Teaching with Technology

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Teaching with Technology

Teddy’s CTCH603 Peer Teaching Assessment for 03.24.2010

April 13th, 2010 · No Comments · teaching & learning, Ted

Teddy’s CTCH603 Peer Teaching Self Assessment

For class session 03.24.2010

The introductory peer teaching session “Using Midi Technology Across Disciplines” was a great experience for my peers. Students displayed lots of enthusiasm and participated the entire time. The session opened with a huge on screen playback of a midi file and the defining segment as to what is midi. Midi stands for (musical instrument digital interface). As students looked over the study material, I pointed out key features of the handouts. This was very essential in getting them engaged immediately and intrigued about the topic.

Second, the session directed students to downloadable midi files online using the computers in the lab. Students were able to access the midi database of the Broadway Musical “Once Upon A Mattress” and download files from that particular website. Later students were asked to save the files and then transport the data into sequencing software. In this particular case, the sequencing environment selected was Cakewalk 3.0.1. The program was user-friendly and proposed very few problems. I wish I could say the same for my memory!

Third, students learned to upload the midi data to the Cakewalk Sequencing Software. It was so exciting to see my students so thoroughly enthralled and anticipating a very fruitful learning experience. After the first uploading of midi data, some of them exercised a bit of independent learning as they began to playback the midi files on their laptops. The download and upload experience gave them confidence. Several students displayed confidence so strong that two groups of them went on to manipulate the files.

The final demonstration taught students the power of the cut and paste features, volume settings as well as voice/patch settings. Once students learned to manipulate the data in this way, they could easily create and re-create new music based on current information. Some students investigated and learned other features beyond the scope of the one-time thirty-minute peer teaching class session. It is my hope that next time I will have more time and a midi lab. Also, I would prefer more time to spend with individuals in the class and a little less group focus!

In summary, students of all walks can use midi as ringtones, mp3, wave and other formats. The use of new media devices has made it necessary to create midi collections, redesigns, transformations, transmissions, and conversions of such digitized information. Depending on the need, midi data of various kinds may be utilized to enhance assignments in history, math, social studies or ESL second language course. Students can engage in the creation of storybooks or study manuals using audio to support learning in and out of the classroom.  Some may find it profitable to gather this database collective for future projects in film, recording studios, iPods, karaoke, creation of performance tracks or just for playback and self-enjoyment. Music is an essential component in our daily lives and using midi to aesthetically bring to life our classrooms is a monumental task of inquiry and discovery.

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Digital Storytelling Resources

April 13th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Kim, Uncategorized

Resources for Images

http://everystockphoto.com

http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp

http://pics.tech4learning.com

http://openclipart.org/

http://wpclipart.com/

Digital Storytelling Tutorial Videos

http://commoncraft.com/photosharing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=772AR-0NTSQ&feature=related

Resources for Sounds

http://www.findsounds.com

http://freeplaymusic.com/

Internet Archive

http://www.archive.org/index.php

Digital Storytelling Teacher Guide & Lesson Plans

http://www.microsoft.com/education/lessonplans.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/education/teachers/guides/digital_storytelling.aspx

‘Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators’ by Silvia Rosental Tolisano

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/digital-storytelling-tools-for-educators/4758345

Copyright Law for Educators

www.techlearning.com

www.halldavidson.net

Where to Publish Your Digital Stories

http://ourmedia.org/

http://video.google.com/

http://www.youtube.com/

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Editorial/Teddy’s CTCH603 Reading Log 04.12.2010

April 12th, 2010 · No Comments · Ted

Editorial by Andrew King (2009)
 
 
 Teddy’s CTCH 603 Reading Log 04.12.2010

For class session 04.14.2010

This editorial speaks for the thousands of music technology lovers, educators and students out there that are seeking a format from which they can be inspired to create and publish their work. Even though many music educators attend conferences all over the world, it seems that there is very little communication between the various genres of working areas among these musicians. Their work capacities involve music pedagogy, audio engineering, arts education, computer science and other areas. According to Andrew King (2009), music educators and researchers using technology tend to have to work across discipline to draw inspiration and to publish their work: therein lies the domain’s greatest strength and also its biggest weakness.

