Want to share files? Need more than the 2 Gb limit in Dropbox or Box.net? Pogoplug allows you to share the files of a USB drive over the Internet. See Pogoplug at http://www.pogoplug.com/home-en.html

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Apple’s word-processing program, Pages, can now create ebooks. Files exported in the ePub format can be imported into iTunes which will cause them to show up in the Books section of iTunes. After you have synced your iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone with iTunes, the ebook will appear in iBooks.

In order to create ebooks with Pages, go to Apple’s support page found here. Interestingly, in the section “More details on using ePub,” it indicates that video can be embedded in the document. What it doesn’t state is that audio files can also be embedded into your ebook.

If you decide to create an ebook using Pages, which states that you need to download the file, “ePub Best Practices.” You can use the document as a template or import the paragraph styles from the ePub Best Practices document into a new or existing Pages document.

One of the nice features about videos embedded in an ebook in iBooks is that you can choose to make the video full-screen.

In the “old” days of educational technology, we asked students to create Powerpoint or Hyperstudio files. But now they can create multimedia ebooks that can be read on an iDevice.

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If you have your students blog and you want them to be able to keep their postings after the class is over, consider using Anthologize (AnthologizeYou will need a WordPress installed on a server; in other words this will not work at the hosted WordPress.com site.

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Here are some apps that students might want to use if they own and iPad:

Course Notes – http://www.coursenotesapp.com/ – With this app, you can organize your notes into multiple subjects, export them via email, transfer note sessions with other CourseNotes users, track assignments and ToDo lists for each subject, and build your own dictionary. In upcoming versions, you’ll be able to add drawings and images into your notes. $4.99

Audiotorium – http://audiotoriumapp.com/ - This app will allow you to create audio into your notes. You can also share your notes with friends. (As of this writing, Audiotorium is not available in the App Store so I don’t know the price. This site has some photos of it.

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Have a question about something? Ask Aardvark. This service allows you to ask a question and typically within a day, you’ll get an answer.

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The following are excerpts from the February, 2010 issue of Campus Technology, page 34.

I recently read some interesting information that was compiled by Project Tomorrow, a nonprofit organization that surveys K-12 students, teachers, administrators, preservice teachers, and parents nationwide to understand the trends in student learning. In 2008, they surveyed 281,500 K-12 students.

“When Julie Evans, the CEO of Project Tomorrow, gives presentations to higher ed leaders, she discovers that they are usually interested in the students that will be going to college in a couple of years – the high schoolers. But she explains that “looking at the middle school students or upper elementary students – in grades 3 through 8 – is actually a better instructional tool for them, because those kids have a very, very different view from their high school peers.”

“As example of those differences, she points to their viewpoints about online learning. ‘The traditional, conventional theory is that high school students take online classes because they want to get college credit and they want to have a class that fits into their schedule. But when we look at middle school students, they’re more interested in blended learning – where they take a traditional class with a teacher and then also have an online component.’

“Her point: ‘If I’m a college CIO (chief information officer) or CTO (chief technology officer), and I’m only thinking about the 100 percent online class that my students are looking for, then I’m not properly preparing for that next generation of students coming up, who want a blended approach. I want to be building for kids I’m going to see five-plus years from now.’”

“Evans lists nine attributes that characterize these students:
- They’re self-directed in their learning.
- They’re untethered from traditional education.
- They’re expert at personal data aggregation.
- They engage in the power of connections.
- They create new communities.
- They’re not tethered to physical networks.
- They prefer experiential learning.
- They’re content developers.
- The process is as important as – and sometimes more important than – the knowledge gained.”

“Ultimately, Evans says, “students want to define and direct their own educational destinies.” That will, she explains, require schools to develop new kinds of learning spaces, move to more social-based learning, tap digital resources that add relevancy, and move learning beyond the classroom walls, whether those walls reside in a district or on a campus.”

Here’s my take on this – Many of these characteristics such as being expert at personal data aggregation, they engage in power of connections, and they create new communities are features that tell me they are very comfortable in the online world. The fact that to them “the process is as important as the knowledge gained” tells me that they would prefer to learn by doing rather than by listening to a lecture or even engage in a discussion. They are content developers. They like to create and experience what they are learning.

So how do we change the learning environment? As already indicated, hybrid learning may help. Connections and learning communities are not made (or at least not as easily) in 50 minute periods. But learning that can be accomplished anytime, anywhere using mobile, portable devices that have wireless access will allow these students to thrive.

