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Apple's iPad - The Ultimate Field Science Tool?

Keene Haywood — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:59:05 -0700

The iPad may find an unintended use for field scientists who need a capable device away from the lecture halls. Read on to see how it might fit this niche like a glove.

Instapaper - Just Add Words

Keene Haywood — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:56:59 -0700

Instapaper is a great little web service, iPhone app and more. It can be put to great use in the classroom for collecting information or for your own use in your work. Read on at the new NMC Research blog (did I mention it is still very new. But to expect to see more over in this space!) http://wp.nmc.org/keene/2010/03/03/instapaper-just-add-words/

Five card story-telling

cclark2 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:42:42 -0700

Anyone who has played poker will see the resemblance between “five card draw” and Five Card Flickr, an engaging exercise that presents random images and challenges you to create a story to save and share. [read more]

Additional Reading for Week 7

Alan Levine — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:28:01 -0700

The Baylor facilitators for this week have added an extra short reading to add to the discussion of the McLuhan papers:

We'd like to have you also read Plato's Allegory of the Cave. it is not very long, worry not. Here's a link to it. http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html

If you have a copy of Plato's republic, it is the opening few pages of Book Seven (514a-517b).

The overall theme for discussion: Is there a message beyond the medium? and does it matter?

For class, please be prepared to share what you think McLuhan's basic thesis is and whether or not you agree with it. Please be prepared to share one or two quotes from the reading that you think best illustrates McLuhan's thesis and an example from your own educational experience that either supports his thesis or runs counter to it.

Sharing these insights about the essay should take 40-45 minutes. Then we'll turn to the Allegory of the Cave and explore the ways in which this story both supports and challenges McLuhan's view.

Infographics in the classroom

cclark2 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:58:15 -0800

Yesterday an article at Bionic Teaching featured “Mega Shark,” an infographic by Stephen Taubman. Based on a cheesy 2009 sci-fi flick, the poster explains the physics of an enormous creature leaping out of the ocean and bringing down an airplane – great for the classroom, don’t you think? [read the full article at the NspireD2 blog]

Using Podcasts For Athletic Trainers

jhildreth — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:25:21 -0800

Radford University Exercise, Sport and Health Education professors Drs. Angela Mickle and Michael Moore have been using iTunes U podcasts to distribute video to students learning to perform athletic training tests and exercises. Students in the program must learn to perform hundreds of tests, and podcasting provides a way to distribute instructor-produced videos to them in a way not possible before. Short videos are created from still images and video (taken with student actors), text and voiceover using Apple's Final Cut Pro, and are then made available to the students in iTunes U. They can then be downloaded and viewed as often as needed until the student learns how to perform the tests. Further, the iPod makes it possible for students to take these materials with them anywhere, so that they can watch a given procedure being done while they attempt it themselves. This approach has proven far more expedient than videotape or pictures in a manual, and while watching it done live is important, being able to watch a live recording with narration is even better for studying and practice purposes.

Joe Lambert Keynote: Centering the Circle: Storywork in the Era of Media Ubiquity

Alan Levine — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:25:41 -0800

March 24, 2010: 9:00-9:45am PT
http://www.nmc.org/preso/7783

Joe Lambert, founder and director of the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS), will discuss the role of story in centering our relationship to using media in our lives.

In an era where access and use of the mediums are endless, and parsing meaningful signals from non-stop noise, nearly impossible; how can defining one's core stories help you to filter consumption, and focus your production of media.

The Center for Digital Storytelling was recognized with a Center of Excellence Award at the 2009 NMC Summer Conference. This video the CDS created for the ceremony well describes their work:

Sorry, the flash media seems to not available.

About Joe Lambert

Joe founded the Center for Digital Storytelling (formerly the San Francisco Digital Media Center) in 1994, with wife Nina Mullen and colleague Dana Atchley. Together they developed a unique computer training and arts program that today is known as the Standard Digital Storytelling Workshop.

This process grew out of Joe's long running collaboration with Dana on the solo theatrical multimedia work, Next Exit. Since then, Joe has traveled the world to spread the practice of digital storytelling and has authored and produced curricula in many contexts, including the Digital Storytelling Cookbook , the principle manual for the workshop process, and Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community .

Constance Steinkuehler Keynote: Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Learning & The New Pop Cosmopolitanism

Alan Levine — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:48:14 -0800

March 25, 2010: 9:00-9:45am PT
http://www.nmc.org/preso/7721

American schools largely remain locked within a Ford type factory model of industry and efficiency; games, on the other hand, are forward leaning, recruiting intellectual practices, dispositions, and forms of social organization that are aligned with many of today’s “new capitalist” workplaces. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in particular function as naturally occurring, self-sustaining, indigenous online communities of learning and practice, and their study tells can us something important about how such communities form and function out “in the wild” (Hutchins, 1995).