Next, the editorial goes on to discuss the investigation of age, task and formal instruction using a case study in the area of computer-based composition. As I read this section, I thought what a wonder approach to the practical side of learning music. Students can surely build on current knowledge as they experience learning new software environments. This study revealed that age and formal musical instruction were important factors in how the learners used exploratory composing behavior. As stated by the author, age was also a consideration for how quickly the students gained an aptitude for using the software; however, this was not dependent upon any formal musical tuition the students may have encountered.

Finally, there are a number of new articles featuring music technology in podcasting, studio engineering, gaming and soud reinforcement. Presently, this journal serves as a platform for music educators to submit articles concerning topics of their interests. Each of the documents herewith provides perculiar insights into the relationship between the aesthetics, analysis, organiztionand reception of new music creation using technology. Many perspectives from academic experts in the digital domain are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to demonstrate the effective relationship between teacher and student using new media and music technologies.

http://web.ebscohost.com.mutex.gmu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=15&sid=9578973f-a469-4e85-865c-9254c2f48e25%40sessionmgr13

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Weekly Blog

April 12th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

The article I read this week is very interesting because it merges many topics that I have interest in. The article talks about the use of distant learning to support global interaction among nations to exchange knowledge. The specific academic program is a collaborative educational endeavor that was sponsored by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and provided by the International Education Consultancy office in the University of the Arts in London. This article describes the manifestation of elements of Global Education utilizing distant learning tools to disseminate knowledge materials to the world.
Wikis are nicely defined as “web sites that allow users not only to have access to its content but also to change the content online”. The nice feature about wikis is that they are easy to use and do not require computer knowledge of html language to write into the web. This new medium allows people to actively interact and exchange knowledge and share reflections on learning. Wikis have developed as a formidable collaborative tool that supports “constructive” learning and enhances group learning by its support for community learning rather than individual learning.
The article outlines the use of Wiki technology in academic partnership. It provides a good description of the research on the use of Wiki in supporting collaborative distant learning projects to “promote development of textile industry” in various countries such as Syria, Bangladesh and Turkey.
The research “tries to investigate whether the use of these collaborative technologies can further contribute to the knowledge transfer between such academic partnerships”.
“Mass Collaboration” is described as “a collaboration model based on collective actions that occur when large numbers of contributors work independently but collaboratively in a single project (Tapscott & Williams, 2006).”
The article reinforces a fact: that as ICT continues to develop and improve new models of collaborations in educations become possible. Mass collaboration represents such new development that has allowed active participation with many others who share similar interest, skills and knowledge. Better communication technologies have allowed new models of collaboration that supports creativity, innovation and knowledge sharing. This active participation results in content creation that is the result of acts of individuals who have shared understandings.
My personal experience with the use of Wiki has not been smooth. I took the initiative and utilized the Wiki as a collaborative effort to share our collective work in interacting to generate a group term paper assignment. Unfortunately, I had observed that individuals were reluctant to use this new tool that I thought was useful and simple to use. The group preferred to use the tools they were familiar with such as email, text messages and phone. The article had expressed some instances where users in developing countries did not use the wiki until they received a detailed guidance on its uses.

