Student and Faculty Expectations of Technology and Education

[ Music ]




[ Background noise ]
Wow I really enjoyed the
way you all just got quiet at the same time there. Well welcome to the closing panel today
I'm going to moderate, I'm Cole Camplese and before I get
any further into this, I want to just give a huge thank you to a few people.
I want to thank the 450 or so folks that came here today
to share this afternoon with us. Absolutely amazed that you gave up a Saturday to come and share it with us.
So thank you all so much, thank you so much. I want to thank Erin Long
and I want to thank Allan Gyorke and their teams for putting together this event and I'd like all
of us to give them a huge round of applause.
[ Clapping ]
So thank you, thank you. So were going to do this crazy thing ok were going to try some different
things today with this stuff. For some of you, you went to a session earlier where we talked
about the clicker system. Right, I'm sure many of you are aware that we had an issue
with clickers in the fall and we've been spending all this time trying to decided what we are going to do. So I'm going to give
the quick instructional video on how to use the new clicker system. So there is a button
that says on/off on the bottom. So you press that
ok and if you need help we will send technicians around.
Ok that's it you've got your instructions for clickers. Actually,
what were going to do is I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions as well. We are going to try and react to the things you're telling us and everything up here.
We are also going to use
Twitter during this thing and you can get questions up front for us to react to by using
that hash tag psutlt 11 and I'll just watch how many people are laughing
and thats what will que me turning around to check this behind. So for the duration of this
were only going to ask yes/no questions or agree/disagree so A is going to be yes or agree B is
going to be no or disagree ok so at different times during the thing I'll ask you to vote and you can switch
back and fourth you know if your like yea maybe no, yes, no as much as you want but when I hit stop its over ok.
The last thing your pressed that's it ok. Remember this is where the
control position is with all good lectures so were up front. Ok
so the first thing I want to do, I'm not going to introduce the panels I going to let them do themselves.
What I'm going to do is ask each of them starting with my students over here to just introduce themselves really quickly
the names, you know what your major is and I'd like to share just with us
really briefly the kinds of tools you use everyday in your life
to support what it is you do as a human being and as a student.
So Davis, yea hi I'm Davis Shaver, I'm a junior majoring in History.
Tools that I use Facebook obviously in addition to Yammer
which is like Facebook for companies. I also use google
reader, gmail, google calendar and a bunch
of other google products to manage my day to day activities.
I'm Mike Alexander I'm a junior double majoring in marketing and telecommunications.
Facebook obviously, I'm on everyday, Twitter I'm on everyday,
google apps all my school work, my personal calendar works off google apps
and interning this semester so I also get to use Microsoft office 2003
unfortunately. My name is Caitlin Doyle
I'm a junior majoring in information sciences and technology everyday things I use is Facebook,
like most college students, Twitter, Gmail always
google docs really helps with my majors class work is all team based
and basically that's it, gmail is connected my phone and iPad so
I use it all the time. David let's jump to you down there, sure.
My name is David Adewumi, senior majoring in Spanish. Tools that I use everyday
especially from my iphone are Facebook, Twitter, and the Google apps suite, gmail google calendar
or what not. A special tool called onwardstate.com some of you guys
have seen that one and Angelblogs.psu.edu and my personal favorite
Dropbox. Thank you for putting Angel on that list. Can some one tweet
there was a shout out for Angel. I think it's a matter of this side of the room
because that's ah, Angel and webmail on my blackberry.
If I'm bored in the evening then I watch NR Call which is Norwegian Tv.
Andrew Read I'm a professor of Biology here.
I don't have a smart phone, I manage my life on four PC's and because I'm a faculty member I just
live on my email which is done through Thunderbird. So Sam
Richards faculty member in Sociology this is technologies we use?
OK so my glasses, I use a pen and paper, ah we
don't want to forget those they are real. The ones I use on say like on my smart phone and my computer
there to numerous it just goes to everything everybody already mentioned but I'm making videos
so were using all sorts of video editing suites and it just goings on and on
I'm feeling like you know I'm using probably ten or twelve different
platforms every single day. Ok well you know I heard Twitter, I mean I heard Facebook from students
and so this is the interactive portion of the show. I'm going to ask you to pick up your clicker here and
I want to ask you to let us know do you feel as though, you the people out there feel
as Facebook has value as an educational tool to support teaching and learn? So I would like to see your reactions.
