Archive for the ‘Learning Design’ Category

LDSC08: Enabling Social Learning

Cole Camplese and Scott McDonald opened the 2008 Learning Design Summer Camp with a discussion of how they used social media to help bring their graduate seminar to life. In this session they spent time talking about the design of C&I 597C: Disruptive Technologies for Teaching and Learning and shared some insights into the things that surprised them the most. If you have any comments or thoughts about the presentation, please feel free to share them.

LDSC08: Blogs as Portfolios

This past summer ETS was lucky to have Dr. Carla Zembal-Saul as a resident Faculty Fellow. Her work centered around the blogs at Penn State as a platform to power student ePortfolios. She worked closely with Brad Kozlek, Chris Stubbs, Erin Long, and myself to come up with new ways to think about how a publishing platform could change the way portfolios are thought about. Her work has far reaching potential on our campus and beyond. The video below is her session from the 2008 Learning Design Summer Camp held at University Park in August. Please take the time to watch and if you have any thoughts, leave us a comment.

Countdown to Camp 5: Narrative Schedule and What To Bring

Hi Everyone.  This is the fifth (and final) Countdown to Camp note.  The Learning Design Summer Camp is next week, so in this final note, I thought I’d give you a narrative version of what this two day event will be like.  I have also put together a list of things that you may want to bring with you so you (the attendees) can interact with the media and services that we’ll be using to support the event.

1. What to Bring. As you will see in the schedule below, there will be a lot of interaction with various online technologies.

2. Narrative Schedule.  In this story, Kim is a fictional attendee from the Hazleton campus.  You can also check out the normal Schedule of Events listed in the wiki.

August 11, afternoon.  Kim arrives in State College and checks into her hotel.  After getting settled in her room, she gets together with the other out-of-town people who have signed up and expressed interest in getting together before the event.

August 12, 9:30 AM.  Kim leaves her hotel room and heads toward Pattee Library.  She has her laptop (with power cord), a voice recorder, and a digital camera with her.  She gets to Foster Auditorium a little early, so she finds a couple of the stickers she submitted and fills out one of the special “name badges”.  Kim’s badge says “Hello, I’m curious about … using a green screen”.

August 12, 9:50 AM.  Foster Auditorium is pretty full now.  Kim has a seat next to some people they know.  They strike up a conversation about the green screens that are used in the Digital Commons studios.  A friend points out Matt and Justin, who travel to the Digital Commons campuses.  Kim plans to meet them during one of the breaks.

August 12, 10:00 AM.  Allan welcomes everyone to the Summer Camp, runs through some housekeeping issues, and talks about the technologies that have been used to shape the event.

August 12, 10:30 AM.  Cole Camplese, Scott McDonald, and one of their students from a course on disruptive technologies talk for about 15 minutes about their course and how they integrated social software.  This discussion is followed by 45 minutes of discussion with the audience.  During this session, Kim uses the Live Question Tool to anonymously submit a question about differences in student willingness to use social software.

August 12, 11:30 AM.  Time for lunch.  As Allan and some voluneers hand out on-campus dining cards and library-friendly mugs, people who have organized lunch sessions introduce themselves and give a brief overview of their topics.  Kim decides to attend Ellysa Cahoy’s session on Digital Literacy, so she meets up with the group that is gathering around Ellysa and they decide to head to the HUB for lunch.  During lunch, Kim uses her voice recorder to record the discussion for her own reference and to share with other people at her campus.  She also takes a few pictures.

August 12, 1:00 PM. Lightning Talks.  Kim and her group return to Foster Auditorium just as the Lightning Talks start.  Allan goes first and does a 10-minute presentation about using wikis and Google Docs for educational purposes.  Allan exceeds his 10-minute time allotment, so the timekeeper rings a bell and kicks Allan off the podium.  The rest of the 10-minute presentations continue and finish around 3:00.

August 12, 3:00 PM.  Break time.  There is a scheduled half hour break, so Kim takes the opportunity to talk to Chris Millet, who is leading the Digital Commons project.  Chris tells Kim about the green screen tutorials that are on the Digital Commons web site.

August 12, 3:30 PM. Matt Jackson from the College of Communications gives a 15-minute presentation about some basic principles of legal use of copyrighted material.  This is followed by a 45-minute discussion using another instance of the Live Question Tool.  Kim doesn’t submit a question this time, but she does vote on a question about Fair Use guidelines.

August 12, 4:30 PM. The Pitch Session.  At this time, anyone who has a topic for Day 2 is given a chance to stand up and “pitch” their topic to the rest of the Summer Camp attendees.  These topics will be discussed on Day 2, either in the morning or over lunch.  Someone pitches the idea of getting a group of people together over lunch to discuss lessons learned from the first year of supporting a Digital Commons studio.

August 12, 6:30 PM.  Since Kim is in town for another night, she signs up for one of the dinner meetings.  She heads to the Golden Wok to have an informal discussion about instructional technologies.

August 13, 7:30 AM.  Kim is staying at the Nittany Lion Inn, so on her way in, she stops at Otto’s Cafe (in Kern) and gets some coffee in the mug that the University Libraries staff handed out yesterday.

