The Twitter Experiment

Monica Rankin, History Professor at UT Dallas, was looking for a way to better engage students in a large survey course. She developed a technique that included using Twitter once per weekduring class. Watch and read for the details of this innovative teaching method.

Is this something that you would consider doing? What do you see as the risks and rewards?

Midterm is upon us...

According to the UGA Academic Calendar, midterm is March 2. Does “midterm” mean anything in your classroom? For me, it is the perfect time to do a little reflection on how the course is going so far and whether there are things I can do to improve the learning experience for me and for my students. Besides looking back myself, I like to do a brief online survey of students for their take on the class so far. It’s usually nothing fancy, just a few simple questions – what’s working, what’s not, and what could make it better? I like technology for this purpose, and use a web-based survey tool, but some instructors have a colleague come into the class to do a facilitated activity with their students and then report back with the results. Regardless of the delivery strategy, it is important to talk about the results with the students, including what changes can be made and what can’t be changed.

What do you think of incorporating a midterm evaluation in your own courses?



BTW, survey coming soon to EDHI9040...

Jing!

Have you ever been looking at something on your screen and wanted to preserve it as a file to use later? Maybe your computer is doing something wacky, and you want a snapshot to e-mail to your tech support...or you want to record some video detailing steps in a piece of software. There are a number of ways to do this, but one of the easiest I've used is a *free* program by TechSmith called Jing. Jing allows you to do static and movie screen captures, and then save them locally or online. It's also available for both Mac and PC!

Just start Jing, and you can capture everything that happens on your screen! Check out a sample Jing capture here.

Read more at jingproject.com

How might you use Jing? Do share!

Thinking Outside the Wii

Kevin Remington/Washington and Lee University

In Friday's Chronicle, there was an article about a dance performance at Washington and Lee University which featured the Wii and encouraged audience participation via Twitter. The Twitter component is particularly interesting to me, because I can imagine a number of people arguing against it - it's distracting to other audience members, it's distracting to the person Tweeting - just as they might argue against it in the classroom. While I understand the arguments, I appreciate that the company gave it a shot, and I wonder if they will do it again.

Blogging activities in your discipline

During this semester, we are blogging about our teaching and the role of technology. This activity is meant to encourage reflection on what we are doing in class, what we are reading, and what you are experiencing in your own classes. It is directly related to the course goal about reflection.

Is blogging an activity that you might assign to your students? Think about the goals in the courses you teach - could blogging help your students reach any of those goals?

>>Sherry

Oh, what to write?

It is sometimes difficult to pin down an idea for a blog entry. Since I don't consider myself a blogger (see previous post), I have this issue every week when I post to the CTL blog. There are several questions I ask myself to come up with ideas.

• What have I been working on?
  The things I am currently working on have my attention, so it makes sense to reflect and write about them.
• What questions have I heard recently?
  I hear all kinds of questions about teaching with technology, and I ask a number of questions, too. These questions may be good starters for blog posts.
• What is everyone else talking about?
  If there is some hot topic that I want to weigh in on, blogging is a great forum to do that.

I hope these ideas are helpful!

I am not a blogger

It's true. Keeping a blog is not fun for me, but I think it is good to reflect on what's going on regarding teaching with technology in higher education. Why not do it via a blog? It's a good forum for sharing ideas, and I would feel bad asking my students to blog without blogging myself!

So, over the next few months, I will write once or twice per week about what's catching my attention out there. You can also read a more general blog that is written by the faculty at the UGA Center for Teaching & Learning. It's called A Little Learning.

Happy blogging!