My spring seminar on education and technology is starting this week. It’s a graduate class with students in Georgetown University’s Learning, Design, and Technology MA program.
Here I’ll share my plans, in the spirit of openness and transparency I try to follow here.
The idea of the class is to introduce students to the range of ed tech practices, concepts, technologies, and strategies. It combines conceptual work with hands-on tool learning. The goal is to inform them so they can make good ed tech decisions in their subsequent work.
Practically, it’s an online class because of COVID. That means we have online sessions over Zoom, about 150 minutes each week. For asynchronous work, we’re starting with materials and exercises in Canvas, Georgetown’s learning management system (LMS), along with some use of Google Apps like Docs and Jamboard. As the semester progresses, we add more asynchronous tools (see schedule below).
This is the third time I’ve taught the class (previously: 2020, 2019), and so designing it meant the usual redesign and rethink: rerunning things that worked well before, tweaking almost everything, adding new stuff to experiment with, and swapping out the weakest bits. I cut back the readings a little, after getting feedback that they were sometimes too much.
There are some external factors which also prompted redesign. The class is entirely online, or I’m assuming so, unless the greater Washington, DC area enjoys an unusually brisk and successful COVID vaccination and Georgetown’s campus is clear of viruses normal and variant. So I had to plan for online-only work – which is a change from previous iterations of this class. Those involved productive visits to the campus maker hub, meeting in different labs, working with experts in person, and using a pile of great gear the main classroom had on hand.
I’m very conscious of the stresses of synchronous work in the COVID era, so I’m doing a few things to make it saner. I’m extending practices developed over teaching last summer and fall: daily check-ins, several cameras-off periods, and important asynchronous activities.
The class schedule changed as well, from being one 3-hour meeting per week to two 75 minute sessions per week. To account for these I set up every Thursday as virtual hands-on time. That’s when we focus on exploring stuff and learning tools. Tuesdays are devoted to reading scholarship, a minimum of my mini-lectures, and discussion thereof.
I’m continuing my democratic class practice. You can see below that students get to drive some of the content. They also drive some of our policies and technology choices. I also start with their knowledge and experience, which are gifts they bring to the class.
One fun thing about this class is that we can easily and productively go meta at any time. The LDT program is about design, so I happily put class design on the table. And since ed tech mediates the entire class we can talk about what we’re doing as examples of what we’re studying.
I’m also very happy to have successfully smuggled in a university librarian. Reference librarian (and therefore deity) Jess O’Toole generously agreed to join us for explorations of information literacy, open education resources (OER), and open access in scholarly publication.
Now for the schedule. Keep in mind that this grows as we progress. We fill in some of the blanks. Plus I add links and notes as we accrete them.
January 26 – Introductions
- Our backgrounds and expectations
- Organizing the class
- What is ed tech and what have we done with it so far?
- What have you done with ed tech? (survey)
January 28 – technology exercises
- develop a strategy for tracking ed tech digitally
- visualizations: Napoleon in Russia; The Size of Space; Cellular Landscape;
February 2 – The LMS and the Web
- Top 10 IT Issues, 2020: The Drive to Digital Transformation Begins
- Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, chapters 1-2.
- Indiana University’s LMS review record (https://uits.iu.edu/next/reports)
February 4 – technology exercises
- explore Hypothesis
- edit Wikipedia
February 9 – Digital and information literacy
- Reuters, “Identifying And Tackling Manipulated Media” https://www.reuters.com/manipulatedmedia
- “Digital Literacy in Higher Education, Part II,” https://www.nmc.org/publication/digital-literacy-part-ii-an-nmc-horizon-project-strategic-brief/
- ACRL Standards
- Michael Caulfield, “Four Moves” https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/chapter/four-strategies/
February 11 – technology exercises
- visiting: Jess O’Toole
- create your own guide
February 16 – Learning spaces
- 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,” https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/foundations-for-a-next-generation-digital-learning-environment-faculty-students-and-the-lms/introduction
- Frances Bell, “Connectivism: Its place in theory-informed research and innovation in technology-enabled learning,” http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/902
February 18 – technology exercises
- redesign the virtual classroom
- redesign the physical classroom
February 23 – open
- OpenStax, “Why we champion perpetual access, free of charge” https://openstax.org/blog/why-we-champion-perpetual-access-free-charge
- Explore the CC license structure: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/
- The EDUCAUSE Open Education Resources library: read the three “7 Things…” articles under “Key Resources” and explore the rest (https://library.educause.edu/topics/teaching-and-learning/open-educational-resources-oer
February 25 – technology exercises
- visiting: Jess O’Toole
- Explore these open textbooks
- Compare these open materials
- post two CC-licensed content items to the Web
February 11 – technology exercises
- visiting: Jess O’Toole
- create your own guide
February 16 – Learning spaces
- 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,” https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/foundations-for-a-next-generation-digital-learning-environment-faculty-students-and-the-lms/introduction
- Frances Bell, “Connectivism: Its place in theory-informed research and innovation in technology-enabled learning,” http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/902
February 18 – technology exercises
- redesign the virtual classroom
- redesign the physical classroom
February 23 – open
- OpenStax, “Why we champion perpetual access, free of charge” https://openstax.org/blog/why-we-champion-perpetual-access-free-charge
- Explore the CC license structure: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/
- The EDUCAUSE Open Education Resources library: read the three “7 Things…” articles under “Key Resources” and explore the rest (https://library.educause.edu/topics/teaching-and-learning/open-educational-resources-oer
February 25 – technology exercises
-
- visiting: Jess O’Toole
- Explore these open textbooks (Links to an external site.)
