Dr. G's Teaching With Technology Portfolio

Tech Thoughts...

Wed, 20 Nov 2030 20:24:53 -0500

Feel free to glance through these entries, either sequentially or through the tags, and read about my thoughts on some technology tools for education, my technology experiences in the classroom and with undergraduate researchers, links to articles and news stories, etc.

Students that post my notes online - beware...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:17:38 -0500

Yes, even in my geoscience courses, I spend time talking about copyright, intellectual property, and why we use images with a creative commons license for our class multimedia projects. A couple of years ago, I found one of my syllabi on a website where students can upload their course notes and files - and get paid for their upload. I was furious that a student "sold" my syllabus and made money off of it! For that reason, I now include a copyright statement in my syllabus, and I now tell students that they better not dare (OK, maybe not in these words) sell my syllabus or post it online at any of these websites that post college course materials:

Copyright ©2012 Dr. Laura A. Guertin. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed, in whole or in part, without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder. For permission, contact guertin@psu.edu

What this means... My lectures and course materials, including presentations, tests, assignments, outlines, and similar materials, are protected by copyright. You may take notes and make copies of course materials for your own use. You may not and may not allow others to reproduce or distribute lecture notes and course materials (including this syllabus) publicly whether or not a fee is charged without my express written consent. Similarly, you own copyright in any papers you write or projects you complete for this course. You will be notified ahead of time if you will be required to share the results of your work with a public audience (such as dissemination through a public VoiceThread, online posting of your podcast, etc.).

So zoom forward to this past weekend. I was searching online for a good website on Earth system science that I could include in some materials for a group of middle school teachers I work with. I did a search for "Earth system science," and a YouTube video popped up on the Google search page. It was a thumbnail of a video, where the template was the same template I use when I give my overview of Earth system science lecture to my students. At first, I thought, "hey, that's cool - someone uses the same template I do!" But when I clicked on the video, I discovered that the "video" was a slideshow of the PowerPoint that I show in class! (and no, I did not upload to YouTube)

Now I do not distribute notes or PowerPoint presentations to students (I don't use many PowerPoints to begin with). The only time I've circulated my notes are to students that have missed class because of a medical illness or emergency - this makes me even more frustrated that someone back in 2009 took advantage of my kindness and posted my notes online at SlideServe, which then got turned into a YouTube video on SlideShare's YouTube channel (I did some investigating!).

My frustration caused me to jump into immediate action. I emailed SlideShare to "respectfully request" that they remove MY PowerPoint that I created and did not give permission to appear on their site. I also filled out the form online at YouTube to request the video be taken down of my PowerPoint. I was extremely pleased that in 24 hours, SlideShare emailed me to say my PowerPoint had been removed, and I heard from YouTube in two days that my video was no longer in their website. Victory!

Did I overreact? Sure, my PowerPoint had over 11,000 hits on SlideShare - maybe someone learned something from it. But it was the principle that someone used my material, without my permission, in a way that I had not intended.

But now I have learned I have to let it go. I did a quick internet search for "Guertin syllabus," and it is crazy how many websites have copies of my syllabi in their databases - CourseHero, StudyBlue, etc. I guess victory is not mine afterall...

The Up-Goer Five text editor - explaining my geoscience research

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:54:32 -0500

Although it's a crazy-busy day today, I couldn't resist taking this challenge that came across my Twitter feed! For the full explanation, please visit the Highly Allochthonous blog posting on Explaining geoscience using only the 10 hundred most common words. I saw how my fellow geoscientists carefully crafted some of their descriptions of their research, challenged by not being able to use discipline terms such as "paleomagnetism" to basic terms such as "snow" (see Sarah Boon's entry).

I went into this challenge thinking this would be easy for me - after all, my research is in geoscience education. I figured that "pedagogy" would not on the list, but how hard could this exercise be? So off to the website I went for The Up-Goer Five text editor, and I started typing!

