academhack

For those who have teaching writing and composition, or for that matter anyone who requires analytic writing in their classes, you might want to check out The Topoi brought to you by USC Writing Program and Mark Marino (of Writer Response Theory).

One of the things I have wondered is how long it will take professors (mostly talking about higher ed. here, as K-12 has been far better at this in my estimation) to start leveraging the web for pedagogical purposes, and not just in terms of sharing narrative, ideas, thoughts, philosophies about teaching, but actually sharing teaching tools. It seems to me that we repeat a lot of content across colleges and universities, especially in the core courses. So, why not share some of these resources rather than having instructors re-invent the wheel everywhere. To be sure a lot of sharing does go on, especially intra-institutionally, or at the level of swapping syllabi, but still much more can be done.

In that regard, enter the Topoi. What Mark has collected here in one page are a series of writing tools to help with basic composition instruction. But the innovation here is to collect the tools as a series of “widgets.” This means as an instructor you can easily borrow from what Mark has collected to suit your particular needs. Think of this as Textbook 2.0 with a serious “rip-mix-burn” aesthetic/ethic. Because everything is in a self-contained widget it is easy to take the pieces you need and put them into your own writing/composition assignments or class resource page.

It’s a bit hard to explain, so just click on over to the USC page and have a look for yourself.

HASTAC’s digital media and learning competition is now open. This year the competition is focused on participatory learning, with grants of up to $250,000. Of particular interest though is the young innovator awards (with grants of up to $30,000) focused on getting young scholars age 18-25 to propose what comes next.

For those who have not already seen this, my suggestion that you take my class for free was picked up on by The Chronicle of Higher Ed. (In the comments there are also several other online classes listed.)

More importantly though, it looks like there is significant interest in this class, and it looks more and more likely. The key hurdle right now is the technical one. So far I have been only able to find online video conferencing which supports six users. I will know more soon so check back here for updates. My plan would be to select people, coordinate a time for the discussion session and start these after Sep. 1st.

Note: If you emailed me asking to join and have not received a response from me, please email me again so I can make sure you are on the list.

And the word for obvious conclusion of the week goes to John William Pope Center for Higher Education which concludes that sharing syllabi online is a good idea. Really? You’re kidding sharing knowledge actually helps?

Seriously is there a reason to not do this? Are you really going to suggest that education is fostered by being secret and clandestine, treating the syllabus as some proprietary, rare commodity available only to a select group of students? Please! Publish your syllabus online, not behind a firewall, not only can your students see what they should expect for the class, but professors and students at other Universities can use the syllabus as a resource.

What about syllabus stealing you ask? Here’s your solution: publish all your syllabi on the web, give them a creative commons license. Now another faculty can use as he/she sees fit, but only if they give you credit . . . problem solved.

Updated

Yesterday I decided to post the working syllabus for my grad class for the upcoming semester in an attempt to elicit feedback before I make some final choices. I then posted that I had done this twitter. Not surprisingly I received some useful feedback. What I hadn’t anticipated was interest in taking this class from people in my twitter network, mostly grad. students at other universities where a course like this is not offered. So, then I started thinking, why not give the class away for free to those who want it?

Here’s what I am thinking:

The class at UTD (University of Texas at Dallas) is structured like a typical graduate seminar, that is a heavy amount of reading, followed by class discussion/lecture lead by me. It is easy enough for anyone to download the syllabus, and do the reading. The difficult part is coordinating some sort of online discussion section for those who are not at UTD, as I feel a large part of the learning experience is informed by discoursing about the material. What I thought might work is the following:

• Students who want to take this class do the reading as they would with any graduate seminar.
• I record all my grad classes, so the students who want to take this class who are not at UTD could download the recording as a podcast, and listen to it. This clearly is not as good as being in class, but gets closer to the experience.
• Then, sometime later in the week, we (by we I mean me and those who want to take it online) “meet” online somewhere to discuss the reading for say an hour.

This would not be for credit from UTD, the knowledge is free, the degree will cost you money. Grad students who are currently enrolled at another university though could arrange with their home institution to take a directed reading on this material, with a professor at their university signing off on it, perhaps by writing a seminar paper which that professor would evaluate. Of course grad students who just want the knowledge would not have to do any work save reading, listening, and showing up for a discussion. Think of it as a more formalized reading group.

