Techs in Class

Online based learning...

2012-03-13T10:31:00.001-07:00

I pulled myself away from drilling over "the new iPad" to write this post.

I am excited about moving into the online class phase of the course. I think it will be very interesting and a need prospective for the future of technological education. I see the ability to teach an online class will be a necessity for the vast majority of educators over the next 10 years. Even the Ivy League schools such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton all offer online degrees and classes. Most importantly, when students graduate from these "online Ivy" schools, their degree is no different than those who went full time on campus. Schools will quickly figure out that they can make more bottom line profit, more alumni donations, better community relations, better name recognition and branding by supplementing their colleges with online courses. So i see this next part as a vital way to begin the online teaching process, b being a student.

Apple and education

2012-03-01T09:15:00.003-08:00

A great article over at Sacred Techs about the future of Apple's tech in the classroom.

Social Media in Class

2012-03-01T09:13:00.002-08:00

After our social media presentation, I think we realized how many tools are out there to add a dimension to social studying. However, if are going to use social networking in the classroom , we have to realize there will be push back from student. Jeremy did make a great point, "Why should I be forced to join Facebook?" Privacy issues aside, we should not force students to join a non-school site. (I feel school mandated sites are a different category.) Also we cannot assume that all students are on Facebook, though a vast majority are. Can we use it as an optional tool, that is not grade dependent? Sure. I feel most of the push book from student is not joining as much as it is opening a personal work to a facility member and issues that may arise within. As we should be careful letting students into our private worlds. Also cautioning mixing our work and private lives. We should not feel that we ned to respond to student irately if the post a questions on Facebook or an e-mail. That we can leave work at work.

7 steps to maximize free dropbox space (How I earned 22 GB Free).

2012-02-24T08:31:00.000-08:00

My current Dropbox capacity

Dropbox is perfect for me. I am student who lives more than an hour away from Campus. I am working on a large master thesis. I want to be able to work on it wherever I want. So I used dropbox, not only to work on it, but store my e-book, and files I use. So in light of our group using social media in the classroom I thought I would describe how I got to 22GB free of Dropbox space and how you can to.

1.) Sign up through a friend for 2.25 GB (+ 250MB)

If you sing up through a friend referral link you get an extra 250 MB. If you sign up through a referral, you get 250 MB bonus and your friend get 250 MB referral bonus

Click here to sign up to get it

2.) Use your .edu e-mail address: (+500MB)

Even better, if you're a student, we double the amount of referral bonuses to 500MB per friend and up to 16GB of extra space for Dropbox Basic accounts and 32GB for Dropbox Pro accounts.

3.) Connected it to you social media (+750MB)
Click here to connect it
www.dropbox.com/free

3

4.) Take a tour (+250MB)
For people new to Dropbox, there are a few things you should try out first. There is a list of tasks to get started, and when you finish this quest, you’ll get an extra 250MB free.

5.) Refer People (+500MB for .edu e-mail address)
For every friend who joins and installs Dropbox, you get 500 MB and your friend 250 MB of bonus space (up to a limit of 16 GB)!

6.) Be a Beta Software Tester(+5GB)
Dropbox will give free space to beta testers, when they are developing software. If you have a windows 7 computer you can get 5 GB free that does NOT count against your referral 16GB. Follow the tutorial here. It worked perfectly for me!! Now I have all my vacation photos backed up online.

7.) Use your Blog and Website, get a free google word ad credit: (+16GB)
WARNING: this is for the daring!
The process is outlined here. I changed it slightly and set mine to "prepay" then used by $100 google word ad credit. So when it ran out, it ran out and no worrying needed and NO CREDIT CARD WAS NEEDED TO SIGN UP! I maxed out my space in 3 hours on a thursday night. I set my google word ad to use $100 a day, (the entire amount of the gift credit).

My results from doing this

RESULTS:
This is an actual screen shot of my results. I have about 22 GB of Free Dropbox space using all the techniques above.

Teaching in the Year 2022...

2012-02-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

In 10 years there is no doubt that teaching will change. However, these changes will be forced mostly by economics forcing Universities to change, which in turns forces professors to change.

Some questions for teaching in 10 years:

1.) Online, campus, or cell phone Universities
Will Online degree, which are cheaper, be held in higher regard as an alternative to high price universities? Will online universities, take students away from private or smaller colleges and universities? Will larger R1 universities expand there online presence so that you will not be able to tell if a degree was granted from Harvard or Harvard online? Basic economics will force more Universities to the online world, despite drawbacks. College teaching my resemble more the University of Phoenix model. Where professor will teach at least one online class a month. Reputations will be established my E-book and digital course (like iTunes U.) Could you do anaenitre degree from an iPad or cell phone with apps?