Let's see [ background noise ]
Repeating the question, repeat the, my God do you realize that you people do this to your
students all the time. Do you feel as though Facebook has value as an
educational tool to support teaching and learning? A is yes B is no.
Ok the votes are coming in.
Ok were sorta topping out, we'll thirty
seconds were going to stop everybody get your votes in.
[ laughing ]
[ laughing ]
[ laughing ] all right who who
answered C. Theres a reason for it, let's hear it. Because, you had
yes/no what you have apparently to me, I don't know.
OK, ok, ok, ok I liked that, I like you i've got my eyes on you though.
Ok, ok so another questions for you guys.
We saw what that looked like right? We saw that the majority think that Facebook has educational
value. I want to know if you think students see value in Facebook
to support teaching and learning in our classrooms. Let me start the
[ background noise ]
Look it was funny once, just
[ background noise ]
ok, ok were going to stop you ready, lets stop.
Let's take a look at what you think. Ok this is Do students think?
Now there's a D. [ Laughing ]
Does this happen in your class a lot?
Ok so you guys you see this you
see this stuff here. So first of all they feel as though in a lot of ways that
there's educational value in Facebook but, it doesn't look particularly like they
think you think there's educational value using Facebook. Can I get anybody over here to react
to what you're seeing here? Do you think there is educational value in Facebook? Using it
as an educational platform. I mean I would just say from a business student prospective if I have to hear a professor
mention social media one more time in a class, I think there's tons of educational
value in Facebook. Just the speed at which you can talk to
and collaborate with other people, share ideas and do it all without you know
leaving your computer sometimes in my case leaving your bed if you want to
it's a great opportunity, it's a great tool for learning. All right.
I think that Mike and I actually have a differing opinion
on this. I personally don't think that Facebook is good
for learning. I think that sometimes people see the social
dimension that it adds to the internet and
latch onto that and assume that you'll be able to transfer what's already happening
at the university onto that platform. Where as, I don't know I personally
feel like the better plan is to bring those ideas back towards
the university setting as to apposed to going there. So I, I
tried to run a group project on Facebook this fall and found
really limited success actually. Which I thought was evidence
in support of that. I'm actually part of a new club with the college of IST called The IST
Diplomats and we run our club solely through Facebook and meetings and it works fine for
us. Our moderator or our advisor excuse me sends out messages
through there like when diplomats are needed and we can get it fast
and easy and I know it's not a classroom setting but it's been very successful for our group right now.
I think one I would say one
student or President said to me that Facebook is for social life not for work or productivity.
However, I do think that some students as Caitlin described do use it for
class and groups and what not. I think it's difficult because when you go face book your
looking for to engage with friends to see photos and things like that. So it's
although it can be used very powerfully for especially for a large group class.
One of my friends was in Econ II. They created a large group and shared questions and
concerns that they had with homework. I also think it can be potentially very
distracting tool because of its primary purpose for most students is social and not a productivity based.
That Matt, that actually bares out some research I did in
asking students in Hazleton and Norway about their preferred method of communications.
Not what they do but what they prefer and for social Facebook was high up
but for work it was dead last, for work, school I mean it ranked
lower then paper. Well, paper is pretty powerful stuff.
Yea so are smoke signals. So we
we used, so we use Facebook in our
seven hundred twenty-six student class to put these groups together. We have forty-eight discussion groups. We asked our students. Do you like
doing this and a third yea I don't really like to be on Facebook but it works.
It's amazing, it's powerful I mean we won't use it again just because it was hard to link them up
there are other platforms we'll use but, my gosh, I mean this is uh I've learned so much
by, from my students by doing this and I friend I'm
friends with a lot of students on Facebook and I found out a lot of things about what goes on on this campus
from them so I'm learning from students constantly in the back door. Ok time to vote again here.
So I want you to vote, do you think so Sam just brought this up he's friends with a lot of his students on Facebook
and I've seen this on the Twitter stream. Do you think it's a good practice to be
friends with your students on Facebook? During the course or after?
Let's say during the course
that's a good differentiator.