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The free online book New Technologies, New Pedagogies: Mobile Learning in Higher Education is available.

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At Tony Bates’ site, e-learning and distance education resources, he poses questions educational institutions should ask when attempting to determine how well they are integrating technology into their institution. At the end of 2010, a book co-authored by Tony Bates and Albert Sangra of the Open University of Catalonia will discuss each of these questions in more detail. Here are the questions:

1. Are there ‘champions’ with power and influence in the institution who recognize the importance of technology for conducting the business of the institution?
2. Does the institution have an advanced, comprehensive technology infrastructure that enables all staff, students and faculty to access computers, networks, software and services as required?
3. Has the institution digitalized its administrative services, and can staff, students and faculty access administrative information and services easily over the web?
4. Has the institution identified a clear, strategic rationale for the use of technology within the institution?
5. Has the institution identified additional financial resources or reallocated resources to support the integration of technology within the institution?
6. What proportion of staff, students and faculty are using technology and for what activities?
7. How innovative is the use of technology, particularly for teaching?
8. What level of support and training is given to instructors to ensure good quality teaching when using technology?
9. Are students learning better and getting better services as a result of technology integration?

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There are a number of products that act as personal response systems (also known as student response systems or “clickers”) that work with the iPod Touch or iPhone. Here’s what I have discovered so far:

Turning Technologies ResponseWare is versatile but there is a subscription fee that each student must pay. Also, the system pings Turning Technologies server once each second so you have to make sure your network will be able to handle that amount of traffic.

The eClicker by Big Nerd Ranch is limited to 32 clients (students). The Host application (for the instructor) costs $24.99 but the client app is free. The system is WiFi-based so an Internet connection is not necessary since the teacher can set up a wireless network (easily) if he or she has a Mac. (I don’t know if it is easy to set up a wireless network with a Windows computer.)

The app that seems the best (from what I can see) is iResponse Classroom Responder System. The app for the clients costs 99 cents and the host for the instructor’s computer is free. There is a Mac and PC version and there is a basic and Pro version for both platforms. The iResponse system is also WiFi based. Instructions for how to set up a wireless network with a Mac as well as instructions for using the software are available.

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The video below describes the concept of student-generated content. The basic idea is that one method of engaging the student is to have them generate content that illustrates the principles being learned in the class. Will students be enthusiastic about this? I don’t know but I suspect some students would not want to generate content but would rather just sit in class and be passive.

mondaydots in education: student generated content model from jeff monday on Vimeo.

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In the January 28, 2010 issue of Academic Impressions, the article “Considering Mobile Learning for Your Institution” discusses what institutions should consider when determining if they want to get involved in mobile learning. Judy Brown, founder and former director of the University of Wisconsin system’s Academic ADL Co-Lab, provides some insights when considering a mobile learning initiative.

The first question to ask is “will the learners be consumers of content, producers of content, or both?”

Mobile devices can be used not only for consuming information but can also be used for creating information as well. The keyboard of devices like the iPhone and iPod Touch allow limited keyboarding but the new iPad with its larger built-in keyboard and optional keyboard attachment should allow students to more easily create text.

Brown points that when we first adopt a new technology, we too often don’t envision new opportunities that the new technology will provide. For instance, in the early years of the Web, courses on the Web were nothing more than “shovelware,” instructors’ lecture notes converted to HTML with maybe some added photos. When one tries to duplicate online what is being done in the classroom, it doesn’t work. (See Conquering the Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Online Course Design, Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction, Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing.) Brown states that “We need to look instead at the capabilities unique to the new technologies. Look at the devices students are using every day, look at what these offer.”

The key thing to consider when considering uses of mobile devices is portability. While a laptop can do many of the things a mobile device can do, a portable device makes it much easier to accomplish these things. Here are a few examples of things that could be done with a mobile device:

• Record lectures  (See how the iPod Touch can be used to record audio.)
• Personal Response System (“Clickers”) – Turning Technologies’ ResponseWare
• Blog
• Contribute to a course wiki
• Listen to instructor-generated podcasts
• Subscribe to iTunes U videos
• Learn Human Anatomy through University of Utah’s Body Electric
• Create narrated slide shows with your photos using SonicPics
• Create a mind map with iBlueSky or iThoughts
• Create a personal wiki with VoodooPad and export to your iPod Touch or iPhone (Mac only)

Getting Started
Brown suggests that when you getting started considering implementing a mobile learning initiative, you should invite both “believers” and “non-believers” in order to provide an ongoing discussion about both opportunities as well as challenges. She also suggests that institutions begin with a pilot project or two. And institutions should provide as much support as possible to the faculty involved in the pilot project. 