So, I am considering conducting this experiment. Serious, you can just take this class for free, I’ll give away the knowledge. A couple of caveats though. First I am not sure I can do this, I need to find a way to host online discussion, preferably video conferencing. Second, I am only going to do this if I have the right group of people and the right number. I think perhaps between 5-10 committed students. Less than five the discussion is not so productive, more than ten and it can get out of hand. Also I am thinking of limiting this to grad students currently enrolled at other universities. I realize this is rather prejudicial, but if I am going to do this I want to “stack the deck in my favor” by having a group that has a relatively homogenous sense of purpose and educational background, this makes the discussion far more productive (I could be convinced otherwise though).

Thoughts? Issues I haven’t thought of? An idea for how to host a video conference for between 5-10 people? Leave a comment.

Interested in this class? Send me an email, and if I get enough response just maybe I’ll run this experiment in free knowledge. So, pass the word around to grad students who are interested in Emerging Media, but don’t have classes at their schools. You can find information about the class at the course blog.

Update: Nils Peterson asks why not do the “full monte” (i.e. make the class really progressive and refigure even assessment?). Read his post, and my reply at his blog. (Basically I agree with him, but this is just a strategic first step.)

For those who requested it, here is the information and links to the talk I recently gave to the Texas Community College Teacher’s Association.

Approaching Digital Literacy: Creating a Networked Culture on Campus (Texas Community College Teachers Association 2008). (You can download the high quality Quicktime Movie or the lower quality mp4.) Below are the references for this presentation:

• Mark Pesce on Hyperconnectivity: A lot of my thinking on what happens when we increase the speed at which people are connected comes from Pesce, particularly this presentation.
• Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody: This is one of the best books on how organizing changes in the age of the network. Shirky’s book is both informed and accessible. He also did an interview for weblogg-ed which focuses on education.
• Micheal Wesch is well known in academia for his work on Web 2.0. In this presentation at the University of Manitoba he talks specifically about using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.
• Axel Bruns’s book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond is worth reading. His thoughts on how the industrial model of production is shifting to a “produsage” one carries implications for academia.
• In the presentation I talk about Sakai and Moodle which are free alternatives to Blackboard, WebCT etc. However, I prefer something like edublogs, as blogs offer one of the best alternatives to Course Management Software.
• If you are looking for more analysis, news, and tips on digital literacy and academia, Digital Campus (a bi-weekly podcast) is one of the best places to start.
• Finally this talk references MIT Open Courseware, Open Yale Courses, and Physics for Presidents.

Two useful (perhaps) links that are worth taking a look at (both discovered via twitter—thanks twitter friends):

• Ideas for Taking Notes: This is a response on meta-filter to ways to take notes when you are reading large sums of material. Some of the methods here will be familiar to academics, and “brain-in-a-box” software like Devon and Onenote gets a mention. There are some creative ideas though, like using a digital camera . . .
• Limesurvey: This one I have been waiting for, an open source survey application.

If anyone doubts that the age of mobile computing is here compare the lines at your local Apple store (or just search Flickr) and compare those to lines at Sprint, or TMobile. When someone asks me about the iPhone, I explain it is not a phone but rather a portable computer that happens to make phone calls. While the cell-phone companies were slow to innovate, Apple moved on the market, and we are now seeing the beginning of a transformation. Granted the iPhone is still expensive, and has a limited market share. Other companies are copying the iPhone though, and hopefully projects like Android will drive the price down making mobile computing devices fairly ubiquitous.

The significant change this last week in the iPhone though was not GPS or 3G network access, but rather the ability to put applications on the phone, allowing users to customize the phone and drastically increase its usefulness. I have had the iPhone since last year and noticed it allowed me to leave my computer at home a lot more, and now with applications I can see this being even more the case. There are a lot of educational possibilities for something like this once more students and instructors have access to mobile computing devices, but for now I thought I would mention the iPhone applications which have a place on my mobile computer already. Most are free, or really cheap. (Note: I have more apps than those listed here, but these are the ones that I already use for academic purposes, or know I will once the semester starts.)