2.) College libraries will NOT have books.
See post here. The profitability of E-books, the digitalizing of library books collections and also 3D image rendering of artifacts will be the new cash cows since these will be sold for digital textbooks and ebooks (Like permission of using a photo used to be for paper books). University libraries will who some physical books in off-campus locations, since all books will be online. The university will intern, transform the library to study space or classrooms, etc. Academic librarians will likely take on a new an different role.

3.) Academia will speed up.
In my field, the discover of lead codexs from an antiquities dealer in Jordan was a big deal. However, 3 days later the majority of academics with computers and pictures declared them a fake ON YOUTUBE. See video here

4.) Will cheaper technology bridge the digital divide?
A growing concern is the bridge between schools that have money and those that do not. It is not just a public school issue, where chad strapped schools are not able to prepare students for the digital world. I this a college issue. I can tell you when I was a Duke student 9 years ago, the hardware and software used, is ahead of what UGA USES NOW! However, with digital textbooks, lower computer prices and cell phones, will this decrease a digital divide for students? However, universities that do not upgrade their computer systems, might be the new digital divide.

5.) The classroom will change:
It will be easier for professors to digitally publish material. An all-in-one tool for professors to record (video and/or Sound) or lecture and easily upload to an Universities website or iTunes. The classroom will be digital oriented. Why?
For a university to publish their professor digitally will become a source of revenue. Give away a few lectures for free, then have potential students sign up and pay tuition online. What will seemly be integrated is advertising and marketing. Just like Youtube.com or hulu, ads placed before the lecture starts will become a money stream. These will be sold to students as "cutting tuition costs." College students are one of if not THE most profitable market for retailers. A captive college audience = $$$$

The google-verse

2012-02-20T13:52:00.000-08:00

Google is quickly taken over the inter-verse as we speak. On the while i have great experiences working over google products (Docs, groups, sites, blogger, etc). I commute to campus twice a week and these products help me to work on school projects and communicate with classmate for a study purposes.

The only Negative I have about google is there Google word ads. They pay very a little for those of us that us our sites for ad space, yet it costs a whole lot to advertise on them.

Facebook is the nearest competitor to google and I assume they will start to integrate more of these google-like features in there "time-sucking blue vortex." They are starting to chip away at google ad lead. Google is a more general advertiser, while Facebook is much more narrow in the ad range.

Facebook will certainly be able to chip away at Google's lead in several of these functions and already have. Look at the recent addition of Facebook e-mail address. Note Facebook pages are already laid out like a web page. The big loser in this is yahoo, (which bought the dying Myspace) in About 8 years or so, look for google and Facebook to be on equal footing.

I personally, would like an all in one solution and I think Facebook would provide that much better than google has the potential to do, mostly due to Facebook's addictive social interactions, which no other company has been able to crack that market.

Clickers...

2012-02-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

Before class on Tuesday, I had very little interaction with clickers in the classroom. I can see how they would be very useful in a large lecture hall setting, even if it just to take attendance!

Religion can be one of those sensitive topics. Students having some anonymity is very intriguing. Also the ability for a rapid feedback of material. What is being gasped, what is not, way needs more clarification. Plus the idea to have a more interactive and active classroom is a major plus!

The down sides? Having students buy a $50 clicker, is a little pricey. However, if there is a departmental commitment for several professors to use these, I would be more comfortable asking students buy one.

Also, a clicker app is available on smart phone, for a fraction of the price! I can see the app being used in smaller classroom setting and where departments are not committed to use the expensive clickers in the classroom. While students having their cell phones, might be a concern, as well as student who do not have access to a smartphone. Also, I now know (thanks to Earth, Wind and Fire) that UGA does have a small classroom set that can be checked out.

I am looking forward to integrating more "polling" questions in my powerpoints.

When technology fails in the classroom...

2012-02-13T08:44:00.000-08:00

We have all had technology failures. The overhead bulb that goes out. The battery on the laptop that dies. I had one of those last week. Luckily, I planned ahead and have my powerpoints on my cell phone, along with a small cable in my bag, which allows a hook up to .

I learned you need a back-up plan. Here are some tips:

1.) Keep a hard copy of lecture notes with you.

2.) Put all vital power points, movies, etc, on a "cloud" (An offsite easily assessable server, you could always borrow a student computer if your does not work.)

3.) Know who to call, if something goes wrong. Know which of your students are in Computer science, etc.

4.) I keep a DVD in my mailbox that I can show, just in case. I have a student that I can email who will show it if my car breaks down, etc.