Decisions to Make

Define Your Objectives – Brown suggests you ask why you want a mobile learning initiative and how you will know if you have reached your goals?

Define Your Audience – Who are the learners who will be involved in the mobile learning initiative. How will they be supported? Who is responsible for oversight and day-to-day operations of the mobile learning initiative?

Faculty Development – Who is responsible for training and supporting faculty in the appropriate use of mobile devices in the educational process? 


Further Thoughts
One of things that I’m afraid most college courses don’t do is develop a community of learners. Rather, students come to class, listen to a lecture and engage in some class discussion, and do homework. Although the class time provides an opportunity for discussion, this may be limited depending on the size of the class. And each class is typically only 50 minutes long. Will all students get their questions answered? Maybe or maybe not, depending on the complexity of the subject matter. If the class involves expressing opinions, will everyone have a chance to express their opinion? Maybe not if the class size is large and/or the topic has many facets to it. But if learning can be extended beyond the classroom, learning can become richer. Yes, learning occurs when a student reads his or her textbook and completes homework assignments but this activities are largely done individually. And a textbook doesn’t provide any interactivity (or at least not very much).  And a textbook only provides a linear explanation of a topic while a mobile device could allow a learner to access a variety of sources that could be compiled and organized by each individual learner. Tools such as Evernote (which works with both browsers and mobile devices) would allow learners to easily collect and modify information from Web sources, and even add voice annotations. 

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Hitch is a device that allows you to quickly transfer files from one device (such as an iPod) to another device (such as another iPod) without using a computer. This device would be helpful in a classroom where each student had an iPod or iPad and the teacher wanted to transfer files from his or her device to the the students’ iPods or iPads.

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Consider Mobile Learning for Your Institution

This article points out that although mobile learning is a topic of interest among educators, very few have implemented it on their campus. Judy Brown, the founder and former director of the University of Wisconsin system’s Academic ADL Co-Lab offers some suggestions and factors to consider if a college is considering mobile learning.

She suggests asking if you want students to be consumers of content, creators of content, or both.

Of course, three  devices that can enhance the mobile learning experience are the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad. To get ideas of how to implement the iPod Touch (and the iPad) into education, here are a few sites:

• iPod in Education Wiki
• iPod in Ed

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As teachers, we always tell our students to spread out their studying and don’t cram for a test. Daniel Willington, the author of the book, Why Don’t Students Like School, has an article “Allocating Student Study Time” which provides evidence for this advice. The article also contains a section, “What Could This Look Like in the Classroom?”

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Sanyo’s Xacti VPC-CS1 HD camcorder vies for ‘world’s smallest’ title — Engadget

This camcorder could be handy in an educational setting because of its small size but I wonder how it compares to something like the Flip Mino in terms of ease of use, importing of video, and video-editing software. The Flip MinoHD – 120 minute model cost @229.99 while the Sanyo camcorder will cost $299.

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At the Web site Alltop (http://www.alltop.com) you can create a Web page that contains RSS feeds of your choosing. You can see the Alltop page I created related to various anatomy and physiology topics by going to http://my.alltop.com/jjohnsonwbc.

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If you are like some software but would like something that has different features and/or is cheaper, check out Alternative To at http://alternativeto.net/

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SharedCopy is a free Web-based service that allows you place annotations and various other markups (highlight, lines, box, arrow) to a Web page and then share it with others. Go to http://sharedcopy.com/

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Suppose you want to provide your students with an article from the Web but you don’t want all the extra things on the Web page such as advertisements and other blocks of text. The Web site Readability (http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/) allows you to generate printable text and vary three things: the text style, text size, and margin width.

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The Pulse SmartPen created by Livescribe may be *the* thing for students to consider, especially if they take a lot of notes or if they can’t write very fast (or at least can’t keep up with the teacher). I recently purchased one and will give students turns in using it during a course. With this pen, files which contain the corresponding audio can be uploaded and viewed by others at the Community site.

Some interesting scenarios in the form of videos, including the ability of the SmartPen to translate words to other languages can be seen on this page called Sneekpeek.

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I learned today about a Web service called Drop Box (found at www.getdropbox.com), which has a number of features that will be beneficial to both individuals and groups. The Tour explains the features or you can watch the video.