Hanan

Source:
Kok, A. (2009). Use of the Wiki technology in academic partnerships. International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distant Learning, 6(11),idl 1550-6908, Retrieved from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Nov_09/article04.htm

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Reframing creativity and technology: promoting pedagogic change in music education

April 12th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Jennifer

Reframing creativity and technology:  promoting pedagogic change in music education

 This article provides compelling research for pedagogical change in the field of music education.  Four principles highlight the various aspects of this change with a specific focus on the integration of creativity and technology.  According to the author, “…creativity is an essential human attribute lying at the heart of all learning and as a process of making something new…and technology is seen as the tools that mediate how creative activity occurs” (p. 37).  Working from these definitions, the exploration into the integration of these two learning tools is broken down into four principles:

 The interrelationship between creativity and technology

    1. From this argument, research supports the notion that young people’s learning is a product of the language of contemporary technology.  The Internet, for example, is viewed as a “social playground” (p. 37), providing various social outlets for the making, experiencing, receiving, and creating of music.  It is within this culture of interactivity that students build creative learning experiences with technology and through technology.  Pedagogical change must stem from the wealth of social collaborations that foster a unique learning system for students who find creative stimulation within a network of peers and online resources.
  1. Building flexible educational environments that conform to the learner
    1. Within this framework, the author points to the possibility of “media-rich sources of musical information…that provide opportunities for students to interact and collaborate with people who otherwise are inaccessible” (p. 40).  For example, composers might have access to performers though sites that allow their sheet music and sound files to be uploaded.  Performers can download the music, perform and record it, provide feedback, and return it to the composer for further review.  This collaborative process could take place all over the world, which also has implications for the development of global thinking and learning.  One example of this type of global exploration is the Sonic Arts Network, which explores the art of sound via the Internet.   
  2. The potential of Activity Theory (AT) for studying adaptive learning environments
    1. It is understood that much of our individual learning is dictated by several social components:  psychological tools, such as language and symbols; cultural artifacts, including music, literature, computer; and the expectations and conventions of large communities.  As individuals come to understand the world around them, they look to the clues within their immediate environment for guidance.  These clues are provided not only by the formal educational structure and family structure, but also by the digital realm with which students interact on a regular basis.  Their internalization of this digital culture is an important place for teachers to explore with students to ensure they are navigating this territory in ways that will further their formal education as well as their informally, social education.
  3. A framework for researching pedagogic change in music education
    1. The key point in this argument is the importance of reflection for instituting pedagogical change.  Beyond self-reflection for improvement, “…teachers need to view the educational experience through the eyes and perspectives of their pupils” (p. 47).  This will provide insight into motivation and the roots of success or failure that are taking place in the classroom. 

The idea of marrying creativity with technology seems intuitive in theory, but is not necessarily evident in practice.  As teachers, we must keep in mind the daily habits of our students and learn to translate them into educational practice.  In this way, we are meeting their standards of creativity as determined by an environment of collaborative learning, unlimited resources, global communication, and profound interactivity. 

 Burnard, P. (2007).  Reframing creativity and technology:  promoting pedagogic change in music education.  Journal of Music, Technology, and Education. (1)1, 37-55.  doi:  10.1386/jmte.1.1.37/1

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Wikis in the Classroom: Opportunities and Challenges

April 12th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

John P. Workman, Jr.

Marketing Education Review, Volume 18 Number 1 (Spring 2008)

“When teaching a core curriculum class it is often a challenge to over come apathy & disconnect” (Shanahan, Hermans & Haytko 2006).  In response to this situation the author introduced a Wiki project into a Principals of Marketing.  The user generated content, developed over the course of the semester, was available online as marketing tool for the City of Omaha.

This idea came about to increase the student engagement.  Since the majority of his students were non-marketing majors he felt this project he felt would appeal to them as well as help the marketing majors. It also met other goals; helping students communicate effectively, bring greater alignment across the instructors teaching research and service activities; helping student understand intellectual property & copyright laws.

The Project appears to be extremely well laid out and the author’s enthusiasm for the project is apparent. Students started off with a hand out summarizing editing commands. The wiki was set up so to the public could view it but only students could edit. They devoted 15 minutes per class to discussing the contributions. Each Class discussion about the wiki related to the chapter they were covering. For Example, the chapter on promotion created a discussion of user generated ads (Three 2007 Super Bowl ads had been done that way) and a logo design competition.  It counted for 30% of their grades and the instructor tracked student edits. Individual students also provided lists of articles created, edits and uploaded photos, with narrative for the logic. This was used to establish whom to credit.  The professor kept the momentum going by celebrating milestones (500th article) and reporting site traffic. He also arranged for the final presentation to be attended by various VP’s including the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau thus lending credence to the project.

