If you are interested in adding an assignment to your class and using video or have students work with video, podcasting, or more. Consider attending this conference!

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On Friday and Saturday, November 7th-8th at Penn State Schuylkill campus, Teaching and Learning with Technology will be hosting the Digital Commons Tailgate, the first of a series of community-designed unconferences* aimed at exploring all aspects of digital media in teaching and learning.  Topics include (but are certainly not limited to) ePortfolio, digital literacy, and design and assessment of multimedia projects, and will delve into both pedagogy and technology.  Sessions will be driven by attendees and everyone's expertise will enrich the conversation.  Our goal will be to collectively develop a series of best practices which will inform how we all use digital media in the classroom.

 

If you were able to attend the Learning Design Summer Camp this August, you'll be familiar with how this event will be run.  Creativity and conversation are paramount, and the mood is intended to be relaxed but intellectually stimulating.  Since this is a Fall weekend we're going with a Tailgate theme, so expect lots of good food, and dress appropriately (i.e. however you want!).

 

You are invited to attended this free two-day event starting with an optional day of workshops and dinner on Friday November 7th, with the main conference sessions on Saturday November 8th.

 

You are also invited to help design the conference!  Check out the wiki at: http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wiki/Digital_Commons_Camp.  Anyone with a PSU access account can edit this.  So if you have an idea for a session, or you want to expand on what's already been suggested, just hit the [edit] button.

 

Please pass this invitation along to any faculty who may be interested in this opportunity!

 

To register, simply jump to the Registration section of the wiki and add your name to the list.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly.

 

 

* Unconference @ Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference

http://www.zamzar.com/

I wanted to share a site where you can visit to convert .docx files. If you do not have the current word installed this will be very useful.

I have heard this may or may not work. You may want to keep a back up and just test this out to use.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766

I thought I would share a video this week. I had writers block yesterday, so I am a day late. I came up with this, because it was a shared link over my network in Twitter.

This video made me think about several things...

This has been a video week. I have gotten questions about embedding video, recording video, or sharing video. There are many places opening up to share video. First, within the University, you can share videos on iTunesU, but you need to reserve space ahead of time. The next location is YouTube (which is free) and ETS and TLT does have a presence there. There are other video sharing sites coming out including Seesmic where you can engage in a video conversation and Vimeo where folks are connecting through video to name a few. (How can avenues like this be used in the future?)

This has also made me think more about BS Bookclub book - A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink. The video is creative. How do we come to be more creative? Creativity helps you think more outside the box and look at things from a different perspective. It brings ideas to the forefront. It helps you engage with new thoughts and ideas to utilize them differently. What can we do on the creative side to positive engage?

I attended BalJam this past weekend, so I was swimming in creativity dancing Balboa Swing and Listening to Jazz music, live and by DJ. How can activities increase your work flow and add to your learning design.

Another event this past weekend, which I missed was Podcamp Philly, which was another way to see how folks in this are are creatively sharing ideas through podcasts. How are they using the technology of podcasting to share out their ideas?

It is making a topic of design and font design funny. Working on the web, there are guidelines. Does this video poke fun at guidelines that are set in stone? How do we break free from the structure of style guides and css. Or do we follow the guides to be consistent?

I guess I am sharing this to challenge you to use something funny to draw out better ideas, examples, or work flows in your everyday.

Digital Commons is coming very soon. If you are interested and want to learn more and want a great place to start, Digital Commons Camp is coming this fall. Go to the wiki below to learn more or to get involved.

http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wiki/Digital_Commons_Camp

If you are interested in learning more about Blogs as Portfolios, you can view the presentation from Learning Design Summer Camp by visiting the following link.

 

http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/blogs-at-psu/ldsc08-blogs-as-portfolios/

You will also learn about blogs at Penn State. Because the ePortfolio is built upon Movable Type 4.2 which is the blog platform.

I am in process of rebuilding my site to use this. I will share more as I get through the project and moving everything.

 

http://www.scriblink.com/

I just came across this tool that allows you to share a white board with your students. If you are in a class with students with laptops in front of them, why not have them write on the screen in their own seats. You just need to share the url of the room with them.

I was only going to post once a week, but I came across this article and wanted to share, that Penn State Live is using Twitter! You can unsubscribe to the email list and the rss feeds and go right in and read articles as they come out.

1. The latest Penn State news now available through Twitter

 

Penn State Live has entered the Twitterverse. The University's official news source, online at http://live.psu.edu, has added a feed to Twitter, the growing online service that allows users to stay connected to others via the Web, cell phone or instant message. Each time a new story appears on the Penn State Live homepage, an update will be sent to the site's Twitter subscribers.

Twitter is a free social networking service. To see the Penn State Live Twitter page and to join Twitter for the latest Penn State news, go to http://twitter.com/pennstatelive.

