Summer School: Digital Media Trends

May 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

My online summer course on digital media culture theory and trends at Queen’s University is off to a great start. The students are creating some excellent work on the site.

One of their first assignments is to create some photoquotes based on the weekly readings. Here are a couple of examples I think turned out really well:

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdgovpics/6756420231/

Image sourced from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/born2bmild/5158015580/

The description for how to do photoquotes is on the site, and part of the course outline (on scribd). Here is the first week’s lecture video. The topic is digital literacies.


In terms of walking the talk, we’re using several social media platforms including Twitter and Google+. And we’re constructing a collaborative pinterest board and a Facebook page.

Obviously this course has a tonne of online open educational resources. We are using the campus learning management system (Moodle) for secure delivery of the gradebook and for online testing. Otherwise, I’m dedicated to teaching in public to increase accessibility and engagement. The students are putting lots of comments on each others’ work, and that activity is being tracked using Disqus (the leaderboard for commenters is on the sidebar here).

300 students, many learning WordPress and Photoshop for the first time and at the same time, and 12 weeks of content covered in 6 weeks, I love summer school!

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Profs on Pinterest

April 19, 2012 By 13 Comments

I’ve been busy exploring edtech boards on Pinterest, but haven’t found too many folks to follow yet. I could definitely use some suggestions. Are you an edTech pinner? Let’s connect!

Here are links to my boards on educational technology trends and mobile/web apps for education.

And some of my favorites discovered via my Twitter PLN: check them out

  1. Seneca Professor Valerie Lopes has a great board on social media for learning.
  2. Syracuse Social media Prof Dr. William J. Ward has pinned an enormous collection of resources on social learning and education.
  3. Marketing Professor Bhupesh Shah is pinning some amazing infographics on revolutionizing education.
  4. Advertising Prof Anthony Kalamut‘s board on all things in the world of advertising is a gold mine and demonstrates how a subject specialist can use Pinterest for research.
  5. Prof and entrepreneur Margaret A. Powers is building an all-star collection of boards on education, apps for education, and global ed sites.
  6. My hero, the EDTECH HULK is contributing to an awesome board on Social Media and Learning and has posted an unmissable collection of THINGS TO SMASH!
image: AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by katstan
Filed Under: sidebar, social networks, teaching

Flip the Class, No Tech Required

April 19, 2012 By 3 Comments

Doing some research into the flipped classroom at scale, and discovered this inspiring perspective from Steve Wheeler’s blog, describing another innovative approach to flipping the classroom: “We don’t need to use hi-tech solutions to help us flip the classroom. If we want higher quality learning experiences, we simply flip traditional roles. Flipping learning for me means teachers becoming learners and students becoming teachers [...So for example,] teachers assume the role of a learner, and accept that they are not the fonts of all knowledge, but are there to facilitate learning instead of instructing [...And correspondingly, supporting] students to become teachers, and we encourage them to independently create their own content, share and present their work – either in the classroom, or on the web – we place them in a position where they must take responsibility to learn and develop their understanding of their subject. This is active, participatory learning.” ~ Steve Wheeler [@timbuckteeth]
Click here to read the original piece for an intelligent critique of the flipped classroom model/rhetoric.

Image: Attribution Some rights reserved by sunshinecity

 

 

Filed Under: teaching

Designing a Professional Online Footprint

March 25, 2012 By 2 Comments

Just booked, a new workshop for The University of Delaware coming up this May, and designed with time-starved faculty in mind. Here’s the description:

This hands-on workshop is designed for faculty, staff, and students who want to improve their online reputation through developing a robust online presence. With concrete action steps, we’ll cover how to use multimedia tools such as blogs and images, video and podcasting, booklists, visual bookmarking, and social good initiatives, to create a current, relevant, and impactful digital footprint. We’ll review new social networks specifically for scientists, researchers, artists, and other academics. I’ll share ideas, tools, and case studies of how to quickly and easily professionalize your presence on some of the best known social platforms including a Facebook profile, a LinkedIn page, a YouTube channel, a Pinterest board, and a Twitter stream. Assuming that everyone is short on time to learn how to use these tools to construct a professional online persona, this workshop is all about shortcuts and timesavers. From growing a personal learning network online, to disseminating research on the web, from job searching, to collaborating with far-flung colleagues, attendees are guaranteed to leave this workshop full of ideas and inspiration to optimize their online selves, whether they have a few minutes or a whole weekend available to do so. Prepared for The University of Delaware. May 29, 2012.

Filed Under: personal branding, social networks

Amazing Infographics by Undergrad Students

March 10, 2012 By 8 Comments

I hope you will excuse the small brag, but I have to post these amazingly great data visualizations submitted to me by my undergraduate students this term. They’re too good not to share, and they are just a small random sample of the excellent work I’m seeing this term at Queen’s University Film and Media.

I assign infographics instead of another research essay or presentation, because we are doing both of those types of assignments in the course already. These creative pieces certainly demonstrate to me that putting together an infographic takes a lot of time, research prep, inspiration, design- and software skills. So impressed!

Ps. Clicking on the images takes you to the original posts on the course website. For teachers and profs that click-thru might be of interest, because it reveals the excellent, in-depth, peer-to-peer commenting and feedback/dialogues students are having about these infographics. Enjoy!

Facebook Timeline by Leanne Taylor Hein

Pinterest by Caroline Klimek

Exergaming by Ben Bourgon

Social Media Marketing Case Study by Cicely Johnston


iGeneration Learning with Social Media by JJ Flegg

Filed Under: social networks, teaching
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