Countdown to Camp 3: Primer for Three Sessions and Update on Discussion Topics

Posted on July 24, 2008 
Filed Under Community, Learning Design, Summer Camp

Hi Everyone.  In our third of five “Countdown to Camp” notes, I’d like you to get thinking about some of the main sessions that we’ll be having.  In each of these four sessions, the presenters will talk about their topic for about 20 minutes and then open the floor for a more general discussion.

1. Scott McDonald and Cole Camplese used a variety of technologies in a Curriculum and Instruction course that they co-taught this spring.  One of these technologies pulled together blog posts that students were writing to a central location, where they were rated and discussed.  The most highly rated posts became topics for future class discussions.  All of this happened in the open and can be viewed online by going to their class social rating site.  We also have a whitepaper about social rating systems if you would like to learn more about these kinds of technologies.

2. Matt Jackson, from the College of Communications, will be talking about topics such as copyright, digital media, mashups, the TEACH Act, Fair Use, and Creative Commons. The Digital Commons staff and I talked with Matt Jackson (which we recorded) a couple of months ago and he was able to clarify some misconceptions that we had about the use of digital media for educational purposes.  This was a nice compliment to Lawrence Lessig’s keynote presentation at the 2008 TLT Symposium.

3.Carla Zembal-Saul is working with ETS over the summer on the idea of Blogs as Portfolio.  She has been using a wiki to keep track of her thoughts, plans, and resources.  If Carla’s name sounds familiar, it may be because she and Scott McDonald were featured at the TLT Symposium’s “Faculty Success Stories” series for their use of Studiocode to help students analyze their teaching practice.  Carla also participated in the pilot of the Podcasts at Penn State project and got attention for her class’s podcast about Honey Bee Colony Collapse.

4. Finally, I have begun shaping the Discussion Topics that you have submitted into our two lunch times and the morning of Day 2.  During lunch on Day 1, we will break up into groups to discuss topics like harnessing backchannel communication, building online communities, accessibile courseware and tools, educational gaming, competencies for online teaching, and creating new learning environments.  At the end of Day 1, we will have a “pitch session” where people can describe topics that they would like to discuss during Day 2.  These topics can be set before the Summer Camp or topics based on new ideas or questions that come up during camp.  Read more about these sessions in the Summer Camp wiki and propose your own discussion ideas.

Remember that this is a community-shaped event, so if you are interested in a different kind of topic, if you have a particular educational issue that you need to work through, or if you have a pilot project that you want to discuss, please add it to the list of discussion topics.  This is a rare opportunity to discuss your ideas with a group of very smart people from across the university, so make the most of it.

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