For individuals who have more than one computer and they need to keep file synchronized, Drop Box allows you to easily keep the files in synch.

If you work with others, you can create a Shared folder, which will allow others to access the files. They can be shared with either Drop Box members or non-members. See this Web page for more details.

Free accounts come with 2MB of storage.

One of the things to think about is that if you put a file in the Drop Box that will be on your computer, you will have moved it from its original location so it would be best to put the original in the Drop Box and then put an alias in the folder where it was originally.

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Evernote allows you to clip information from the Web and edit the Web pages. You can create your own notes, drag and drop content into Evernote. Also, there is software that you can download that allows enter information and sync it with the Web-based content.

By default, the information is kept private on the Web but you can make it public.

A number of video tutorials are available here. The Getting Started Guide can be found here.

With the free account you are allowed up to 40MB of uploaded files each month. With a Premium account, which costs $5/month or $45/year. the amount of uploaded files allowed is 500MB. There are other advantages of upgrading to the Premium account. Click on this link for more details – Premium account.

You can also embed widgets into your Web pages such as the one below.

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An interesting comment from the Tony Bates in the article below is this:

“…technology has not yet transformed education:
- Student expectations about the educational experiences (e.g., connected, participatory, engaging) are not being realized
- Rather than introducing 21st century skills, technology is often being used to automate outdated education paradigms

In other words, technology is in the main just being added-on to the traditional classroom experience. Thus, while there are ‘pockets’ of innovation, technology is not being used for systematic change.”

Later, Bates states “Where are the ‘pockets’ of innovation? The area with the most potential is the use of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, and mobile technologies such as phones, cameras, and iPods, that allow learners to collect, create, share and evaluate their own learning materials.”

The state of e-learning, 2008

Posted using ShareThis

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I have assumed that DVDs would last a long time but this article by David Pogue points out the problem. It sounds like gold DVDs are the way to go (for the time being).

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In another post, I mentioned the Optoma Pico Projector that David Pogue reviewed. In a later article, David discussed other pico projectors. This article is worth the read if you are interested in purchasing one of these projectors, especially if the source of the video is important to you. The Optoma Pico projector can’t hookup to a laptop but the 3M Micro Professional Projector can. To learn more about the 3M Micro Professional Projector, check out this article.

Technorati Tags: projector

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Want a video projector for short distances? The Pico Projector, reviewed by David Pogue, might be worth getting for small classes. Cables come with it that allow you to hook up a variety of devices, including an iPod (both video iPods and the iPod Touch). But you’ll need a speaker because the speaker in the projector is pretty small.

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The folks at Inspiration, the popular software that allows you to create concept maps, have created My Webspiration, which is presently in beta. I’m very impressed. Not only can you create your own concept maps but you can also collaborate with others. Additionally, you can both import and export Inspiration 8 documents.

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If you you would like to create Web pages easily, download the free software, exe. You can download it from exelearning.org I have been using it extensively to for creating Web pages that have screencasts for the Anatomy and Physiology class that I am teaching as a hybrid course. Here’s a video describing exe:

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If you are an teacher and you would like to use a WordPress blogging site as a site for a course, you can install the Scholarpress plug-in available at ScholarPress Courseware.
Here is the description of what is available with their plug-in:

“As of version 1.0, ScholarPress Courseware gives you the ability to create entries in a schedule in the Schedule page, add items of various media to a bibliography in the Bibliography page, and assign those bibliography items to read (or create other types of assignments) in the Assignments page, and edit your course information in the Course Info page.”

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A nice software title that allows you to create tutorials by screencapturing portions of your computer monitor is the software ScreenSteps. With ScreenSteps, you can insert various images of various portions of what is on your screen and insert things like arrows, boxes, and circles. With the Pro version of the software, you can export the tutorial as a PDF or HTML page. Check out the videos on the Web site to learn about some of the other nice features.

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For those of you who are like Google Apps, there is a new Missing Manual. You can learn more about it by going to Google Apps: The Missing Manual. You can also download (as a PDF) the Table of Contents and the Introduction.

If you are not already familiar with Google Apps, you can go to the introductory page to learn more about them. One of the really nice apps is Google Docs since it allows a group of individuals to collaborate on a paper.

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Probably many of you are familiar with the various Google Apps but may not be familiar with the relatively new Microsoft Live Workspace.

