Mind the Gap

Have you observed some of your silent, seemingly passive students glued to Facebook or clustered around a computer, talking animatedly? How many of your students have cited a Wikipedia article as a reference? When you want to know something these days, where do you look first? Do you notice differences between how people learn outside versus inside the classroom? If so, what are these differences and what does this mean for learning in higher education? In this brief hybrid workshop, we will explore ways students learn outside the classroom and what it might mean for in-class learning.
Note: This may be used as the first part of a two-part series, with The Connected Student.

Jane Harris, Pamela Howe, Nikolas Hunnicutt - University of North Carolina at Greensboro Instructional Technology Consultants

The Connected Student

The research on the efficacy of active learning strategies is well-established. Many have found that technology not only supports, but requires active learning by students. This brief hybrid workshop explores the link between active learning and current online technologies, the instructor and student skills that are necessary to support active learning online, and mentions a few of the current technologies being used.
Note: This may be used as the second part of a two-part series with Mind the Gap.

Jane Harris, Pamela Howe, Nikolas Hunnicutt - University of North Carolina at Greensboro Instructional Technology Consultants

Beyond the Mirror

Assistant Professor Duane Cyrus leads the viewer through examples of implementing video/audio feedback and notes to demonstrate the pedagogical benefits to students. Video/audio technology isimplemented as a regular part of the learning environment. Examples of this model are applicable for hybrid, distance, as well as classroom courses.

Duane Cyrus - University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Promoting Collaboration with Wikis

Today’s learners expect more than online lectures or one-way communications in distance courses. Activities that promote interaction and collaboration with their peers are becoming a fundamental part of how students learn. Within a wiki, learners possessing little or no knowledge of HTML can collaboratively use, create and modify web content. In this brief hybrid workshop, we’ll explore the different ways you can use wikis to promote collaboration in an online course.

Amanda Schipman - University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Using Social Bookmarks to Share, Organize, and Assess Online Content

Social bookmarking sites are information management tools that allow users to save a site's location, and categorize the site using tags to enable easy searching and grouping of related content. The bookmarks are saved online to enable easy accessibility wherever one has Web access. Bookmarks can be public or private and when they are public, they support the collective wisdom of others who are interested in similar topics. Users can see how many others saved a bookmark and also see their other lists of marks. This provides a repository of suggested materials which has already been sifted and sorted by other users. Add RSS feeds to these accounts and one can be made instantly aware of the content being tracked each day according to user or topic. There are several social bookmarking services available, but one in particular (Diigo) offers features of particular importance to educators. In addition to public and private marks, tags, and groups, Diigo also enables snapshots, highlights and annotation, and discussion posts.

Tracy Tuten - East Carolina University

All Politics are Local: Using Wikis to Gauge the “Real World”

When students are working online from diverse remote locations, an effective strategy is to ask them to research a general initiative or concept – in this case taking a call to action such as “Go Green” or “Bike to Work” - and explore its application at the local level.   In this project, students took a call to action in health and examined its manifestation in his or her locale including identifying what barriers might exist, (i.e., resources, local politics) that would hinder adoption of such a national call.  Students shared findings via wikis which served as a source for review and discussion. This shared process enabled students to examine real world examples from multiple communities, allowing for more perspectives and deeper learning than the analysis of just one community example would.

In addition, the ability to use multiple media to report findings enhances students’ communication skills both in creating and reviewing.

Mike Perko - UNC Greensboro