 

Read the full story on Live: http://live.psu.edu/story/34002/nw1

 

Twitter is becoming the source where you get news before it goes on tv, into print, or even delivered via email. Other Penn State Areas using twitter include ETS talk (http://twitter.com/etstalk), TLT Symposium (http://twitter.com/TLTSymposium), Learning Design Summer Camp (http://twitter.com/learningcamp), The Palmer Museum (http://twitter.com/PalmerMuseum), and the PSU Libraries (http://twitter.com/psulibs).

Keep in mind, that a Twitter widget can easily be placed on a web page to share the Twitter Posts which you place on Twitter. This does add a dynamic element to your web presence without going in and changing or coding your pages. You can also place the widget in other places, like on your PSU Blog site, or in ANGEL. You will also easily be able to build your network and participate in back channel conversations at conferences, in meetings, or when out and about. There are applications that are easily installed onto Blackberries and iPhones which keep you connected on twitter.

Last week I attended the First Annual Penn State Learning Design Summer Camp. I think this has evolved since the "Trainer's Camp" disappeared.

There has been a growing number of people who are identifying themselves, or tagging themselves, into a group together. They work together and their mission it to create a successful learning environment for students (or life long learners). The only difference is is that this group is this group is not a group of Passive learners. These learners are engaged. They are using more than ANGEL to share course contents and media. They are embracing all technologies that are coming out and using pieces of them to make the course accessible. To create an authentic environment. They are creating spaces to have students collaborate and communicate.

Other tools being used aside from ANGEL, iTunesU, and Connect include Twitter, Blogs, Wikis, ePortfolios, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life and many others. This list changes everyday. It is only limited by your own creativity.

Another buzz at camp was the clicking of fingers on keyboards. Presenters stood and created conversations in the front of the Foster Auditorium, while campers, clicked away. They carried on back conversations in Twitter and the questions were posted on Live Question Instance and Projected in the front of the room (we got to review and vote on questions, so they shuffled around in order of the camper's interest.)

This network of professionals are tagging themselves in the PSU Community. This community does get together at activities like camp, but we are a group of professionals who are connected with each other through Twitter, a microblogging website. Twitter is an engaged community which grows each day.  Many folks say they do not understand it. I did not understand it for the first year. But then the invitation to summer camp was released early through twitter and I registered by editing and posting my name on the PSU Wiki Space. Wiki Space also allows the learning design community to collaborate and enhance our community together as a team, no matter our location.

This community talking about how to build the presence of your identity or electronic identity to the world. You need to break down barriers to begin to engage, then open up to learn new things. Like today I learned from the American Red Crosses Tweet that Fay is about to hit Land and some pointers of what to do when she hits land.

There is also the fact that invitations are there for you to engage, but they are open invitations. The day of getting a formal paper in the mail is going away. You need to openly accept invites and get out there and engage and learn from the community.

This community is reading interesting articles and sharing., posting position points as to where they are located, sharing silly pictures, and stumbling upon interesting web sites and technologies. But it is a community that is changing the way we focus on the concept of class and learning.

If you are intested in getting a glimpse of the community go to Flickr and type in the associated tag ldsc08 to view what was going on during the activities. Flickr is a community where you can share photos and tag photos.

Learning Design Summer Camp opened a room for discussion of what and how we are using the technologies, how the technologies are changing and even a few new technologies. There is also a blog to view to learn more about the learning design community at Penn State.

I would like to share with you the platform this  information is being shared through. I am using the Penn State Blog system, which uses Movable Type. It does create an RSS Feed, so instead of loading up your email box, you can use a feeder and subscribe. I plan on sharing information on an educational technology each week using this method. I plan on posting once a week to this blog, so every Monday, unless I am not in the office, you can look for and read a new post. (I may post other notices of information using this method, but I am currently building my audience and until that is built, this is not the best vehicle.)

Communication is beginning to change as users are adapting and living in a web 2.0 world. There is a gradual move away from hand written communication and even email. More and more users are blogging and micro-blogging to share information. The net natives are living in a world with everything at their finger-tips, so we need to work to understand the best ways to harness their uses of technology more creatively.

I began blogging using Blogger. I still use that as my primary blog tool. I journal basically my interactions with various technologies and new technologies there, but they are not all educational uses. Keep in mind sometimes I post 5 blogs a day and sometimes there may be a week or two in between.

This is being created using the Penn State Blog System, which uses the technology of Movable type. It also stores entries in your PSU web space. You can begin to create a blog by visiting blogs.psu.edu. A Community Hub for PSU Bloggers is also available at blogger.psu.edu.

If you are interested in learning more about Blogs at Penn State do not hesitate to contact me.