Upstate New Media Faculty Seminar
This site will serve as the central hub of our Upstate participation in the network of other participating institutions.
Details and instructions will be shared in the seminar orientation on September 8.
TLT News
Welcome Back – Fall Opportunities
Greetings from the Department of Instructional Technology! Welcome back to campus. The DIT offers a variety of training and development opportunities and resources to assist faculty. Mark your calendars for these exciting opportunities this semester:
Digital Storytelling Academy
The very first USC Upstate Digital Storytelling Academy is a unique collaboration between members of the College of Arts and Sciences; the Department of Languages, Literature & Composition; The School of Education; the Academic Support Center; and the Department of Instructional Technology, and promises to be beneficial to individual participants as well as the entire USC Upstate community.
The DSA is designed to be a hands-on learning experience involving the use of digital media for storytelling and for improving classroom instruction. The project will consist of six sessions beginning in September, concluding with a “screening” in early December. Participants will learn to use the technological tools involved with digital storytelling and discuss various instructional/pedagogical implications of this exciting tool.
Application information was shared previously via email. Visit the Digital Storytelling Academy web home, call (5470) or email Cindy for more details.
The deadline to apply is this Friday, August 20. Participants will be notified by August 27.
Joint Faculty Seminar with the New Media Consortium, Baylor University and others
Plans are still being finalized, but please take note of this excellent development opportunity. The seminar will be lead by Gardner Campbell (Director of the Academy for Teaching and Learning at Baylor University) and Alan Levine (Vice President of Community and Chief Technology Officer for the New Media Consortium) and will be based upon selections from The New Media Reader. The reader is available in the USC Upstate Campus Bookstore (thanks to Jerry Carroll!) and excerpts are available online. The Baylor group will commence their discussions on September 8 and we will assemble a parallel cohort here. Please be in touch if you are interested in the seminar. Final details will be shared as soon as they are available.
T2x4
The tech lunch series from spring semester continues, expanding to every second and fourth Tuesday. All sessions are set for 12:15 p.m. in the IT Conference Room, Admin. 102, and will include:
- September 14 – DMCA, Fair Use and Copyright Update – Karen Swetland, Library Reference Coordinator.
- September 28 – Introduction to VoiceThread – Shannon Polchow, Assistant Professor of Spanish
- October 12 - Nurturing online conversations and engagement: blogs or threaded discussions? – Cindy Jennings, Director of Instructional Technology
- October 26 - PowerPoint Makeover – Creating and Delivering more effective presentations – Cindy Jennings, Director of Instructional Technology
- November 9 - Visual thinking in the classroom – new tools for engaging students – Cindy Jennings, Director of Instructional Technology
- November 23 - Networked learning – not just a fad anymore – Cindy Jennings, Director of Instructional Technology
Custom programs and individual assistance
Programs on a variety of teaching and learning with technology topics; as well as digital and new media tools and resoureces are available – designed for faculty or student groups. And…individual consultation and assistance is just a phone call or email away!
Cindy Jennings – 5470
Tom Davis – 5502
Important New EDUCAUSE Initiatives
Next Gen Learning Challenges – “…a new effort funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation…to identify and scale technology-enabled approaches that dramatically improve college readiness and completion particularly for low-income young adults.”
Visit the site to read more and participate in the conversation.
Visit the site to read more and participate in the conversation.
ELI Seeking Evidence of Impact (sei) - “As the pace of technology change continues unabated, institutions are faced with numerous decisions and choices with respect to support for teaching and learning. With many options and constrained budgets, faculty and administrators must make careful decisions about what practices to adopt and about where to invest their time, effort, and fiscal resources. As critical as these decisions are, the information available about the impact of these innovations is often scarce, uneven, or both. What evidence do we have that these changes and innovation are having the impact we hope for?…The ELI announces a program intended to bring the teaching and learning community into a discussion about ways of gathering evidence of the impact of our innovations and current practices.”
Visit the site to learn more and consider the opportunities for engagement in the conversation.
