Oct
25
Project Technology – A World of Reality
October 25, 2007 |
Educause 2007 - Thursday 25 October
Presenters: Robert H Hoar – Prof of Mathematics University of Wisconsin- La Crosse; James A Jorstad – Director of Educational Technologies University of Wisconsin –La Crosse
This project was based on a TV Series – Project Runway.- but in this version UW tried to follow 6 faculty members and how they tried to integrate IT into their teaching. The project objectives of the project were:
- Investigate Learning &Teaching
- Analyse the environments
- Document the project
- Create ‘realities’
- Edutainment
The challenges given to each contestant were:
- Select and integrate a technology
- Engage students
- Improve learning
- Document results
Contestants were also referred to themes that needed to be addressed including the need to ensure mobility; consider teaching styles (be engaging); and consider learning space design. Five contestants were chosen from different faculties and the main technologies used in thosefaculties included pod/vod casts, PowerPoint, collaborative software, on line learning (CSW), and student response systems.
Candidates were re-visited during the semesters to see progress of the projects and highlight areas of problems and difficulties and offers of support and help. Contestants seemed to make quick progress on using technology but they needed to remember that one objective was the use of technology in the classroom not just around the course.
The contestants were judged by small team of three. Judges considered a number of factors including:
- the ability of the projects to sustain their ideas given the levels of support and information available,
- the fact that students liked the technology but quickly got frustrated and gave it up when it failed – so issues for the institution were about the robustness of IT systems and support,
- for some lecturers they were going too far too fast with technology and so become very stressed and frustrated meaning that it would not be sustainable
- some were trying almost too hard to embed technology with high levels of tension and difficulty of sustainability
At the end of the project contestants all felt that it was beneficial to have had collaborative discussions with colleagues and felt that lecturers needed to be directed towards technologies and how to use them. The winner, Bob Hoar, was Maths professor and used technology on a calculus course with podcasts. His advise on how to best use the podcasts covered:
- think about next use of podcast,
- use them throughout the semester,
- keep production dimensions the same,
- resist the temptation to over edit, use a headset rather than free standing mic
In asking students about preferred class techniques in terms of importance of those techniques in making course successful (ie not just what they liked) showed in-class lectures first but closely followed by podcasts. The broad impact for the university was to develop a wider focus for use of technology - not just how to use podcasts, and to focus on getting students to help create the content
In terms of future plans UW plans to see how the ideas can be rolled out to K-12 students (sixth formers) get students involved in producing their own podcasts, get tours to produce podcasts covering the FAQ’s for their courses and to build a good range f podcasts for each university course.
Some interesting links for this project include
A copy of the presentation and the videos embedded within it will be posted at a future date
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[…] can’t wait to see the videos for Project Technology – A World of Reality. Edutainment galore! Category: Online Learning, Video Conferencing, Learning Theory, […]