Remember you can change you votes back and fourth until we stop.
We'll go 30 seconds, ok.
So does that surprise you guys at all? Does that surprise you?
So this is, this is interesting right. This screams in that face of what you're talking about
Andrew what do you think about that? You have nothing to say. My experience with Facebook
is that my students only 100 or so they didn't touch it at all for any work stuff because the social
element. In fact they mostly spent their time turning it off to get some work done.
So does this line up with what, I mean is this your feel too?
That you don't want your faculty friending you on Facebook. Have any of you gotten
a friend request from your from your teachers? I'm actually friends with some of staff
members within the college IST and I have no problem with that what so ever. I'm friends with
recruiters, I worked for the Unites States government last summer and I'm friend with my recruiters so
nothing to hide on there. If you do have something on there that you don't want people to see then
you shouldn't have it on there. Yea I mean I'm
friends with a couple of staff members in students affairs who I'm close with but
as far as professor and really they go I don't really feel to comfortable being
friends with them. I prefer to keep those kind of social interaction on a professional social network
like linked in rather then on Facebook. Not that I have anything to hide on my Facebook it's just thats
what I think of as you know something for me and more private matters.
I think it depends honestly I think, I don't think
I ever been friended by a faculty member that kinda of would be a little odd but certainly staff and
some a few administrators who do use Facebook you know I'm friends with them on Facebook. I think it just depends on the person.
Some people who post their things on Facebook that they don't want public
have different people that they don't except as friends whether it's teachers
or other professional contacts and some people who's Facebooks are pretty noxious
and they save the crazy photos for email and other forms of communication I think
don't mind adding, so I think it depends. Yea and I should add I don't friend anybody
on Facebook certainly not students. I didn't friend my wife on Facebook she friended me
so. Not that I wouldn't be friends with her but I accept friendships.
So you accept you accept friendship requests? Yea if you all want to friend me go ahead.
So that's interesting. So let's I want to ask another question for everybody
out here. Is Twitter and Facebook the same thing
in your estimation?
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You guys must know the answer this is filling up fast.
Well lets get to 100, there we go.
Ok let's stop, let's take a look at this
you guys know your social networks. Very good, very good. What do you guys think?
What's the, in your mind what's the key differentiator between these two platforms? For me I was
slow at getting around to using Twitter, but I definitely
don't write status on Facebook ever, I would feel more comfortable doing it on
Twitter honestly I don't know why. I have less people following me on Twitter
maybe that's why I have a very close group of people but I don't know.
If I post something on Facebook I usually put a lot of thought into it
and if I tweet something because I'm usually tweeting from my phone I rarely tweet from my computer
you know a random thought that's popped in my head about what ever it is I happen to be doing at that time.
I think that audiences also differ largely on a
I know for me my Facebook is probably 90 percent
people under 25 where as my Twitter is much more distributed
much more staff, or faculty or administrators follow it so that makes me post different
things on each network. You guys have any thoughts on it? No.
I think I could follow what
you just said Davis. I think its most
everything I put up on may Facebook profile or whatever comes from Twitter so
for me its pretty much the same thing. I don't, I don't make kinda comments about well you know
going I waking up right now and that sorta of thing I'm not really interested. Because, I'm very, I'm very aware
that people are following me and nobody wants to read that stuff. I don't want to read it myself so for me its pretty
the same thing. So do you guys maintain different styles,
relationships on Twitter then you do in Facebook? Yea. So
what is that key differentiator for you when you think about your relationships within these two different environments
what is different about the way you make those decision? Well
for Facebook I guess, yes I use it for the social aspect so like
I'm not going to friend someone that I don't know or that I wouldn't talk to in person cause why do I
care what there doing or what their pictures are for last weekend and for Twitter I
don't I have mine is set to private so that not everyone can see what
I'm doing and I don't know.
