Do you know about the "Digital Nation"?

Check out this Frontline companion site for Digital Nation, a program which should be airing soon. Visitors to the site are encouraged to add material. Today's featured video (which may be gone tomorrow) tells of a woman who is "Going Digital at 83."

Class Project

These are my project ideas as they now stand. Beware! This is a long post!

Three Ideas for Using a Wiki

First Possibility: In a weak moment, to help implement the English Department’s Strategic Plan, I volunteered to facilitate a department-wide discussion on how the English Department might improve advising, specifically to “discuss advising strategies and methods within the department.”

I had originally intended to use Blackboard’s Discussion Group for this. I have developed 3 questions that I would post; then I would urge, and urge, and finally beg, my colleagues to respond. As one aspect of analyzing their responses, I might use a Wordle to discover what issues seem most important to the group.

After taking this class, I’m now considering setting up a wiki as the first step. This would allow interested department members to, as ideas occur to them, contribute to the development of the final recommendations.

Second Possibility: All of the classes I teach are face to face, but all require the students to use Blackboard for specific activities. So, they have all developed some familiarity with Blackboard. I might set up a wiki in my class Blackboard sites, one that I could use to collect and distribute information in the case of an H1N1 outbreak. Frankly, I’m starting to drift away from this idea because, as the semester progresses, my initial skepticism about the threat of H1N1 has heightened. It is less of a priority to develop something for a what-if situation; all of the work may prove to be nothing but an exercise.

The third idea is to use a wiki in a specific class. Here's an example. Comm Skillls 2 requires students develop a cover letter and a resume in response to a position description. I could have students put their cover letters and their resumes in a wiki. After these are graded, I could change the criteria by having them respond to the requirements of a different position description. Instead of generating a new document, students could simply change the original. Perhaps each person would be responsible for changing their own document; perhaps groups could work on the documents together—asynchronously.

Comm Skills 2 also requires a lot of peer feedback. If the document were within a wiki, when students do peer feedback, instead of describing changes the writer might make, the peer could actually make those changes so the two writers could see and discuss the results, either immediately (face-to-face) or asynchronously.

I have the ideas developed. My next step is to become comfortable managing the wiki. I asked several questions: What about moderation? Are some sites for wikis more user friendly? Do some sites have more options? Do they all play well with Blackboard? I’ve already gotten some suggestions from both Rita and Mark about choosing a wiki host, whether to use the default that is available within Blackboard or whether to use another one.

Comments on This Week's Videos

The video, 3 Steps for 21st Century Learning, reminded me of what I had done in college in the 70s and of the team building focus (ROPES) that was part of my first job in the late 70s. It seems that this idea of collaboration is not new; rather, the group is just larger.

Re: Successful Student Thinking in the Digital Age: Yes, I do this "lateral thinking" at times. I feel different when I do it. I feel quite focused and excited while I am in the middle of it, but I don't remember much of is as time goes on. With "vertical thinking," I can also be focused, and sometimes be excited, but I remember it better--partly because I have schema developed within which to place ideas. So, even though "lateral thinking" may allow me to be more inventive, its value is blunted by my difficulty in remembering where I found information, and one exciting idea often pushes a previous one out.

What about the slow readers or the non-readers? There is a lot of text coming our way when we move through the information in these videos. Much of it is chunks of text backed by music. When I experience it, I am reminded of being in a speed-reading class. I allow it to flow over me, and, because I am a good reader, much of it seeps in as it flows by. But, what if I were not a good reader?

Will this work with anything we are learning?

Hi all. Sometimes I like to get little bits of information from students during a class, spontaneously. Many of them are comfortable with texting. Do the classroom computers have a way of receiving these texts?

Or, on a much lower tech level, if I used a Blackboard chat during class, could students participate in this chat from their phones?

Signed,

Naive Jeanne

Twittering?

Well, I have finally, timidly, started my Twitter account. I have mixed feelings about this. Yes, I would like to network with other professionals, but, about what? At the moment, I don't have any pressing issues. I'll look at some of the teacher sites suggested by---now what source was that? I miss my paper and pencil. I want to write in the margins and add PostIt flags. Am I the only one having trouble keeping track of which source provided what information? This new technology seems heavily visual. As a tactile/kinesthetic learner, I'm feeling out of my realm. Other than keeping Word open and making notes in a document, what suggestions do you all have for keeping track of what we're reading and viewing?

So far, I've shared very little on the Twitter profile. Perhaps, when I find a focus, I'll share more.

I viewed the video, Delicious Meets Twitter Meets Delicious. I like how it will allow a user to save and sort sites.

Still, of all the things we've been exposed to so far in this class, Wikis are the most enticing. For group work, I suspect the wiki would combine well with a chat. That way groups could start a project simultaneously and then add the ideas which inevitably arrive later.