• 2 screens: one showing the Twitter feed, and the other with his PowerPoint
• Not in the field of research, in the field of recon: throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what works.
• UMW Blogs: An educational publishing platform
• Came about because of Wordpress MU (WFU uses this) Free software, the cost comes in people to work with users.
• Started with 3 classes. Now wide adoption.
• Focusing on integration of blog with content across the web.
• Unlike Blackboard, blogs is open, online, and seamlessly deals with all kinds of different resources.
• Syndicated-Orientation Architecture: RSS
• Showed a “magic trick” of pulling in lots of RSS feeds into a blog
• This allows students to own their content (Blackboard, we have all the control)
• This also allows students to create their own portfolio
• This also allows you to have identity of yourself as well as your identity as a member of your own institution. But when you leave, you can take your content with you.

This is the blog before feeds were associated:

This is after feeds were added to it:

You can see it now, here.

• UMW lets people use their own vanity URLs with their blog service. So professors (etc) are able to create dynamic websites pulling their information in from a number of places.
• Talked a bit about formatting for mobile devices.
• This web brings ups all kinds of interesting questions about copyright, fair use, creative commons. These are the types of things that should be explored and decided at universities. (I might even argue in university libraries…)
• Clubs make good use of these blogs: syndication includes google calendar, flickr photos, videos, etc. It makes it easy to host the content while allowing students to use what they want.
• (Side benefit: as Groom noticed everyone was creating their own calendars, he was able to aggregate all the calendars into one master University one)
• Another type of open education, because the content is out there.
• Towards the end of the talk, the topic switched from education to information management. Again, this is why I think librarians should be leaders in this area.
• UMW documented their system in a public way, so other universities have been able to follow their work.

Plugins UMW use:

• FeedWordpress to pull content together
• WordPress MU Sitewide Tags Pages
• Domain Mapping to allow content to display at other domains

From where I’m sitting, the main themes of this talk seemed to be:

• Ownership is important, we should allow students to own their content.
• We should focus our energy on easy aggregation (instead of shoe-horning folks into a one-system-fits-all approach).
• Open Source allows you to take advantage of the work of coders. UMW didn’t have to code the syndication feature or the mobile phone theme… they could use what was already out there.
• New web is focused on mobile: both in terms of mobile devices and mobile data.
• We should rethink what blogs are. Blogs, sure, but also eporfolios, club sites, travel journals, content management systems, exhibit sites, etc. Freedom to reimagine what blogs can be. Tells users to find good uses and share back with his unit. Then they can go out and promote it.
• Building a new system: it’s not about a person, it’s about a community. The web enables us to collaborate in entirely new ways.

All good stuff!

Related posts:

1. bloglines
2. an RSS internet
3. reusable content

Interested in helping scientists learn how to write and develop critical thinking skills through their writing.
Four questions she’s struggled with in her classes:

• What are readers’ expectations?
• How can we communicate nuance?
• How do students balance feedback from multiple readers?
• How can we help students develop their voice?

What are readers’ expectations?

• Honors thesis course in biology: multiple readers.
• Students have to write for multiple readers and for the type of reading for the field.
• When taught scientists don’t read from start to finish, student’s didn’t believe it. To help them learn, she had students interview people in their field about how professionals in biology read. They bring back the videos and watch as a class. Look for patterns
  • Showed faculty member interview. He starts with images and graphs: said the captions are important. Then wants to read the results and how they got it. Ends with methodology if everything else is relevant. Considers bibliography.
  • Learn some of the conventions of the discipline (added bonus!)

This video exercise could be really useful for information literacy. You could have students ask faculty how they find information for their research, what common pitfalls do they see in student research, what is the difference between student research and faculty research, etc.

How can we communicate nuance?

• Pointed out that when typing response, we tend to be more terse then when giving verbal feedback. More words provides more feedback.
• Uses Jing to comment on student writing. Pull up electronic copy of writing, and highlight, insert comment boxes while talking. Uploads to screencast.com for sharing with students.
• Allows just-in-time feedback. More efficient for the teacher/grader.
• Had done something similar with audio-only in the past, but students have preferred the video much more.
• Also uses Jing for peer review. Says to model good peer review, and provide tools to give good peer review. This year had three text peer review and three video. Students said they preferred the video.
• Goal: video to save time, don’t do written and video feedback.

How do students balance feedback from multiple readers?

• Generally choose to focus on comments from the people with the most power.
• Reynolds wanted a way to pull together all comments into one place for students to see them all. Good for faculty, too, to see the other comments.
• Used VoiceThread with a concept map. Allows verbal comments, writing on the image, and text.
• Since there were more than one commenter, second person chose to focus on things first commenter didn’t comment on. Allowed reduced duplication and for both commenters to focus on their areas of expertise.
• Could only get one other faculty person to participate in this pilot, so doesn’t have good assessment, and she may not use this in the future if faculty aren’t comfortable using it.

How can we help students develop their voice?

• Students think that the goal is to write what the faculty want (the audience of one).
• That doesn’t develop the student’s voice, though.
• Reynolds is using a video to try to meet this goal: pick an audience, think about what you want to say to them, construct an argument, give evidence to support argument, counter counter-argumetn, engage the audience. First script was a traditional writing exercise. But in filming it, their voice was more evident.
• (As in my experience) Reynolds finds students spend a lot more time on these projects: public, and more fun.

Related posts:

1. writing & time
2. Use What They Own—Go Where They Are: Plugging Into Student Gadgets and Habitats
3. open video from MIT

Presentation of the 2008-09 Duke Digital Initiative programs and their outcomes, and an overview of programs being supported through DDI in 2009-2010.

• Started with iPod: putting something out there and see what people could do
• Evolution of CIT to consulting with faculty on incorporating new technologies into their teaching
• Program of innovation: explore what might be useful, take the best ones, figure out how to infuse them across campus
• 2008-2009 about finding ways to document the experience of students
• Tools: flip cameras, mini DV, cameras, hi def video, iPod Touch, webcams, screen capture software, VoiceThread, etc.
• The Link space: experimental classroom space, many disciplines this year, largest percentage in science

New this year: flip cameras

• Huge and immediate uptake
• 3 week project to document sustainability across campus, bring together into a movie presentation
• Tools are not the purpose of the seminar, but allow you to accomplish more in the classroom

New this year: webcams

• Less uptake than flip cameras, but still used widely
• Skype, etc, use in languages, education, public policy, economics, and rotaract club

New this year: VoiceThread

• Audio annotation of video and images
• They showed an example for a language class. I bet most language teachers would love it.

DDI 2009-2010

• Continued innovation with multimedia capture, publishing and collaboration tools
• Explore promising tools to support more seamless integration of media into learning environments
• Also looking at what people can do with the media people create (I love this. This is one of the reasons that I think that instructional technology work makes sense in the library.)
• Considering how we can take the tools that people already have and figure out how they can be used in classes.
• DDI website also a social network (Ning). Anyone can contribute an idea.
• Discontinuing grant program in the next year, but will be continuing the loaner program.
• Multimedia projects labs on campus (2 for students, 1 for faculty) for in-depth work on multimedia projects

Related posts:

1. Use What They Own—Go Where They Are: Plugging Into Student Gadgets and Habitats
2. digital citizens
3. not that i was at the lita forum, but…