[ background noise ]
Yea I think what helps define the relationship for me
is that Facebook is about connecting with people that you already know and have a strong
relationship with, so I think I had at one point 25
or 2600 friends on Facebook and I said to myself would I really be comfortable with sharing? i'm not really
friends with most of these people a lot of them were kinda of you know you meet them once and you kinda added each other
so I kinda scaled back I have about 1000, 1100 friends that I consider people
well you know people that I consider friends but I think twitters more about
connecting people you find interesting whether or not you have a previous relationship with them. So some of
them and a lot of people follow I may know because you know now it's becoming popular at Penn State
like follow me, you know I'll follow you kinda of deal but more for
most importantly I use Twitter to connect with people that I don't have a relationship with but they have
very interesting things to say. Glad you have scaled back.
I think that this also depends on just the type of students it is. I have a sister who is a freshman
here this year and her and her sorority friends
began using Twitter specifically to communicate with each other.
Kinda using it like a group meet type system so I just found that interesting.
Going back to David's point for me Facebook
is if you meet somebody and you think you are going to try and keep up with them in the future you friend them on Facebook
and found that for me personally they just fade to the back ground and you never talk to them again. But, for Twitter
I'm less discerning about who I friend on Twitter who I follow on Twitter more just for people who are
Twitters that I find interesting, tweets that I find interesting that I'll follow.
I would say for Twitter I have not problem declining someone who wants to follow me but for Facebook
I think I've put more thought into it. I will say
with that I found that the response from students that I both on Twitter and on Facebook
and that they are following me or reading what I'm saying and I'm responding to them. It actually makes them
kinda of get a little more serious about it. I've actually don't go to the news feed
very often sometimes it just happens to open and I see a couple of my students maybe.
There have been a few times when I've sent emails saying listen what would your father think of that photo you just put up
there? Then they later tell me ok yea I took that down
kinda of thing. I'm not trolling but I just happen upon it and so it kinda has
a moderating effect at some level I think it probably positive. So with that said
I want to ask you, so there was a couple of questions that got re twitted up her about creepy
right. So you just heard Sam say that you know he is not intentionally moderating or keep
track but does that cross a line to you guys if a faculty member or instructor
or administrator writes you back within the environment or email and says hey you might want to think about pulling
that picture down? I don't think so I thinks its just reality the reality
of the internet is people are going to stumble across things you post what you post is public so
in reality I think they are doing you a service by saying hey heads up you might want to rethink this. Wow.
So I think the internet in some ways some of these a false sense of privacy. I have
several friends who kinda of tweet kinda some very
let's say not in the best of their moments on Twitter because they feel safe with a private twitter, twitter
account, but obviously whether it's email, Facebook or Twitter those things can easily be
captured and shared with the professional you know in a company like environment and the same
thing for Facebook I think. I think as young people I worked with junior high kids they really
feel comfortable sharing almost anything and I'm talking about people only 5 to 10 years younger then me
really anything publicly on their walls for everyone to see. So I think theres definitely
a privacy barrier where someone a little bit older such as a teacher or faculty member may have
the wisdom to say you probably don't want to be sharing that on the internet but in your youth you think its
ok but later might come back to hurt you. So this is a
about expectations, student expectations so I want to switch gears a little bit. So we talked a lot about social
sorta of casual and out of the classroom things. What are the tools
where you guys use in the classroom right now? What are you big technology tools that support
you're learning? Google docs definitely, Google docs.
As much as I hate it I'm really relying Angel
and the class notes that professors post on Angel. I think I'm going to write that down.
Davis. Yea I use Evernote for notes
but like Caitlin said I think docs is really the go to for
collaborating on written assignments. What about you David?
As I said in my intro dropbox I still think is my favorite tool
because it has both off line and on line access and it's very easy to quickly create a group
to share it with teachers, classmates and also to be able to share private documents once there kinda of
finished. OK. So I want to ask you guys, this is another audience participation. How many of you think students
really dislike Angel or our course management system?
[ background noise ]
Agree, agree that they dislike.
Sorry about that.
Taking a big chance asking this question.
I know everybody thinks that they love it, I just want to see the number.
Ok let's get to 100 and will stop it ok.
What is going on today?
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Ok so now I want to ask who said that students don't dislike it
that they like it, I would like to see. Ok Vicki yea, Shawn so
and John ok you said really don't like it, really don't like it
they like it I just don't think they really dislike it. Ok so that's a good
differentiator. So do you guys dislike it or do you really dislike it? I really
dislike it. I absolutely
dislike it. That is stronger then really dislike it. If you want to take it that way. Caitlin I like that convenience
that your classes are organized and everything but just as a
well in IST it's called LA but its kind of like a TA it is the most frustrating thing you
will ever have to work with. I don't know how professors work with it. But,
I guess my biggest pet peeve is that when I hit reports I just want to see my grades and I have to
go through and click grades from the drop down and the first things learners profile.
