Looking over Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy

Instructors who teach using technology owe it to themselves to take a look at Kairos, a refeered online journal that describes itself thusly:

In Kairos, we publish "webtexts," which are texts authored specifically for publication on the World Wide Web. These webtexts include scholarly examinations of large-scale issues related to special topics, individual and collaborative reviews of books and media, news and announcements of interest, interactive exchanges about previous Kairos publications, and extended interviews with leading scholars.

While Kairos focuses on the intersection of technology and writing, the insights its webtexts provide into the minds of hearts of teachers will be of interest to bloggers of all stripes, not just teachers of writing. Give it a look-see.

Amazing New Software Turns Any Computer into A TV Station

It's been tough keeping up with the blogs this summer because of a heavy summer teaching assignment. However, I had to get the word out on Alluvium, the amazing new software that turns any Internet-connected computer into a TV station.

Alluvium was developed by a team of students at the University of Texas at Austin. It allows anyone with any type of Internet connection, even the slow dial-up kind, to stream video to multiple computers anywhere in the world. The developers of Alluvium see all sorts of practical uses by ordinary Americans. Say you were to record your kids' softball game with your camcorder. Go ahead and stream it their grandparents' computers and the computers of all the other kids' parents. It's just like showing the game on TV. Anyone who wants to "tune in" to watch the game can do so.

Think for a minute about the applications to teaching and learning. Students could broadcast the trial run of an oral presentation to their instructor and others to get feedback before the actual presentation in class. Instructors could broadcast a review session prior to an exam. For that matter, a student with a camcorder could record classes and then broadcast them from his or her home computer. Once the word gets out about Alluvium, I'm sure others will come up with new and better ideas than the ones I've just identified.

In the course of a little over a year, Podcasting has caught on big in the world of higher ed (and among the general public). Will Alluvium be the next iPod? I'll let the rest of the story, reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, speak for itself:

In fact, Mr. Lopez [Joseph T. Lopez, one of the project's leaders]sees the program as a tool for independent artists to disseminate their work without turning to the entertainment industry for help. "The distribution system for music and movies is broken right now, and it's going to take the RIAA and the MPAA two or three years to figure it out," says Mr. Lopez, referring to the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. "I think our model could help change the way films are distributed."

Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley [Brandon Wiley, another team leader] will present their vision of a personal Internet-TV station in July, when their ACTLab TV station makes its debut on the Web. The station will have plenty of content to offer. It will broadcast more than a thousand videos, including experimental films and documentaries, created by students for the university's ACTLab, an art- and technology-based program for which both Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley serve as teaching assistants.

To keep their station running 24 hours a day, Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley are already accepting submissions from outside sources -- including, Mr. Lopez says, "animation, puppet shows, and some really unique content."

But before the station goes live (on the project's Web site), Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley say they still have plenty of work to do. Along with a staff of four, they have been pulling nearly sleepless nights archiving video footage and testing their software.

No one is getting paid for the work, and neither Mr. Lopez nor Mr. Wiley views the project as a business venture. But the project's shoestring budget is part of the point, according to Mr. Lopez. "We're just sitting here with machines that we had lying around, and we threw this together," he says. "Our whole idea was that it doesn't take $20,000 worth of electronics to run a TV station online."

Save My Whiteboard: Software to Save Class Notes

Professor Rob Frohne and family

People are always trying to save something. It could be the environment, a homeless dog, or just a dollar. Professor Rob Frohne of Walla Walla College tries to save his students, or at least their learning, and thus their grades, using software he created.

The picture of Professor Frohne, his family, and the beauty of Washington state was taken from his web site. When Dr. Frohne isn't enjoying inspiring mountain views, he puts his creative mind to work. Case in point: Save My Whiteboard. This free software was created by Professor Frohne to work in conjunction with a digital camera. It's purpose is to save and publish on the web the notes that he writes on the whiteboard during his classes. I'm sure that his students appreciate the effort to make learning just a little bit easier and more convenient.

For the rest of us, Professor Frohne has generously provided a free download of Save My Whiteboard. Check out the link provided in the title of this post for more details, including pictures of some of his class notes posted to the web using Save My Whiteboard. Maybe you'll want to create an historical record of your whiteboard notes, too.

Instructional Technology Through the Eyes of an IT Staffer

(The link is probably password protected, and available only to Chronicle subscribers.)
This week's Chronicle of Higher Education is chock full of articles on instructional technology and its implications for teaching and learning. "Why Many Faculty Members Aren't Excited About Technology" hits some obvious points, two of which bear restatement in a my own perhaps too blunt style:

• Teaching, research, and service. They're what faculty are paid to do. I can teach without technology, but I can't get a raise without research. Guess what I'm going to do first. If there's time left over to utilize technology in teaching, them maybe I'll do it. Until then, don't bother me. Solution: Universities should honor their pioneers who teach with technology by providing them with some of the same rewards provided to those who focus on research.
• "Talk to me in a language I can understand." That's what I'd like to say to some of the techies I've dealt with. Most IT staff are not teachers and so don't have the skills to teach me what I need to know in ways that don't make me feel stupid and inferior. Solution: Get another faculty member to teach me how to teach with technology.