Well, I got squashed right away! Not only was "geology" and "research" not on the list, but "Earth" nor "science" was even present! This ended up being much, much harder than I anticipated. I don't know if the following description makes my work easier for anyone to understand, but it was a very interesting challenge!

Here is what I do (really brief, and I apologize for that, but more meetings await me today) - with the thousand most common words. (also linked here)

My work looks at the way students learn about water, life, rocks, and air. I am a teacher at a college, and I study how my students learn with computers, small ones that fit in their hand and and big ones. I study how students can make voice and movie pieces. I also have my students take their work and share it with others outside the college. I enjoy learning about how students learn!

It is interesting how this "fun" technology tool is actually making it difficult for me to explain my research on/with technology!

Hanging out with Google and National Geographic

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 16:20:14 -0500

Today is National Geographic's 125th birthday - happy birthday, NatGeo! I saw via Twitter that National Geographic was going to mark the occasion with a Google Hangout on Air, but not just any hangout! National Geographic was pulling in explorers from across all seven continents to share their experiences, most exciting (and scariest) moments, predictions for future discoveries, etc. After seeing the description on the National Geographic website, I had to join in - at what other time would I be able to see Jane Goodall, Bob Ballard, and other heroes of mine? OK, it wasn't exactly the same as seeing each individually "live," but seeing this conversation was quite an event, and it is all archived in YouTube. There was even a Google Map with more information about each explorer.

I saw many postings on the Google+ page for National Geographic from people having trouble accessing the hangout - I believe it was people that had gone to the page early and didn't refresh the page once the stream started. I know I was a few minutes late to the hangout, and I think this is still an issue for Google+ users. But it will be interesting to see the continual expansion and use of Hangouts on Air in the future. I think this is an excellent tool for educators, especially K-12 teachers, to use in their classroom to connect their students with people and communities that would otherwise not be possible.

I can't wait to see the reaction of my students when I tell them in class that I "hung out" with Jane Goodall this past weekend!

Yammer Time! Or is it?

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 13:05:07 -0500

Wouldn't you know that as soon as my wrist heals, I sustain a double knee injury. I've been in physical therapy every semester since Fall 2010, but now that I'm just about healed from everything, I can find some time to start blogging again! I'll have more to post in the future about some projects from previous semesters (such as using iPads in Puerto Rico), but I'll start now with the same topic all my colleagues are stressing about - the start of the Spring 2013 semester!

Last semester, I attended an on campus and online session to learn more about Yammer. Not familiar with Yammer? Think of it as a Facebook site for a private group of people. It is used in the corporate world a fair amount, it seems, and Penn State has set up its own Penn State Yammer network. I learned I could set up a private group for my class even in the Penn State-only network, where students could post, comments, upload files and images, etc.

The pluses = students are familiar with the Facebook format, so creating/replying to posts would not have much of a learning curve (if any), students would not have to worry about "the world" seeing what they put online, and if I created the correct prompts, I could have some great asynchronous conversations going on.

The minuses = this tool does not get me closer to my course goals and objectives.

Yes, it always comes back to that question, "what do I want my students to come out of my courses with?" I'm teaching a new course this semester, Environmental Factors and Their Effect on Your Food Supply. When I started thinking about what to cover in this course and how to do it, I went back to the online tutorial for Designing Effective and Innovative Courses by SERC/On The Cutting Edge. And although I think Yammer would be "fun" and "cool" to try out with students, I have to give it a pass - at least this time around. I'm going to be focusing on geographic literacy and Google Maps right away, which I know will take some time and where I want students to keep their focus as well.

My classes start Monday, January 7 - wish me luck!

TED-Ed

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:31:51 -0500

Finally, I think my wrist is strong enough where I can get back to posting interesting tech stories from around the world and my classroom! When I saw the announcement about TED-Ed, I knew this is one of the first postings I wanted to make. I really enjoy TED videos. The collection includes videos on topics I would never think of, like Jae Rhim Lee's mushroom burial suit, or learn from Terry Moore the correct way to tie my shoes.

