Building Classroom Community:Collaborative Technology in Use

Michael ReesSchool of Information Technology

@mrees

Slides at go.mrees.com/bccslides

An Emerging Technologies Committee Talk

The New Normal – Activity Streams

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 2

Source: go.mrees.com/5slides

Collaboration Tools

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 3

Tool Type

s

Blogs

Social bookmarks

Wikis

Social networks

Online Docs

Note Taking

Microblogs

Learning Tools in Use

1. Wordpress & Windows Live Writer

2. Google Reader

3. Google Sites

4. Delicious/Diigo

5. Gmail

6. Evernote

7. Live Mesh/Dropbox

8. SlideShare

9. Twitter

10. Camtasia Studio© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 4

Philosophy of Learning Environments

Making sense of complexity requires social and technological systems

Creation is vital

Learning is network formation. Knowledge is distributed

Learning requires time, depth of focus, critical thinking, and reflection

Openness of content and interaction increases innovation

Learners need to experience confusion in the learning process

Learners should be in control of their own learning

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 5

George Siemens, go.mrees.com/noquestions

Questions Not To Ask!

Online learning more or less effective than learning in a classroom?

Does technology use vary by age?

Do learning styles influence learning online?

What role does xxx technology play in classroom or online learning?

How can educators implement [whatever tool] into their teaching?

Is connectivism a learning theory?

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 6

My Blogging

Blog is your social media mother ship

Invented word ‘weblog’ in 1995 with PhD student

Started blogging in 2006 as a professional journal at Scholarcast

Volume 1 ‘published’ by Blurb.com in 2009

Volume 2 ebook in epub format – see BookBrewer.com and Zinepal.com go.mrees.com/blognov2010

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 7

Student Blogging

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 8

Set student blogging assignments from 053

Now worth 10-15% of all marks

Encourage students to:• Record additional learning resources, own

thoughts and ideas, and achievements throughout the semester

• Read other students blogs• Comment on other student blogs

Wordpress Blogs

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 9

Teaching uses:• Develop an important life skill• Share thoughts with students/staff• 9 free choice posts for 9% of marks

Delicious Social Bookmarking

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Teaching uses:• Targeted lists of links (tagging) with

notes• Share with students/colleagues• Evolve over semester

Wikis for Assessment

Improve structured writing/documentation skills

Build body of knowledge that extends formal subject content

Encourage comments

Wiki topics used for (part of) other assessment

Tried both group and individual wiki pages

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 11

Wikis in iLearn

Subject content held in subject wiki

Instructor free to structure content as needed

Potentially can be shared with students

Versioning prevents content loss

Content can be exported for reuse

Comment facility

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 12

Student Wikis

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 13

https://sites.google.com/site/webappdevmaster/

Future of Learning Institutions

using innovative thinking creativity, connected collaboration, flexibility, play=learning?

with curiosity, exploration, transparency & openness

To prepare all of our students for a decidedly digital future

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 14

Michael Stephens go.mrees.com/hypercampus

Mobile everywhere

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 15

Twitter raises grades?

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 16

… At the end of the semester, the tweeters had grade-point averages half a point higher, on average, than their nontweeting counterparts. And students who tweeted were more engaged…

Wired Campus, go.mrees.com/twittergrades

Fast, Cheap, Out of Control

Fast• To learn and set

up• No need of IT

services• Experiment and

innovate quickly

Cheap• Free, or afford to

buy out of own pocket

• No need of budget authorisation

• Liberating

Out of Control• Free of policy

restrictions• More personal

element• Increased

flexibility

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 17

Martin Weller, go.mrees.com/goodedtech

Open Scholar

Research funding insists

on open access

Funding requires +ve social impact

Public readers of open

access check on authors

Researchers need

searchable public persona

Public persona determines

funding

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 18

Source: http://bit.ly/public-persona

the Open Scholar is someone who makes their intellectual projects and processes digitally visiblebit.ly/osdefn

Continue Discussion on Bond Yammer

Private to Bond

Only need bond.edu.au address to participate

Threaded messages

Easy embed of images/video

Public/private groups

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 19

yammer.com

Other Online Tools for Activity Streams

PollEverywhere• Real-time polls

Mindmeister• Mind maps

Google Docs• Shared

documents

Diigo• Web slides

Evernote• Notetaking

Twitter• Microblogs

Facebook• Social network

LinkedIn• Professional

groups

© 2010 Michael Rees Building Classroom Community 20