If you need to collaborate with anyone or if your students need to collaborate, these are tools intended for that purpose although, of course, you can use them for your own personal work.

Since Microsoft Live Workspace is a “competitor” to Google Apps, I was interested in the review found at http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/office_live_workspace_vs_google_docs_feature_by_feature.php that compares these two.

If you read the comments posted in response to this article, you’ll notice the one particular comment that points out that the article failed to discuss some of the features of Google Apps not found in Microsoft Live Workspace.

So that you don’t have to figure out which comment I am referring to, here it is:

Google Docs is far better than Office Live, especially thanks to its real-time collaboration and mobile access. There are some any other features of Google Docs that should have been presented, such as the chat feature in spreadsheets and presentations or the integration of Google Docs with other apps (you can schedule an event in Google Calendar from a doc, you can integrate a doc in the brand new Google Sites wiki-like application, you can transform a Google Notebook into a doc, you can use a Google Spreadsheet as a web-based bookmark storage thanks to its integration with Google Co-op subscribed links, you can also published in Blogger directly from a doc, you can use a Google Doc spreadsheet template to upload a complex Google Earth map – see Google Earth Outreach, you can access from Gmail a Google shared spreadsheet even if it has been sent as attached email, etc.).

You missed so many advantages of a very web-based workspace, and you seem to ignore that Google is preparing to launch a Google-Gears enable version of their suite that will let you access and EDIT shared docs OFFLINE directly from your Internet Browser. This has been officially announced and is currently tested by Google teams.

MS Office Live is a “workaround” to retain users. To keep Office is to play against the “in the cloud” computing trend, which is the future of collaboration. If you like a continually improved editor, don’t wait years for the next Office version: Google release amazing features every week!

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Carnegie Mellon’s Enhancing Education Web site is very well structured and contains separate Web pages for these topics:

• Learning/Teaching Principles
• Design and Teach a Course
• Solve a Teaching Problem
• Use Educational Technology
• Try Something New
• Research Projects
• Other Resources

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At the 2007 Educause conference, Diane Zorn described an online course in philosophy that she created.

Here are the main points that I got out of this podcast:

“The goal of distance education, in my experience, is not to replicate the in-class experience but rather to go beyond what is possible in a conventional classroom.”

She used Mediasite which provides a video of the instructor along with the corresponding Powerpoint files but with a little ingenuity, something similar to this could be done using Keynote, Garageband, and iMovie.

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This is an interesting podcast – http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/e07podcasttomorrowsstuden/45344

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This video is quite impressive. It presents some interesting facts about tomorrow’s world and challenges us to consider what we are doing to prepare students for tomorrow’s world.

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I’m becoming more interested in how video can be used in education and how to make it interactive. An interesting application that can be used is VideoPaper Builder, a free program produced by the Concord Consortium.

If there is video on the Web (i.e., You Tube, Google Videos, etc.) and you want to create some text or hyperlinks that relate to certain objects within the video, go to Asterpix to see how easily this can be done.

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If you want to learn more about Web 2.0, Atomic Learning has a series of videos on the topic, which can be found at http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/web20/

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Zotero is an add-on for Firefox for those who want to keep track of information used in research. Check it out at Zotero.

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Hyperstudio has been resurrected and is in version 5.0 now. There are some new features. Years ago, I used Hyperstudio instead of Powerpoint and before Keynote was out.

I wonder if you can still export the Hyperstudio files and put them on the Web? If I remember correctly, a plug-in had to be installed on the server but I don’t think the user (the person wanting to view the Hyperstudio file on the web) had to install anything on their computer. (I know they had to install a Hyperstudio viewer on their computer and I assume that is still the case.)

Unfortunately, the MacKiev website provides some information but I’d like to see a more extensive list of the features.

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Kerika “lets you share your ideas, documents and projects with friends and colleagues around the world using Graphical Wikis: a unique approach to team collaboration that makes it easy for everyone to understand what your project is all about.”

This seems like a really good idea and the service is free for educators.

