Models and Best Practices for Using Clickers

i>clicker inventor, Tim Stelzer, presents “Models and Best Practices for Using Clickers” at the University of Michigan on September 1, 2010.

i>clicker!

ISS is pleased to announce the adoption of a new student response system, i>clicker, which will replace the Qwizdom system as of Fall 2010. i>clicker is a flexible, user-friendly and reliable system that works on both Macs and PCs and will allow instructors to incorporate websites, media and virtually any other type of application. Check out the story in the University Record.

ISS will be conducting workshops on how to use this new system throughout the summer. Faculty can sign up for one of these workshops at http://www.umich.edu/~teachtec.

To register as an i>clicker user for Fall, please sign up on the Instructional Consulting page.

OS X Intro

New to the Mac environment?  Want to touch up your skills on OS X?  Take a look at the following tutorial.  Originally made for a Visual Communication Technology course at BGSU (an updated, edited version for U of M will be made available soon), this PDF will take you step-by-step through the Mac operating system.  Simply download the file and open using Adobe Reader (do not open using Preview).  It will open full-screen and will guide you through Apple OS X.

Please visit our wiki to download the tutorial:

http://g333.pbworks.com/Computer-Basics

The Social Media Revolution

The eLearning Technology blog has an interesting video up about the Social Media revolution that has overtaken much of the world. Some of the interesting statistics posted included:

2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction

1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum

80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?

Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available

I don’t think it’s quite news to most people these days that the changes in the way information is sent, sought out and digested has major implications for the way instructors teach and the way students learn, but I do think that often we don’t fully understand the scope of just how large Web 2.0 really is.

The World Digital Library

The World Digital Library makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures from around the world on one site, in a variety of ways. These cultural treasures include, but are not limited to, manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings.

Items on the WDL may easily be browsed by place, time, topic, type of item, and contributing institution, or can be located by an open-ended search, in several languages. Special features include interactive geographic clusters, a timeline, advanced image-viewing and interpretive capabilities. Item-level descriptions and interviews with curators about featured items provide additional information.

Navigation tools and content descriptions are provided in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Many more languages are represented in the actual books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other primary materials, which are provided in their original languages.

The World Digital Library

A Twitter + teaching skeptic (me) reconsiders

This evening a friend posted a tweet about tips for Twitter academic users.  Although I am a Twitter user, and have personal and professional friends with whom I twitter, I have had a difficult time envisioning how Twitter can be used effectively in most classes.  For maintaining simple communications across the country, following a conference through someone else’s experience or picking up interesting tips, Twitter has been a simple tool to use.  But some good educational examples were harder for me to perceive.

Then Judi Franz, a friend from UC-Irvine, posted a tweet link to Jill Gordon’s 100 Serious Twitter Tips for Academics.  Because it is a topic soon to be broached in a meeting, I thought I should approach the ideas with an open mind.  Gordon provides some real and appropriate suggestions for using the technology.  The article is not a simple list, but rather is divided into useful, focused sections such as Twitter Etiquette, Assignments Using Twitter or Finding People in Academia to Follow and contains myriad links.

Check it out and suggest it to another skeptic too.  If you have ideas for using Twitter in the learning process, please post a comment here so that others (and I) can benefit from your knowledge and creativity!

Is 7 your lucky number?

If it is, and especially if it isn’t (!) the “Seven Things You Should Know About …” series by Educause Learning Initiatives is well worth a look.  Each  3-page brief on various instructional technology topics provides an overview of the topic, such as geolocation or citizen journalism, its pros, cons, implications, and examples of how it is actually used in teaching in higher education.  Is your new interest in digital storytelling?  data visualization? twitter?  There are currently 51 briefs available and more are added regularly. Check it out at http://www.educause.edu/ELI/ELIResources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAbout/7495.

And, since UM is a member of Educause, while you are looking at the 7 Things series, check out the other wonderful resources available to you at the Educause Learning Initiatives site http://www.educause.edu/eli.  It is an impressive resource!