Which tool fits the job?

Technorati Tags: elgg eportfolio moodle warlick socialnetworking web2.0 website professionaldevelopment

I've been investigating e-portfolios and Social Networks and CMS and and and and.........

There seems to be a never ending pool of tools, free and expensive that are all geared towards what I am trying to accomplish - facilitating teaching. I have been lost in the sea of, "Do we use one tool?" "Do we try to integrate separate tools?" "Do we try to take what we already have and force it to work?" "Do we try to go where our students are already located?"

Luckily, I am not alone in this frustration and these blogs have helped me along the way. Jeff Utecht's post on his tech plan summarizes how and why we are looking for different products to support one another. The irony is that at a large university like I am we have sometime more constraints on this process, because certain aspects of this plan are already available to our students. Duplicating resources is not only confusing - it is against policy. Jeff discusses 2 major components of what I am looking at - a Social Network & a CMS. We have had a CMS on campus for almost a decade, but I'm interested in leveraging a CMS (specifically a Moodle) for other purposes.

Then, last Fall David Warlick came to speak at a MEGA event and spoke about Social Networks - right when my brain was churning with them. I had been heavily looking into ELGG, Drupal, & Mahara as answers to my social networking debate. I have been coming back to the notion - "Do we got to where our students are?" or "Do we ask them to come to us?" I still haven't found an answer to that, and to complicate matters our campus has restricted the use of any offsite teaching portal for FERPA & ADA reasons. All of the products I mentioned above are open source and can be installed on a server. Yet Ning comes into my life and I fall in love with its ease of use. So now I'm trying to get a local install of Ning and see how I can get that to work on a virtual server.

Then I get trapped in the world of e-portfolios. How do you define an eportfolio? Is it summative or formative? Who needs the data? What is the purpose behind an e-portfolio? We used Taskstream in the past, which allowed for both user created portfolios that illustrate their best work, as well as a formative portfolio that serves as an example for an accrediting body, such as NCATE & NCDPI. But with Taskstream gone, we are creating our own a accreditation portfolio system (to track "signature" artifacts"). Yet, where does this leave our "Student Teaching Portfolio" - an example of our students best work? We go back to web page based portfolio, and discover that our students know NOTHING about webpage design or FTP, etc. (Which is an issue all in itself that I am coming to terms with technology as an elective). This becomes a bear and a burden and even with the best intentions is not working out well.

So I look for a solution - is it a Social Network? Is it Google Pages? or is it a CMS? Possibly a Moodle?

But in the end - the crux of the issue is "What do we need?" and "What is this technology trying to help with?" and eventually "Can this scale up well?" I have come to these conclusions....

Moodle can work for us in three ways
1) It can illustrate to our students how to teach with a CMS
2) It can allow non-university students to join in (All of our Backboard Vista classes are driven by Registration & Records - this does not help with Professional Development needs)
3) What about using Moodle for our portfolios

This last bullet I have been pondering for awhile. It would allow our students to keep their accounts longer that the University dictates, it would be on our severs, and it is Browser driven (no html or ftp confusion). But How......

Low & behold I come across what Georgetown is doing http://www.georgetownprofessor.net/gportfolio/

Now if I can just convince everyone that I may have actually found a tool to fit our needs, we might be in business.

NCETC Chat Follow-Up

One of the great things I have learned from David Warlick (and have only had a chance to use it once, but loved it) is to foster the "back-end chat." So many times I've heard - "Close your laptops now. OR Turn off your monitors." We are so afraid of what THEY will do if we can't have their undivided attention.

So how do we foster multi-tasking computer users WITHOUT losing the dreaded "time on task." You create a mechanism for your audience to discuss issues DURING the presentation. You foster the "back-end chat."

David has done this and then afterwards interjects his own comments and posts the chat. Today, I got around to actually reading the chat and clarifying some issues.
Check it Out

and happy Backchatting!

(Oh and I used a program called Pladeo to do this - instead of the Ajax chat client David used.

Warlick's Video Game Presentation

I am a big fan of using (appropriate) video games to engage learners in the classroom. I worked for a video game testing and support facility in Baltimore, MD when I was taking a detour from education. They were moving into the edutainment market and wanted someone with education experience that could speak geek. I learned more there about computers and how they worked (as well as the people that loved them), more than I ever thought possible.

What always surprised me was how smart most of these guys were (very few girls), how little education beyond high school - which embodied all the stereotypes I had come to know - and yet how social and smart and dedicated they were to their jobs. Mind you I know that they were the exception not the rule, but it gave me some insight that I will forever be grateful for.

Now on to my session comments......

David always has a great looking presentation and uses wikis for his Online Handouts.

We are investigating Second Life at State - so I am excited to see that David has an office there and is demoing how to use SL to deliver content. I wonder if this is the future of Course Management Systems?!

Can we teach with games? or learn with games?
I actually responded to this question in the chat. I believe there are definite teachable moments with comparing virtual or historic environments for the real world. Even comparing games that are not historically accurate are important. (I have vivid memories of playing Oregon Trail as a fourth grader during lunch in the computer lab - yes I was one of those).

How is the "video game generation" different?
We are competitive, risk taking and sociable as well as Self-confident! You get to be the Hero! My husband and I actually had this discussion the other day about board games (I had board game night as a kid). He loved play Othello and Stratego while I loved Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. He prefers much more strategy and long term planning games than I did.

seriousgames.org
Can video games teach empathy?
I wonder about this. Can putting our students in virtual environments impact them enough to change their views about real life?

Is the line blurring from real life and online life? Do we want it to?

David Warlick @ MEGA

Davis is discussing current internet usage based on data from the PEW foundation.

PEW - Internet & American LifeResearch on how Americans are using the internet.
Parent & Teen Use in PEW

How do adults "social network?" vs. the way students social network via. MySpace & Facebook

Educators are using Tinkertoys - little tools to help us do our job.

As "adults" (or non-myspacers) we are putting together several tools to facilitate our learning. I embody this idea in my use of Blogger, Twitter, del.icio.us, Google Reader, etc. But I struggle with the idea of 1) Presenting all these tools to my teachers and 2)Should we be using Facebook - since that is where our students live - or will a separate social network work (like a nin). I also worry that throwing too many options - and not scaffolding correctly will bring everything down to the ground.

I really, REALLY want to get a College of Ed Social network of the ground, but how do you get people to come? MySpace in particular has the most horrid webdesign usage- it breaks every usability rule - yet people love it, because of the people. Can we design a great interface and get people to use it? I don't know...

Side Note:

David did mention a new book - that I think I need to read.
Small Things loosely Joined - book on Web 2.0

MEGA on Tuesday

Tomorrow - Tuesday - will be the MEGA meeting at the Friday Inst, on NC State's Centennial Campus. I helped design some of the technology in the building and "was there in the begining." I am very proud of the space and am always am excited to be apart of such events as American Education Week.

Now I used to help produce MEGA when I worked for Lisa Grable, and I still feel a strong bond to the project (besides the fact that I presented at it last month). Not only that but David Warlick himself will be speaking about "Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century" & "Classroom Blogging: 2nd Edition". David is an excellent speaker and I am a huge admirer of his work. Linda Perlstein will also be speaking about the "Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers."

I'm so excited!