Check out the videos and tutorials at http://www.kerika.com/flash_demos.html

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In their article, “Learner differences in distance learning: Finding differences that matter,” Dillon and Greene (2003) point out that although there has been much research conducted in learning styles, it has been difficult to find reliable and valid measures of learning types. They also discuss the notion of field dependence and field independence. But what is particularly interesting in this chapter are two ideas that the authors propose regarding the relationship between learners and instruction. The first has to do with the notion whether distance educators should attempt to provide instruction that matches a learner’s learning style or cognitive style. The second concept is that there are characteristics of learners that are more important to focus on than matching learning style and cognitive style with the instruction in order to help learners achieve. These characteristics will be discussed below.
Dillon and Greene (2003) state that one of the most important goals of education is to help the learner learn how to learn. Rather than spending time attempting to design instruction so as to accommodate the differences among the learners, the authors state that “our ultimate goal should be to help learners learn in a variety of situations and under a variety of conditions, because that is the nature of the learning society in which we live” (Dillon & Greene, 2003, p.238). They go on to suggest that educators should “identify effective approaches to learning and then help students acquire the metacognitive skills needed to adopt those approaches in settings where they have been found to lead to success”(Dillon & Greene, 2003, p.239). They point out that there is large body of empirical research that shows that using different approaches to learning are very good predictors of both effort and achievement. (The authors provide seven references to support this statement.)

According to Dillon and Greene (2003), various approaches to learning are placed into action in terms of three areas: achievement goals, self-efficacy, and reported strategy use.

Achievement goals are the “the reasons students report for trying to learn in a particular setting (Dillon & Greene, 2003, p.239). They indicate that there are three types of achievement goals: learning goals, performance goals, and future goals. Learning goals relate to the desire to increase one’s understanding and skills. Performance goals relate to someone’s desire to do better than others and to protect one’s ego. The authors indicate that there is some research that has shown a negative relationship between performance goals and productive achievement behaviors, while on the other hand, there is a positive relationship between learning goals and self-regulation, strategy use, and effort. Likewise, there is a positive relationship between future goals, those goals that are distant, and productive achievement behaviors.

Self-efficacy refers to a person’s confidence in their ability to accomplish a task. It is not the same as global self-esteem and the confidence level varies with different content.

According to Dillon and Greene (2003), strategy use is influenced by goals and self-efficacy. Various forms of strategy use can be classified as either shallow processing or deep processing. While shallow processing involves processing information separate from existing knowledge, deep processing involves processing new information as it relates to existing knowledge, and attempting to elaborate on new information. This concept of deep processing reminds me David Ausubel’s subsumption theory (http://tip.psychology.org/ausubel.html) and the formation of schemata. The practice of concept mapping popularized by Joseph Novak is based on Ausubel’s subsumption theory and is a technique, which if used by a physical sense and mental sense, could be a strategy that could help learners process information at a deeper level. Novak’s book Learning How to Learn (1984) is a valuable resource on how to use concept mapping as a way of learning. Another book by Novak that is valuable is Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative Tools in Schools and Corporations (1998).
References
Dillon, C. and Greene, B. (2003). Learner differences in distance learning: Finding differences that matter. In M.G. Moore & W.G. Anderson (Eds). Handbook of distance education (pp.235-244). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Novak, J. D. (1984). Learning how to learn. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Novak. J. D. (1998). Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative Tools in Schools and Corporations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, Inc.

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What is Web 2.0. Let this video (from You Tube) illustrate it.

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In the course “Instructional Design and Development” that I am taking right now (Summer, 2007), we are reading through the book The Systematic Design of Instruction by Dick, Carey, and Carey. In Chapter 8, “Developing An Instructional Strategy,” the authors state that when an instructional designer is designing an instructional strategy for the knowledge domain called Intellectual Skills, that the designer should be aware of how learners have organized their entry knowledge in their memory. My thoughts on this is that maybe one of the ways of determining how a learner has organized their knowledge of a subject is to have them create a concept map of that knowledge.

The authors go on to say that the instructional strategy should provide ways for the learner to link new content to prerequisite knowledge that they have in their memory. They also state that the there should be direct instruction about the links and the relationships between the new knowledge and the existing knowledge. A concept map created by the instructor would be a very good way of illustrating the relationships.

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This site illustrates how to subscribe to a podcast using iTunes. It uses Flash so it is very easy to follow.

http://learnoutloud.castpost.com/PodcastItunes2.swf

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I just learned about a new site called Gliffy that allows you to create concept maps online. You can also collaborate with others.

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This is a site that is looking at technologies that are part of Web 2.0.

TechCrunch Comparing The Flickrs of Video

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Ned to have your student collaborate on a project. This site may be worth examining.

Web Collaborator – Free web-based collaboration software

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Here’s a great chart that allows you to see the flowchart for podcasting.

Podcasting 101 Flowchart on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

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