In this presentation, I will detail the results of over five years of research on commercial online games and detail how the constellation of intellectual practices that constitute gameplay in such spaces coalesce into a form of cosmopolitanism found in the least likely of places, in the context of pop culture. Games are incubators of a new pop cosmopolitanism – a Discourse (Gee, 199) or “way of being in the world” marked by a willingness and ability to navigate an increasingly globalized and therefore diverse, networked, socio-technical world. If our world is indeed increasingly “flat” (Friedman, 2005), then gaming communities such as those found in MMOs, are, in some respects, our proverbial canaries in the coalmine.

About Constance Steinkuehler

Constance Steinkuehler is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Communications and Technology (ECT) program in the Curriculum & Instruction department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is a founding fellow of the Games, Learning, & Society (GLS) Initiative at UW-Madison and chairs their annual conference held each summer in Madison WI. Her research on cognition, learning, and literacy in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) has been funded by the MacArthur Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Academic ADL Co-Lab – to date, including research on such commercial titles as Lineage I, Lineage II, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, and, most recently, RuneScape. She earned her Ph.D. in Literacy Studies in the Curriculum & Instruction in 2005, her MS degree in Educational Psychology in 2000 and three simultaneous BAs in Mathematics, English, and Religious Studies in 1993. She teaches graduate courses in Research in Online Virtual Worlds, Analyzing Online Social Interaction, Critical Instructional Practices on the Internet, and Gender and Technology, and an undergraduate course in Digital Media, Pop Culture, and Learning. She sits on the editorial board of several journals including the Journal of the Learning Sciencs , the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, and Second Nature: The International Journal of Creative Media . She is the Chair of the AERA SIG “Media, Culture & Curriculum,” sits on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Gaming, Simulations & Education, and recently received the NAS/Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship.

Her current work focuses on the potential of virtual worlds to function as sandboxes for the reconstruction (perhaps, reinvigoration) of a new form of twenty-first century citizenship – a “pop cosmopolitanism” marked by the willingness to engage in an increasingly globalized and therefore diverse socio-technical world and the development of intellectual practices crucial to successful navigation within it. Such intellectual practices include informal scientific reasoning, collaborative problem solving, media literacy (defined not just as critical media consumption but also production), computational literacy, and the social learning mechanisms that support the development of such expertise (e.g., reciprocal apprenticeship, collective intelligence). She has been a siege princess, a mon calamari dancer, a human priest herbal/alchemist with a penchant for flowers in dangerous places, Wu the Lotus Blossom with a best friend named Dawn Star, a pudgy spaceman who orders around many small vegetable-ish creatures, a pink Master Chief, the misunderstood hero of the story, the last chance at world salvation destined to save the world (and the princess), god, and the master of a very big big ball.

Learn more at
http://www.constances.org/

Flash As An Authoring Tool for Genetics Simulations

jhildreth — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:34:30 -0800

Since 2003, Radford University Professor of Biology Dr. Robert Sheehy as been using Flash animation as a tool for creating simulations for his genetics classes. Dr. Sheehy's facility with Flash has enabled him to create simulations in which students can see animated respresentations of genetics processes. While most of the content is authored with the science student in mind, a quick look will give you an idea of what it looks like. Visit the simulation on Human Cytogenetic Analysis Kartotyping Type I Process.

Other simulation applications can be viewed on Dr. Sheehy's website .

New Media Faculty Seminar Week 7

Alan Levine — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:58:18 -0800

It is Spring Break this week at Baylor University, so in this week's podcast with Gardner Campbell about the Faculty Development Seminar: New Media as a Platform for Integrative Learning we review last week's discussion, but the next meeting won;t take place until March 16, giving our participants a bit more time to dig into Marshall McLuhan.

The last seminar meeting at Baylor was a discussion of Personal Dynamic Media by Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg (pp 393-403 in the New Media Reader (found online as a free excerpt of The New Media Reader) and this was the first one facilitated by a seminar participant. Some of the active discussion points was on how the authors cast the computer as a creative tool, using music metaphors as well as the notion of the computer becoming a tool in which its users can create new tools. This is manifested today in projects like Scratch from MIT. The group also wrestled with the implcations of a focus on children, in speculating if there were suggestions that adults have "too much real responsibilities" to engage in child like exploration (a notion that Gardner nor I buy into!).

Gardner also highlighted an interesting post in the discussion forums , where Chris Hansen connected the article's idea about external media acting as a feedback mechanism to thinking, something that he works into the way he teaches writing (plus others chimed in to help find the mysterious missing last page of the article in the book!)

