Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Summaries of sessions at COLTT 2011-Day 1

CU Boulder, Atlas building
COLTT is the annual conference for online teaching and technology held at CU Boulder. This is my first COLTT conference and I have high expectations based on what others have said. Here is a blow-by-blow summary of attended sessions:

Wednesday, August 4, 2011

Alternate Reality Game as a Learning Narrative
The first session attended was one on scenario-based learning using virtual reality. A team from Front Range Community College created a scenario that incorporated QR codes, the funky little codes you occasionally see on advertisements. Each QR code provided a clue to a mystery. The session participants were broken into groups and were tasked to scan each QR code, read or listen or watch the clue, and develop a theory that solved the mystery. The QR codes provide an interesting possibility for classroom-based learning based on how they are used and the outcomes desired. Something to look into.

Improving Learning Outcomes and Increasing Effectiveness
This session was from Desire2Learn and focused on D2L tools that can be used for effective teaching.  The ePortfolio has tremendous possibilities as a student repository for students. The mobile platform consists of Campus Life (fee-based), Mobile Web (free) and Desire2Learn2Go (free and for blackberry only). Mobile Web is written in HTML5 and compatible with all mobile OSs. This includes access to content, grades, discussions, news and calendar. CampusLife is more of a portal for mobile devices. All of these can be turned on or off based on user permissions.

The Course Design Accelerator and Instructional Design Wizard are helpful for developing new courses. They include a drag-and-drop interface for associating tools with the course. Pretty cool, and this should save several steps in the development process.

Intelligent Agents work in the background and will execute based on criteria you specify. These can be used to notify students on login activity or similar. Agents execute based on release conditions and role within the course. Criteria include login activity, quiz scores, assignment status, discussion activity and so forth. The resulting email can be personalized using strings based on student information, including nicknames.

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn interfaces for D2L are coming in next release. You can also provide feedback via webcam or text.

Managing the Classroom..There's an App for That
This is a summary of available apps for smart devices

Attendance
An app for taking attendance via mobile phone

iStudiez Pro
Day planner, calendar, organizer tool for students, contact info for instructor. Does not sync with LMS.

Dropbox
Cloud-based storage that automatically syncs with all computers. limited space with free version.

Adobe Connect
Web casting, sessions are recordable, an app is available for smart phones, can be slow if not within wireless range.

Evernote
Free, collaborative tool, can take pictures and share, can also record messages, fully searchable.

Delicious
Allows tagging of websites and access remotely.

Others
Note taking

  • -Dragon dictation (voice to text translator)
  • -Tiny Vox (record a message and send via email )

 Reference

  • -Wikipedia (smart phone app)
  • -Wolfram Alpha (statistical aggregator-based search engine). Smart app not free, maybe $3 bucks.
  • -eduTecher (reference for education tools), free, 
Learning with Fun
  • Tour Wrist- provides a virtual tour of a city, 3D camera, hold camera in front and will recognize and annotate areas of the city.
In progress
  • eClicker (app version of clicker system), all students must have mobile device
  • Power Teacher- class management system for Android
On the Road Again: Online Tools for Working Remotely
This session emphasized the usefulness of cloud-based computing. The session used the cloud-based app Prezi. 

Evernote
Syncs with all OSs. you can record all kinds of stuff. Can also tag and categorize. It syncs to the cloud as well as iphone, android, apple and windows. He emphasized that if you don't want people to see your stuff then don't put it online. Period. The creation of new notes is quite simple involving a title and the note text. Can include text, images, and other media. 

Diigo
This is a social bookmarking site that allows highlighting and the addition of sticky notes. Sites are shareable. 

Dropbox
Works with Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, android, Blackberry. Cloud-based file storage. Automatically syncs with other devices. You can also access your files on the Dropbox website when your device is not available.

Mikogo
Free video conferencing. Supports up to 30 logins. Free for now.

Morning Keynote
Keynote scribbles
Gardner Campbell presented the Day 1 keynote titled Rebooting Higher-Ed: Networked, Mobile and Cognition-driven Learning. He offered a fascinating look at the methods used to distribute learning content, both in the classroom and within social networks. He provided a ton of resources that I attempted to scribble down as his slides flew across the screen. An example he used of sharing resources came from a dinner he had with a colleague. Unbeknownst to Gardner, his colleague had taken his picture during dinner and was using several mobile apps to create a caricature which he then sent to Gardner during dinner. The apps used included Photogene, Toonpaint, and Brushes. The result was amazing and wish I could have captured it off of his slide.

Gardner also mentioned several resources related to his talk. I won't try and place these into context but I suggest at least a quick peek. One, but not necessarily the best, site is linked to each resource below:


Fascinating stuff!



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