PLE/PLN (Personal Learning Environment/Network)

2012-02-04T18:52:00.000-08:00

First, A good old definition is needed (Thanks Wikipedia!)

Personal Learning Networks are informal learning networks which consist of the people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from in a Personal learning Enviroment. In a PLN, a person makes a connection with another person with the specific intent that some type of learning will occur because of that connection.

My Personal Learning Network is best exemplified in the below diagram (which I got from this site)

Really web access is at the center of my PLN. The big way I network with University colleagues is through my RSS feeder where I regularly read over 25 blogs. It is a great place to comment and read and exchange ideas. The major new learning environment push is iTunes U, wether its podcasts or lecture videos. These are a great place to exchange ideas, course design, teaching analogies and more! The Biblio-bloging community is a great tool for young scholars such as myself. Our annual meeting at the Society for Biblical Literature is "informal" Usually consisting of meeting up at a bar and exchanging ideas. Obviously blogs are connected to Youtube, Facebook and twitter, all of which we exchange professional and the occasional personal note.

iPhone: A New BOLD Teaching Experiment

2012-02-02T08:36:00.000-08:00

(Thanks to Zack Debell for sing the pic)

Today I decided to embark on an usual experiment: teach a class using only an iPhone.

This had been a backup plan. If my computer died in the middle of class, or other circumstances arose, I could plug my iPhone into the projector. I have all my Powerpoint slide on the iCloud server and a presentation app on my phone. Well, today I decided to try it out and here are my findings.

The Good:

1.) Portable and Light-weight, Easy set-up:

I can see how attractive it would be to just carry a cell phone with all my presentations, books, e-mail, all integrated in a nice pocket size device. An entire backpack in a cell phone! All I used was a simple cable adapter to plug it in the overhead. No messing with a laptop power plug, etc.

2.) Laser Pointer:

The nice part of the program was the "laser pointer" feature. All I had to do was hold my finger on the screen and a laser pointer arrow would show up on the screen. Very cool!! It got all the students attentions, just like a real laser pointer does for cats and dogs. Though no students ended up chasing their tails.

3.) Swipe:

Just swipe our finger and the slide moves, very quickly!

4.) Power:

After an hour and a half of heavy use, my cell phone was at 80% power. I would have had to plug my laptop in.

5.) Privacy:

When I closed the powerpoint, the projector screen went blank. No background laptop pictures. No text or e-mail interruptions or pop ups. When I closed the presentation those popped up, but the student never saw, all they saw was the powerpoint slides or nothing. This enabled me to quickly change a minor mis-spelling very quickly and easily have the error changed on the server.

Also the image on the projection screen looked great! no image distortions or anything.

The Bad:

1.) Screen is too small:

The screen was really too small to read my slides off of and I had to look at the projected board. I have many prompts typed in below my slides that I reference. These are easy to see when I look off my laptop. iPhone was way too small to read those. However, I think an iPad (larger screen) would have been much easier (and might be my next experiment!)

2.) Tethered to a cord:

My phone was tethers me to the projector (see the picture above). I might bring in my Apple TV and wirelessly project (Airplay) the image, thus allowing me to walk around and not be confined to a desk. I had put the phone down whenever, I want to walk up to the board and make a point, etc. I think a wireless solution would be very interesting and freeing.

Points to ponder:

How did the students react to my cell phone?

Is this giving them license to use theirs in class?

I would greatly value any feedback from others...

If you enjoyed this article give me a +1 or like!

Jesus speaks on the use of technology

2012-02-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

Via Radio Free Babylon

Why the UGA library will be classroom space in 5 years...

2012-02-01T11:45:00.000-08:00

There will be no more paper books in them

Professional website

2012-01-30T06:36:00.000-08:00

I have had a professional website for about 4 years now. I started using iWeb and update it about every summer or so. I am working on switching over to using dreamweaver or possibly waiting for CS 6. Anyway. here it is www.stevepurtell.com

Why Pinterest is the new "Facebook"

2012-01-26T15:49:00.000-08:00

This post stems from our class discussion of Pinterest as a possible academic tool. Our team tech talk is on the use of social media in the classroom, thus this post.

Confession: my wife is obsessed with Pinterest. For the past 3 months, she has moved on from Facebook to Pinterest. When she has free time, she is logging on Pinterest and pinning pictures of cute hairstyles, puppy breeds and decor ideas. She also follows my sister, her sister and our mothers in exchanging ideas about whatever is visually appealing. Pinterest says you can "Re-decorate a room, plan a wedding, find your style, save your recipes" points to marketing toward a mostly female crowd.