- Compare these open materials (Links to an external site.)
- post two CC-licensed content items to the Web
March 2 – audio
- Gardner Campbell, “There’s Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education,” https://er.educause.edu/articles/2005/1/theres-something-in-the-air-podcasting-in-education
- Siobhan McMenemy, “Scholarly Podcasting Open Peer Review” https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Scholarly-Podcasting-Open-Peer-Review
- Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, chapters 5-6
- Student podcasts from Gettysburg College
March 4 – 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
March 9 – Video
- Zac Woolfitt, “The effective use of video in higher education,” https://www.inholland.nl/media/10230/the-effective-use-of-video-in-higher-education-woolfitt-october-2015.pdf.
- Michelle Kosalka, “Using Synchronous Tools to Build Community in the Asynchronous Online Classroom,” https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/using-synchronous-tools-to-build-community-in-the-asynchronous-online-classroom/
- Recommendations from NYU: https://www.nyu.edu/faculty/teaching-and-learning-resources/strategies-for-teaching-with-tech/instructional-video-and-web-conferencing/teaching-with-video-conferencing.html
- Optional: “Effective educational videos,” https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/effective-educational-videos/
March 11 – technology exercises
- assemble a video with images, video, and soundtrack in WeVideo; share with class
March 12 – MIDTERM PROJECTS DUE
March 16 – mobile
- The three articles linked from this EDUCAUSE page: https://library.educause.edu/topics/teaching-and-learning/mobile-learning
- Muthyala, “Digital Innovation in the Liberal Arts”
- Aresta, Pedro, and Santos, “Mobile Learning And Higher Education: A Theoretical Overview”
March 18 – technology exercises
- Capture media, upload to Canvas
- Compare responsive design: http://pubmed.gov/ vs https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
- Analyze Canvas app
March 23 – accessibility and design
- UDL guidelines
- Ableser and Moore, “Universal Design for Learning and Digital Accessibility: Compatible Partners or a Conflicted Marriage?”
- Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, chapters 7-8
March 25 – technology exercises
- TBA
March 30 – April 1- break
April 6 – Gaming and education
- What_Video_Games_Have_to_Teach_Us_About_Learning_a (2).pdf
- Vlachopoulos The effect of games and simulations on higher education (2).pdf
April 8 – technology exercises
- Play A Game of College or Solve the Outbreak or Practice Operations
- Make a Storyboard story
April 13 – VR, AR, XR
- Radiantia et al, “A systematic review of immersive virtual reality applications for higher education”
- TBA
April 15 – technology exercises
- Dinosaurs in your room (National Geographic)
- Mozilla Hubs
April 20 – AI
April 22 – technology exercises
April 27 – student choice
April 29 – technology exercises: student choice
May 4 – student presentations, 1
May 6 – student presentations, 2
May 14 – FINAL PROJECTS DUE
What do you think?
Bryan – A few topics/resources worth considering:
The resources related to the use of video in HE focus on relevance to instructional goals and cognitive load without considering the fundamental affordances of visual media to convey information. First and foremost, the educator should consider the character of the information being conveyed to determine if using a visual medium is advantageous to the learner within the context of the instructional goal. This is an argument put forth by Kozma in his classic arguments with Richard Clark.
More about this here: https://granite.pressbooks.pub/rich-media/front-matter/introduction-theoretical-underpinnings/#key
For your students, their experiences in this area of learning ought to enable them to examine an instructional challenge and determine an optimal strategy that aligns the affordances of the tool with the pedagogical needs: “lean” media for directives; “rich” media for emergent sensemaking/sensegiving (with other options along the continuum). Conversely, students ought to be able to evaluate any given tool and imagine how it might be used in an instructional context. As the saying goes, however, “Start with the pedagogy, not the tool.”
Consider two other areas of online interaction for future use in education:
VidGrid [ https://www.vidgrid.com/ ] and Annoto [ https://www.annoto.net/ ] for timestamped threaded interaction for video-based media.
Miro [ https://miro.com/ ] and Mural [ https://www.mural.co/ ] for visualized interactive collaboration, which are embraced worldwide in the corporate world.
Thank you for sharing you course information. Your references are conducive to not getting any work done. 🙂
Super curious about your approach, and have SO many questions.
— Are you giving the students design specs and/or having them create design docs for every project?
— How do you situate these projects in the broader context of the ed design process?
And, a couple of resources I find essential:
— The A11y Project: https://a11yproject.com/
— A Model of Learning Objectives (pg. 3 is golden): https://www.celt.iastate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/RevisedBloomsHandout-1.pdf
10+ years into a career in ed design + tech and my favorite part of the job is still all of the things I get to learn everyday. Enjoy the semester!