I like the idea of shorter videos, I like the idea of having videos that explain concepts that can be tricky to understand. And I appreciate that TED realizes that the videos will never replace the instructor in the classroom but instead serve as a great supplement.

What I see missing is the "other stuff" that goes along with teaching. Videos are nice, and videos can grab the attention of students. But what about reviewing that content? What about the critical thinking questions that should follow after the video, to encourage discussion along the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomic Scale?

Why not have videos that take controversial subjects head-on, like evolution, hydrofracking, nuclear power, climate change... if resources are going to be invested with snazzy graphics, then why not make TED-Ed videos on the most rigorous and challenging topics for teacher to teach that can then develop student conversation and engaging discussion? If anyone can say, "bring it on!", it is TED.

I guess I have to wait for more videos to appear. Right now, I'm not seeing much I would use for introductory geoscience courses. Yes, images of the ocean are nice, but I would love to see TED create videos that are conversation starters and a challenge for students to get their heads around, just like some of the 18-minute TED talks.

Article - Behind Today's TED-Ed Launch (LINK)

Wired Campus

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:29:41 -0500

I receive the daily emails from Wired Campus, a blog part of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Their articles are great stories and reflections on "the latest news on tech and education."

Here are some of my favorites from recent postings:

Debating the 'flipped classroom' at Stanford (LINK)

Facebook deletes university's history project for violating social network's rules (LINK)

You can summarize your thesis in a tweet, but should you? (LINK)

TEDxPSU Watch Party, November 2011

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 09:44:16 -0500

(sorry for the late posting on this one - been working on it in pieces as I recover from wrist surgery!)

Sunday, November 13, was the second TEDxPSU Watch Party held at Penn State Brandywine. As expected, it was a great day filled with stimulating presentations and engaging conversations all around "ideas worth spreading." We used technology during and after the event. We had a Twitter backchannel projected on a second screen in the auditorium, and we captured the tweets in a Storify.

I also played around with some other online tools to capture highlights of the Watch Party. We had a graffiti wall and asked people to post their own "ideas worth spreading." I took those ideas and put it on lino, the website for online stickies - check out what people had to say! We also asked participants to list their favorite TED talk of all time, and we placed that list in listgeeks. We wanted to do a Google Survey at the end of each of the three sessions for people to vote on their favorite talk of each session, but we ended up just doing it on paper.

Session One, crowd favorite: Marco Tempest: The Magic of Truth and Lies (and iPods)
Session Two, crowd favorite: Ali Carr-Chellman: A Closer Look at Cyber Charter Schools
Session Three, crowd favorite: Ian Rosenberger: Self-Development to Developing Countries

Personally, I was most looking forward to the talks by climate scientist Michael Mann and Geocaching CEO Jeremy Irish. I was well informed about the attacks in the media about Michael Mann and his emails, so I was looking forward to hear him give an informative talk on Earth's climate. Unfortunately, I feel he wasted the opportunity to educate the general public about climate change, and instead spent his 18 minutes trashing politicians and journalists. He had the platform to make a difference, to inform and educate - I'm really disappointed in his choice not to do so. For geocaching - this is one of my favorite hobbies - it's too bad the speaker didn't check his slides before presenting. Again, to have 18 minutes and to waste it, in this case being so disorganized.

My favorite moments? The talk by Ali Carr-Chellman: A Closer Look at Cyber Charter Schools - powerful, to the point, very eye-opening. The performance by Pure Cane Sugar - fun, energetic, and a group I'll have to try to catch during one of my visits to State College! The best part of the day? Seeing/hearing the students excited about the TED experience, learning new topics, and saying they can't wait until next year's TED. To me, as an educator, that's what TED is all about. (and the shout-outs by Dean Brady were extra cool, too!)