While, I enjoying cooking and am the cook of the household, I could use some help finding my style, have no budget for redecorating and I am pretty sure the majority of men did not plan their own wedding (though my input was greatly valued in the beer and hors d'oeuvres category in wedding planning).

Thus, I was already familiar with the new time-sucking visual pin-board site and perhaps, even a little skeptical about it academic applicabilities. This site has parallels with Facebook, the original addictive site. Upon Facebook's arrival the establishment bemoaned the lost of personal contact and the likely distraction from studies, with little inherent productive value. Now Facebook has become the corporate establishment with business and even academics flocking to it. Is Pinterest headed down the same path? Our groups assignment focusing on social media in the classroom, this seemed like an site worth investigating.

(Full Disclosure: Is it now a man-card violation to be seen on Pinterest? I received conflicting rulings from several men...thus I surfed from the privacy of looking over my wife's shoulder with my man card undoubtabtly in tact).

First thought: Could this really be used for class?

The most comparable thing of Pinterest is Facebook, but it is much more visual, less private information is shared by the nature of it being a picture-oritentd. You can only handle so many political articles and potty training pictures from friends on Facebook. It will suck you in and be as much time consuming if not more than Facebook. Which has pros and cons. I can use my computer to tie my paper, then get distracted with ESPN.com or shopping online for a laser pointer of class and a hour later remember I have a paper due. I have a feeling that Pinterest could be great for class, but also suck away time from doing other studying or class assignments. Additionally...

Could this be used specifically in my class?

Religion and Art go together in many ways that would make Pinterest appealing for my academic use. Possibly, having students discover art related to the Christian Trinity, Islamic Calligraphy, Buddhist prayer banners, etc. Having students re-pin and comment below could be very interesting in terms of exploring and capturing religion and religious acts around the world. Even finding pictures that promote a certain stereotypes of religious people for discussion purposes. Negatively, you might be hesitant to express any picture imagery that conveys religions on a personal Pinterest page. Religion is not a safe or popular topic to openly express online and even amongst friends. (Side note: this is why religion and political science majors are not popular party guests). Religion can be very visually oriented, however...

How could this be used for non-visiually oriented classes?

Some concepts in religion are difficult to explain visually, what other academic areas would have a hard time finding visual concepts? Can you teach grammar and other english writing concepts with this? What about adult education? Business concepts? International policy? The most important question is...

How do you check students contribution for grading purposes?

It looks like it would be quite tedious to go through and check for students names for grading purposes. Twitter is much easier, since you can have students just add your username to tweets. Facebook can be just as difficult if you have a class wall.

Conclusions:

I think Pinterests has potential in the academic realm, the issues would be how to check for grading as well as the time sucking factor. Also, do people really want to share religious ideas on their Pinterest? To quote one of my students definitions, "Religion is whatever keeps my mom happy."

NOTE: please hit the "+1" button if this was at all on topic.

Experts discuss E-textbooks and iPads in classroom on NPR

2012-01-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

NPR did an excellent 15 minute piece on E-textbooks in the classroom and it implications. While it focus on K-12, it does touch on higher education.

you can listen to it here. I have a screen shot from their website describing who was on the panel and a brief blurb about the content

TODAY IS TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2012

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 11:00 AM EST

The Digital Future Of Textbooks

The revolution brewing in your child’s backpack. One little computer tablet may soon replace all those big old textbooks.

Apple employees demonstrate interactive features of iBooks 2 for iPad, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 in New York. IBooks 2 will be able to display books with videos and other interactive features. (AP)

It hits in middle school. The twenty-pound school backpack. Loaded with notepads and pencils and gear and – above all – textbooks. Big old heavy paper-and-ink textbooks loaded with math lessons and history and diagrams of frog intestines. It sounds so 20^th Century.

Now, there’s a push on to throw out the textbooks and load everything a young student needs onto one little nifty tablet computer. Weighs just a pound. Carries the world. As many digital textbooks as you like. Ready to dazzle. Will they work?

This hour, On Point: when textbooks go digital, go tablet.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Katie Ash, staff writer for Education Week and Education Week’s tech publication “Digital Directions.”

Charlene Chausis, Manager for Technology Training & Integration at the Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill.

John Bailey, director of Whiteboard Advisers, an education consulting group. He worked in the Bush administration Director of Education Technology at the US department of education. At the White House, he was a domestic adviser to the president on education and labor policies.

Why E-textbooks Will Change Academia

2012-01-19T19:02:00.000-08:00

First, if you have not watched the apple keynote from today, you can find the short version here (8 minutes long) and the long version (55 minutes) here.

