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Jennifer Maddrell's blog
E-book Experience
For the geeks out there ... I was playing around on Google and found both a Kindle and Adobe ebook option of the required text for an upcoming class. I don't have a Kindle, so I downloaded the Adobe edition of the book. No warranties from me on this as it is my first time experimenting with this e-book format, but here is a play by play of my initial experience.
ebook at - http://www.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=217436
ANOTHER Group Project Plea!!!
To any teacher out there contemplating assigning your students to a group project where the students must reach consensus on a common "deliverable" ... STOP ... consider all that is sacred about our abilities and rights to think and learn as individuals and DO NOT FORCE YOUR LEARNERS TO WASTE THEIR VALUABLE TIME AND ENERGY so that you can pat yourself on the back and call yourself a constructivist, a connectivist, or any other "ist" that floats your boat. THIS HAS GOT TO STOP! A group (common deliverable) project is a ridiculously inefficient and ineffective "instructional strategy" that does not support the learning of all INDIVIDUALS in the class. While you will end up with fewer papers to grade, you have cheated the few who pulled their hair out trying to get some half-assed watered down "socially negotiated" piece of crap to you and there is NO WAY you can say with confidence the INDIVIDUALS walking out of your class did anything to achieve the grade you are assigning. If you feel students need to build skills in team building, then TEACH A CLASS WITH THAT AS A SUBJECT ... I will be sure not to sign up for it.
Zotero, Endnote, PDF and other things
... summary of my post buried in BB ...
Here is a bit of "cut and paste" from a post I made on this topic in a class. I think it would be a fun to run a survey of how students store and read digital material in our courses. Some time ago, I decided I would never again print out my digital material. I travel a fair amount and it became impossible to lug around my hard copy binders ... So, I went "big" and made a commitment to all digital / all the time ... here is how I am attempting to manage my digital data:
Here is a bit of "cut and paste" from a post I made on this topic in a class. I think it would be a fun to run a survey of how students store and read digital material in our courses. Some time ago, I decided I would never again print out my digital material. I travel a fair amount and it became impossible to lug around my hard copy binders ... So, I went "big" and made a commitment to all digital / all the time ... here is how I am attempting to manage my digital data:
- Several years ago purchased the full version of Adobe Acrobat (with academic discount comes to around $150-ish, I think) which allowed me to highlight and annotate. There is also a wonderful piece of software I bought last year called Bluebeam PDF which does about the same thing as Adobe Acrobat and the education pricing is around $75 - see http://www.bluebeam.com/web07/us/store/education_store.asp . Bluebeam works GREAT for annotating PDFs on touchscreen laptops ... more on that below. I know there are a bunch of freeware PDF annotation options, but most I found to be junk.
Rant Warning: My take on the participatory web
... summary of my post buried in BB ...
I have been thinking about "the participatory web" for a long time and my quick advice is proceed with common sense and transparency, but for goodness sake PROCEED! If I stumble on a new blog, wiki, or most any other site for that matter, I usually head to the "about page". If a site doesn't have one, I usually move right along ... no openness, no transparency ... not worth my time. If it does have one, I read it and make a personal evaluation of the level of expertise of the author ... here is where common sense comes in to play to assess credibility. It is important to consider that even non-experts can offer incredible perspective on a topic ... maybe a unique reflection ... a point to further reading.
I have been thinking about "the participatory web" for a long time and my quick advice is proceed with common sense and transparency, but for goodness sake PROCEED! If I stumble on a new blog, wiki, or most any other site for that matter, I usually head to the "about page". If a site doesn't have one, I usually move right along ... no openness, no transparency ... not worth my time. If it does have one, I read it and make a personal evaluation of the level of expertise of the author ... here is where common sense comes in to play to assess credibility. It is important to consider that even non-experts can offer incredible perspective on a topic ... maybe a unique reflection ... a point to further reading.
Backchannel: questions posed from classmates
More BB cut & paste ...
So are you considering as part of your research (and maybe I missed this point in your posting) whether the instructor uses the back channel as a way to modify the instructional methods/mannerisms to address issues found in the back channel?
One of my original research questions was whether the instructor could / should use the backchannel to modify his / her presentation? The term backchannel is used in the communication field to refer to what is termed acknowledgment or response tokens ... they are the "ums", "aahs", "ohs" ... that listeners utter when listening to a speaker. It has been found that, based on these common backchannel utterances and other non-verbal behaviors, the listener greatly impacts how a conversation progresses. I wonder if, as you note, the parallel text chat can offer a response token of sorts to the instructor which ultimately changes the tone / flow / content of the presentation.
So are you considering as part of your research (and maybe I missed this point in your posting) whether the instructor uses the back channel as a way to modify the instructional methods/mannerisms to address issues found in the back channel?
One of my original research questions was whether the instructor could / should use the backchannel to modify his / her presentation? The term backchannel is used in the communication field to refer to what is termed acknowledgment or response tokens ... they are the "ums", "aahs", "ohs" ... that listeners utter when listening to a speaker. It has been found that, based on these common backchannel utterances and other non-verbal behaviors, the listener greatly impacts how a conversation progresses. I wonder if, as you note, the parallel text chat can offer a response token of sorts to the instructor which ultimately changes the tone / flow / content of the presentation.
Backchannel: Literature Map
Work in progress ...
Rough notes: Backchannel
The following is my response (plucked out of context) from a locked-down conversation in Blackboard ... placed here to serve as my rough notes when the powers that be delete my reflections in BB:
I have been intrigued with the parallel communication going on in the text chat since I took my first distance ed class many years ago and from my experiences on EdTechTalk. My perception as a student is that the backchannel is more than a virtual note passing that is rarely facilitated (or even consistently observed) by the lecturer, but can take on a life of its own. As a student, I have felt it offers both good and bad ... sometimes the conversation digresses to off-topic personal chatter, but many times it is a sort of life-line for the distance learner, "When did she say the assignment is due?" ... "I lost your audio and can't hear you?" ... also, there is a lot of informal banter among students that develops as the semester goes on ... "How did your presentation go at work last week?"
I have a million angles I would love to study on this from simply an analysis of what is being said (humor, social construction of knowledge, questions, support / help), who is talking (all / some / just a few) of the students, do all / some / few like the ability to use the text chat, should the instructor attempt to merge the conversation into the main channel, what about private chats between students that the teacher can't see, what about private chats between teacher / student that others can't see?
I have been intrigued with the parallel communication going on in the text chat since I took my first distance ed class many years ago and from my experiences on EdTechTalk. My perception as a student is that the backchannel is more than a virtual note passing that is rarely facilitated (or even consistently observed) by the lecturer, but can take on a life of its own. As a student, I have felt it offers both good and bad ... sometimes the conversation digresses to off-topic personal chatter, but many times it is a sort of life-line for the distance learner, "When did she say the assignment is due?" ... "I lost your audio and can't hear you?" ... also, there is a lot of informal banter among students that develops as the semester goes on ... "How did your presentation go at work last week?"
I have a million angles I would love to study on this from simply an analysis of what is being said (humor, social construction of knowledge, questions, support / help), who is talking (all / some / just a few) of the students, do all / some / few like the ability to use the text chat, should the instructor attempt to merge the conversation into the main channel, what about private chats between students that the teacher can't see, what about private chats between teacher / student that others can't see?
Backchannel Research Proposal
I swear to God, I will be royally pissed if I get scooped on this proposal, but here is the first seed of what I have been kicking around ... this is the first time I have felt nervous for sharing an idea for fear I will be scooped. Maybe my good buddy Dave C will start the Backchannel Project :)
