Category Archives: Educational Technology

Faculty Focus: Education Remix: Unlocking Creativity to Boost Learning

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John Orlando posted a great article this week on Faculty Focus titled Education Remix: Unlocking Creativity to Boost Learning discussing social media and remix culture.  One of the most common forms of remix culture is making videos, which can be used as a great learning activity in the classroom.  As Orlando states, “remixing is also a fundamentally creative process, as the creator must develop links between two different topics. The process forces the creator to see the topic from new perspectives.”

Orlando also notes that “one simple way to use remixing in your classes is to provide extra credit to students who develop a short video that reinterprets some part of popular culture in a way related to the class subject. The original can be a song, commercial, movie, etc. Students can also remix elements of photographs or text.”

If you are interested in using remix culture in the classroom, or are considering how remixing can foster engagement, creativity, and learning, take a moment to read John Orlando’s article and follow the helpful links he provided in his article below.

Remix examples:

Discussions:

Multimedia Resources for Research and Content Creation October 28th 3 – 4:30pm Addlestone Library, Room 120

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A session and Library How-To Research Guide about interdisciplinary resources available to support the creation of scholarly digital projects and presentations.

Are your students creating presentations in your class?  Are you tired of the standard linear PowerPoint presentation (a presentation WMD)?  This session will showcase the many different production and presentation tools available to you and your students as well as the copyright and fair use considerations that go into creation of digital and online content (ever tried to put something up on YouTube and suffered the “copyright infringement smack down?”).   Learn about the creative commons, the Center for Social Media, and online production tools for any kind of multimedia presentation.  From finding media for digital storytelling to creating exceptionally memorable presentations with new software tools, this LITE session will spice up your teaching, your presentations, and pretty much your life* in general.

Feel free to stop in or email vanarnhemj@cofc.edu to reserve your seat for Thursday at 3pm in the Addlestone.

*please note that knowledge of digital presentation whiz-bang is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for life spicing

Don’t forget to come to the Bryant Holsenbeck Exhibit opening this Friday!

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Bryant Holsenbeck - Environmental Artist
Artist’s Lecture on Saturday
October 23
11am
Addlestone Library, Room 227.
 Don’t forget to come to the Bryant Holsenbeck Exhibit opening this Friday (October 22) at 5pm-7pm in the Addlestone Library Rotunda! While you are there, take a moment to read the QR Code (accessible by a code reader app on your phone) on each poster to find out more about sustainability efforts at the College of Charleston. Need a QR Code Reader? Visit the QR Code Research Guide to Find one!
Guests can also walk to the Halsey Institute for the Chris Jordan exhibit opening, Running the Numbers, presented by bluesphere: earth art expo.

Photographs of Bryant Holsenbeck’s mini-residency at the College of Charleston posted with permission from Mark Sloan, Director & Senior Curator, Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. Poster series designed by Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem, Jerry Spiller and Ai Charleston student Marcello Garofalo.

Students in Professor Caroline Hunt’s English 110 course, part of the learning community Critical Thinking: Catalyst for Success collected and delivered bottle caps and lids for the Bryant Holsenbeck installation

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Students in Professor Caroline Hunt’s English 110 course, part of the learning community Critical Thinking: Catalyst for Success collected and delivered bottle caps and lids for the Bryant Holsenbeck installation, researched both the history of mandalas and the work of the artist and volunteered to assist with the mandala construction.

The learning community enables incoming freshman considering majors in biological sciences and mathematics to engage in classes offering peer facilitation, supplemental instruction, active learning, problem-solving and social activities.

Interested in learning more about the College of Charleston First Year Experience Program? Visit the Learning Community Website at spinner.cofc.edu/fye/index.html

For more information on the Bryant Holsenbeck: Bottle Cap Mandala Installation visit: blogs.charleston.edu/friendsofthelibrary/exhibits2/bryant-holse…

For more information on the artist visit: bryantholsenbeck.com/index.html

Event Information:
Exhibit opening: Friday, October 22 – 5pm-7pm (Addlestone Library Rotunda)
*guests can also walk to the Halsey Institute for the Chris Jordan exhibit opening, Running the Numbers, presented by bluesphere: earth art expo.