Ed Tech Predictions for a New Decade - 8 Months In
We are all pretty accustomed to reading new year prognostications in January. This year was a bit more ‘special’ as we entered the second decade in a new(ish) century. Of course, there was no shortage of predictions and musings in the ed tech world about trends and emerging technologies to watch. I have followed and collected a number of lists and pieces over the past months with themes worth paying attention to in my opinion. As we reflect on plans and promise of a new academic year and the learning opportunities before us and our students, I thought some of these might be worth considering.
Let’s begin with a little context building before we get to a few items from the lists. The Beloit College Mindset list for the class of 2014 was shared earlier this week. Notice the technologies mentioned in there – some are long gone and some are new and ubiquitous in the lives of our students. The ideas included in this 21st Century Students video provide another view from the perspective and in the voice of the young people themselves. Know that this video focuses on a younger age group than our students (hat tip to Mark Fijor from Arlington Heights Il. School District 25 for sharing this work), but the information is a wake-up call for rethinking traditions we hold on to in our classroom structures and relationships. A whole lot of our students live their lives in this digital context.
Now, on to some of the technology tools and trends to watch. Let’s begin with the short term (within the next 12 months) technologies to watch described in the latest NMC Horizon Report (visit the full 2010 web version of the HR here). From the Horizon Report,
“It should be noted that the Horizon Report is not a predictive tool. It is meant, rather, to highlight emerging technologies with considerable potential for our focus areas of teaching, learning, and creative inquiry. Each of them is already the focus of work at a number of innovative institutions around the world, and the work we showcase here reveals the promise of a wider impact”
So, the two near-term technologies to watch are mobile computing and open content.
CC licensed flickr photo shared by umpcportal.com / Steve Paine
Did you ever consider how to make use of those mobile devices (including smart phones, laptops and netbooks) most of our students come with in teaching/learning …rather than an outright ban? And what about open content? Do you know there is a growing culture of open sharing of educational content and resources? Just visit the MIT OpenCourseWare site and consider the possibilities. Consider the collaboration potential and opportunities for learning when we (individuals and institutions) all share and share alike.
For a bit of a different take on trends (including open content) I saved this piece from Inside Higher Ed from March by Ana Kamenetz, Adapt or Decline. While I may not necessarily agree with everything Kamenetz proposes as eventualities if we fail to embrace technology affordances, the exemplars she notes in the piece are important to follow.
Looking over some of the other lists and articles I see things like tools for simultaneous live document editing, tools for creating and sharing, curating and collaborating.
As I follow these conversations, I wonder what critical new (and emerging) literacies our students will need. And I wonder how well we are preparing them to be astute digital citizens.
Just food for thought.
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Resources Highlights
50 Ways to Use Wikis for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom - While the focus here is for younger students, there are some pretty good ideas for using wikis in teaching. The wiki spaces in Blackboard can be easily adapted for some of these purposes.
MERLOT Grapevine newsletter – a great resource collection including events, resources and features from MERLOT - ‘Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching’…this one is well worth a visit if you are not familiar with MERLOT.,
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In the News
No more free Ning accounts
Last week, the customizable social network platform announced they would no longer offer free accounts and that existing free sites would need to change to premium paid status or relocate. If you or your organization has used this site for creating a collaboration community, read more here at TechCrunch about the announcement and its ramifications. NingCreators posted this update on May 4.
More changes at Facebook raise concern over privacy…again
If you and/or your students are a regular Facebook user, you’ll want to read up on more stirrings as a result of what Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg describes as “the most transformative thing we have done for the web”. Read more here at CNNMoney.com by David Goldman .
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Study Abroad Ecuador
Bittersweet!