I don't what that is and it's the first thing always pops and to me that is my biggest pet peeve. Ok.
As you're sending out a tweet. Caught me
in the action. I really also do not like Angel at all. So, ok
ok so we settled it and apologizes to anyone in the room who works on it it's no offense against you I just
know it hasn't changed in a while. No no offense taken I'm fine, doesn't does not bother me at all.
At all.
Ok so, Cole can you tell us why? That's what I going to ask them
yea. So why?
[ background noise ]
I think that one of the basic things is that it seems to take
longer to do a task on Angel then it would on like a Google or Facebook
type platform. As students who are able to you know transition
from site to site without much opportunity cost
from site to site without much opportunity cost it's
frustrating to be locked into that kind of system. I'm trying
to clarify the questions and the response. It was 79 percent felt that you do not
like it. Ok, ok sorry just for my tweet I needed to clarify that.
[ laughing ]
I think, I think there is a number of reasons. I think I first came to Penn State in the Spring of 06 actually
and ended up leaving school and doing a couple of things. I'm not sure how much Angel has changed since then
but I think with web technology, iPhone, iPad you have a rapidly
iterative technology. So Facebook in 2004, 2005 looks extremely
different then Facebook in 2011 and I don't think the different softwares provide
at the University level have kept up with that rate of change. So the expectancies level of Angel
when it first came I'm sure wildly exceeded expectations in terms of
Wow this is a lot better then going to class in paper and assignments and calendar books
but now in 2011 when you have google docs like Davis mentioned you have Facebook you have all these
wildly successful tools that students are used to, something like Angel now has
seemingly become technologically obsolete which I think it makes it difficult for students like us to really
appreciate it. I want to play off his student like us. Can, can
the four of you think about the students at this university who are a little less technologically savvy. Yes
and who are not in google docs and so on. I'm not hearing complaints from them.
That's the majority of your fellow students so do you have any thoughts on that? I
don't think want to pull up the one Twitter. I know there's a Twitter specifically designed to tweet about
Angel and its short cummins but I do think
students complain amongst each other, they don't really complain to the faculty and staff about their issues. But these other students
they don't have alternatives you would say like you all have alternatives but they just don't like it.
They wouldn't like anything. No don't think any of us have alternatives to Angel like we have to use it because thats where the teacher
No but you would say something some hybrid of google docs or something, you have something you would wish you professors
would use. Well, go ahead Davis, I think when you talk about alternatives with Angel you're talking about other students,
other students just become that apathetic to it. They just say its like
you know another tool web mail to them you know. It's not that great but
what else am I going to use I'm just going to use it and deal with it. You know a lot of people just
not going to fight to find a way around it the'll just
accept it and use it. So then what, what's your advise to us right
to all of us out here? What are your expectations for us?
I know Caitlin touched on one thing with the grade book. My personal pet peeve is, no, no not pet peeves.
What do you want us to do? A lot of students share this though. The grade book for example
I mean how many professor don't use the grade book and how often do students want to be able to see their grades
on demand without have to email a TA or email a professor, wait for a response
you know. Basics just make more use of what's already available. Interesting ok.
A big problem of mine is that not every professor organizes their Angel page the same way.
Countless times I've clicked syllabus, the syllabus
tab and there is no syllabus. So I have to search through power points that
are up randomly in the lessons tab or some professors I have organize it by
session so I have to find through the session where the certain powerpoint is. So I guess
if professors maybe organized their Angel account according
to the tabs at least, I don't know. So let me ask well go back out here. Do you
think students would be more apt to utilize it enjoy this tool Angel
if we were better at it. If we were better at Angel do you think their
reaction to the tool itself would be more positive?
[ background noise ]
The questions is, if we were better at using Angel like
us right, listening to them would they have a more favorable and positive reaction to the technology?
Yes or No?
See how your afraid to
answer. Ok you ready?