I will insert one non-technology activity we had during our lunch break. At TEDxPhilly a few days earlier, I learned about Operation Nice, a locally-founded organization that encourages people to be nice and connect with one another. We took their activity of asking everyone during lunch to wear a name tag that said, "Hi! I'm a nice person and I like..." Each person filled in what they liked, and this new "identity" helped students, alumni, and community members connect with each other in random conversations around what they liked: food, chocolate, chana masala, cooking French food, flannel, soccer, trying new things, tumblr, babies, Batman, etc. Sometimes, you don't need technology to be engaged in a social network.

Photos from the Brandywine TEDxPSU Watch Party are below. Check out our website to see our summary of the event.

TEDxPhilly

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:10:17 -0500

On November 8, 2011, I attended my second TEDx event. TEDxPhilly was themed around The City, bringing speakers and audience members together "to examine some of the greatest challenges, innovations and realities that shape and are shaped by cities and their inhabitants." The day was broken down into four sessions: Engage, Transform, Converge, and Reveal

It's not possible to write one blog post to encompass the total impact of the event. Sure, I could talk about awesome organizations such as Philly Youth Poetry Movement, Play On, Philly!, and Elect Next. I could discuss inspirational artists, such as Janet Echelman and Saturn Never Sleeps. But what is important to me is to figure out what ideas am I going to spread ("Ideas Worth Spreading" is TED - get it?).

So here are the takeaways for my future course offerings in my Earth/environmental/geography:

Revisit the footprint from biking, walking

Mix internal and external education (learning for self and for teaching/helping others)

Examine the costs of having cars go through traffic lights vs. roundabouts

As the I-95 corridor in Philly is structurally obsolete, explore what could be built

Connect more with location information on rain gardens, green roofs, etc. (Philly Watersheds)

Examine the connection between geographic location and quality of life

TED videos can be great conversation starters - either in class or out of class for a discussion board

And other random bits I learned:

You can Adopt-A-Hydrant

I like chana masala (thanks to Operation Nice)

There are no barriers over which to transmit knowledge (Ethan Nguyen)

You will not die if you can your own food, and then eat it (Marisa McClellan)

The app Angry Birds can be fit into any presentation on any topic

By the way, one of my favorite lines of the day came from the opening speech by Mayor Michael Nutter: "The voting booth is a place you want to occupy."

Tech reflections from #GSAMinn

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:29:39 -0500

From October 9-11, I attended the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis, MN. Although I usually blog about how technology can be used to enhance teaching, some of the more impressive uses of technology were in running the meeting itself.

There's an App for that. To start with, I was able to download the mobile app with the entire conference program. This is not the first conference I've had an app for. I didn't use the app as much as I could have, probably because paper program books are still being distributed (still easier for me to flip through a book to find a session).

Upload, and you're ready to go. For the past several years, speakers giving oral presentations have been allowed to upload their PowerPoint files before even traveling to the conference. This makes everyone plan ahead and get the talk finished early! I took advantage of this service, uploading my talk the previous week and feeling relieved that everything was completed and received by GSA. All the talks are then sent to the room where the talk is being held, and the talks are automatically uploaded on the session room laptop. As I was co-chairing a session on Sunday, it was amazingly easy to just have to introduce a speaker and click the mouse to begin a PowerPoint. Technology has definitely helped make the oral sessions run smoother (if only it could help with the quality of some of the individual PowerPoint slides!).

The meeting was flooded with sessions that discussed how to use technology in K-16 education, such as Teaching Geoscience Online and Virtual Reality in Geoscience Education. My poster was in the second Virtual Reality session. It was my first time participating in a digital poster session (which means having one 4' high by 8' wide board for a paper poster, and one giant digital screen to connect to a laptop - see me at my poster below!). This was the best setup for discussing and showcasing how I use Google Earth course ePortfolios in my courses. It was an amazing range of posters using Google Earth and GigaPan technologies. What surprised me was how popular the session was. I was at my poster ALL DAY - it was one, long, exhausting day, but people were coming through the posters from 9AM to 6PM, so it was a wonderful opportunity to share my work and student innovations. I have a feeling that digital poster sessions will continue to grow at future conferences, which so much digital technology being integrated with geoscience teaching and research.