He judged the success of the project based on the student questionnaire at courses end.  He felt it was positively received, 70% said it was valuable, 81% had talked about it outside the classroom 97% wanted to see the site continue operation. The questionnaire also helped to understand how the students worked on the project with most of it occurring off campus indicating that the site access needed to remain open (IT had wanted to restrict it).

There were some comments by students who flet they missed out by not participating in a traditional Marketing Plan Project, something the author excused as an indication of problems with teaching innovations. Not enough information was provided to see if he is correct in this assumption, however, the point of a Marketing Plan is to learn the subject and it appears with the connections to each chapter that this goal was probably reached.

According to the instructor “The project does not seem beyond the technical abilities of most students.”  He therefore felt that wikis could be used in different classes, and “provides a good basis for class discussion around content”.  He also brings up the point of cumulative knowledge, expressing opinions and giving examples of wikis being used semester after semester to grow or being used across university boundaries to create true collaborative learning.  He cites some challenges as well, the greatest of which is the time and technical expertise needed to manage the site. The author was pretty much on his own with little help from the university IT department. It seems that this would be a steep learning curve for the first time use that would improve after additional semester were completed. The second challenge is the time it took him to monitor the contributions and organize the content. The vandalism and verbal attacks that can occur with wikis were not a problem because of the restricted access.

The wikis do appear to “provide a unique opportunity for collaborative learning”. An instructor must be prepared to spend a substantial amount of extra time to develop, monitor, implement into curriculum, and cheerlead if necessary. I think making it an actual site recognized by the city lead to the success of the project, providing validation to the students. I am not sure if it is a good replacement for a Marketing Plan, and if it is worth the effort involved. It is however always a good idea to attempt to integrate new technology into the classroom if only to keep things fresh & relevant to the student body.

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User interface design pedagogy: A constructionist approach. J-Article 8.

April 12th, 2010 · 1 Comment · John

Citation

Khoo, B. K. S.  (2010).  User interface design pedagogy:  A constructionist approach.  International Journal of  Information and Communication Technology Education, 6 (1), 96-105.  doi: 10.4018/jicte.2010091108

Main Points

–    A major limitation in traditional class lectures that uses textbooks, handouts, transparencies and assignments is that students often are unable to “experience” user interface design.
—    This limitation can be overcome by using the constructionist approach that allow students to experience user interface design by allowing them to “do” or “construct” so that they can understand and remember.
–    This paper describes an effort to harness the strengths of hypertext markup language (HTML) and utilize it to develop an interactive virtual menu system that is an Internet-based interactive case scenario.
—     It was developed, based on the constructionist approach, to teach students user interface design concepts in conjunction with the Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction (QUIS).  The QUIS was used primarily as a teaching tool to illustrate to the students what basic design features to look for in a good interface design.
—    Two facets to constructionism is that learning takes place as a result of actively constructing new knowledge and that learning is effective when doing activities that are personally meaningful.
–    A proof of concept evaluation was conducted and the results indicate that this approach is effective in user interface design pedagogy.

Analysis

The article starts by describing the evolution of the terminology from user interface, those aspects of a system that a user comes into contact with, to user friendly, a system that a user can easily interact through its interfaces, to a broader term of human-computer interaction (HCI), the broader meaning which includes organizational issues, work practices, design, implementation, and evaluation.  The author saw the internet as a perfect vehicle to deliver the interactive virtual menu system due to its prevalence and technologies.  The author used HTML in order to utilize the linkage structures of hypertext and image maps to create a menu that actually works when the user performs a direct manipulation of the metaphors on the screen.  In this study, the author created pushbuttons to mimic the metaphors.  The QUIS survey enabled clear and reflective feedback to determine usefulness of the menu tool.  The study reinforced the essential need to gain feedback when designing user applications for the Internet otherwise even the best intentions could result in unusable systems.

