Multiply.Com

Consumer, Apparel, and Retail Students collaboration in multiply.com
Dr. Nancy Nelson Hodges and Dr. Kittichai Watchravesringkan (Department of Consumer, Apparel, and Retail Studies) designed a project in which UNCG students collaborate with students at Burapha University (BU) in Thailand to develop strategies for introducing an apparel brand not previously found in either country. The outcome is the development of an overall strategy to introduce their brand. Each group develops a PowerPoint presentation to be delivered to their home country first. Then, it is posted on multiply.com for critique by the new country's students. Multiply.com is used throughout the process as a mode of communication. Finally, a teleconference between both UNCG students and BU students is held at the end of the project to discuss the project face-to-face real-time. Multiply.com is a social networking tool that allows anyone to create, share and discuss, blogs, photos, and videos.

Blogs

Community blogs by Interior Architecture students
Ms. Suzanne Cabrera and Dr. Patrick Lee Lucas (Department of Interior Architecture) have created a project for students using blogs to form collaboration webs and social networks that enhance student involvement within the community. Specifically, students enrolled in the second year design studio will contribute to a Community by Design blog in which they review and showcase the work of their studio, the Interior Architecture Department, the School of Human Environmental Sciences, allied disciplines within the University, the local design community and Greensboro at large. In much the same fashion as a newsroom, each student is assigned a particular community to investigate. Each week students will post on their "blog.folios" any creative activities/people within their community. These posts are designed to enhance students' communication skills, include biographical synopses, podcasts, illustrations and videos. Finally, all students blog posts will be reviewed, synthesized and posted to the Community by Design main course blog and shared with the larger community.

Private responses to readings
In her Conflict Resolution and Coalition Building class, Kay Lovelace asks her students to post in an individual, private blog, their reactions to weekly readings and to tie those to examples of conflict or disagreement they have experienced or observed. Students reported that they were more willing to share their reflections honestly in this private setting. Kay could also provide feedback on what students wrote. She would comment insightful blog entries, asking students, if they felt comfortable, to share some things from their blogs in the next class. This helped her manage the classroom discussion. Kay found that the posts helped her understand what students did not understand. In course evaluations, students have shared that they really appreciated getting feedback, particularly clarifying concepts they did not understand.

Podcasts

Feedback for dance students
Duane Cyrus, faculty member in the UNC Greensboro Dance Department, videotapes his studio classes. Then, he creates video clips in iMovie and adds his comments in a voice-over. He posts these to the podcasting tool in Blackboard, which students can view on their computers or subscribe to via iTunes. Students find these podcasts very useful and watch them repeatedly.

Online course delivery
Dr. Judy Niemeyer (Department of Specialized Education Services) uses Elluminate as the primary mode of delivery for her online graduate class, the Theory and Practice of Early Intervention. She uses the polling feature to ask questions throughout the course meeting time to gauge student prior and current knowledge of the material and often calls on them to elaborate on their answers. The whiteboard is utilized to display collaborative charts that students complete in real time. Additionally, Dr. Niemeyer breaks students up into groups and places them in separate rooms to work collaboratively on case studies and report back to the entire class. Students like the collaborative community that is created even though they're all separated by distance.

Skype for office hours
Instructors in both face-to-face and distance education courses use using Skype to meet with students for virtual office hours. Some students prefer to use the text chat (often for short, quick questions) while others enjoy using the voice chat tool to have longer, slightly more formal conversations with their instructor. Students really enjoy the just-in-time availability of their instructors. Some instructors leave Skype on throughout the day while others have specific times listed in the syllabus when they will be available via Skype.

Diigo

In Steve Downes' course, CCK08, from Fall 2008, students were encouraged to make use of a wide variety of web 2.0 tools to meet their learning needs. If you go to Diigo and search for the tag CCK08, you will retrieve 108 items bearing that tag. From here, you can go in several directions. You read the annotations for each item, access the item and view any highlights and public sticky notes, and see who has saved each item as well as view their most recent bookmarks and tags (and make contact with them if you wish). In terms of class use, it is possible to set up groups in Diigo, share items, and have them (as well as their annotations) sent out via email to group members. It is also possible to view each other's highlights and sticky notes and in so doing, have an annotated conversation about specific passages in a reading.

Wikis

Career Options in Public Health Education
Groups of students in the graduate Intro to Public Health Education class created wikis with information about various career settings for the undergraduate Intro to Public Health Education class. The instructor, Tracy Nichols, was very specific about the information required in the wikis. These included interviews with people working in a setting, issues in the field, ethics issues, and job opportunities. Each group wiki was reviewed by the undergraduate class. Undergraduate students filled out surveys for each wiki. The surveys were created in Survey Monkey and linked to from within each group wiki.

E-portfolios
Pamela Kocher Brown asks her undergraduate students in Intro to Exercise and Sport Science to create an e-portfolio using a wiki. They post their picture, their concentration, their future goals. The create a resume and a cover letter. They provide a summary of an interview with someone in the field as well as a summary of a visit to a potential place of work. They also three ethics case analyses.

Group wikis in a history survey course
Student groups in an Exercise and Sport Science history class individually identify and post identify key figures and events as well as key limiting forces in their concentration. They then select the five most important items in each category. Then, they write group documents on how the field emerged and what future trends might be. The group wikis have a template that is used to fill in all the information the group gathers individually and as a group. In this way, the instructor, Pamela Kocher Brown, can easily see what has been completed and, via the history page, the extent of each individual group member's contribution.

Research wikis
Denise Tucker asks groups of students in a Pediatric Aural Rehabilitation course are asked to research pathologies relevant to their field. They are asked to include the following sections: Overview, Statistics, Symptomology, Diagnosis, Treatment, and References. When the wikis are complete, students are able to export all of the wikis and use the information for future reference.

Google Docs

Group Report Out
Mark Schulz likes to use an in-class exercise in which student groups brainstormed about the hazards, advantages, and positive solutions to a given environmental exposure. Usually, he writes all the student ideas on the board. But, he wanted an easier way to keep the ideas than having to write them all down from the board. To solve this problem, he created a Google Doc with a grid for each area in which he wanted student group contributions. Each student group had a laptop to use to enter their ideas into the Google Doc. Mark projected the Google Doc with its grid on the screen so groups could watch as the contributions came in. This way, students could see if someone else had already posted an idea they had. The goal was to come up with 5 unique ideas per group for each area. Mark then conducted a discussion relative to the projected grid items.