Comments for Soundings: Best Practices in Teaching and Technology

Comment on The Enemy is Powerpoint? by Chris

Chris — Wed, 05 May 2010 01:05:53 +0000

I don’t disagree Matt, but I also see the other side. I think powerpoint has become too popular, too ubiquitous, too canonical… when that happens, people use it without thinking about how to use it, or why they are using it. They just use it because everyone else uses it and it’s just the thing that is done, and everyone does it. That’s poison. I have to tell you… virtually all of the powerpoint presentations I’ve seen over the years are just lousy! (And I’ve done several crummy ones myself, I’ll cop to it!!!)

By the way, my students love power point as a foundation for short video lectures. They are completely opposed to talking heads.

Comment on The Enemy is Powerpoint? by Matt Crosslin

Matt Crosslin — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:46:25 +0000

I am no fan of PowerPoint, but this article also shows how ignorant people are of technology:

“PowerPoint makes us stupid”

Really? It reaches into our heads and removes information? Bill Gates is pretty powerful.. but that is a stretch.

“Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making.”

Really? It jumps out and tells people to stop discussing, thinking, and making decisions?

The real problem is people don’t know how to use the tool – the tool itself is neutral. The problem is that people don’t know anything about quality instructional design, but want an easy target so they go for the tool and not the teacher. PowerPoint doesn’t make us stupid – bad pedagogy does. PowerPoint does not stifle discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making – bad teachers and presenters do.

Of course, this reminds me of recently when Harriet and I were presenting at TxDLA on the future of the LMS. One evaluation told us that we need to quit having so many discussions and just give them a list of practical ways to use our ideas.

A practical way to use ideas about the future… all in a bullet list. Sigh…

Comment on Predicting the Future is a Risky Business by conway

conway — Sun, 02 May 2010 21:13:24 +0000

Matt, thanks for this post. Congratulations on your impending publication. Paper publishing is still preeminent in the humanities in Academia, but e-publication is gathering steam. Ten years from now I think a lot of the remaining resistance to e-publication (peer-reviewed, vetted) will have fallen away. Paper will continue to be published, but less, and more selectively. In a strange way, I think it will lead the publication of more enduring and better selection paper books, but more selectively, all the while surrounded by vast oceans of e-publishing, much of which will be considered to be as serious and rigorous as paper. But the immediacy of web publishing, and the lack of peer review in many instances, works against that form of publishing being taken seriously by the academic establishment and those who make decisions about tenure etc.

Comment on Broadcasting comes to Modern Languages by Jim Groom

Jim Groom — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:38:20 +0000

Lana,
The Guido Carducci’s “The Five Minute University” is priceless, and I have to agree their is no one way to make these larger questions sit neatly, and more than that there is no one right solution. I think that is where the questioning and thinking comes into play, and it seems that if it is going to happen, it best happen openly in a distributed method where we can all start thinking through these Gordion Knots together.

Comment on Mobility initiative? by jopling

jopling — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:35:45 +0000

This is coming from the bat cave next door to Matt’s bat cave and I was planning on discussion with him once I heard back, but the gun was jumped. In leading the migration project to Blackboard, I received this announcement last week.

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Blackboard-Bets-on-Mobile/21949/

I have a call into our rep to discuss.

I know our CIO is eager to go mobile from the admin side of things (e.g. MyMav) and am taking this aspect of academics from the mobile sense. It’s a start.

Comment on Getting Started? Part Two by Matt Crosslin

Matt Crosslin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:41:11 +0000

One point I would add to the discussion – rarely is there just one “best” or “right” tool for a specific educational objective. When I work with instructors to get classes online, I usually get to layout several tools that would all work equally well, and they choose the one they like best. This is important to note in online learning, because you have to use technology. Students rarely take online courses because they like technology. Studies have shown that they need the “anytime, anywhere” aspect – that was the selling point for them for that class (sometimes even that degree). They just can’t clear up their schedule to be at a class the same time every week. In fact, some studies even find that a majority of students enrolled in any given online class actually live near the campus the course is offered through. So, in these cases, we have to choose the tool that best fits student expectations. In other words, there might be a face-to-face tool that is better, but because of the asynchronous expectations of the students, we have to choose a good online tool.