For the next seminar session (and remember you have an extra week to digest the reading), we move to two essays from Marshall McLuhan, excerpts from The Galaxy Reconfigured and The Medium is the Message (from Understanding Media) which are found on pp193-209 in the New Media Reader. You might be able to browse parts of The Galaxy Reconfigured in Google Books and there is a PDF for Understanding Media).

Known for the oft repeated, but perhaps little understand phrase "the medium is the message", McLuhan can be a bit "out there" on ideas, but Gardner suggests there is a lot of power and influence in McLuhan's work.

Or for a lighter view, we shared fond memories of the scene in Annie Hal l where Woody Allen pulls McLuhan in from the side to silence the loud critic behind him in line at the theater ("If life were only like this" is rather meta).

Radford University Education Channel on YouTube

jhildreth — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:33:17 -0800

The RadfordEducation Channel content is authored by graduate students as part of their coursework with Dr. Matt Dunleavy in the RU College of Education and Human Development. The objective of this channel is to provide educational technology tutorials to teachers in an easy to follow format. Each video will be less than 5 minutes and will provide a good foundation of skills upon which the teachers can build by watching subsequent videos. By watching the videos in sequence, teachers should be able to progress from the most basic skills to the most advanced for each application of technology covered on this channel.

Analogous instructional media resources at RU include the Instructional Technology Podcast and its mirror boradcast, TechTalk, both of which are maintained by the RU Center For Innovative Teaching and Learning and available HERE .

The Radford University College of Education and Human Development GAMeS Lab

jhildreth — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:54:07 -0800

The purpose of the Games, Animation, Modeling and Simulation (GAMeS) Lab is to design interactive and immersive participatory digital curricula and study the efficacy of these products on student engagement and learning. Working with a collaborative team of researchers and developers, Radford University’s College of Education and Human Development will provide participating schools from Southwest Virginia with Standards of Learning (SOLs) aligned products for field testing. In addition, the GAMeS Lab will train masters level students and in-service teachers to develop their own digital curricula. Within a mixed methods design-based research project, the researchers will conduct multiple qualitative case studies within participating schools to document the affordances and limitations of the GAMeS Lab products from the student and teacher perspective.

Projects currently being produced by the GAMeS Lab include Augmented Reality Curricula (ROAR Project) and iPod Touch Games (iLearn Project). Click the preceding links to learn more about them, and also visit the GAMeS Lab site. The RU GAMeS Lab took second and third place prizes in the 2009 Virginia Department of Education Learning Without Boundaries initiative. The ROAR Project and GAMeS Lab are directed by Dr. Matt Dunleavy, Radford University Professor of Education.

Symposium Program

Nancy Reeves — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:35:39 -0800

Join keynote speakers Joe Lambert of the Center for Digital Storytelling and Constance Steinkuehler of the University of Wisconsin--Madison in sessions that delve into topics from educational gaming to telling deeply compelling stories using digital media. The annual NMC Symposium on New Media and Learning is a conversation about the most vital and relevant applications of new media for education.

Presentations for the NMC New Media and Learning Symposium will take place in our private virtual world space, the Hakone Project, which in functionality is exactly the same as being in Second Life. We will email all conference participants by Friday, March 19, with instructions on how they can access Hakone.

Download the symposium program.

Symposium Schedule

(all times are listed in US Pacific Time)

The details are available in our online schedule.

Friday, March 19
9:00 - 10:00 am	Newcomer Orientation I
12:00 - 1:00 pm	MIDEA Participant Tutoring

Monday, March 22
1:00 - 2:00 pm	Newcomer Orientations II

Tuesday, March 23
5:30 - 7:00 pm	Welcome Reception featuring live music from Noma Falta

Wedneday, March 24
8:45 - 9:00 am	Opening Remarks
9:00 - 9:45 am	Keynote Presentation: Centering the Circle: Storywork in the Era of Media Ubiquity Joe Lambert, Center for Digital Storytelling
10:00 - 10:45 am	The Mars Expedition as a Virtual Context in Storytelling Cynthia Calongne,Colorado Technical University
11:00 - 11:45 am	Digital Storytelling: An Ancient Tradition in the 21st Century Anthony Curtis, University of North Carolina at Pembroke
11:45 am - 1:00 pm	Break
1:00 -1:45 pm	Digital Stories: Flash Fiction Lou Rera, Buffalo State College
2:00 - 2:45 pm	Mapping the Digital Storytelling Domain: Notes for a Future Cartography Ruben Puentedura, Hippasus
2:45 - 3:00 pm	Day One Closing Remarks

