coming out of the closet--educational gaming

Sssssh! I have a dark secret that I'm about to reveal....up until this point in time, it was not considered socially or professionally appropriate for me to admit one of my great passions. Yes, it's true, I am an online gamer. I've played mmorpg (massive multiplayer online role play games) for years....Asheron's Call, Dark Ages of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxy, and now World of Warcraft for the last two years. It all started 11 years ago when Dr. John Johnston pulled me into a MOO to conduct action research online, and I've never been the same.

I can hear it now...the whispers behind my back...you mean she plays those games that teenage boys play?? Hang onto your hats. The world of educational gaming is starting to bust loose, and come to find out, the population of gamers is a lot bigger than boys from 14-17. I am not alone. This will save me thousands in therapy.

Now, you might be asking yourself, why is she talking about educational gaming in a blog about Online Education? Come on...I know you can see it....the intersect that is being created between the two fields. And that intersect is only going to get bigger as our current generation of kids who've played electronic games their entire lives moves into the adult workplace. If you'd like a little more background on the topic, check out the Horizon Report published by Educause. It looks at trends over the next 5 years and educational gaming is one of them. Bernie Dodge at SDSU has a blog on educational gaming, and a lot of good resources for those interested in reading and learning more about educational gaming and simulations. Heck, even the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) recently held a Summit on Video Gaming.

This fall I've been asked to teach a new graduate course on Educational Gaming and Simulations. I feel as if I've come home. I'll actually be getting paid to better understand and teach others about the aspects and design of gaming for learning purposes.

PS Many of my graduate students have confided to me in email that they are gamers, as well. I'm looking forward to having public discussions on that topic this coming fall.

moving beyond the lms

Last semester we were fortunate enough to have representatives from Blackboard come to our campus and ask for faculty input on Blackboard updates. I asked about the idea of including a video conferencing tool, as my teaching has been so hugely impacted by the availability of Breeze in our department. I was told the Blackboard was designed "linear," and didn't really have the capability to be everything to everybody, and certainly not to integrate such a highly developed tool as Breeze.

How disappointing! I'm finding that my online teaching more and more everyday moves outside the LMS...Breeze, Blogger.com, instant messaging, websites, commercial online assessment tools. I'd love to hear more about how learning management companies are moving into next generation systems to support online learning...if you find some good references, please post them here!

ready for more complex LMS tools

I've spent the last three days providing project feedback to my students in Instructional Design. We run fully online in Blackboard, and yet I find myself using a myriad of tools outside BB to do this type of work as an instructor.

For example, I had to 1) create the rubric in RubiStar, 2) paste it in Excel, 3) use Word to write the email text I then copy and paste to my students inside Outlook, and 4) attach the excel rubric to the email. This whole process happens outside the BB LMS. I then have to go into BB to record grades. My wish, my dream, my desire is for an LMS that gives me a suite of interactive tools designed to do this job in a less complex way. Where oh where are you? :)

expert chats

Tonight I'm hosting an expert chat with another educator on the topic of hybrid learning. We're running the chat in Breeze, our video conferencing program. How cool is it that we can see and hear our guest lecturer from the comfort of our own homes and offices?

We practiced in Breeze on Monday to get ourselves ready. Uh oh...troubles with the audio going in and out, up and down. An hour of troubleshooting and still no firm resolution. We're going to proceed with the chat and cross our fingers. If all goes as planned, I'll add a link of the recorded presentation to the bottom of this post. Wish us luck!

(Here's our chat! http://breeze.boisestate.edu/p27012193/ )

video conferencing technology--here comes Breeze

Our department has recently purchased Macromedia Breeze, a web-based conferencing technology. Our faculty have had fun training each other and discussing possible uses of the platform in our classes. We've already used it in lieu of regular Blackboard chat to hold audio/video chats with our classes (see http://breeze.boisestate.edu:8080/p80652824/ for an example), and to prerecord training sessions for our students on the use of different technology tools (here's another example showing how to set up a blog http://breeze.boisestate.edu:8080/p46248383/ ).