August 13, 8:30 AM.  Kim sits with some of the people that she met at Golden Wok last night.  Carla Zembal-Saul gives a 15-minute presentation about using blogs as a way for students to start building a portfolio as soon as they come to Penn State.  The Live Question Tool is used again.

August 13, 9:30 AM.  Small group discussions.  Kim meets up with Allan and Robin Smail to talk about educational podcasting.  They meet with 10 other people in one of the group meeting rooms in the library.

August 13, 10:30 AM. Everyone gathers back in Foster Auditorium.  Ken Udas and David DiBiase give a short presentation about their ideas on using tools like wikis and content management systems to enable a community to easily create and share educational resources.  The discussion is managed through the Live Question Tool.

August 13, 11:30 AM.  Lunch.  Kim goes off to lunch at Otto’s Cafe and discusses one of the topics she heard at yesterday’s pitch session: supporting a Digital Commons studio.

August 13, 1:00 PM. After coming back from lunch, each of the discussion groups is given the opportunity to make a short (5-10 minute) summary of what issues came up and any outcomes.  During this presentation, Kim reports to the group that she met with the educational podcasting group and they decided to create a “Faculty Guide to Educational Podcasting” document that would help faculty and instructional designers understand what they needed to do to get started.

August 13, 3:00 PM. Onward! In the final session of the day, Cole wraps up the Learning Design Summer camp and the community has a discussion moving forward from where we are now.  What are our common issues?  What else does the university need?  How can we help each other?

August 13, 6:30 PM.  Kim decides to stick around town and go to one of the final “Food for Thought” dinners.  She goes to the one at Champs, where the group discusses the conferences they have attended and which ones were the most helpful.  Kim gets some ideas for next year’s professional development plans.

… So that’s how I see this event unfolding in my head.  Your experience is sure to vary.  And believe me, if you need to take a break and have lunch on your own or skip the dinner gatherings, I won’t be offended.  However, I would appreciate it if you made an effort to participate in the discussions.  The more people who take an active role in participating, the richer the experience will be for everyone.

Countdown to Camp 4: Small Group Signups, Optional Dinners, Blogging Streaks, and Summer Camp Podcast

Hi Everyone.  This is the fourth of five “Countdown to Camp” notes.  This week, I thought I’d let you know about some of the small group discussions that we’re planning, some ideas we have for “Food for Thought” dinners, a one-post-per-day blogging challenge that some of us are going to try in August, and where to go in case you missed any of the previous “Countdown to Camp” note.

1. Small Group Signups – There are three times during Camp where you’ll have the opportunity to meet with a small group to discuss a topic of interest: lunch during Day 1, one hour in the morning of Day 2, and lunch on Day 2.  Go to the wiki and review the discussion topics.  If you seen one that you like, go into its page and add your name to the list so we know how big of a group we’ll be having.  If you don’t see anything of interest and want to add your own topic, please do so.  If you need help setting it up, please contact me (Allan asg102@psu.edu).

2. Optional “Food for Thought” Dinners – If you would like to continue the discussion in the evening of Day 1 or Day 2, we’ll be meeting at several local restaurants.  On Day 1, the options are Otto’s, Golden Wok, or Mad Mex.  On Day 2, we’ll be going to Champs or India Pavilion.  If you would like to join in, please add your name to the restaurant as well as some discussion topic ideas. For instance, on Day 2, I’d like to talk about organizing an event like the Learning Design Summer Camp in case anyone else would like to try something similar.

3. Blogging Streak – This isn’t directly related to the Summer Camp, but it is related to more general themes of professional development and community.  Cole has set a goal of writing one blog post during every weekday in August.  Personally, I haven’t gotten into the habit of blogging about my work, so I thought I’d give this a try to see what happens and whether blogging helps me think about my work differently.  Other people are going to try it as well.  If you have wanted to get into the habit of blogging, now may be the right time.

4. Summer Camp Podcast: Jamie Oberdick interviewed me and Cole about the planning and organization of the Learning Design Summer Camp.  That interview is online now if you’d like to listen to it.

If you recently registered for the Learning Design Summer Camp and would like to see “Countdown to Camp” notes 1-3, they can be found on the ETS Web site.  Previous notes included topics like the community-created stickers, technology frameworks, Twitter, RSS feeds, the official tag (LDSC08), and a preview of some of our main discussion topics.

Learning Design Summer Camp Podcast

ETS is holding the first Learning Design Summer Camp August 12-13 at the Pattee-Paterno Library at University Park.

The Learning Design Summer Camp is different both in how it is being planned and who will attend. While you think an event on learning design would be exclusive to instructional designers, this event has people from other disciplines attending. And the Summer Camp planning is unique in several ways, including attendees volunteering to help organize the event.

To find out more, I interviewed Cole Camplese, ETS director, and Allan Gyorke, education technology manager. Allan and Cole talked about the event, how it is being planned, and what you can do to help plan and execute this unique event.

Listen to the Podcast.

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