OK, so what have I said? Well, for one thing, let's push the research out to the faculty that demonstrates that students learn more when classes are technologically enhanced. Almost every faculty member I know is concerned that students learn, and the more they learn the better. Second, when faculty commit to teaching with technology, universities must provide ways to free up some time for them to master the technology. Think temporary course load reductions.

Oh, and how about some enthusiasm and old-fashioned salemanship on the part of the people leading the technology charge. I can see the headline in a sales letter now, "The Hidden Secrets to Teaching Success Finally Revealed. Increase Your Teaching Evaluations 50%. Double Your Money-Back Guarantee! Act NOW!"

QuickTake: Students--Staying Ahead of the Curve

I had to write a quick followup to my previous post when I noticed that the University Business piece linked in that post and this one includes a take on student responses to technology in the classroom. Bart Collins, director of Digital Content for Teaching and Learning Technologies at Purdue, is featured:

Students, in Collins' experience, already get it. "In some ways," he says, "they're already past it." Desktops with webcams are already old hat. Student lifestyles are different from what they were a generation ago. They discount the idea that a person needs to be physically present in order to experience fully what is happening at another location. Flexibility is more important to them; how and when they communicate is up in the air. "I walk around lecturing, watching kids send instant messages while I'm talking," says Collins. "It may annoy me, but I have to acknowledge that a classroom is a place to have other relationships, too."

Flexibility! That's one characteristic of distance learning that appeals to faculty, too.

QuickTake: Collaboration Tools for Online Learning

The always reliable University Business has nice piece in the June issue on collaboration tools that facilitate distance learning. I especially like the recognition that technology doesn't obviate the need for effective course design. Efforts by Capitol College and Purdue University in utilizing products from Centra and Macromedia are featured. From what I keep reading, the schools that are lagging in this area are doing themselves a real disservice. It's amazing to me that Purdue employs about a thousand IT professionals to make distance learning work!

To Moodle or Not to Moodle, That is the Question

As a mere faculty member, I'm not privy to the size of the annual fee that my university pays for its chosen course management system, which is WebCT. I've heard rumors that its about $40,000 a year for the Campus Edition, but that the fee for the new, improved version, WebCT Vista, is many times that number. In any case, there are cheaper alternatives. And by cheaper, I mean FREE!

Moodle is free course managment software. Here's what the introduction page on the Moodle web site says:

Moodle is a software package for producing internet-based courses and web sites. It's an ongoing development project designed to support a social constructionist framework of education.

Moodle is provided freely as Open Source software (under the GNU Public License). Basically this means Moodle is copyrighted, but that you have additional freedoms. You are allowed to copy, use and modify Moodle provided that you agree to: provide the source to others; not modify or remove the original license and copyrights, and apply this same license to any derivative work. Read the license for full details and please contact the copyright holder directly if you have any questions.

Moodle will run on any computer that can run PHP, and can support many types of database (particularly MySQL).

The open source movement, in which useful educational software is written and then offered to users free of charge, is a surprising offshoot of the development of the Internet. And not a bad one. Schools that might not be able to easily afford the cost of commercial products such as WebCT and Blackboard can put their faculty to teaching with technology.

RSS Set to Revolutionize Communications?

There's a lesson for teaching and learning in the explosive growth of RSS: Really Simple Syndication. From eSchool News online:

Simply put, RSS allows you to follow information from multiple online sources, such as news web sites or "blogs" (web logs), without having to surf all over the web to find it.

Using an RSS reader, you can set up a nearly unlimited number of channels, or feeds, from various online sources that offer the technology. Whenever one of these sources is updated, the new information is pushed to your computer automatically in the form of a web link that appears in your RSS reader. By clicking on the link, you can access the entire original post or article.

Blogs ... have quickly caught on in the education field, giving scholars an opportunity to share their ideas in a dedicated, spam-free stream of information.

RSS is a natural fit for educators, who were frequent users of listservs.

"I really like the convenience of not having to go to a specific site" to find information, said Craig Nansen, the technology coordinator for Minot, N.D., Public Schools. "With RSS, I'm getting information I want when I want it, and I don't have to wade through any other junk. I had found that listservs were too cumbersome, and you didn't have easy access to archives."

I'm getting ready to use an RSS reader myself, so I found this story particularly interesting. By the way, the data show that about 5 percent of Internet users have an RSS reader, so don't feel left behind if you're not using one.

QuickTake: Wanna Take an Online Survey?

Follow the link in the post and you'll find 23 active surveys in which you will be able to participate. The Web Experiment List is housed at the University of Zurich.

QuickTake: Your Mind Online

It turns out that many people are quite willing to take surveys online.

Traditional pencil-and-paper surveys and other psychological research of days past depended in large part on the altruism of undergraduate students like her - they were the guinea pigs, if you like.

But posting the surveys online gives researchers a reach far beyond campus - to people of all ages, backgrounds, experiences and cultures.

"Most people who do this are not students or academics," says John Krantz, a psychology professor at Hanover College, Indiana, who runs a website of links to surveys called Psychological Research on the Net (psych.hanover.edu/research/exponnet.html). "They are just surfing the web, they come around, they are curious about something so they are willing to participate," he says.