This month my educational technology seminar started.  I wanted to share the class design with you all, to be consistent with my open practice.

I’m teaching LDES 702, Studies in Educational Technology, in Georgetown University’s excellent Learning, Design, and Technology program.  This graduate program brings in a great range of students pursuing careers about, or just interested in, instructional design and related academic fields.  My colleagues are amazing and the students terrific. I love teaching in LDT.

My idea behind the class was to immerse students in the ed tech world. We began with discussion and a survey about their ed tech background, so I could adjust the curriculum accordingly, starting where the students are, then taking them further.

Formally, my goals for the class are that, by the end of term, the students should be:

• conversant with the major issues in educational technology
• familiar with a range of educational technologies, both conceptually and practically
• equipped with a strategy for keeping up with, and participating in, the profession
• able to create an educational technology assignment for a class
• be able to advise an academic institution in technology strategy

Every week hits a different topic, and we engage it through a combination of scholarly and/or professional reading along with hands-on work.  I try to have each inform the other.  This also helps make the class very meta, as we use technologies we’ve been studying.  For example, we poke around the class LMS instance and explore using various tech for asynchronous communication.  Moreover, I try to structure the class in a sequence of increasing tech complexity, with each week building on the next, generally.

Speaking of which: the default mode for the class is HyFlex. We physically meet in a physical classroom, but some of us will participate remotely for live classes. Students might be ill or located elsewhere.  I have at least one remote session myself due to travel for other work.

This year I’m bringing in more outside experts. Their areas of professional expertise include accessibility, information literacy, AR/VR/XR, and running a campus IT enterprise.  The reason is to bring in more voices, while connecting students with people who work in these domains full time.  Plus I wanted the class to see aspects of their university they might not have engaged with.

I think the seminar has the students doing a lot of work.  They read a good amount, then have to discuss and apply what they’ve read in in-class discussion and asynchronous writing in Canvas, the university’s LMS. They get to teach each other technologies informally throughout the semester, and formally for one exercise. They have three assignments:

1. Analyzing one educational technology
2. Creating a scholarly bibliography for their final project, which is
3. Either an in-depth analysis of one educational technology, or a project using one as a sample learning experience.

About those readings: we have only one book (print or digital), Neil Selwyn’s excellent Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, now in its 3rd edition.  Otherwise everything is online, either on the open web, in uploaded pdfs, or accessed through the university’s licensing structure. I wanted to keep student costs low, while reflecting the range of discussion on ed tech.

As usual, I make the class as democratic as possible. Students co-design our class rules, both for in-person work and online. They generate some topics and share resources (some of which now appear on the syllabus below). Their backgrounds and interests help drive the seminar.

Also as usual, I make the class discussion-based. I will shift to minilecture mode when certain topics come up and the students don’t know much about them.  So either I’ll present, or point to a presentation, on topics like copyright law or the history of the web.

Now for the syllabus:

Syllabus

LOCATION: Carn Barn 315

DATE AND TIME: Thursdays, 4-6:30 pm EST

January 12, 2023 – Introductions

• Our backgrounds and expectations
  • Discussion
  • Survey, wiki-style (Google Doc)
• Organizing the class
  • What do we want from this class?
• What is ed tech and what have we done with it so far?
• What have you done with ed tech?
• Visualizations: Napoleon in Russia; The Size of Space; Cellular Landscape; A visual analysis of the MeToo Movement; Anatomy of AI (thanks to Aakansha!)
  
• The campus ed tech environment:
  • What’s in it? (Jamboard exercise)
• SAMR and the quintet

Technology exercises

• concept mapping ed tech (Miro exercise)
• install Duolingo; get access to ChatGPT; make sure you have admin rights on a laptop or desktop

January 19, 2023 – The LMS and the Web

• Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, chapters 1-2.
• the last Campus Computer Survey
• EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues 2023
• Indiana University’s LMS review record  (archived version.)

Technology exercises

• explore Canvas
• edit Wikipedia

January 26, 2023 – Digital and information literacy, plus open, part 1

Special guest: librarian Jess O’Toole

• Reuters, “Identifying And Tackling Manipulated Media”
• “Digital Literacy in Higher Education, Part II”
• ACRL Standards
• Michael Caulfield, “Four Moves”
• Open education definitions: SPARC and Lumen
• Open access definitions: SPARC and OSI

Technology exercises

• • Explore these open textbooks
  • Compare these open materials
  • Open Textbook Library
  • Open textbook: Ethical Use of Technology in Digital Learning Environments: Graduate Student Perspectives
  • post two CC-licensed content items to the Web

February 2, 2023 – Learning spaces and open, part 2

• Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, chapters 3-4.
• Jeffrey Pomerantz, Malcolm Brown, D. Christopher Brooks, “Foundations for a Next Generation Digital Learning Environment: Faculty, Students, and the LMS”
• Frances Bell, “Connectivism: Its place in theory-informed research and innovation in technology-enabled learning”
• OpenStax, “Why we champion perpetual access, free of charge”
• Explore the CC license structure
• The EDUCAUSE Open Education Resources library: read the three “7 Things…” articles under “Key Resources” and explore the rest
• Phillip D. Long (2018), Ten Principles of Learning Space Design, Rhz Consulting, LLC

Optional readings:

• Sarah Williams Goldhagen, 2017, Welcome to our world: How the built environment shapes our lives, HarperCollins Publishers, 337 pgs.
• Derek Clements-Croome, (2018), Creating the Productive Workplace: Places to work creatively, 3rd Ed.,  Routledge, 419 pgs.
• “The Truth About Open Offices: There are reasons why they don’t produce the desired interactions.” HBR, Nov-Dec, 2019.