Artist’s Lecture: Saturday, October 23 – 11am (Addlestone Library, Room 227)

Faculty Focus – Using smartphones to conduct polls

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If you are not familiar with Faculty Focus I highly recommend it.  It is full of great information and ideas for teaching.  Today’s article by John Orlando, PhD is about Using Polling and Smartphones to Keep Students Engaged.

I was familiar with some of the polling software provided in the article, but many were new to me.  I enjoyed reviewing the different recommendations.  If you have considered using polling in your class but do not have access to iClickers (or other clicker technologies) or just want to try it out and see what you think of it, this may be a great option!

I am including a brief excerpt and the “Links” section from the article below.

While many instructors consider smartphones the bane of teaching—causing distraction and even cheating during a test—polling turns the technology into a teacher’s advantage by engaging students with the content.

Orlanda has also provided an informative screencast, demonstrating how easy it is to use polling software. Watch it here »

Links

  • Vorbeo (http://vorbeo.com)
    Another system for creating a poll to embed in your website.

Work together in real time on the same Prezi with Prezi Meeting!

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PREZI recently announced that you can now work together in real time on the same prezi! With Prezi Meeting, teams can collaborate live or simply present prezis with up to 10 people in a prezi at one time.  What a great enhancement to an already great presentation program. Click HERE to learn more about how to start Prezi Meeting!

First ever QR Code Scavenger Hunt at Addlestone Library!

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Students in Professor Caroline Hunt’s English 110 course, part of in the learning community Critical Thinking: Catalyst for Success in Science and Math participated in a scavenger hunt activity using QR Codes at the Addlestone Library on Thursday, September 9th as part of a Library special instruction session.

The learning community enables incoming freshman considering majors in biological sciences and mathematics to engage in classes offering peer facilitation, supplemental instruction, active learning, problem-solving and social activities.

The first ever QR Code Scavenger Hunt at Addlestone Library was a collaborative effort that included Professor Caroline Hunt and her fall 2010 English 110 students, Burton Callicott (question writer/code hider), Jared Seay (coordinator), and Jolanda-Pieta (Joey) van Arnhem (code generator).  Special thanks to Debra Fetner (Center for Student Learning) and the entire Circulation and Shelving Team for participating in the activity.

For more information on using QR Codes in Education visit: http://libguides.library.cofc.edu/qrcodes

Visit the Learning Community website at http://spinner.cofc.edu/fye/index.html

cinfolit cinema + information literacy

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A great new blog found by Jannette Finch, Librarian at the Lowcountry Graduate Center.

cinfolit available at http://cinfolit.blogspot.com/ compiles popular film scenes, TV shows and YouTube examples to help demonstrate information literacy skills in the classroom.

Posted by Ellie

Twilight in the Classroom!

One way to ask students to create their own criteria for evaluating the reliability of websites is through a clip from the popular film Twilight. We see the main character, Bella Swan, use Google to find a website about the Cold Ones and use the website to come to a conclusion about Edward Cullen. Students are asked questions about the reliability of the site based upon what they see and what other kinds of conclusions Bella can draw outside of vampire.

Here is the clip from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BGVeLelmQc

Appellate Court Overturns Blackboard Patent

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Blackboard’s patent on learning management system technologies has been overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The court ruled Monday in favor of Desire2Learn and invalidated some claims in patent No. 6,988,138, also known as the “Alcorn patent” or the “138 patent.”

[…] Blackboard made concessions to the open source community, releasing a legally binding pledge that it would never assert its patent claims against an open source developer, among other things. The pledge fell short of the SFLC’s demand for Blackboard to renounce the patent, however, and the move was greeted with a mixture of relief and continued outrage at Blackboard’s unwillingness to drop its suit against Desire2learn and unwillingness to renounce the patent claims.

Glad to see that an appellate court overturned Blackboard’s patent of Learning Management Systems. It will be interesting to see how Blackboard’s patent for “technology used for Internet-based education support systems and methods” is finally resolved.

Read the full Campus Technology article by David Nagel