Online Collaboration in Teaching and Research

Where's the Power Point?

2009-01-08T11:00:00.000-06:00

First a note about presentations. I am using a "presentation blog" instead of Power Point! This is a great example of the transformations we are going to discuss:

PowerPoint

Paper-Centric (where did I put that?)
Static and singular (difficult to update and distribute after-the-fact)
Non-Interactive (Where are the responses, additions, and suggestions?)

Blogs

Web-Native (everyplace, anytime & active hyperlinks to resources)
Active Updating (simple, push-button updating online)
Interactive (open to input from selected group or worldwide readers)
Syndicated worldwide instantly via RSS (see the syndications in right column)

Collaboration in the New Digital Age

2009-01-08T10:50:00.001-06:00

Collaboration has taken many forms over the eons:

Cave Painting - pre-history
Cuneiform - 4000 B.C.
Papyrus - 2000 B.C.
Printing Press - 1440 A.D.
Telephone - 1880
Web (Mosaic browser) - 1993
Web 2.0 - 2004

Accelerating change has enabled and facilitated collaborations across time and space.

Forms of Collaboration in Higher Education

2009-01-08T10:40:00.001-06:00

Increasingly, the Internet is providing a framework for collaboration that crosses the world (note the connectivity in the title link) and time (through both synchronous and asynchronous collaborations). More details about U.S. use is available at the Pew Charitable Trust Internet Project site.

Many forms... a few models:

faculty < - > student (in class and online)
student < - > student (class project)
faculty < - > faculty (team teaching)

faculty < -across institution- > student (online team teaching)
student < -across institution- > student (projects)
faculty < -across institution- > faculty (guest speakers)

faculty < - > discipline (research publication)
student < - > discipline (project research)

faculty < - > broader community (book publication)
student < - > broader community (facebook)

National Survey of Student Engagement - 2008

2009-01-08T10:30:00.002-06:00

In 2008, the highly-regarded NSSE study conducted by Indiana University added a focus on online learning. Comparing first year and senior students in online and on ground classes, they found statistically significant differences between the two. They found that online learners reported more discussion, interaction, reflective thinking, and other indicators of successful collaboration. The complete report is linked the header (results on online learners are on pages 15 and 16).

The summary press release notes the results:
http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2008_Results/docs/withhold/PressRelease2008.pdf
Students taking most of their classes online report more deep approaches to learning in their classes, relative to classroom based learners. Furthermore, a larger share of online learners reported very often participating in intellectually challenging course activities.... When courses provided extensive, intellectually challenging writing activities, students engaged in more deep learning activities such as analysis, synthesis, and integration of ideas from various sources... students also reported greater personal, social, practical, and academic learning and development. McCormick says “Critics of distance education assume that face to face classes have inherent advantages as learning environments. But these results indicate that those who teach classes online may be making special efforts to engage their students.”

Blogs - Building Block of Web 2.0 Collaboration

2009-01-08T10:20:00.002-06:00

Web 2.0-enabled technologies are emerging as disruptive in the innovation sense popularized by Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen.

Example: Online Learning Update - originally launched in 2001 to serve students studying the advent of learning online. Now, 8,500 posts later, the blog has a reach that far more than ancipated. Type the words online learning into Google and you get some 60,000,000 returns!

This little blog comes up #2 or #3.

Look at the data of who has visited the blog in the past day.

And, yet, that is dwarfed by the RSS visitors to the blog. RSS is the engine that drives dissemination of blogs, podcasts, wikis and other Web 2.0 collaborative publication technologies.

It is simple to add an RSS feed via your web browser, or Google, or a hundred other services.

The comment mode makes it interactive! Multiple authors may be authorized for a blog.

Micro-blogging is an emerging tool - you can tweet with twitter! Reviews of 10 tools.

The Wiki - How it Works

2009-01-08T10:10:00.001-06:00

A Wiki is a great collaborative tool. It enables people to work together on a document anytime/anyplace - because the document is on the Web. And, they are spared that nasty morass of "track changes" of multiple colors and side notes that you have seen in Word documents that area emailed from group member to group member in endless cycles.

With a Wiki, someone initiates the document and shares it with the rest of the group. Anyone can make changes at any time. All prior versions of the document are stored in the history, so one can revert to a prior verision at any time.

Imagine a student group project. Have you ever encountered a student who reports "I did all of the work - Ray did none!" One of the great aspects of a Wiki is that you can see just what contributions and edits came each member of the group!

A Step Beyond Wiki - Google Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations

2009-01-08T10:00:00.000-06:00

Imagine having many of the office applications you use daily on your computer available online; all of your documents can be shared with collaborators around the world, day or night.

Co-authoring research papers or reports are much easier in this format because documents can be uploaded or saved back to your desktop in familiar .doc, .xls, .pdf, and .ppt formats!

Students pursuing guided independent study projects can do their work online, giving permission to faculty members to review the evolving project at any time, any stage, and make comments and recommend changes.