QR Codes, where are you? What I didn't see (and what someone tweeted about) is the use of QR codes. I had two for my poster, but I did not see any QR codes in talks and hardly any at posters. This is very different from the ISTE conference I attended earlier this year (see my blog post), where QR codes were everywhere, and conference attendees were using their iPad2's to take photos of the QR codes to get the resources linked in the code.

et tu, iPad? Speaking of iPads, I was surprised to see so few people using them. The iPads were everywhere at the ISTE conference, but most of those conference go-ers were K-12 teachers. Some of my colleagues were using iPads at the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) business meeting back in June, but most of them said they were "trying out" the iPad to see if they could use an iPad for a meeting instead of a laptop. Although I have an iPad I could have used at GSA, I brought my laptop. Maybe it was just for the sense of security, knowing I would have access to all of my files "just in case," and I would be able to do all of my everyday activities on the computer and online. I do want to try to attend a conference with only the iPad, but if the conference is during the semester when I still have classes going on, student emails to answer, manuscripts to revise, then I will want my laptop.

Not quite a trending hashtag. The geoscience community is very active on Twitter. The #GSAMinn hashtag was established for the conference. If you click on the "Continue reading..." link below, you'll see a Storify I put together with some of the more unique tweets from the conference (there were plenty of scientifically and data-rich tweets, but these are the ones that brought a smile to my face!).

So I didn't have any amazing "ah-ha" moments at the conference when it comes to technology and education, but it is always nice to see what is out there and what others are up to, whether it be in the classroom or behind-the-scenes running the conference.

Is Twitter a Lens or a Microphone?

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:01:22 -0500

On Friday, September 23, I was thrilled to welcome to campus @alexiahudson, a research library from @PSUAbington. I invited Alexia to come speak to my honors research methods course, as all of the students at a recent open mic for Constitution Day said they did not have Twitter accounts and didn't see the use for one. I immediately knew Alexia could come and talk about some exciting uses and trends with Twitter. Why Alexia, when I use Twitter myself? Alexia had the honor of being one of about 40 people selected to join President Obama in the first-ever White House Twitter Town Hall!

Alexia started with a simple (or not-so-simple question)... is Twitter a lens or a microscope? That led into the following highlights from her talk:

The 20th century was a time of information consumption. The 21st century is a time of knowledge exchange (consumption, content creator, participant, citizen journalist)

Twitter is action without the opportunity for pontification

In Twitter, words count and determine influence. The key is... do people think enough about what you are tweeting to share with other people?

Alexia also shared some interesting uses of Twitter beyond the White House tweetup, such as the Columbia Business School's decision to have students write in 200 characters or less why they should be admitted - yes, that was the application essay! (see article 1 and article 2 for more information) She also shared how the Library of Congress is archiving tweets (see article 1 and article 2) - yes, what you post online really won't go away.

In the end, Alexia summarized her thoughts by stating that Twitter is the merger of personal, communal, public and civic engagement. I couldn't agree more. Apparently, the students are on board with this as well - one student, currently upset about a certain issue, has created a Twitter account to spread the word and hopefully see some positive action come out of her concern!

Alexia recommends reading the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project report on Twitter 2011. I'm asking my students to come up with a 140-character thank you for Alexia.

Tweeting Haiku

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 08:14:09 -0500

This 2010 NPR story titled Haiku Takes To Twitter, 140 Characters At A Time and 2009 NPR story titled Twitterers Message by Haiku remind me of my own haiku/Twitter experience earlier this year. I even created a Storify about it, titled #AGU11AbstractHaiku - What happens to scientists when an abstract deadline for a national conference approaches. I wonder how I could bring haiku tweets to my classroom?

change.org

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:06:11 -0500

Start, join, and win campaigns for social change.