Thursday, March 25
8:45 - 9:00 am	Day Two Opening Remarks
9:00 - 9:45 am	Keynote Presentation: Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Learning & The New Pop Cosmopolitanism Constance Steinkuehler, University of Wisconsin Madison
10:00 - 10:45 am	Using New Media in Museums to Build Life-Long Learners Amy Gorman, College of William and Mary
11:00 - 11:45 am	Augmented Reality in the Classroom Craig Kapp, College of New Jersey
11:45 - 1:00 pm	Break
1:00 - 1:45 pm	Building an Educational Gaming Initiative in Higher Education Brett Bixler, Pennsylvania State University
2:00 - 2:45 pm	TwHistory: Tweeting History in the Classroom Tom Caswell, Utah State University
2:45 - 3:00 pm	Closing Remarks

Hakone: Symposium Venue

Alan Levine — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:55:43 -0800

Presentations for the NMC New Media & Learning Symposium will take place in our private virtual world space, the Hakone Project, which in functionality is exactly the same as being in Second Life. We will email all conference participants by Friday, March 19, with instructions on how they can access Hakone.

Below we outline the general technical requirements for accessing this virtual world space. While covered in more detail in our online Hakone Guide, below is all you need to get started in Hakone:

What You Will Need to be Part of Hakone

Your avatar accounts will be created for you and included in details to be emailed on March 19; one major difference with Second Life is that you enter as an avatar that is named with real name.

The computer requirements are the same as for accessing Second Life; see http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php. We will provide a link to download the special client software (it runs on Windows XP, Vista; and Mac OS X).

We most strongly recommend that you have a robust broadband internet connection, and a wired one is generally more reliable than wireless. In addition, because the audio for the Symposium is transmitted via Voice Chat, you must have a USB headset (see below).

Join us for an orientation! Even if you are experienced in Second Life, we recommend you come to Hakone on the dates and times below when we will aim to make sure everyone can access the conference content (e.g.audio and video) and to show them how to get around the virtual venue

Orientation I: Friday, March 19, 2010 (9:00 - 10:00 qm PT - Hakone Welcome Plaza)
Orientation II: Monday, March 22, 2010 (1:00 - 2:00 pm PT - Hakone Welcome Plaza )

Voice Chat Suggestions

All of the session presenters will be communicating via the Hakone Voice Chat, so it is essential that you can make sure this works on the computer you will be using, and that you check this out a few days in advance. Our suggestions are:

You must wear a headset; if you listen via open speakers, the audio will be picked up by the microphone and retransmitted in Hakone which makes it impossible for others to hear. USB headsets are very cheap! Get one and use it.
Connect your headset and verify that it works outside of Hakone (the client software is not good at recognizing changes in audio sources). Go to the Sound Control panel on your computer and check the audio input and output levels. Listen to an audio file to make sure the sound is coming through your speakers.
In Hakone, you can tell that someone, including yourself, has voice chat enabled if there is a soft white dot over their head.
To Talk, look for the Talk button in the bottom right corner. Click talk button to activate the mic- the button will have a gold rim when it is on. If you do not want to hold the button down to talk, look under the Edit menu for Preferences, follow the Voice Chat tab, and check the option for using Push to Talk in Toggle Mode.. As you speak, green lines will appear over your head as an indicator of your audio levels. If you see red lines, your audio input levels are too high; go to your System Control Panel, and reduce the audio input levels in your Sound Control.
If you are not talking or during sessions, please de-activate your microphone so stray noise is not transmitted into the shared space.
If you have checked everything and still cannot hear voice chat one more thing to check if you are on a school or corporate network is that their firewall allows the proper ports for the voice chat server. Refer your IT staff to the reqired open ports listed at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Firewall

For more help, see How to Enable Voice Chat.

Getting Help!

For those in Hakone, if you need assistance, please find your way to the Information Desk where you can page an NMC staff member. In addition, refer to your conference email for a phone number and an email you can use to reach us.

The White House Blog Asks a Question on Education

Alan Levine — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:28:14 -0800

It is not only impressive that the White House has embraced new technologies with a blog and other social media tools, they have a specific area of their blog devotd to education.

As part of an outreach called "The White House Asks" this week they are asking a question about education--What does a 21st century education mean to you?

At WhiteHouse.gov we’re always looking for new ways to engage with citizens, whether it’s through a live video chat with a policy expert or an Open for Questions event with the President. As an extension of the Administration’s commitment to making government more collaborative and participatory, we’re trying something new this week. The White House will pose a question to our more than 480,000 fans on Facebook, 1.7 million followers on Twitter and 30,000 group members on LinkedIn. Later in the week, we’ll highlight some of the most interesting responses on the White House blog.

As part of this week’s “Education in Focus” series, the White House asks:
What does a 21st century education mean to you?

So, tell us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. We look forward to your responses and want to give a hat tip to @GOOD for a good idea.

Share your ideas this week.