There are not enough words in the universe to described what we have experience in Ecuador. Today is Wednesday July 28, 2010 it is our last day in Ecuador it is definitely a bittersweet, day we are filled with excitements and sadness at the same time. We started our day by sharing our last breakfast together at the “Hostal“ our boarding home in Quito, Ecuador we continued with our day shopping at the “Mitad Mel Mundo “ center of the world a touristic market where we spent our afternoon shopping for souvenirs. We continued our shopping day at one of the biggest Ecuadorian mall in Quito where we also shared our last lunch. We spent the rest of our afternoon at the extreme response guest house sharing our favorite moments about our experience. It was such an intimate and emotional moment. Our wonderful teacher Dr. Moss “aka mom” went around the room blesses our hands with anointing oil. We were filled with tears .It was such a great experience that will forever marked every single one of our lives. We returned to the Bom café for supper where we continued sharing memories about our experience, then came moment of truth we have to catch our flight back home, although our flight was at 11: 30 pm we had to be at airport at 8:30 pm. Checking in at the Quito airport was an experience within itself we arrived at the fort Jackson airport in Atlanta, Georgia at 5:30 am we are finally home yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Overall our experience in Ecuador cannot be explained it can only be experienced
We would to give a special thanks to all our supporters and hosts a special thanks to
Mr. and Mrs. Moss “aka mom and dad”
Dr. Gibbs
Mike Bishop
Nick
Nelson
Extreme Response
by: Charlene Fils-Aime
Study Abroad Ecuador
Today we left Tosagua and flew back to Quito. We drove to the Andes Mountains on the outskirts of Quito to enjoy the Papallacta thermal baths. The water for the hot springs flows directly from the highest active volcano in the world. At an elevation of approximately 14,000 feet, the air around us was foggy and cold. The experience of relaxing in the hot baths while the air was so cool was invigorating. In the evening, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner in downtown Quito. The nighttime view of Quito from the top floor of the restaurant was gorgeous, and the food was delicious. We enjoyed sharing with each other about our experiences in Ecuador. Our time in Ecuador has been a truly life changing experience, and we all have memories that will last forever. For tomorrow, we are looking forward to a fun day of tourism and our flight home!
By Katie Andrews
Study Abroad Ecuador
Words cannot CANNOT describe the extremes to which we have just experienced. An hour drive brought us from Tosagua – a place of our subjective view of dilapidation and rural absence of modernity – to Manta, where a different kind of beauty is seen, from the intricate details of hotel’s pristine interior design to the beaches, bays and markets of the city. Traveling slightly further offshore, toward the dump, we found similarities in disparity of living conditions and the lack of resources compared to our previous screening areas. The people who called the dump home seemed of high spirits and full of smiles, just as we have found all of the people of Ecuador no matter the circumstance. It was encouraging today to have a physician on site to follow-up with the abnormals after our assessments. It has been consistently heartbreaking to see the lack of hygiene and hygiene resources in these communities of our screening, but yet encouraging knowing we are making a small difference. Nevertheless, this city in its entirety is gorgeous – a perfect haven of overnight rejuvenation.
Pictures to follow…troubles in picture upload land.
Study Abroad Ecuador
Hello everyone! After traveling for most of the day Thursday, July 22nd, we made it safely to Tosagua. Many of us experienced culture shock when arriving in Tosagua. The roads are made of dirt rather than pavement. There is much “hustle and bustle” on the streets every day, much like a flea market at home. There is a produce market across from where we are staying. Words can not describe the community well enough…pictures will follow as soon as possible.
On Friday morning, we began our first health screening in Tosagua at a local church. We did screenings all day and distributed hygiene packs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, vitamins, crayons, and coloring pages. We screened children and adults.
On Saturday, we traveled by bus to the community of La Madera. There we conducted another entire day of health screenings, seeing both children and adults. We distributed hygiene packs, vitamins, etc. as well. We even had the privilege of eating lunch in the home of a family within the community. Saturday night, we were invited to the “new season kick-off” banquet for the local soccer teams. We were seated in a special reserved section, and recognized for our work in the community of Tosagua. Although many of the people in the community are very poor, soccer is a very popular, family-oriented, and important event.
Today, we attended a local church service, where Dr. Moss taught proper handwashing technique and oral health to the children. After lunch, we made a 1.5 hour bus ride to the beach and spent the afternoon exploring the area on foot. We then had pizza at a restaurant near the beach. We wrapped up the night by packing for our next stop. Tomorrow, we travel by bus to Manta, where we will conduct more health screenings. Our trip continues to be an amazing learning experience, as we learn about community health and the role that culture plays in it. Each of us has exciting stories to share when we return home. More to come…
Allyson Acker
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is Dean of the George Dean Johnson Jr., College of Business and Economics and Professor of Economics at USC Upstate.
The first release of the TLT newsletter is now available!