Other office suites are available online, such as http://zoho.com/ .

Another of the many useful Google tools is Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/ This tool not only filters returns for scholarly articles, but also digs out citations for those returns so those papers that cite the one selected can be reviewed.

The Ning Thing

2009-01-08T09:50:00.001-06:00

Ning is a social networking platform that enables users to create their own highly-robust social networking sites. With built in forums, messaging, wikis and tools for collaboration, Nings make collaboration easy!

Ning was developed by Marc Andreessen (Netscape founder) and Gina Bianchini.

Ning means "peace" in Chinese.

Please explore and join the NCLC Ning linked to the title.

Also check out the new COLRS ning on Teaching in a Recession!

Virtual Worlds - the Emerging Metaverse of Collaborations

2009-01-08T09:40:00.002-06:00

Perhaps the most energy in emerging teaching/learning collaboration technologies today is being put into creating virtual learning environments. These virtual worlds are populated with avatars. Avatars are those animated characters that can take almost any shape or form and - in many virtual worlds - can talk and interact with other avatars.

Second Life and other virtual environments enable a kind of immersion in learning and engagement. See how the avatars interact directly with one another.

The New Media Consortium is among the leaders in the use of Second Life for collaborations. An introduction to their islands is linked to the title of this posting.

UIS is currently collaborating with the Illinois Department of Public Health in the Brothers and Sisters United Against AIDS / HIV project. http://webcast.uis.edu/impatica/danto2/VidToursUIS.html

A great look ahead in virtual learning environments:http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/LookingtotheFutureHigherE/47222

An incomplete list of colleges and universities who are using SL:http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Institutions_and_Organizations_in_SL#UNIVERSITIES.2C_COLLEGES_.26_SCHOOLS

Second Life is not the only virtual environment:http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/

Not to be Flippant, but the Flip Video is Disruptive

2009-01-08T09:30:00.000-06:00

A number of new video cameras have emerged that are changing the way in which we use the Web. One of those cameras is the Flip - named for the flip-out USB connector.

The Flip has editing software built in. It allows you to take video and instantly plug in the USB to edit, store, share or upload to YouTube!

Here's an example of simply putting the camera down on a table and sitting down for a brief interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ny5uj-_0i8&feature=related

Imagine taking this camera to a regional conference - the Midwest Academy for Management - for instance. And, imagine recording brief interviews with presenters and other colleagues to serve as "virtual guest speakers" in your classes.

iPhone and iTouch

2009-01-08T09:20:00.002-06:00

The iPhone revolutionized the way in which phones are used. With more screen "real estate" for video and graphics, it opened the door to delivering a wide variety of learning opportunities to individuals on the go.

With gigabytes of storage, connectivity, and a larger screen than any phone/PDA before, we now have a canvas on which to paint the mobile learning environment of the near future.

It is the perfect medium for enhanced podcasts and vodcasts - the kinds of things that populate iTunes U! http://itunesu.pbwiki.com/

On the Horizon.....

2009-01-08T09:10:00.003-06:00

Each year the New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE jointly publish a look a the technologies on the horizon - both near and far. These have a focus on enagement and collaboration.

A new report linked to the header has just been released.

Also, I recommend you keep up with the technologies, techniques and related research via my blogs (the most recent postings are in the right column above). Each blog is published nightly - 365 days a year. They are available via RSS feeds and via a single daily email from each blog with a summary of three relevant items.

Beyond the Horizon: Extending Moore's Law and the Technological Singularity

2009-01-08T09:00:00.001-06:00

This year we surpassed one billion computers on the planet with two billion predicted by 2015.

Moore's Law, like the Energizer Bunny, just keeps going and going and going. Its demise has been predicted half a dozen times, but just in time a new technology is developed to keep the pace going. Simply stated, the law is that the capability of integrated circuits, the building block of computing capacity, increases at an exponential rate - doubling every two years (at an equal or lower cost).

Here's a logarithmic chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Moores_law.svg

The technological singularity is described as a time when the power of artificial intelligence on single computer will eclipse the capability of a human brain. Promoted by futurist Ray Kurzweil this is calculated to be achieved in the coming decade or two. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PPTSuperComputersPRINT.jpg

Sloan Consortium Workshops

2009-01-08T08:55:00.000-06:00

Online faculty development workshops are available to UIC, UIS, and UIUC faculty members via the University of Illinois membership and College Pass. 2009 workshops currently scheduled are linked to the header. These workshops provide an outstanding opportunity to engage faculty members from universities around the US (and beyond) in learning and applying new technologies and techniques to enable collaboration in online learning.

Contacting Ray

2009-01-08T08:50:00.001-06:00

Ray Schroeder
Professor Emeritus and Director

Center for Online Learning, Research and Service
Office of Technology-Enhanced Learning
University of Illinois at Springfield
Springfield, IL 62703

217.206.7531

schroeder.ray@uis.edu

http://rayschroeder.googlepages.com/