Are we Netflix?

There's an interesting blog post up on Inside Higher Ed today, "5 Things Netflix Streaming Can Teach Higher Ed." It prompts us to look toward the future in considering what higher ed can and should look like, and to do that serious rethinking before, as the post puts it, someone else does it for us.

This call for broad rethinking seems to be the tenor of the discussion about higher ed these days, whether it's from philanthropic organizations like the Gates Foundation, which is encouraging designing education for the "Next Generation Learner," to Peter Smith's much-discussed book, Harnessing America's Wasted Talent: A New Ecology of Learning.

What do you think? Are we as an institution, or even as an industry, forward-looking enough? Do you, as a faculty member, feel engaged in these discussions and able to do work that participates in moving us forward? Do you think these visions are even the correct direction for higher education to be moving?

Texting for student engagement?

Here's a blog post about some colleges that have tried pilot programs where faculty text students reminders, notes, updates, etc. According to the post, students find the text messages "more personal" than an email. What do you think? Can you see yourself texting your students?

How do our students perceive our technology use?

This Inside Higher Ed article has some interesting data on how professors view their use of technology in teaching and how it contrasts with how students view our technology use. Perhaps not surprisingly, the students don't really think we've figured this stuff out yet! Relatedly and even more importantly, students don't think that we are preparing them well to use technology in their careers.

What do you think is the answer to this "technology gap"? Do we need to just hire a bunch of youngsters who are digital natives and already know how to use this stuff? Is there a way to really get current faculty up to speed on technology? Do we need college policies on how to use technology and how much to do so? Do we need a "technology across the curriculum" initiative to be sure students do have an opportunity to learn a range of technologies they'll need to use in the workplace? As a faculty member, do you think you really know what kinds of technologies are being used every day in workplaces outside academia? Does it matter?

More Details on Obama's Plan for Online Education

The Chronicle has an article this week describing Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative and how it may be the basis for what the Obama administration has in mind for online learning. Take a look at the article--and if you're looking for some really good teaching materials, you might also want to look at the Carnegie Mellon materials themselves! I saw them demonstrated at a conference a few years ago, and there are some really useful modules in statistics, math, economics, and more.

Another repository of teaching materials

If you have ever used MERLOT, you know how useful a repository of learning materials can be to your teaching. Here's another one you may want to check out (thanks, Diane!): Teacher's Domain. The site links you to digital resources from public broadcasting and other media producers, organized by subject area. It's overtly pitched at a K-12 teacher, but the resources are things like clips from "All Things Considered" and other PBS radio programs, so they're really appropriate for our students as well. The resources also often provide background information, discussion questions, and other activities to help you plan your use of the materials.

Do You Recognize Yourself in This Piece?

I think a lot of us have fallen into the trap of spending more time policing our students than teaching them. What do you think of this article about that tension? How do you keep yourself from being too much police officer and too little teacher? Or do you disagree with the premise and think the police officer role is more important than the author suggests?

Personal Learning Environments

Educause has just put out a new "7 Things You Should Know About..." document, this time about "personal learning environments," which are a way of designing instruction so that students control the collection of course materials and how they learn from them. You can find the short document here. It's an interesting concept... do you see this kind of structure working in your courses? Can you imagine teaching this way? Are you teaching this way already?

Some summer reading on DL

The June issue of the online Journal of Online Teaching and Learning is now available here (click "Current Issue" on the left). There are lots of interesting articles, including several on preventing plagiarism and other cheating in online courses and lots of case studies and research projects about using particular technologies (podcasting, gaming, student collaboration tools, etc.) in teaching online. Take a look and see if you get any new ideas for your ELI courses! (And notice the call for papers for the winter issue at the bottom of the page--perhaps you'd like to write something about what you're doing in your course. We've got a lot of great work going on at ELI!)

Using Kindles in Online Classes

Have you tried the Amazon Kindle yet? Do you know if any of your students are using them in your classes? (There's even a new, larger version specially designed to display textbooks.) Some schools have been experimenting with having students try them out; this article describes one faculty member's plans on this front (and also includes a link to descriptions of some other experiements). What's interesting is that one would assume these types of experiments would happen at institutions with wealthier student bodies (I've never heard of a community college providing all its incoming students iPods to listen to lectures, for example, but plenty of four-years have), but in this case, the student body sounds like it has much in common with our own. What do you think? Could you see this working for our students? Do you see benefits of using the Kindle in your teaching?

Technology tips to save time and improve student learning

Mark Morton from Educause has put together a document with his top 5 tips for using technology to make your life as on online teacher easier while also helping students be more successful. What's nice is that each tip includes a full description of how to make it work, evidence to show that it actually does work, and links to examples. Take a look and see if you find anything you might want to use!

This whole Twitter thing...

As you can see from the poll results on the left, not many of you are on Facebook, at least not in a significant way. I'm guessing that it's also the case that most of you aren't on Twitter, since it's newer and since FB is a bit easier to handle than Twitter. But, our students are on it. Have you explored it at all? What do you think?