This technology has instantly changed the face of our distance learning program. No longer a static, text based program supplemented with multimedia presentations that can take hours to design and build, this instantaneous communication technology brings the professor and student together in real-time, face-to-face. Breeze has a LOT of capacity that I won't go into here, but overall, users can create meetings, classes or curriculum. In the meeting layout (which I've used most to date), users have access to different "pods," such as the chat pod, the camera pod, the sharing pod, the note pod, and the polling pod. These can be configured and customized by the user.


Some of the features I love about Breeze:

1. Audio and/or video of any user who has a webcam or microphone installed.
2. Separate chat text tool, if needed.
3. Sharing/collaboration window to load and share 1) presentations, 2) show websites, 3) show any document, application or any other file on your computer.
4. There are great overlay tools in the sharing "pod" that allow user's to mark-up or write on any file in the sharing window.
5. Take a poll and broadcast the results instantly in real-time. Such a great tool for checking for understanding or getting a quick overall group consensus.
6. Any meeting can be recorded. And everything gets recorded--the audio, video, and navigational display of documents. This converts to a URL (such as I listed above) that students can access at a later time.
7. Ability to upload and downloads files among all users.

Web-based communiciation and collaboration software such as Breeze is our next generation in online education. Invest in a webcam (comes with a built-in microphone), and jump on the bandwagon.

Picasa

OK, I am awed by Picasa. Well, it's more like I'm blown away....and to top it all off, it's free!

Picasa is to photos what iTunes and iPod are to music. Now I understand why Google's stock is rising through the roof. First, Picasa is a photo manager. Once you download and install (quick, less than a minute for me), it automatically pulls in all photo files on your harddrive, categorizes them by year and folders. You can instantly view thumnails of all photos, and drop and drag between folders for better organization. And that's just file management...

Picasa also offers some basic photo editing tools such as crop, redeye, special filters, resizing, etc. I really liked the Timeline option--you can view folders of photos in a graphic timeline. The drag and drop interactivity, and display of information itself, mimics Mac. No stiff PC-like useability in this product (and I ran it on a PC). If you are using Photoshop Elements, I'd suggest checking out Picasa as an alternative; it offers so much more!

What else? Well, you can create instant slideshows, publish to the web, prepare folders of files to order online (your choice of various services). I chose to create a photobook of 35 photos from my kids' summer activities. I was able to edit the layout, put in captions, choose a cover and title--all for the cost of $12.95 on Shutterfly.

If you are a teacher who uses a lot of digital imagery in your online lessons, syllabus, assignments, do multimedia creation, etc., then check out Picasa.

when the technology dies

Anyone who uses technology on even a semi-regular basis has come to accept the fact that technology fails. In fact, we come to expect it; sometimes we're even glib about it. "Oh yes, THAT is broken again. Not to worry. All I have to do is push this button, unplug this, push that button, and voila!"

Classes started yesterday and our online course server is barely functioning. It can take a minute just to bring up one page, if it comes up at all. I share this fact not to complain. In fact, I'm wondering about the effect this technology snafu has on online learners. How long will online learners stay devoted to an online class when the technology isn't working appropriately? And are more experienced online learners more patient with delays in the technology?

As an online teacher, I know I'm already frustrated with the slow performance over the last couple of weeks. I needed to prep three online classes, and the time on the job seems to triple when the server runs slow (or not at all). At this point, I'm wishing I taught on campus. Well, not really. I love teaching online. But I am concerned about the students. I'm concerned about losing folks who really want to learn online but don't have the patience to hang around until we get it all figured out. I'm also concerned about first-time online students who might jump ship and never return based on this one experience.