Nice! I was aware of change.org, but never spent much time on their website or really thinking about the power and effect this website can have. And it is only a website, but wow, it makes the democratic process accessible to anyone with an email address. Anyone can generate an online petition to gather voices from people they have never met to rally together for social causes. Amanda from change.org spoke at the Fair Trade Cities and Universities Conference in Philadelphia on September 9, and her 8-minute speech on how one person wanted to buy fair trade flowers, and used change.org to start a petition and was able to get 1-800-flowers to sell fair trade roses (see the Victory description).

I can see where change.org could serve as a very powerful tool, even when trying to raise awareness of campus issues. I know we will definitely use this site to drum up support when my campus puts forth its Fair Trade resolution.

Mobilize the Movement, Part II

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:02:31 -0500

This weekend, I'm attending the "Mobilize the Movement" conference, a three-day gathering of people interested in all that is Fair Trade related to towns and universities. My previous post (Mobilize the Movement, Part I) explored my best intentions to be green and to take notes in the cloud, only to be foiled by a wireless network that went down. This post will comment on what I'm seeing for the use of technology by the Fair Trade movement, specifically to create communities for networking.

I need to do some deeper searching, but beyond Facebook and some tweeting, I'm not really seeing an effective use of technology, especially social media, by Fair Trade. I spent a lot of time in the sessions pertaining to Fair Trade universities, and I spoke to many students and faculty. Students desperately want to be connected between campuses to share efforts, strategies, and successes. Faculty want easy access to the "nuts and bolts" of Fair Trade and the opportunity to share syllabi, strategies to communicate with administrators, etc. During one of the sessions, I voiced a suggestion that what the Fair Trade Universities movement really needs is one-stop shopping - one location that acts as a website to have one-way sharing of resources but also serve as a hub for communication and collaboration. My request was somewhat answered in a later session, when the group United Students for Fair Trade said they were putting together something on Ning to start conversations, review examples of Fair Trade University resolutions, etc. It's certainly a start, and I appreciate the students taking the initiative for this, but there is still far to go.

My campus is small enough (~1600 students) where face-to-face communication is still effective and easily accomplished. But I'm hoping I can create for my campus and for students at other campuses a rich resource of useful and valuable materials for all of us to work towards having the Fair Trade stamp of approval. In my evaluation, the Fair Trade movement could use and would benefit significantly with a boost of technology and more social media.

Mobilize the Movement, Part I

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:40:56 -0500

This weekend, I'm attending the "Mobilize the Movement" conference, a three-day gathering of people interested in all that is Fair Trade related to towns and universities. With every conference, I always take copious notes and try to share the information with as many people as possible. In trying to keep "green," I decided to use the wireless at the HUB in the Union Center in Philadelphia (where the conference was being held) and record my notes in a Google Doc. This way, I could also share my Google Doc with a student that is working on a project with me this semester involving Fair Trade, and I'll always have access to my notes in the cloud.

The best laid plans...

Things started off well, but at one point, the wireless died at the HUB and I did not realize my Doc was not automatically saving. It didn't take long for me to check the tweets from conference participants on my cell phone to see that others were being impacted by this wireless collapse. This was the first time I used Google Docs on an iPad, so the interface didn't have as many obvious menu options, such as SAVE. It wasn't a major failure - I only lost notes from one-and-a-half sessions, but "lost" is the key word here. Would this have happened if I took written notes? Certainly not. But then, how "green" would that have been? How else could I have been able to efficiently take notes and share them with others?

In the end, I'm reminded just how much I rely on technology, yet how much technology can let me down. Make no mistake - I'm still getting so much out of this conference. But for today, the final day, I have brought my laptop with my USB/wireless connector through my cell phone. Then, the only thing I have to worry about is if the battery life of the laptop can last long enough to get me through the day....