experience using Microsoft Word or any other word-processing software should find most of Wikispaces editing features familiar.

As a collaborative tool, I have found that sharing a wiki with a colleague can be simple as well. As long as both of you (or however many individuals you have in your group) have been granted access by the administrator (whomever started the wiki site), then you can both begin sharing
your work. I thought it was easy for each of my group members to take their digital notes and research articles and start populating the shared page. We could proofread and edit each other’s work and gather our thoughts. While this is not as synchronous as a resource such as Google documents, Wikispaces, and wikis in general, make it easy to collaborate and publish a Web page with little effort.

What do you think about using wikis for collaboration? Do you prefer a different tool?

Oh, and wikispaces offers free access. I would not want to miss mentioning that! :)

Copyright protection is one of those things in the realm of education that educators both respect and despise at the same time. They respect the fact that the authors of materials should get credit where credit is due (especially when their own works are involved), but also despise the fact that they can’t just use any and every audio, video, image, and text they find to use and to disseminate to students. Bittersweet indeed.

Let’s say for a moment that you are an educator who actually wants to adhere to copyright rules. While some copyright language is somewhat ambiguous, such as the fair use doctrine, most of the copyright guidelines are very clear. You may spend more time properly preparing material for students, or find that you cannot use that “perfect” video you had in mind for the class, but following copyright guidelines will keep you in good standing with copyright holders and show that you are taking the needed effort to follow copyright laws. A great summary of copyright rules can be found on Liberty University’s website at http://www.liberty.edu/informationservices/ilrc/library/index.cfm?PID=20100. This site includes copyright basics, information on the Teach Act provisions, the Digital Millennium Act and fair use guidelines as well as many other resources for helping you determine the proper use of copyrighted material.

Another widely accepted method for copyright protection for digital resources is Creative Commons licensing. This allows copyright owners to establish specific restrictions/allowances on their content that is easily viewable by following a link with the Creative Commons logo. Hence, the consumer knows right away what they can and cannot do with the digital content. For more information on Creative Commons, visit http://creativecommons.org/.

What are some of the biggest difficulties you have when it comes to copyrights in your courses? What resources have you found helpful to keep you in line with regard to copyrights?

Distance education is growing and becoming increasingly prevalent – especially in higher education. Creating distance education courses and programs is crucial to the livelihood of institutions, but creating courses and programs that are actually effective is even more essential.

Drawing from the work of Dewey and collaborative constructivism, Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) proposed the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to define effective distance education in higher education. They say that the most effective distance education experience requires the presence of three elements, cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. Cognitive presence is defined as “the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication” (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000, p. 89). Social presence is “the ability of participants in the Community of Inquiry to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to the other participants as ‘real people’ (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000, p. 89). Teaching presence is the “design and the facilitation that guides the cognitive process for the purpose of personal and educational meaningful learning outcomes “(Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000, p. 89).

The CoI framework has helped to shape the way I understand and approach effective distance education. Though I do not function as an instructor in an official capacity, I do work as a Web designer for educational materials and learning units. I find the CoI research to be valuable in my work in developing effective distance education lessons for students. For educators, this research provides practical implications for online teaching and assessment. For example, Garrison and Anderson suggest that educators address students by name and be conversational in discussion forums to create social presence. For administrators, they explain how the framework can be applied to policy development, strategic planning, and provision of leadership.

Future research with the CoI framework could look at the effectiveness of courses that implement it versus those that do not. Additionally, further research could look at new educational technologies and their potential for addressing cognitive, social and teaching presence.

Whether you, as an educator, administrator, or instructional designer decide to apply the CoI framework to your courses is up to you, but do take time to analyze research and seek to improve educational effectiveness in distance education. The future knowledge of students depends on it.

What is one theory that has positively affected you and/or your students in distance education?

Trends & Issues in Educational Technology: Expert Interview

In the career of education and particularly in educational technology, educators not only need to identify current trends, issues and new media, they also need to adequately assess which technological tools will best serve the educational needs at hand such as computer-mediated communications, mobile accessibility, virtual reality, distance education, artificial intelligence, and more.

