Using Emerging Technologies

By Eileen O’Connor, Ph.D.

And peer & administrative support within Empire State College’s Center for Graduate Programs

The technologies and the sharing: the value of the Spiders

• Over the past few years, the following have been integrated into online courses: – Streaming video case-studies for discussion – Second Life – Wikis (www.wetpaint.com )– YouTube for microteaching

• Ideas and support from the Spiders & from the graduate dean – critical for enabling the use of emerging technologies

• To make online less text based and more truly interactive

• To continuously improve online courses so they can become more useful ways of creating a change in teaching practice

Having administrative and peer support has furthered this dream considerably – Some evidence on the following slides

Personal motto

Beginning with streaming video

• Giving online pre-service teachers a better opportunity to see effective teaching

Urban students with creative lessons were taped & then streamed into courses

Students showed concern & repartee & respect for each others ideas

Online graduate students were able to consider best practices that they were not necessarily seeing in their K12 observations

Second Life

• Interactivity and personalization for graduate courses

• Extended interaction opportunities – Across geography & disciplines

• A virtual meeting space, discussion area, and classroom

MAT Science Center (under revamping)

Class presentations – PowerPoint gone virtual

Multiple means of communication & real classrooms

Meeting the Dean

Guest lecturers – assistive technologies

ISTE – preparing for a meeting

NSF – NASA virtual meeting

Virtual, but real, weather

NOAA site - tsuanami

Best expressed through an instructional metaphor: like designing an intelligent experience (field trip /

discussions / role playing / construction) . . . with an assessment

Discussions / collaborations /

role playing

Explorations - Field trips

- Simulations

Building / creating

More advanced uses

Using wikis

• Testing ways to encourage better peer networking

• Creating real resources that can be used later

The assignmentprocess

Plan & create wiki w/ team

Anonymous peer assessment

Instructor evaluation

Peer comments circulated

Some made revisions

Final vote of publication ready

Findings & conclusions – no longer the vacuum of lost work – open education

Modeling • Emerging best practices for

K12 & teacher education

Easy to use • Plus instructor confidence in

participation

Ownership• Class pride and accountability

Useful products • Developed materials needed

in the course

Sophisticated learning • Moving beyond course topics;

more internet awareness

The peer assessment was an important facet of expanded learning

•School endorsement? Ongoing updating? Professional presence?

Web issues

•No longer simply content provider

•Orchestrating / managing timetable & process; review liaison

•Involvement in the thinking/learning process

Instructor role shifts

•How do you evaluate the complexities of a process when the standard is “the paper”?

• Do students and institutions truly value this type of work?

Valuing / assessing

•Useful content created; a legacy

•Greater involvement & professionalism

•Incorporating & modeling future ways of learning

HOWEVER

YouTubes

• Posting their microteaching lessons – within an online course

• Better review: – By content-pedagogy faculty – Assessment of use of technologies

• Better collegiality and knowledge of the students

Easy to use / excellent for performance based assessment

View students’ actual work

Determine if they are performing correctly . . . even at a

distance

Value to using YouTube, in general•Access

ible to most students

•Useful especially with online; improves student & teacher communication

Easily implemented

•Many facets can be studied

•Richer assessments possible since live materials can be readily reviewed

“Performance” can now be observed

•New questions arise about what is evidence of learning in the content area

New ways of teaching &

learning emerge

The support, sharing, & encouragement have been the most critical elements

• Ideas from colleagues; willingness to share and experiment

• Managerial support – ESSENTIAL if faculty are to embrace tech; especially early implementers

UNDERLYING THEME WITH NEW TECH: How do we value, integrate, measure, assess, and update-our-thinking about the affordances available with these amazing new communication tools?