Elluminate

I would like to briefly review a web based learning tool called Elluminate. This is a virtual classroom that is focused on synchronous web based learning. They offer a good case for using the synchronous online classroom mode in their white paper, "The Impact of Synchronous Online Learning on Academic Institutions". The immediacy of response in synchronous online learning, I believe is the most persuasive point. We are aware of the transactional distance inherent in asynchronous communications. Many of these issues with asynchronous communications in learning can be addressed by careful instructional design and use of sound pedological principles. I believe personally in using Constructivist theory to build learning and comprehension in steps and also carefully use social media as a way to generate interaction in the asynchronous online learning mode. Elluminate is basically a web conferencing product, but it offers several features aimed specifically towards education. I particularly like the multimedia modes. One feature allows up to six students (participants) to use their web cams to post real time streams as the class progresses. The instructor can also stream prerecorded video and can open URLs on the participants windows in real time. The Elluminate site has many resources available, including demos and webinars. There is also a feature called "V" spaces, that allow sharing of files, teleconferencing, on-demand sessions, recorded sessions and the ability to move participants into breakout rooms for smaller sessions. Taken all together, Elluminate is a powerful and comprehensive set of tools for on-line synchronous learning.

Prezi

Prezi is presentation software. It is a little hard describe, but basically it uses a white board concept of showing the complete view of the presentation in space and as the presenter "clicks" through, the objects are zoomed and rotated in sequence. Videos and pictures as well as text can be used. The app is free and there desktop as well as Ipad versions. The tutorials provided on the site are well created and the two basic tools used to create the Prezi, the "zebra menu and the bubble menu" are intuitive and easy to use. You can use the bubble menu to directly insert a Youtube video URL into the presentation. I've added a Prezi presentation video that goes through the basics. Prezi is interesting and fairly easy to use software and we all need new tools to make our presentations stand out and get our points across. One word of advice is that in reviewing several Prezi presentations in a row , I started to feel a little seasick, so watch your pacing and respect your audience.

Sakai initial thoughts

The Sakai Project is a collaboration of universities that combines their concepts and ideas to create a larger more robust and flexible system for online education focusing on interactivity. The Sakai Project was formulated during a meeting between Joseph Hardin (U. of Michigan), Amitava Mitra (MIT), Jeff Merriman (MIT), Charles Severance ( U. of Michigan), Lance Speelmon, (Indiana U.), and Brad Wheeler (Indiana U.) on September 22nd 2003. The early versions of the software were based on existing tools created by the founding institutions, especially the University of Michigan's "CHEF" course management system. The software now contains a course management system, including document distribution, a grade book, discussion, live chat, assignment uploads, online testing and online collaboration. The University of Cambridge development of a Wiki app was the first addition of an implementation tool outside of the initial group and showed that the Sakai model was going to be viable. " A guide to participating in an open source software community " provides additional information about open source communities. The Sakai download page provides demos and actual software that can be freely used. Sakai has been around awhile now and is being used by many universities for collaborative online education so it should be reviewed by anyone interested in this topic.

Blogging to Learn

I just read an article in “The Journal” called Content Delivery in the “Blogosphere” (Ferdig & Trammell, 2004) that addresses an area of technology use in education that hasn’t been touched on in this blog, the blog. More specifically, the article talks about the use of learning theory in blog development and practical implementation suggestions for educational blogs.
Ferdig and Trammell cite constructivist learning theory as the model for blog pedagogy. The student is actively involved in the learning process when he/she posts to their blog. Students can publish their thoughts and comments on a subject to their blog. This gives them a public area for discourse and also a sense of ownership (Ferdig and Trammell, 2004).
Reference:
Ferdig, R.E. & Trammell, K.D. (2004). Content Delivery in the Blogosphere. T.H.E. Journal, 31(7), 12-20. Downloaded March 25, 2008 from: http://www.thejournal.com/articles/16626/

I thought that I might give some examples of various ways blogs are being used in relation to education and some general Blog resources. I’ve divided the blogs into a couple of different categories.

Tips for using blogs

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/03/ten-habits-of-bloggers-that-win.html
“The Cool Cat Teacher Blog” Vicki A. Davis has a great blog on education and technology from the perspective of a classroom teacher. Her “10 Habits of Bloggers that win” is a really helpful guide for teachers getting started in blogging. I had to include this quote from Vicki that I thought was appropriate to the educational technology discussion, “This is vital to their future! We're not educating factory workers anymore, folks.”

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-discussion-take-your-class-to-internet
Edutopia is very deep reference for educational technology. This link is not a blog, but a short article on blog usage in the classroom. Specifically this article prompts the educator to ask the question, “What is the purpose of this blog?”

Technical upgrades for your blog

http://www.technorati.com/widgets/blogwidgets
Technorati Blog widgets gives you ways to spice up your blog once you get it going. Add tickers, news links, search engines and tags to your blog. Technorati is a group of articles and blogs that cover many areas of interest, not just education. There are great articles on the general use of technology that can be applied to the classroom or educational technology field.
http://www.allthingsweb2.com/mtree/BLOG_2.0/
All things Web 2.0 has more way to customize your Blog. Find ways to put ads on your personal Blog, pod cast, and link to blogs with associated content. Again this Blog isn’t education oriented, but it does give the teacher an idea of the possibilities of blogging in the commercial arena and what you can do to get more “hits” on your Blog.

Examples of teacher blogs

http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/
Mrs. C. Classroom Blog, with video and links to student’s blogs. This classroom Blog does it all. If you want to see what a Blog can do for the classroom teacher, this is it. There is video and audio and links to educational websites for teachers and students. There are widgets that show where the hits are coming from world-wide. There are links to all of the student’s blogs. There are links to all the local school administrations for parent’s reference. This Blog goes on and on. It really has that dynamic interactive component that Web 2.0 is supposed to bring to the educator and student.

http://marykreul.teacherhosting.com/blog/
Mary Kreul teacher Blog aimed at parents. This example is well conceived and the graphics and text are setup in a very aesthetic and readable way. Mary Kreul uses the Blog format to let parents know what is going on at the school, inform them of the assignments that are due, and give out the grades of their child to them. The educational value of this site really its attempt to provide that triangle of learning with the teacher, student and parent all contributing. This is an interesting angle on Blog use in education.

Video production blogs

http://www.kongisking.net/kong2005/proddiary/
Peter Jackson’s King Kong Production diary – Lot’s of tips on how all of those special effects are made. This site gives insight into what it takes to make a full length big budget movie.

http://blog.planetstream.net/
This Blog provides video on – line tips for small businesses. This site mostly deals with the costs and technological aspects of streaming your video and audio productions on-line. It provides links to related web-blogs, technical tips and even job information. This is a good starter site for the person with video production skills that is interested in using the web to promote their videos or use their video skills to promote small businesses on the web.

http://www.videi.org/
I thought that I would throw this one in to show a combination of education and video production with a Blog. This the web-Blog of a student video production workshop in Bosnia sponsored by Loyola University. It is a student workshop so you can see the learning process going on in the quality of the posted videos. Each student gets their own video introduction also. This is an example of giving the students ownership their creative output and providing a place for publication. This is an interesting idea for the video production class. I wonder what the difference in quality would be for the student productions at the University that I work at if the students knew that their projects would be published to the web?