Social Networking

Today I will be presenting a social networking demo for our college’s Web Council. I want to keep it short because we have other issues to talk about including the Website redesign update. I want to focus on just a few social networks or more precisely Web 2.0 applications. These applications include; Facebook, Wikipedia, blogs, Wikis, electronic portfolios and Google Apps for Education.

Facebook – Originally launched by a student at Harvard University as a way to keep in contact with fellow classmates. Now Facebook has expanded to everyone who has a official e-mail address. With Facebook you can choose to join one or more networks like College of Southern Maryland. This allows users to stay connected with users of the same network. http://www.facebook.com

Wikipedia – Written collaboratively by volunteers from everywhere, anytime by anyone. Did you know the college has a Wiki site? Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Southern_Maryland.

Blog – Unique in that blogs are owned by an individual. The nature of the blog is to invite comments, suggestions and additions for the public. This idea is similar to social networking in that is shares features of personal expressions. It also serves as a location to share and connect to other web resources.

Wiki – Similar to a blog but work is completed as a collective unit. This collaborative environment is idea fro groups and committees/team assignments. This application is a tool for thinking, reflecting, creating and commenting.

Electronic Portfolios – Wikis, blogs and social networks have all influenced ePortfolios over the last five years. With Net Generation and Digital Natives sharing and organizing their lives online the idea of ePortfolios only makes sense. There are a number of available ePortfolio sites available online. Additionally, ePortfolio applications are becoming standard resources in Learning Management Systems like Angel and BlackBoard NG. Epsilen ePortfolio management system combines ePortfolio tools with social networking framework. Its application is being billed as the new model for the next generation of life- long learners and professionals. My Epsilen site: http://joelk.csmd.epsilen.com/content/personal/universal/public/home/index.aspx?pr=joelk

Google Apps Educational Edition – This application can be branded with the CSM name in the URL as well as a logo on the pages. When you log into Google you can send and receive email, create, edit, share and view documents, spreadsheets and presentations, create web sites and chat with other Google users. I am still doing some research on Google Apps Educational Edition. This application might be piloted this spring. I will have more information on Google Apps in an upcoming blog entry.

More on the TEACH Act

When the TEACH Act first come out we worked to ensure our college meet all the requirements that the law provides for educational institutions transmitting copyrighted works as part of a distance education course. The TEACH Act requires the following conditions must be satisfied to use material under the TEACH Act. The following are the requirements along with our college’s status in meeting those requirements. This also works as a good checklist for distance education instructors:

1. The institution must be accredited.
CSM is accredited

2. The transmission of the work must be part of an instructional activity.
The copyrighted material is used as part of a class experience

3. The work must be directly related to the teaching content.
Faculty is informed that use of copyrighted material should be related to the teaching content

4. The transmission must, to the extent technologically feasible, be limited to the student enrolled in the distance learning experience.
Blackboard CE8, CSM’s web delivery tool, requires a student to provide a valid login and password to enter the content

5. The institution must have a copyright policy.
CSM has a policy

6. The institution must provide notice to students that materials used in the course may be subject to copyright protection
CSM needs to add this statement to the footer portion of the Learning Modules page for each course.

7. The institution must apply technological measures that reasonably prevent students from retaining the work in accessible form after the class session.
After each session, the student must log out. At the end of the course (2 weeks), student’s access is taken away

8. The institution must apply technological measures that reasonable prevent redistribution of the material.
We purchased RealNetworks Real Player streaming audio/video server has the capability to prevent students from downloading the streamed file to their computer. This protocol is called “Secret Handshake”.

More links regarding Coprright and TEACH Act, thanks to my friends at University of West Georgia and their Distance Education Certificate Program:

Regents Guide to the TEACH Act
Copyright Considerations in the Digital Age
10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained, Brad Templeton
Copyright Issues Relating to On-Line Classrooms, Hill

Three Things that Online Instructors Need for Training

Instructors wishing to design and deliver web-based courses require certain skills which are different than skills needed for a traditional face-to-face course. By being aware of this, there are three important things that are overlooked by administrators creating training programs for prospective online instructors. Knowing the difference between traditional and nontraditional learners, time required to develop a course and the idea of providing prospective instructors training via the web.

Knowing the difference between traditional and nontraditional learners
Distance learning students are considered nontraditional students and approach learning differently than traditional students. The traditional student rely on an instructor led classroom (teacher to student), whereas nontraditional student learning is dialog based verses lecture based. Nontraditional learners need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking to learn it. This need suggests that the responsibility for learning be transferred from facilitator to learner (Andrological and Pedagogical Training Differences for Online Instructors, Gibbons & Wentworth, 2001(http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall43/gibbons_wentworth43.html)). The best way to create a productive dialog in your course is to use the Discussion Tool. A good model for productive discussions is to post a open ended question each week that relates to the module content that evokes a discussion that feeds in the experience of the nontraditional learners. Knowing the difference between a nontraditional learner and a traditional learning is the recipe for success in delivering a web-based course.

Time required to develop a course
It’s important to realize that the development of a web-based course requires considerable development time. Time is also required to integrate different teaching and learning styles, particularly collaborative, learner centered learning styles such as discussions that make the best use of web-based instructional technology. (Learn Online Staff: Grant MacEwan Collage (http://stats.macewan.ca/learn/staff/lit_comp.cfm)). Understanding what tools are available and how to effectively deploy these tools are essential skills required before undertaking a redesign from a traditional face-to-face to a web-based course. Before the content is revised and loaded into the course, the web-based instructor should have developed a syllabus which is reviewed by an experience web-based instructor or a mentor. After the prospective instructor has learned the tools, developed a syllabus and revised the content then the course can be constructed. All these phases in the development of a web-based course takes a considerable amount of time to accomplish.