To help answer questions about identifying trends and issues and adopting technology, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. David Holder, Assistant Professor of Graduate Education and Educational Technology at Liberty University. When asked to describe how he identifies current trends in the field, he said he first considers the technologies that he tends to use and that students and coworkers use. This is really practical advice for any educator: Consider technologies that are already gaining popularity, and see if they can serve an educational need. In other words, if it’s summer and people are buying ice cream, sell ice cream! But don’t try to sell ice to the Inuit.

The most poignant thought came when answering, “What advice do you have for a future professional entering the distance education or educational technology field?” Dr. Holder responded by saying “Technology cannot nor will it ever cause learning. It can only make the process of learning more efficient. This efficiency is the goal of educational technology. If it is not doing this it is a failure. If it is making the process more laborious then it is a failure.” I think this is something worth remembering for any educator. Many of us have seen thousands of dollars wasted by schools on the “next new thing.” The next new thing is fine but only if it serves the greater purpose of learning.

How do you identify and choose new educational technologies? What do you think are the new and/or upcoming trends and issues in educational technology?

You Have No Excuse for Not Having a Website: Create a Site Using Google Sites

Today, I’ve decided to pick a recent technology and discuss how I feel about it for personal and educational use. No research. Just thoughts.

I have been working with Google sites some recently. Google Sites provides a means for the layman (or laywoman) to create a decent website for free with little to no experience in Web design whatsoever. That alone, is still amazing to me. It’s amazing to me because 1) It’s free, 2) It’s incredibly easy to setup and use, and 3) I can’t help but see how much easier and robust this Web design tool is than the tools I was using 10 years ago.

You see, I started my Web design with a handy website called Geocities. Do you remember that one? Yahoo made it defunct when it bought it out a few years back, but that didn’t stop people from archiving thousands of sites prior to its demise. Back when it was the hot place to create a site, I created a basic website with the necessary page counter, slot machine widget, and guestbook. Whatever happened to the guestbook!? Did people stop caring about who came to their sites or what? Of course I’m being facetious. I think 50% of people spent more time with an “Under Construction” image on their pages than actual content. The Web has certainly evolved.

Back to Google sites. If you have a Gmail account, you’re almost there with having your own website. Visit http://sites.google.com to get started. It’s really so simple, your grandma could do it. The other great thing about Google’s resources is that Google typically does a great job educating users step by step in using their products. If you want a basic, professional website, Google sites is a great option. It can easily be used to create eportfolios or quick learning units for your students using images, videos, and text.

Have you used Google sites? Have you created anything with it for educational purposes? Feel free to share in the comments!

New Technology: To Buy or Not to Buy... Is Not Always the Question

Have you ever spent several hundred dollars (or several thousand dollars) on new technology having partaken in the sweet Kool-Aid of belief that this new technology will save you time, energy, money, and stress only to realize later that the technology ends up costing you more time, energy, money and stress than you ever realized you were silly enough to relinquish? Yeah… me neither. :) And even if our answer is a resounding “yes,” it merely brings us more pain to admit it.

Forgive me. My purpose in writing this is not to bring you (or me) more pain. But I would like to pose some thoughts on balancing the natural demands technologies place upon us and our families and the (supposed and realized) benefits they provide.

I will admit up front that I am a connoisseur of technology and often find “tech geek” an endearing term. That being said, I still do not enjoy finding myself becoming a slave to the technology that I love. "But EdTechSpy," you ask, "how do I escape the bonds of technoliciousness?" Glad you asked! I am going to make this simple knowing the potential I have for actually oversimplifying this broad and complex subject.