OK time for me to go! I just heard Blackboard is back online--I need to get while the getting is good!

back to school

Well, the summer semester has ended, and the fall semester starts in three days. I am teaching three online classes this fall, one is a new prep. I'll admit to feeling slightly overwhelmed with the idea of how much time I'll be spending online, but I also have the tingly feeling of anticipation that comes with the beginning of a new semester. The good news is I still enjoy teaching a lot--and after 20 years of teaching, I suppose that's a good sign I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.

This week brings the tasks of recycling old courses. After five years, you'd think I had this down to a science--what really works best for recycling? Sometimes it seems easier to just recreate the entire class from scratch, instead of modifying assignments, discussion boards, announcements, etc from a recycled class. What about you? Do you have any preferred approaches for getting started on a new semester when reusing old materials?

why I like chat

Using chat in an online course is fairly easy, and I think it gives a lot of bang for the buck--educationally speaking. Some folks complain about the lack of available options when using LMS-based chat (I use Blackboard's chat tool, for example), but the majority of my students report having successful and meaningful chat experiences when we follow these rules:

• Give chat a purpose: This is especially true for first time chats. Provide a specific task to accomplish in chat, a time period, and list of the group participants. For example, I might assign four students to chat regarding one main point of interest from the weekly readings, each student gets at least 10 minutes of the chat time to discuss their main point, and I assign a facilitator to move the group along.
• Attend the first session: I always attend the first chat session my students have, even if it is a small group discussion. I sit back, allow another student with chat experience to facilitate, and I jump in where and when needed. With younger or less experienced chatters, you might want to facilitate and model the first session yourself.
• Create small chat groups: No doubt about it, unless you are doing a fully moderated chat, assign students in groups of 3-5 students max. Everyone gets a chance to participate, the opinions are varied and interesting, and the smaller group size leaves everyone feeling more socially connected to others in class.
• Have students record their chat: This is helpful for any member who may have missed the chat, and it also provides ownership to the students involved in the chat. I appreciate chat transcripts--it is a form of evidence, or artifact, of the learning process, and sometimes students share references or URLs during chat that can be referenced again at a later date if a transcript exists.

If you're interested in seeing a sample chat lesson plan, I've posted one on RiverWithin.

making feedback public

I do a lot of comparing between teaching in online vs. live classes. I'm fascinated with the opportunities that online technologies provide that don't exist in live classes. This morning as I was typing individual feedback in the discussion forum to my students' most recent assignment, I was reminded of both the positive and negative attributes of making feedback public.

• Positive: I am modeling how to provide feedback in a constructive, growth-oriented approach (or so I like to think). Since most of my students are teachers, many desiring to be online teachers, this is a necessary skill for them to observe and develop. I always frame the feedback in terms of strengths and areas for improvement.
• Positive: Making feedback public encourages the development of community--that we are all in this, learning together, learning at our own pace and based on our own needs. I never assign a grade in public feedback. I think this approach helps to transform an outdated behavioristic approach to learning where the student has to "get it right," and the teacher's job is to grade the "correctness" of each assignment.
• Positive: Students can learn from other's work and my perceptions about that work. Many of my students report enjoying reading my feedback to others in class. It gives them an idea of how their work compares to others (performance anxiety?). It also reinforces the classroom culture I want to promote--that you are not competing with others in the class, but rather, engaged in your own learning process and professional development.
• Negative: Ok, so just how to tell a student, when needed, that their work really stinks? I mean, how "nice" can an instructor be when what you really feel like saying is, "Why are you wasting my time with this weak attempt?" This doesn't happen often at the graduate level, as I have a great group of students with whom I'm priviledged to work. But there are times when I will ask a student to reconsider, reread, and resubmit their work. Is this a form of public humiliation? Is it a turn-off to student learning? Can it be a wake-up call for that particular student? What impact does this type of feedback have on other students in the class? One approach I've used in the past is to publically type, "See my email for feedback" and then email that student privately.

I'm curious to hear how other online teachers have worked with public vs. private feedback, particularly on poor work. Any thoughts?