iSean

this is finals week at GVSU. i have 3 scheduled finals for my two online classes. i will have next week off (not really off — prep week) and then spring classes start the following week. that’s barely a break. hmph! but, i’ll probably only post this blog entry this week before getting back into the swing of things next week. i have a bunch of little topics i’d like to address, so stay tuned.

in my final survey of my students, i asked them to help me figure out how to better implement blogs into our class. many students commented that they would enjoy visiting the blogs of their classmates and making comments. i agree that this would be better than having me try and visit every blog and comment . . . every time. that’s way too difficult when i am forced to teach 24 students in each online section (but, that’s for another day to complain about). anyway, a few students suggested that i have my students create a blog more like this blog . . . so, instead of giving them a topic to blog about, i’d instead give them topics and have them use google and other sources to find current news articles to comment on. perhaps i’d give 1/3 of the class one topic and another 1/3 another, etc. and, then the following week they could visit some of their classmates blogs and add comments and i’d try and encourage dialog in this manner. i think i like the idea, so i’ll have to try it out in my one online section this spring (i am also teaching a section of thesis students this spring/summer, fwiw).

Tags: blogs, teaching online, gvsu

it’s about time. Google has finally come through with a beta version of a web-based calendar system. Google’s Calendar is free, just like their other services, but it’s still in the beta stages (then again, isn’t every Google tool in perpetual beta?).

i like 2 things about this calendar system, in particular and i’ll describe these two things in this blog, but the tool has much more than i’ll discuss. it’s worth visiting and learning more on your own.

the main thing that makes this web-based calendar worthwhile is that it offers the ability to collaborate amongst many users. in my program, we share a lot of technology equipment between the 20 sections or so we teach of our ed tech course each semester. for example, we have digital video cameras, digital still cameras, handheld computers, and more and scheduling can be a nightmare. we have been using email for the most part to try and get things scheduled, but a person who decides to change dates never had a place to go and make that change quickly or to even look for open dates and let others know the previous scheduled day is now available. Google’s calendar is easy to use and share and it’s easy to allow many users to view your calendar. so, we should easily be able to implement this tool in our workflow.

the other feature i really like with Google’s calendar is that it appears to integrate well with iCal. i just tested it and imported 2 of my iCal calendars and they showed up moments later in Google’s calendar. very nice.

it doesn’t work great with Safari, but it’s working for me as i fiddle right now, but Firefox is supported. i have high hopes for this web-application.

Tags: google, calendar, iCal

e-portfolios seem to be a recurring theme in our program, yet there is no formalized system for implementing these portfolios. some professors who teach the intro to computers course that i teach use e-portfolios as a key component of this course. i don’t. my problem is that this undertaking really takes a whole program ‘buy in’ and the ed tech class i teach happens very early on. when students (they’re preservice educators) reach student assisting and student teaching they are required to complete a paper portfolio and those instructors would have to make changes to accommodate the e-portfolios if the e-portfolios are to be successful and worth the time of my students, which they aren’t now.

one thing that tends to pique my interest is that almost every article about portfolios mentions that the e-portfolios are beneficial to students as they head out on the job hunt or that they’re good for facilitating conversations or for social networking, etc. my problem is that i have yet to see this research. i’d like to know this as fact or know that personnel directors actually take the time to review e-portfolios as opposed to paper portfolios or whether most just stop with the plain resumes. if evidence exists, i’d love to know about it so that i can build a stronger case for starting an e-portfolio program here. otherwise, i suppose i’ll continue to believe that e-portfolios are a nice tool for instructors who choose this alternative method of evaluation, but that they don’t provide much benefit to most students who are required to develop them. i’d love to be proven wrong.

Tags: e-portfolios, digital portfolios, ePortfolios, portfolios

i spent the past week enjoying spring break with my family, but i am now back in the saddle here.

our semester is winding down in the next two weeks, so i am 3 weeks away from starting a new semester in the spring. that means that i’ll need to soon select the blogging software that i will use. my quest took me to edublogs as i’ve heard that they were updated. along the way, i came across a 12 minute screencast by James Farmer who is arguing that personal learning environments (e.g., blogs) are the wave of the future in education. he contends that traditional Learning and Courseware Management Systems (e.g., Blackboard) have failed to meet our expectations. i couldn’t agree more. unfortunately, he goes beyond the criticisms of Blackboard and indicts web-based forums along the way. this is where James and i part ways.

i hate the forums in Blackboard. in fact, i refused to use them shortly after first trying them in 2000; however, i was able to find a replacement that far exceeded the forums in BB. i found phpBB forums. these are open source, free, and very popular web-based bulletin board forums. i have been using them in my classes for nearly 6 years and they’ve continued to meet my expectations quite well. i take a photo of each student on the first day of class and create little avatars for my students, which they tend to enjoy. i also create a forum that is called The Lounge. The Lounge is where everything can be discussed except class. my students have taken ownership of this Lounge and they’ve posted hundreds and hundreds of messages and topics just this semester alone. they discuss spring break, the future, music, movies, jobs, protests, and everything in between. it’s a little community that is protected behind a password protected wall so that i don’t have to worry about violating FERPA, which is a concern for any educator in the USA. and, the phpBB forums allow me to group my students according to future teaching interests and then have small discussion groups of 7 or 8 students. all of the responses appear on 1 page, which is much like a blog where all of the comments are on 1 page. i can respond to individual student comments or i can make more general comments. my students are also encouraged to speak to each other and have thoughtful and meaningful conversations, which i try and model.

i do use blogs; however, i encourage my students to create a blog without using their real names. some use their real names, but that’s their choice; not my requirement. some of the students choose to add photos to their blogs and customize in other ways. while this is neat, this doesn’t tend to make the contribution they provide on their blog any better than the other students. the way i use student blogs is that i physically read each blog entry and make comments individually to each student. this allows me to have one on one conversations, but this is extremely time consuming compared to the discussion forums. my students are surveyed and they always enjoy the discussion forum site over the blogging sites (and, i’ve used blogger.com and wordpress blogs, etc).

i guess what i dislike about Farmer’s presentation is that he is really making a case for blogs as a personal learning environment and he goes out of his way to denigrate forums. my take is that we can do both and i do both . . . and more. i have also used a wiki-tool and i will even use the Assignment Manager in Blackboard, which i find remarkably well thought out for collecting assignments from students with how it integrates into the gradebook (i also use the gradebook, but that’s it). i like all of the tools i use and i think i need to use all of the tools so that my students can better decide which tools might work best for them in their own future classrooms. some may lean towards phpBB forums. some may want a classroom blog. and other may use a classroom-based wiki. it’s up to me to provide those various experiences and i do. that being said, it’s still the classroom forum (phpBB) that i find to be the best tool for building an online learning community.

Tags: blogs, wordpress, phpBB, forums, personal learning environments