Technology exercises

• redesign the virtual classroom
• Design considerations for physical classrooms
• rogue scholarly solutions: the OA Button
• Learning Space Rating System v3 – version 3 adds to the prior LSRS v2 inclusive design with three parts: 7.1 Physical Inclusion and Universal Design, 7.2 Cognitive Inclusion, 7.3 Cultural Inclusion

February 9, 2023 – audio

• Sara Weissman, “Changing Perceptions, One Story at a Time” (you might need to create an account; you should have one for IHE).
• Gardner Campbell, “There’s Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education”
• Siobhan McMenemy, “Scholarly Podcasting Open Peer Review”
• Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, chapters 5-6
• Student podcasts from Gettysburg College

Technology exercises

• Audacity and beyond
• create an audio file with at least two tracks.  Upload to Soundcloud.  Share with class digitally and in synchronous session

February 10, 2023 – MIDTERM ANALYSIS DUE

February 16, 2023 – video

• Zac Woolfitt, “The effective use of video in higher education”
• Michelle Kosalka, “Using Synchronous Tools to Build Community in the Asynchronous Online Classroom”
• Recommendations from New York University
• Optional: “Effective educational videos,” Vanderbilt University

Technology exercises

• assemble a video with images, video, and soundtrack in WeVideo; share with class
• use images found from this Georgetown library page

February 23, 2023 – mobile

Guest speaker: Judd Nicholson, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Georgetown University

• The three articles linked from this EDUCAUSE page
• Muthyala, “Digital Innovation in the Liberal Arts”
• Aresta, Pedro, and Santos, “Mobile Learning And Higher Education: A Theoretical Overview”

Technology exercises

1. Capture media, upload to Canvas
2. Reflect on Duolingo language learning
3. Compare responsive design (find examples in class)
4. Analyze Canvas app

March 2, 2023 – accessibility and design

Guest speaker: Kevin Andrews, Accessibility Coordinator at Georgetown University.

• NB: audio or video uploads for Canvas discussion
• UDL guidelines
• Ableser and Moore, “Universal Design for Learning and Digital Accessibility: Compatible Partners or a Conflicted Marriage?”

Technology exercises

• Explore using WAVE
• TBA

March 9, 2023 – no class; Spring Break

March 16, 2023 – Gaming and education

• What_Video_Games_Have_to_Teach_Us_About_Learning (another copy)Download another copy)
• Vlachopoulos The effect of games and simulations on higher education (2).pdfDownload   (another copyDownload another copy)
  
• “The Effect of Games”, another copyDownload “The Effect of Games”, another copy
• “Teach Writing with the New English Language Arts Pack” Links to an external site.(on Minecraft)

Technology exercises

• Play A Game of College or Solve the Outbreak (download app)
• Make a Storyboard story
• How does Duolingo gamify language learning?

March 16, 2023 – MIDTERM BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE

March 23, 2023 – VR, AR, XR

Work with the library’s awesome Barrinton Baynes, including small group visits and consults.

Readings:

• Radiantia et al, “A systematic review of immersive virtual reality applications for higher education”
• Emory Craig and Maya Georgieva, “VR and AR: The Ethical Challenges Ahead” 
• _________, “VR and AR: Learners as Creators and World Builders of Our Immersive Future”
• Steven Baker et al,  School’s Back – Scaffolding Reminiscence in Social VirtualReality with Older Adults-1.pdf  Download School’s Back – Scaffolding Reminiscence in Social VirtualReality with Older Adults-1.pdf
• C. Jeffra et al, “Blending the Material and the Digital: A Project at the Intersection of Museum Interpretation, Academic Research, and Experimental Archaeology”

Technology exercises

• Dinosaurs in your room (National Geographic)
• Mozilla Hubs
• Georgetown black history AR project
• Virbela

March 30, 2023 – AI

• Introduction: “Artificial Intelligence in Teaching and Learning”
• “7 Things You Should Know about Natural Language Processing”
• Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, chapter 7
• “China has started a grand experiment in AI education”
• Guana, Mou, Jiang, “Artificial intelligence innovation in education: A twenty-year data-driven historical analysis”
• Chen, Chen, Lin, “Artificial Intelligence in Education: A Review”

Technology exercises

• • Talk to Transformer
  • Quick, Draw!
  • AI Duet
  • Deepdream
  • Dali Museum
  • ChatGPT

April 6, 2023 – no class; Easter

April 13, 2023 – STUDENT CHOICE OF TOPIC

April 20, 2023 – students teach technologies

• Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, chapter 8

April 27, 2023 – last day of class

• Student presentations
• Class evaluation

May 8, 2023 – FINAL PROJECT DUE