But such is the nature of education – we always have to do the best with what we are given. I used to be a junior high Science teacher, so I know full well that part of the magic that is education is using a handful of dirt to teach the big bang theory (ask me to show you that one some time if you are curious

Comment on Getting Started? Part Two by Lana

Lana — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:22:01 +0000

I would like to underline what you said, Melissa:
“Ever since technology burst upon education, it has been examined in isolation, perhaps because of its newness, its novelty, its steep learning curve, its variety, and its constant change.”

We treat technology as if it is some kind of entity, when it should be treated exactly as you say — like a tool. I use a pen when it is the best tool for me to reach my goal, a certain reading passage from a book when it is, and a technological tool, a reading passage from the web, an audio text, when they are.

Comment on Getting Started? Part Two by Matt Crosslin

Matt Crosslin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:36:47 +0000

The Net Gen Skeptic is a great blog tracking research that shoots down the whole “Digital Native” myth:

http://www.netgenskeptic.com/

Comment on Creating a Virtual Presence For Your Students by Lana

Lana — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:04:26 +0000

Wow. If Moodle can do that, then that really connects to what Gardner Campbell was saying in his podcast. I remember years ago when my California friend Peter Bach, who already had a doctorate in Ed, and was getting a second one in German, was talking about having students involved in their own grading… But back to this idea — I think that Matt and Gardner are sending out similar ideas….

Here’s what I wrote to the Modern Languages and the Active Learning Committee listservs:

W. Gardner Campbell from Baylor (Gardner’s research interests: English Literature, Science Fiction, Technology, Literature and Music, Renaissance Literature, Technology, Critical Theory, …) He is Director of the Academy for Teaching and Learning at Baylor University, where he also serves as Assoc. Prof. of Literature, Media, and Learning in the Honors College. His ideas are highly thought-provoking. I’m quoting here from his podcast. (He was at one point at Mary Washington, where Jim Groom, who visited UTA recently, is Technology Specialist.)

A one-kind fits-all curriculum is likely to take children away from the objects that compel them. A one-kind fits all mode of assessment is going to ensure that we miss the richest opportunities for bonding for the deepest kind of learning.

Web 2.0, learning, and assessment: thoughts by Gardner. If any of this intrigues you, here is the audio:
http://www.gardnercampbell.net/podcast/assessment.mp3
and here is the blog post:
http://www.gardnercampbell.net/blog1/?p=1231

1. User-generated content makes web richly interactive and helps us co-create the web. … Interesting comment: Wikipedia, a “thing that will never work in theory; it will only work in practice.” Look at it carefully. Look at the way the community presents itself. Look at the discussion page. Look at the user page where the people who have contributed to the discussion have accumulated a lot of interaction on their own. … Think what that would be like if we had pages for our best teachers, … testimonials. Appreciative inquiry in a collection of rich layered narratives of outstanding teaching? … How inspiring would it be to read that stuff, to find out over many decades how these teachers have made a difference in students’ lives. … A startling demonstration to the world of the magic that happens.
2. Idea of network effects: can scale at the point of the reader, at the point of the student. The more you have in the mix, the richer the experiences. … Lifelong learning online environment.
3. The idea of the long tale. Much value emerges slowly over time.
4. Perpetual beta, … meaning subject to improvement at any time. Not a contract, but a starting place. Idea of syllabus as contract anathema to the idea of a learning experience. … Students come up with their own learning objectives; that’s their assignment at the beginning of the semester. (a la Barbara Sawhill!) Frightening, because it means that “all the targets are moving. Of course they are. Anybody ever been in a relationship before? The relationship changes the people in the relationship. Oh, dear. What if you adjust to your spouse, and your spouse adjusts to you, and now you have to adjust to the adjustment? You work at it.

Comment on Getting Started? by Lana

Lana — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:56:49 +0000

Yes, indeed, to Melissa and Chris. I would also add that if you work well with a mentor, get yourself one — a person with whom you can discuss all your ideas, dreams, and frustrations; a person with whom you can feel vulnerable, because that person will not be sitting on committees that judge your teaching, research, or service. We are very fortunate in Modern Languages to have such a person.