#1 – When choosing whether to partake of the fruits of a new technology, ask yourself this question: What do I really want to accomplish? This will help you get to the core reason you’re forking over $900 for an iPad… to play hours and hours of Angry Birds. However, if what you want to accomplish with that new iPad is to give presentations, easily answer email and research topics during your normal long commute, and connect with your kids through video chat while you’re away, you might have good justification. As a side note, beware of your internal voice that longs to justify irrationality. We all do it. We really want to buy that iPad for Angry Birds but we make up justifiable reasons for the iPad other than Angry birds such as giving presentations, that long commute, or connecting with loved ones… you get the idea. Just be honest with yourself.

#2 – The second question to ask yourself when choosing whether to partake of the fruits of a new technology is similar to the first question, but instead of asking “what” you are now asking yourself “why.” Why do I want this? If you can honestly answer why you want a new technology, you’ll be closer to knowing whether you’re making the right decision. You may say, “I want the new iPad because I like showing off expensive wares,” and that could be compelling enough for you to proceed. If that’s the answer to your why and you’re still okay with that, then more power to you! Strut your techno stuff (I suppose)! For others, however, this may be a reminder that it’s time to lay off the Kool-Aid.

There’s so much more one could say on this topic, but I’ll leave that for future posts. What are your thoughts on technology? Do you think we own technology or it owns us?

The Tweet is On: Social Media Belongs in Education

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter get a lot of flack for being overrated. Many people don’t understand the fascination for personal use and they are even more in disbelief when it comes to using social media for a practical purpose such as to make money (business), or to engage and educate (education).

In my (humble) opinion, systems such as Facebook and Twitter can be immensely beneficial to education. The caveat is that social media needs to be strategically and purposefully implemented based on sound pedagogy and based on the objectives that need to be met for any given lesson or course. For example, if an instructor is teaching a class in which group discussion and engagement is valuable to meeting objectives, Twitter could be used to serve those needs. The instructor could show a live class Twitter feed during an in-person class. The students could be presented with a question and be asked to reply on the Twitter feed. Students may include research or personal experience to add to the discussion. One advantage to using the Twitter feed over just having regular class discussion is that more students are likely to interact. Students that are typically introverted may feel more inclined to contribute to a Twitter discussion. A second advantage is that students can be encouraged to “continue the conversation” outside class throughout their day. As students are at work, at play, or doing homework, they can continue to post research, thoughts, pictures, or videos that can add to the discussion.

Social media systems such as Twitter are not just for leisure tweeting anymore. With a little bit of forethought and a little bit of creativity, educators can create engaging, interactive lessons for students in an environment in which they are already connecting.

Have you thought of using Twitter for education before? Have you already implemented it in a course or lesson? I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Collaborating Asynchronously and Synchronously in Online Environments

How well do you collaborate in asynchronous and synchronous online environments whether for learning or for professional contexts? Regardless of who you are or your level of technological expertise, online collaboration is expanding and simplifying making it easier for most people to find and use the tools necessary for connecting with others. I truly enjoy working with new technology and exploring the capabilities that lie therein. I fully embrace asynchronous and synchronous tools in online environments.

So which do you prefer? Asynchronous or synchronous online collaboration? Some educators say one is superior to the other and that the “lesser” should be abandoned. I say, “why choose one over the other when we can have both?” I feel that both asynchronous and synchronous collaboration and learning have a place. Flexibility of time and space necessitates the use of asynchronous communication with tools such as blogs, discussion forums, and document libraries. The need for deeper connections, vocal nuance, visual cues and facial expressions all warrant a need for synchronous collaboration using tools such as Skype, Blackboard Collaborate, Google Video, or GoToMeeting.

In my experience working as part of a group online, I found that a greater sense of connectedness arose among the group members from using synchronous tools such as Skype. We were able to verbally talk together as though we were sitting in a room together. We added this to the synchronous interactivity of Google documents so that we could talk and write together in the same document at the same time. Had we not used Skype to actually talk with one another, I do not feel we would have been able to connect as much on a personal level as well as quickly and easily talk through the nuances of our project. During the weeks the group worked on the project, basic asynchronous tools such as email were still vitally important to continued communication throughout the process.