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Expanding Academic Vocabulary with Interactive On-line Database Language Learning & Technology Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 90-110

April 12th, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

Although various resources for learning L2 vocabulary have become available on the Internet, we know very little about the effectiveness of these resources.  How helpful are these resources for L2 vocabulary learners?  Are these resources are being used in L2 classrooms?  “Expanding Academic Vocabulary with Interactive On-line Database” is one of the few studies of the effectiveness of on-line tools for vocabulary learning.

The authors of this study highlight a quote from an article by Anita J. Sokmen on the desirable features of computerized vocabulary activities: “At present, a good deal of vocabulary software is decidedly lacking in variety of exercise and depth of processing.  There is a need for programs which specialize on a useful corpus, provide the expanded rehearsal, and engage the learner on deeper levels and in a variety of ways as they practice vocabulary.”  These standards mentioned by Sokmen are used by the authors in their evaluations of 50 on-line vocabulary sites.  They found that only a few vocabulary learning sites meet the standards outlined by Sokmen.   Only a few of the sites offered  “activities for learning vocabulary that occurs frequently in a specified corpus” and multiple contextualized examples of target words in use.  The four sites that satisfied the standards were (1) the Compleat Lexical Tutor (Cobb. 2000), (2) The Virtual Language Centre (Greaves), (3) Haywoods’ Academic Vocabulary site, (4) Mason’s Culture Shock page, and (5) Gerry’s Vocabulary Database (Luton, 2000).  Some of the beneficial features found in these on-line vocabulary learning sites include concordance, dictionary, cloze-builder, hyper text, and a database with an interactive self-quizzing features.

The context of the study was a vocabulary course designed for ESL students at intermediate levels.  The participants were ESL students enrolled at two Canadian universities.  They had a variety of L1 backgrounds but were all viewed as intermediate-level learners. In this experimental course, the researches examined a number of on-line computer resources that had adopted the corpus-based approach, provided a collaborative on-line word bank activity, allowed students to hear the entered words and collocations, and offered a concordancing feature with rich linguistic information about new words in multiple sentence contexts.  The targeted vocabulary to be learned consisted of  high-frequency words in university textbooks (from Coxhead’s Adacemic World List), and low-frequency words in academic texts.  Analyzing the data from the pilot course that was taken for four sessions (fall 2000, fall 2001, summer 2002, and fall 2002), the researchers concluded that the results of their “experimentation are positive and  augur well for the further development of interactive on-line activities that offer rich input and encourage deeper processing.”

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Tipping the scales in online teaching

April 11th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Jonathan

Students have been evaluating their instructors for years in traditional classes and those evaluations have been sufficiently validated over the years.  Suzanne Young, in “Student Views of Effective Online Teaching in Higher Education,” was curious about student attitudes specific to online education.  The beginning of her article is a literature review of discussions of the differences between traditional and distance education. Using that research, she identified seventeen questions that accurately evaluated effective teaching and an additional eight factors unique to online teaching.

About 200 students responded to her survey request (of about 450 queried) and formed the basis for her study.  The demographics of the responding students were sufficiently aligned with the original universe to provide validation for that sample.  She used linear regression analysis to identify the factors in the survey that might provide some basis for differences in online teaching.

She found seven items with sufficient confidence levels that would be accurate indicators of effective online teaching: “adapting to student needs, using meaningful examples, motivating students to do their best, facilitating the course effectively, delivering a valuable course, communicating effectively, and showing concern for student learning.”  The remaining items, while providing helpful feedback to the instructor, were not accurate indicators of teacher effectiveness in online teaching.

Properly taught online classes provide student the necessary flexibility around other demands. While a traditional class offers students the opportunity to ask questions about unclear explanations, this interaction is too slow in an online course and effective teachers design their course material to minimize, if not eliminate any confusion. Students enrolled in online courses expect the material to be challenging and relevant to the students.