Providing web-based training for prospective instructors
Training conducted online allows new facilitators to learn experientially under the same conditions as their future students (Andrological and Pedagogical Training Differences for Online Instructors, Gibbons & Wentworth, 2001(http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall43/gibbons_wentworth43.html)). This model of delivering web-based training to prospective web-based instructors is a win - win situation for educational institutions. Prospective instructors participate in a web-based course by accessing the content in the same manner as their students will access their content. Good design principles and ideas are picked up and later used by the prospective instructor. Also, the instructor experiences from a student standpoint the issues of working with the technology, navigating content and meeting deadlines. Another reason that institutions might consider this approach to training is that it reaches faculty that might not otherwise be able to attend the training due to scheduling conflicts.

Understanding these three factors and incorporating them into the educational institution’s training program will provide distance learning instructors with the skills needed to become effective online educators.

Google Sites

Google Sites is a free online Web2.0 application which makes creating and editing web sites easy. The site allows you to grab information, edit and post so viewers have viewing and/or editing access. What I like best is the freedom you have in design and the professional looking end result with no advertising.
Get started here: http://sites.google.com/site


I found Google Sites to be easy to use as well as features that allow you to edit the HTML. For the novice, the easy to use features enable you to create a faulty web page or a course home page anywhere as long as you have access to the Internet.

For faculty looking to create a faculty web page and course home page it is simple to customize the site by adding your photo, contact information course listing and individual pages for each course that continues documents such as syllabus, course notes, PowerPoints and even videos. Worried about space? You get 100MB of space, more than enough!

Google make available short YouTube videos to make learning how to use the application evan easier like this short getting started tutorial:



I was able to create my faculty web page in about three hours, and most of that time was spent learning the features and tools. Now, if I want to update the site, it is as easy as clicking on the site and adding the information.

View my site at http://sites.google.com/site/seanettles

Twitter

Twitter is a good resource to keep students up-to-date with what your currently doing.

Twitter could be used by an instructor to send messages in less than 180 characters, however this is nothing more than a new twist to the term for Instant Messaging. I think Twitter could be ideal for reminding students about homework, tests and such things, especially as they can enter their cell phone number to be alerted when an instructor does a Twitter entry. The advantage is that you don’t need to know the phone numbers of students to get messages onto their device: they are the ones who authorize their mobile phone from the website and they subscribe to your Twitter feed. The drawback is that all your students would have to be Twitter users, which is stretching your luck.

Twitter

FREE ePortfolio from Epsilen.com

www.epsilen.com allows you to create a free eportfolio. The service is free for all registered students and faculty of US colleges and universities.

The idea is to allow users to play with the product with the hopes that someday the institution will get a full capacity institutional license. This might be a good alternative to what we have now, called "Faculty Web Pages." So feel free to use the tools and make a web page. Some of the features include:

• Create and maintain a professional ePortfolio
• Engage in professional and social networking
• Showcase scholarly work and other documents in a wide range of formats
• Develop and share resumes
• Store and share files/objects
• Use Epsilen e-mail, blog, wiki, and other communication and collaboration tools
• Create and participate in professional collaboration groups
• Produce a personal ePortfolio Web site with profile, photos and video

If CSM becomes, a licensed Epsilen institution, your free ePortfolio will integrate dynamically with the more sophisticated tools and services that accompany the paid license.

My web site is at: http://joelk.csmd.epsilen.com

eLearning Course Tool Review: CourseLab 2.4

I read on the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies web site list a FREE eLearning Course Authoring Tool called CourseLab 2.4 available at www.courselab.com. Anytime I see something free it is worth the time and effort to download and pilot the software. I am not inclined to read directions, I prefer to roll up my sleeves and start working with the program, so I did. According to the web site “CourseLab is a powerful, yet easy-to-use, e-learning authoring tool that offers programming-free WYSIWYG environment for creating high-quality interactive e-learning content which can be published on the Internet, Learning Management Systems (LMS), CD-ROMS and other devices.” My objective was to develop a simple text and photo lecture for my class on Monday.

After downloading the product, I had to actually register via e-mail to get my code to run the program. The procedure was fast and relatively pain free. I was able to bring the interface up immediately and start exploring the features. However, things started to go downhill after that. The interface reminded me a lot of PowerPoint, but the functionality was primitive in comparison. I had a difficult time determining how to do simple actions like; create another slide, add text, add logo and adding photos. Typically, I am able to navigate a new program with ease but this interface was anything but “ease-of-use”. There are many free Web 2.0 tools out there, also free that are easier to understand, like Google Docs.

After stumbling around for 30 minutes I created a title slide and one content slide…with nothing in it. I grew frustrated and impatient and was looking for quick answers to my problems without having to read the directions or watch some promotional video. I guess everyone has a bad habit. So, I find this feature from the drop down menu labeled “Import From PowerPoint”. Hey, that’s just what I need! Most of the courses I build originate from PowerPoint. I use programs like Articulate, Impaticia and Captivate that have the same feature of importing PowerPoint directly into the program, then easily converting the presentation into a Flash delivered, interactive video. However, when I clicked on the CourseLab button it took me to the CourseLab web site where it gave me instructions on how to add this “Extra” for $99. Oh well, so much for being free. “You can lead me to water, but you can’t make me drink!”

After that episode, I exited the application and uninstalled the program. I dislike being lead to believe a product is free, only to find the statement was false. CourseLab, good luck in the future, a future without me!