In short, I appreciate and advocate the use of both asynchronous and synchronous communication methods in the online environment. If you ever find you are unfamiliar with a new tool, do not be afraid to search Google for how-to videos. A world of knowledge is forever at our fingertips!

Effective Video Training for Education

I just recently had a discussion with a friend about what methods of presentation work well for me as a learner. This is a topic that I would love to examine further. For me, I really enjoy learning from training videos. Training videos are spread all throughout the Internet from both professional content providers as well as novices. For a quick, one-off type of tutorial, even a novice video can suffice; however, the most effective online training videos I have every watched come from www.Lynda.com.

In the discussion I had with my friend, I mentioned how Lynda provides thorough software and computer training in a very systematic manner. The learner can go from complete rookie to mastery by watching every video in a course. For example, if you want to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop, you can access the Photoshop training that best fits your level of experience with Photoshop from beginner to expert. The “Photoshop CS5 Essential Training” course alone is over 11 hours of step by step video training. That might sound like a lot, but when the training is interesting (and it helps when it’s in an area you enjoy), 11 hours goes by fast.

Learning with video works for me. I can watch at my pace, rewind if I miss something or need to watch something again, and I can use it as a reference later when I actually have a project that uses the specific skills and/or tasks I learned. What I wonder though is how much of higher education can follow this model. When thorough training videos are created, can most subject areas stand to benefit? I understand that software and computer skills can be easily taught in a video medium, but what about counseling, statistics, nursing, history, biology?

I think these questions are difficult to answer for several reasons. I think that all of these subject areas and more can use videos to train students. But I also believe there is a point where certain skills cannot be trained merely through video. In other words, eventually, a nursing student must get a real syringe and be able to take a blood sample! Another issue with saying videos are a great solution for all of education is quality. There are so many educational videos out there (even at multi-million-dollar universities) that are absolutely awful; however, just because awful videos are not effective, does not mean we should abandon the use of videos; it just means we need to invest what it takes to create stellar, effective videos!

Obviously training videos existed before the boom of the Internet, but the manner in which a user can engage with the videos and quickly access and navigate videos has changed. I think that I am much more likely to watch and reference Lynda.com videos since they are in small chunks on my computer than if I had countless DVDs to navigate. It’s just different.

So what do you think? Are videos underutilized in education? Do you think video training can and should be the primary form of training for courses in counseling, statistics, nursing, history, biology, and others? Are video trainings effective for you like they are for me?

Online Communities: What Field Trip Did You Take Today?

Remember the joy of being a care-free kid? Do you remember the excitement of field trips – going new places, and seeing and learning new things? Now consider the age of the Internet. Each of us “Web surfers” take field trips every day as we travel from one website to another. We meet people we know (Facebook), and we interact with people we do not know (Web forums). We also see (YouTube) and learn (Blog posts and news articles) something new along the way.

Take joy in the limitless exploration and opportunities found on the Internet. Your Internet-connected device is a portal. The destination of that portal is up to you for better or for worse. These field trips are not merely journeys to a destination, however. They are connections with a worldwide community and with a world of sub-communities.

So what do people do? What do you do? Individuals in the online community tend to fall into three categories: 1) Creators (those that create content), 2) Lurkers (passive readers that consume content), and 3) Contributors (those that respond to others’ thoughts/conversations). Most of us assume more than one of these roles, but we still tend to be more of one than another. To be honest, I have been more of a lurker over the years. Even when I am engaged in an online conversation, I am seldom motivated enough to respond. On the other hand, there are people that always feel the world needs to hear what they have to say. :) I have seen over the years that being a creator has many benefits, but that is a threshold I have yet to cross.

At this point in my life, I spend most of my time gleaning knowledge from the online communities. I am a Web designer, so I spend a lot of time honing that craft. I do create content for Web as part of my job, but not extensively.

In short, what field trips do I take in the world of online communities? Facebook, Web forums, YouTube, Wikis, Google+, blogs, and email conversations. Wow. No wonder I am hard pressed to find free time.

So where do you go? What do you do? What does your family do?