1.) ~~Publish or Perish~~ E-Publish or Perish: Will Digital Scholarship quickly become the new standard in obtaining tenure? Apples big innovation in E-textbooks and iTunes U seeks to legitimate Digital scholarship. When applying for tenure will boards be reviewing uploaded content? Will they ask for a sample of lectures? Review a digital curriculum?

2.) ~~Paper~~ Digital thesis: My thesis is half way done, ~~after a format check~~, and in a matter of 30 minutes, I was able to drag it into Apple’s new iBooks author program and add photos of objects, a video I made and part of a taped class lecture, all of which support my argument and could uploaded it to the Apple website and distribute it to my facility digitally. This would be an incredible tool for a visually oriented thesis. Literary, replacing a 1000 words with a picture.

3.) Digital Curriculum: I then spend the next 30 minutes transitioning my PPT slides, lecture notes and syllabus to a digital curriculum using the free program. If I had more time I could make my whole curriculum online and accessible to all Religion 1001 students. I can even make videos that would help in reviewing concepts and as study aids. Will the digital curriculum allow professors to easily transition to online education? Perhaps teaching an inline summer semester for extra income?

4.) Social Textbooks: To what extent will E-textbooks take on a social dimension? Could students directly interact with authors via the authors’ facebook wall? Or correct minor grammatical errors or omissions? Interact with other students online who are on the same chapter? This could be a doorway to attract talented students to universities by forming relationships directly from author to student.

5.) Hard Truth: UGA is behind the curve in this area. Take a look at the list of universities on iTunes U. UGA is not on there, but many small universities and even K-12 has their professors already engaging and garnering a digital reputation. More than half of SEC schools are ALREADY listed on iTunes U. Watching a clip from an MIT professor in physics, make me want to go to MIT and take courses from their professors. These clips will be shown in high schools and other universities. This in turn means talented students will seek to apply elsewhere. We have incredibly talented facility; resources need to quickly be put in this area.

6.) The scholarship of teaching will become more important. Good scholars will always have a place, but perhaps with an emphasis on digital curriculum and teaching presence via these devices will force those who see teaching classes as a nuisance that distracts from “serious work” to learn how to teach. Students will start shopping for classes via professor on iTunes U, those who can teach will stand out, those who cannot will go to the background.

7.) Personal impact: I am applying for Ph.D. schools, I am now shopping for who I would like to work with on iTunes U and by their digital scholarship. I have seen in-class, lectures, syllabi and class content from Shaye Cohen (Brown), Mark Goodacre (Duke) and Bob Cargill (Iowa). I now have a better grasp on what they would be to work with their personality and expectations. I have seen a semester of their courses, textbooks used, etc. Even though I have applied to other schools, I am less likely to go there, due to not having as holistic a picture of other scholars.

The last question is how will content be protected from copyright? Should it be protect?

Additionally I found these article to be helpful on reflecting on these issues:
Open Culture
CNN

Sacred Techs

2012-01-13T10:06:00.000-08:00

As a Teaching Instructor for Introduction to Religion: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I am very much aware that my students come to my class with various backgrounds and experiences of Religion and religious people. While Religion is likely the last subject that most students would associate with the use of any technology, the reality is far different.

One reason I came to enroll in this class to discuss and experience the current use of technology in the classroom. Can twitter or texting be an effective learning tool? How can iPad, smartphones or Youtube complement in class learning?

I have had several past experiences using technology in the classroom. In my time as a secondary educator, we learned that we cannot assume all students have access to the internet and technology resources outside school hours. In college environment, we most likely cannot make the assumptions that all students are familiar with Twitter, Facebook, blogging or have smartphones, thought it seems the vast majority are. Additionally I have learned one key component: to ALWAYS have a back up plan when using technology in the classroom. Technology demons happen.

Even before this class, technology has been able to connect myself with other professionals in the field, through blogs, where we can exchange ideas about classroom technology. an example is collaborative Biblio-blog called, "Sacred Techs" For instance, since students come with such varying background, having them keep a blog of their thoughts experiences as we cover these three different religions can be invaluable. Dr. Robert Cargill at UCLA offered extra credit for students who regularly blogged their thought about class sessions and linked them on his blog roll. They are a very fascinating read and can be found here and located under the heading “student blogs.” You can also see the lectures for classes on iTunes U, to experience exactly what the students are experiencing.

We did spend a good amount of time in classes discussing how to “catch” students who are during lectures, playing on Facebook, etc,.While, my best strategy is to walk around the classroom and lecture and use my clicker to change slides on my computers and monitor students, also gives me an opportunity to do more a “talk show format”. Just sit down next to student and ask what they think, etc.

Overall, I am looking forward to exchanging ideas and trying out new technologies with my classroom peers.