Cramer's Compositions...

I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail at the Blog-A-Day Challenge this month. I'm at a major week-long management training in Maryland this week and I hardly have time to breath let alone type. Wake-Up is 5:30am. Bedtime is midnight... if we're lucky. Project after project.

Thought of day: Embarrassment makes you grow through learning. Kinda reminds me of "tough love."

Accomplishment: I was selected out of 17 students to be the first student division leader... and didn't mess up too terribly bad. Apparently I should go into protocol.

Out.

Students in Jeanette Novakovich's English 202C class used one of their assignments to creating amazing help documentation for the Blogs at Penn State! I've been working with Jeanette to implement the blogs platform into her course for the last two semesters. Last semester's pilot class enjoyed it so much that they actually had a number of advanced questions that we (blog team) didn't have documentation for. Jeanette suggested we think of creating an "Advanced User's Guide" to help interested users.

Well that request evolved into me pitching the idea that HER students be the ones to start the guide. She loved it and we sat down and created a list of most commonly asked for help. The students then split into groups of two, chose their topic, and tackled creating step-by-step instruction sets.

But that's not all...

After creating the print instructions the students used the Jing software (see my last post about Jing) to create screencasts for their instructions! Now, not only do people have the ability to read instructions, but they can watch the short clips and see the students walk them through each click on the screen!

Check out the site the students created to display their work. Keep in mind the final products are not due until next week so some may not be finished or polished.

Best part of this project? The students are giving all material to the Blogs@Penn State for us to add to our collection of help documentation! We'll be making everything into a guide as well as adding all screencasts to a tutorial page.

Talk about community in action! A HUGE THANKS goes out to Jeanette and her AMAZING students for making this all possible. I'm VERY impressed with all of the material so far!

So I was being stupid when I originally uploaded my presentation and the embedded screencasts were not working. I fixed this by uploading a zipped folder with the PPT file and the screencast files. If you'd like to check out the presentation now, just download the folder, unzip, and open up the PPT file. The screencasts will now play since the files are included in the folder.

My awesome presentation!

This is the draft of my Jing presentation for a piece of a tutorial that I'm doing with a couple of other people. Two embedded Jing movies in the PowerPoint. Let me know what you think of it or if you see anything glaring!

My awesome presentation!

During the Spring 2009 semester, Matt Jackson required students to submit comments, new entries, and/or course resources to a class blog. These posts were used to determine the class participation portion of the grade for the course. Students were also given the option of creating and maintaining their own blogs (with a minimum of one reflective entry per week) for extra credit.

Thoughts on the Semester:

Logically it makes sense that giving students opportunities to reflect should have some benefits. The challenge in a course this large is when you have 300 people posting comments it becomes a yes/no answer as far as giving points (i.e. Here are 10 points because you posted). But when you look at what students wrote, eight out of ten posts don't say anything. It may not have been wise to give blog prompts to students, as answers were less thoughtful than the open posts in the extra credit blogs. This group blog idea works better in classes where there is a small enough number that the instructor can give individual attention to each post. Ways to make more useful?

At the end of the semester, more than 70 students had completed the extra credit opportunity. The plus side of the extra credit assignment was that it made students maintain their own blog all semester long. Students had to decide and join at the start of semester so they were committed from the start. This eliminated the possibility of students attempting extra credit simply because they were slacking throughout the semester.

Possibilities for the Future:

1. Matt prefers the idea of something that asks the students to dig a little. For example: Here's the topic. Go find an article that deals with the topic, post a link, and give your reaction. A potential problem could be that one person finds an article and others just copy it. Not yet sure how to fix this issue, but students should have to do more while keeping an open dialogue.

2. Every two weeks have an online debate about a class topic. Each person is assigned randomly to a group of around ten. Every group is responsible for arguing one side of one debate. So while twenty students debate, the other groups weigh in on which group they thought did better (or what they did well at). Each group must debate once and critique three other times.

3. What is the potential for using wikis? Are there other large-enrollment courses that are contributing to class wikis?

Questions for Matt

1. Will you use blogs again in FA09?
Matt would still like to use blogs, but probably for extra credit only. For the debate idea, might possibly use ANGEL because it has tools for debate/fishbowls and grading is included.

2. Will you use the textbook again in FA09?
Struggling to decide. Ambition is to eliminate the book. The textbook is useful for the historical background - radio, TV industry, etc. Over the summer Matt would like to find some good chapters on each industry and give out course packets instead. For the other subjects he'd like to use current articles (keeps class information current). This could be a good use for blogs. Post a topic of the week and let students find and post links to current articles and discuss how they relate to the class topics.

ETS Focus Areas for SU09

1. Think of creative ways to make blogs and debates or finding news stories to comment on by each student.

2. How does the Internet work? What should a consumer understand about how the Internet operates, and what should someone wanting to go into the Internet industry know/understand about how it operates? What is important to teach in this section? Web sites, readings, etc. would be useful.

3. Look at each topic listed in the syllabus and suggest activities that correspond.

4. Would like to help students do a better job of understanding how the Internet is structured and therefore the best ways to find/search things online (different kinds of search engines, etc.). Google Scholar?