• BookZ ($1.99): Reading books on a mobile device (Kindle, Sony eReader) doesn’t quite measure up to the analog device yet, the user interface for the paper copy is still significantly better. That having been said, it is still useful for me to carry around a book or two on the phone to read, or consult when needed. While there are several book readers already available for the iPhone, of the ones I tried this was my favorite. The ability to customize the font size and type is perhaps the most important feature. Now anywhere I go I can get a text from Project Gutenberg and read away. I even read Doctorow’s Little Brother this way.
• Twitterific (free): No surprise here given my appreciation for microblogging. Hopefully an application like Twhirl which handles multiple microblogging services will soon be available for the iPhone.
• WordPress (free): Since I use blogs as my basic course management software having access to them via my mobile device is important if I want to rely only on my phone. Now I can post class updates, amend prior posts etc, all without a computer. Wordpress supports multiple blogs, making it easy to post to all of my classes. I was hoping for MarsEdit mobile but this will do for now.
• NetNewsWire (free):Still a little buggy, and it doesn’t have all the feature I want, but I can now keep up with The Chronicle, Inside Higher Ed, and all of the blogs I follow from anywhere.
• OmniFocus ($19.99): Okay I know what you are thinking $20 for a phone application. But Omni makes great software, and the ability to carry my GTD sorted todo list with me anywhere and have it sync to my computer at home is worth the price. Couple that with location aware contexts (”I see you are on campus, here are the things you need to do”) and you have the killer todo application.
• Wikipedia (free): This is the only web app (i.e. you don’t download this from the store it is just a webpage to access) on my list. Wikipedia anywhere is useful but this bookmark goes to a web optimized version.
• FileMagnet ($4.99): FileMagnet lets you transfer files from your computer to your iPhone. In other words carry your syllabi with you everywhere, or any .pdf file for that matter.

(Brief mention for my favorite non-work related iPhone app: Urbanspoon.)

Any other academically useful iPhone apps? or requests for apps?

Update: Liberal Education today links to some of the more science oriented apps.

Lately I have been spending more time than usual thinking about the future of education, not just in terms of how to use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom, but more broadly how the ubiquitous nature of knowledge and information is going to transform the institution of higher education. Now granted this is a large topic, and by no means do I have the time to write a post sufficiently addressing that issue, or even a post addressing one aspect of that question, but something I read on Smart Mobs got me to thinking.

A teacher at Woodland Park High School has turned the classic pedagogical structure around. Instead of having students come to class to listen to a lecture, and go home to do homework/problem sets, he records the lectures, students watch them at home, and they spend the class time working with the material in a hands-on way. So this idea coupled with a series of posts on edwired (a great blog you should add to your feed) about the future of the institution made me wonder is this the future? That is professors giving away content for free (lectures, ideas, the main substance) and than charging for the premium content of in class time. Perhaps. And, I am not sure this already doesn’t happen in some respects: MIT Open Course Ware, Yale Open Courses.

More later as I develop this . . . perhaps. In the meantime leave comments/thoughts.

It’s no secret that I think Blackboard and WebCT are a scam. They charge excessive rates for a second rate, clunky product, and Blackboard is trying to patent and corner the market (all around bad for education). At any rate I think most of what Blackboard offers can be done for free, in a more user friendly way. For my purposes a blog covers almost everything I need (consider me to be edupunk). I do however realize that there are some feature others want that are not as easy with a blog (online grades, test quizzes, etc.). Some faculty are simply looking for a more robust Course Management Platform. Enter Nfomedia.

A couple of weeks ago someone emailed me about Nfomedia, suggesting I take a look at it. Nfomedia is trying to be a free online courseware choice, with a full list of features. (It appears that they are going to make money by charging for a “premium” service,” but the free set of features will more than meet most needs.) Once you create an account (this was actually the only annoying step-see below) it is relatively easy to set up a series of course pages. The site works like a wiki (I suspect that they are using wiki-software to run the back end) allowing the professor or teacher to simply add content. One can add a syllabus page, assignment pages, note, or content pages. All of these are treated as nodes so you can link between them, pretty much getting your students all the class info you would need. What’s more they also offer a gradebook and exams (although I wouldn’t necessarily store students grades on a third party site). Furthermore Nfomedia allows you to register students, or have students register themselves, allowing for email distribution etc. to all of the students. Finally the way Nfomedia is set up at the end of the semester you can roll over all the general class information and delete out the student specific information. So, if you are teaching the same class over and over again you only have to write the content pages once.

The only part of Nfomedia that was less than user friendly was the registration process. When you register if your University or School is not already listed, you have to wait for approval before creating a course page. (At first I thought this was to make sure you are associated with an institution, but I think it also might be so that they can collect all of the schools who are using Nfomedia-sort of a bragging process.) Whatever the reason for this step, seems to me that they could just let your start immediately and not wait for approval, perhaps waiting for approval before your site can go public. In fairness though it took less than 24 hours for approval, I just hate to wait for this sort of think.

Finally one last word of caution: It might not be as easy to get the data in an out of Nfomedia as a blog, if for example Nfomedia wanted to eliminate the free account, or if the site ceased to exist. Clearly this is also a problem for the big dogs like Blackboard and WebCT, if you institution switches it might not be so easy to get the professors’ data out.