Teaching online is much more demanding than traditional course delivery. Unlike “live” classes in which teachers can change all aspects of the course as needed, online instructors must make tremendous up front investments in planning for delivery and discussions. This is followed by effective communication with the students. Properly trained online educators will not only be more effective, but also more efficient at leveraging learner-learner interaction to reduce those personal time demands to allow more time to serve as facilitators.

This is another article to be added to my pool of resources to be used when working with faculty, many of whom confuse distance learning technology proficiency with distance education effectiveness.

Young, S. (2006). Student Views of Effective Online Teaching in Higher Education. American Journal of Distance Education, 20(2), 65. doi:10.1207/s15389286ajde2002_2

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Task-based Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication

April 11th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Susan

Blog 8

 To promote language use, a great deal of attention is placed, by teachers and language learning researchers, on ways to foster in and out of classroom writing and speaking. But do certain exercise formats elicit particular types of speech? This was the focus of Colletine’s (June 2009) study of intermediate and advanced students studying Spanish. Task-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (TB-SCMC) was the format Colletine studied and reported on in Learner use of holistic language units in multimodal task-based synchronous computer mediated communication.

 

Task based language techniques revolve around students performing a task that requires language use such as, solving a problem or working on a project with a partner. Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication refers to networked computer systems that allow for simultaneous input by users that results in their interaction. In this study, two TB-SCMC tasks were implemented using a multi-modal Flash technology (these application are shown on the following website: http://london-underground.modlang.nau.edu/collenti/actividades/tareas.html p.73).

 

During and after the exercises students “discussed what they had discovered in a local area network via iChat, a synchronous conference application” (p.73). In both exercises the students worked with their online partner to solve a mystery. The first task was solving a murder mystery. The students found out information about the case by clicking on three of five provided questions regarding each character in the mystery story. The program responded by providing written answers to the selected queries. At three specified intervals, the program directed the students to a written chat session with their partner to discuss the clues. These chat sessions were limited to 7 minutes each.

 

The second task entailed finding lost keys. However, this time, the students found out all the case information first before they worked with their partner. The total time allotted for partner work was equivalent to the first task’s, but it was in one chat session not three. The different tasks were correlated with different types of participant responses.  

 

Colletine studied students’ holistic responses to each task. A holistic approach focuses on examining the “discourse, pragmatic and social roles of language as a means of understanding learners’ macro-communicative behaviors” rather than on “the role of words/phrases with respect to their immediately surrounding words and phrases (i.e., the parts)” (p.71). Using a holistic paradigm, Colletine classified the students’ responses within “larger language unit categories” such as humor, greetings and leave takings, and assertive discourse (p. 81).

 

The findings varied based on the type of exercise and the proficiency level of the students. Advanced students were much more likely to use humor in their speech. Intermediate students relied heavily on assertive discourse, statements that provide “information in a declarative fashion”, for example, “he didn’t have a weapon” (p. 81). The number of assertive statements significantly rose during the first task that was interspersed with several short chat sessions providing speculation that the time constrained sessions resulted in more assertive discourse. Additionally, the number of greeting and leave taking statements were higher for the task with the interrupted chat sessions. Less humor was used in the first task perhaps because the subject matter was murder and/or because the divided chat sessions were not as relaxed and conducive to humor.

 

It appears from this study that different tasks can promote different types of language use. This has very interesting implications for language teaching. It means that teachers can use online and in class tasks to promote different categories of communication. Teachers can then use task based applications to refine or develop particular categories. More study regarding students’ holistic responses to different tasks and task formats as well as responses of students with different proficiencies could be very illuminating.

 

Colletine, K. (June 2009). Learner use of holistic language units in multimodal task-based synchronous computer mediated communication. Language Learning & Technology, (13) 2. p. 68-87. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num2/collentine.pdf

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