I realize now that yesterday I jumped straight into my first real post without making a post about the rules for the Blog-A-Day Challenge. Due to the fact that only three of us seem to be taking part this month we've gotten a little silly already... ok all out office warfare is just around the corner. But on a serious note (mostly), here are my rules:

1) I will make a new post every weekday for the month of June.
2) I am in major training next week (think 16-hour days) and reserve the right to make up a post if I need to for a valid reason... like, say, sleep.
3) Robin, Tim, and I are going to have a good time... and that includes picking on each other a lot most likely. This is how we will stay excited. If you were doing this you'd probably need some good-natured ribbing to succeed as well. We feed off of competition... and will make sure each others lives are miserable if we don't all succeed. I said mostly serious. Sheesh people!
4) I will attempt to make all posts meaningful. That means not just a journal entry of what I had for lunch. More like what I'm working on, something I researched, a thought for the day, etc.
5) Occasional one-to-two sentence rants in Robin or Tim's direction can be PART of a post... but will not count as a post.
6) People are free to contribute to my office warfare arsenal. All donations will be accepted. Alliances are welcome. The cube farm will unite.

Bring it on.

While Google Wave has not yet been released I'm really excited to see what it brings in terms of collaboration for educational purposes. From what I'm reading, think of Google Wave as part, Google Doc/wiki-ish, part Instant Message/Chat, and part multi-media host/presenter. A "wave" allows people to create a living, working document and uses real-time collaboration where you can add text, video, photos, maps, etc. All participants can add other participants, edit content, and also playback the wave to see what changes were made, when, and by whom.

A nifty little navigation menu makes editing and working with others extremely easy and the real-time editing and conversations will help to get the project completed quicker without wait time and confusion. A neat little idea in any case and I know I can't wait to get my hands on it to take it for a test spin.

Check out more info at http://wave.google.com/

How's that for a headline? Well the article explains it all but the gist is that allowing a worker to Twitter, check news headlines, hope on Facebook, etc. actually increased the productivity of the typical employee by 9%. I'm not sure they're taking Internet addicts into account but those are the outliers anyway. So, is it true? Cole did a little survey of what applications we opened first when we get to the office. Aside from our email the most common answers seemed to be Twitter, Facebook, a news reader, and other social interaction tools. So are we all addicts?

I will admit. I am very guilty of powering up and starting Twitter and Facebook... and while waiting for them to load I'm look at the RSS for CNN's top stories. So why do we do this and what do we do? CNN is easy. I like to know what's going on in the world. And I find stories like this one. I like to be challenged and the news makes me think.

Next, Facebook. For my current obsession I blame Brett for making me (ok not quite making me... but he invited me) to join Mafia Wars. Now I have to log on each hour to bank my money or people beat me to a pulp. I don't like losing. I have over a billion dollars banked on that stupid little game but still take it personally if someone robs me. But for real now. I leave Facebook up on a tab a lot of days. It is great for posting a status message (very Twitter-like these days) and having people be able to keep up with what you're up to. And how else would a coworker (Thanks, Dave) have known that I had locked myself in the ETS Cafe refusing to come out until I saw (dead) evidence of the hornet flying above my desk yesterday? I was MUCH more productive without the bee thank you very much.

Twitter is very much the same. Instant access to a ton of other people. If you have a question, need some help with a work issue, or just want to get the word out about a project you have an instant network of people. If you don't know something, someone else definitely will. These days I've turned into much more of a Twitter "lurker" now that Facebook changed their style. But it's still very useful and I find myself reading up a lot on other's ideas and shared info. Perhaps I use both because the network of people are slightly different? I'm not sure. The line of my networks is becoming blurred and I think that is a result of the advancement in technology itself.

In any case the article brings up some interesting thinking points and hopefully someone else might get something out of it. While it may be deemed by some as distractions, checking in online is probably more productive than taking up smoking at this point :-)

Today marks the end of the Blog-A-Day Challenge for February... well except that I owe one extra post for my missing earlier this week. All I can say is I'm really happy, yet have mixed feelings. I love blogging. It helps me sort through thoughts, lets others gain a glimpse of what I do and what interests me, and (maybe/hopefully) contributes to the greater good as far as advancing learning. That all said, I got to the point halfway through the month of not wanting to blog each day because it felt so forced. If I had a busy day at work, went to Civil Air Patrol, got home at 11 and was dead tired, the last thing that I would have done was blog. But I was forced... ok I forced myself. Those were the rules.

I'm excited because now when I have ideas I've been thinking, "OK this has potential for a good blog post." I just won't blog every day. Kudos to those of you that can do that. BIG KUDOS to the Schreyer Bloggers that stuck it out this month. Not only that, but they posted EVERY DAY. Even weekends! They are the true winners. Hopefully they take away the lesson that blogging doesn't have to be a huge deal or amount of time. Something simple to post and share can mean a lot.

I may challenge myself again sometime... just not in the near future. I feel refreshed knowing that I can post and it's not "required" per se. I'm more intrigued already. I hope all of you that took part had fun. I know I did.

Today's learners multitask all day, every day. They don't have time for subject matter that they don't think is relevant to what their goals are. Think instant gratification. Penn State takes this into account when creating courses and lessons throughout the University.

Real-life simulations are a great way to engage today's learners while helping them to understand the value of the material being presented. One great example of this is the Trading Room in the Smeal College of Business at Penn State. The Trading Room includes real-time ticker data and stock boards, as well as the computer systems and software needed for simulated trading. Many business majors find themselves managing portfolios throughout the semester and interacting in situations that are similar to those found on an active trading floor.

Another hands-on simulation takes place in many supply chain, business, and executive education courses at Penn State. The Beer Game, created by a group of professors at MIT in the 1960's, simulates the supply chain of beer through the factory, distributor, wholesaler, and retailer stages. Students typically work in pairs with 8-12 people per supply chain. The groups at each stage must make sure to keep beer in stock without crowding the warehouse. The bullwhip effect takes place when orders spike or drop creating instability of the overall system. A debrief occurs at the end for students to formalize understanding of supply chains, business decisions, and outside influences on their positions.

For more information:
Smeal Trading Room
The Beer Game Simulation