Here's an interesting article on using Twitter to get feedback from students about their learning. It's really focused on institutional planning, but I think it is also interesting to see the types of things students said.

Can you think of ways you could use Twitter in your teaching? Is anyone using it now?

What Did You Learn?

Last night, we had a great student success event and shared a lot of ideas for better helping our students learn our material and succeed in our courses. Many of us also attended New Horizons last week.

Let's share the wealth. What did you learn (great ideas, new technology tools to try, time-saving tips, etc.) that you think your colleagues might also benefit from?

Make Quick, Free Videos

At New Horizons, I saw a demo of Animoto, a site that allows you to make free 30-second videos. (You can also buy an account, which allows you to make longer videos.) It's really neat--you just upload pictures (or use pictures they store on the site), select music (again, upload your own or use theirs), and then give it a name, and the site adds all the effects.

The ELI Student Services Staff just had a retreat a couple of weeks ago. Here's a video I made using Animoto and some of the pictures from the retreat.

Still haven't figured out how to add text on top of pictures--maybe one has to do that using photoshop or some other photoediting service before uploading the pictures. Anyway, it's fun to play with for personal use (the presenter showed a little video of him visiting his grandkids), or for teaching (I was thinking about making a little welcome video for the new ELI course I'm developing). You can see some cool things educators have done with the expanded version if you visit this part of the site (check out the "We the People" video or the case studies at the bottom. I think the "function notation" one is great).

Try it out and post your video links in the comments!

Using Blogs to Improve Writing Skills and Reflection on Learning

We talked briefly a while back about how we might use blogs in our teaching at ELI. This article, although it is about K-12 education, makes some good points about why having students write blogs as they learn can improve their writing skills, their confidence, and their understanding and retention of the material. What do you think--are you convinced? What is the downside to creating this type of assignment?

Revising Your ELI Courses

As you all know, we are currently finalizing our preparations for the Student Success Initiative event coming up on April 7. You'll be leaving that event with a plan for a new strategy you'll try in one of your courses either this summer or fall.

As we've been planning this event, I've been thinking a lot about course revisions at ELI. I know that some of you keep your courses the same semester to semester, only doing a revision when your course is peer reviewed or when a new textbook comes out. Others of you tweak your courses regularly. In some cases, you do that working with ELI, and in others, you make changes without telling us about them.

I would like to better understand how you feel about course revisions in your online courses, and I'd appreciate your comments on any/all of the following questions:

• How does what you do with revising your ELI courses (in terms of frequency, nature/breadth of changes, etc.) compare with what you do in revising your campus courses? What do you think explains the difference, if there is one?
• What things prevent you from making revisions to your ELI courses? (Technology skills? ELI policies or processes that deter you? Time? Lack of interest?)
• If you tend to make changes without working with ELI, why? If you tend to make changes and generally do work with ELI on them, why?
• What could ELI do to help you keep your courses current, high quality, and exciting for your students?

Learning 2.0

The Learning Journal blog has a recent post, "Learning 2.o," that lays out some interesting ideas about the skills needed to learn (whether in school or in your job) in today's technology-rich world. What do you think of the list? Do your classes teach students these skills (or expect them to know them already), or do you think your class is based on a more traditional model of learning? Do you have all these learning skills yourself?

Social Presence and Having a Little Fun with your Students

I love this idea from Melly's DL Admin Blog! What a great way to give your students a quick, fun activity to engage in. And I know they are interested in what you look like--you'd be surprised how many responses I got from ELI students when I sent them an email with my picture attached.

Instant Messaging and Teaching Online, & ELI Chat

Do you use instant messaging of any kind with your students, whether during live online lecture sessions or for office hours or tutoring help? What platform do you use? (I know at least some of you have been experimenting with Google chat, now available through the new student email accounts.) If you're interested in thinking about this, or refining how you use instant messaging with your students, here's a short article with a few strategies.

And as an aside, I want to make sure (since I just talked to an ELI faculty member who didn't know this) that you are all aware that ELI offers students a chat service during regular business hours (including our Saturday hours). Chat duty rotates among the Course Specialists, counselors, registration staff, Jana, and Barbara. Using chat, we can help students quickly with simple questions (where to find certain information on the website, when classes start, how to pay for classes, etc.) or set up a time to talk to them in more depth when they have more complicated questions. Students can access chat from the ELI website by clicking the chat button on the bottom left. If you are curious about what it's like, log on yourself and chat for a moment with a staff member!

Teaching & the Inauguration

We had a historic day yesterday.

My students last semester (in a class on race...) were so hopeful about the future after Obama won. I'm glad they are hopeful, but also fearful that having an African American president will make it even easier for my students to ignore the continued significant racial inequality in our country. Getting students to see past their assumptions (that all those racial problems are fixed now) is my biggest challenge in teaching this class.

How are you using the Inauguration, the change in administration, etc. in your classes this semester? What are your students saying about it all?

Using Peer Review in your ELI Courses

Debbie Naquin shared with me a blog post about how to structure a peer review assignment using a course management system like Blackboard (including discussion of WHY you might want to use such an assignment in your instruction). Take a look--it might give you some interesting new ideas.