Recently in Collaboration Category

If you did not attend the workshop on using blog websites, here's the handout. The last slide includes addresses to websites I showed and can get you started with ideas. Again, my primary purpose for this topic is to help faculty get started with their own website, begin posting rich content that can be used in class or in collaboration with other people, and then begin to think creatively about how this technology can dramatically enhance what we do at the college. One step at a time, but I'm looking to get interested people together to brainstorm ideas. Here are two example sites: a very simple one I'm using now, and one demo site I put together for the presentation.

Here are the presentation and notes documents used by Fry, Duffy, Kline, and Hill during their CETL presentation April 3. We touched on many ideas and technologies, so don't try to absorb it all at once. Contact any of us and we can show you through any of the items we showed, such as using a wiki in class, setting up a blog-based website for class or portfolio using Wordpress (running my mental model assessment site) or Epsilen (New York Times portfolio site Jim showed). Lots of possibilities--but chew one bit at a time. Once you get the hang of these we'll jump into Twitter mode down the road...

Wikis are typically used to collaboratively write documents, but I used a wiki page in class today to compile a list of websites as students found them on their laptops. I had pairs of students search for certain types of sites, and when they found something they liked, they copy/pasted the URL into the wiki page--all right there in class. Simple and effective, and now we have a master list for everyone to reference as they continue through the class project we're working on.

Don't slap me - a wiki is simply a web-based document that all invited participants can edit collaboratively. It's much easier than emailing updated versions of a Word document, for example, and works great for group (or committee) projects. I'm trying it this semester - more details later.

During the last weekend in January of 2008, Barry Hill, Joel Kline, Mike Fry, and Jim Duffy attended the Educause Learning Initiative Conference in San Antonio. For me, (Barry), it represented a completely unexpected mindshift in my perspective on how students approach not just learning, but life in general. I have not generally used a great deal of technology in the classroom, and only viewing it as a tool to simply supplement what we do in our classes. It finally dawned on me that students don't just use technology, they live it and don't even think about it. They obtain information, collaborate with friends, and generate content in a totally digital media world. In other words,