[ background noise ]
Does that resinate with you? So we got some work to do guys.
We got some work to do. Do you think, do you guys think that the social web
and the movement, so we talked about Twitter, we talked about Facebook, the real time Web has that altered
your expectations and the reaction time of your faculty? So in other words because you see these
flows coming in at you so quickly do you think that's changed the way you expect us to interact with you
within Angel or within other environments all together?
I think, I think this
is Davis I know you have use an iPhone does am I the only one who has difficulty access Angel from mobile
or is that a pretty common? Its common, yea I think that right there is a big barrier to
entry to using something like Angel. A lot of students are obviously upgrading now the iPhone is for Verizon and
Droid technologies are pretty rapid I don't know what the statics are but I think with
a lot of people using smart phones these days over wifi graciously provided by the University
I thinks it makes it again more difficult to access these things when you need it. I think it about accessibility
and as Caitlin mentioned standardization. So the big joke about Angel is that it's
always down for 2 to 3 hours a night just when people are starting to cram all night for all night sessions.
I think most students literally go to Angel, login, download
a document they go back to Angel from a different computer download a document and it's
kind of a continual process and that I think that leads to some frustration about accessing Angel
from where ever you are in kind of the easy to use manner.
[ background noise ]
I mean, I just have a quick. I mean I think what
you are implying with your questions is kinda of the speed of things. It's no question that Angel is slow.
I mean it just runs slowly and there is no question that what my experience of students is
that you all you do you want things to happen very quickly and so I mean
felt like that's where you were going with your questions. Yea I mean I would actually say I use Angel right and
Angel is not whats slow it's me. Relative to your expectations right?
I get email from you guys all the time in my Angel spaces and I say well I'll get to that because
I have other things to do right and you are expecting the kinda of comments and streams you get from
stuff out there I guess is where I was going not the software itself but the expectations
with it. So we have like 10 minutes left and this is what I want to do. I want to open this up to you because I'm tired of
trying to read Angela's mind back there but I did a good job I thought of reading your mind. So who has
questions, I have a microphone I can come and bring it. OK. Stewart
right there. I just yell at you Cole. Can you ask students, the students what was involved
in their best learning experience? Did you hear that?
What was involved in your best learning experience? From a technological perspective or just not necessarily
just in general. Assuming you
have had a best learning experience. What was involved in a decent
learning experience. Here I'll, what was involved in a learning experience?
Have you had, pick up your clickers. Go ahead
I'm not sure I have an answer to that right now.
Ouch! I think what I have learned what I've learned most through college so far
is how to work in teams for again I'm going to have to go with google docs like
anything you know you need how to learn a manage a team and learn when to coordinate a time when everyone
can be on the same google docs especial with the new feature where you can chat while working in the Google doc so.
For me its team projects that end
in some kind of presentation or deliverable and along the way
the faculty member assigning the project is there to answer questions and puts thought
into the answers instead of you know just passing questions off you know
without giving the responses to much thought.
Actually I've had a good experience this
so far this semester with one of my teachers using Angel actually you know she
mentions in class were going to have homework, she is going to put it up on Angel, she'll email
us when the homework is up and sure enough like clock work when she says she was going to email us she contacts us
you know through the Angel interface. We can go on Angel and download the homework
and people actually, students are actually sending questions via Angel to all other students and asking for
help for with questions and answers so definitely want to throw out the positive benefits of using
that experience. Thank you so much. I want to ask
the students, if you were going to teach a class in the fall
what one technology would you probably rely on to do the teaching part
or two technology. How would you do it? Cole can you repeat that? Sure
so what Matt asked was to the students if you were going to teach a class in the fall
what one or two key technologies would you rely upon to do your work as a
teacher? I would say Yammer and google docs.
Yammer is for those who aren't familiar with an enterprise social network.
So you would create an at hawk community for your course and then
supplement it with docs available on the cloud through google but I think that
what you know the comments from David, Mike and Caitlin
about what their ideal or best learning experience has been the common thread in that to me was
collaboration and I think that one of the biggest omission from
Angel current is that theres really no social dimension to it,
theres no chat function, theres no way to see who else is viewing a course, theres no way to see
who else is on line but Yammer does that really well.
I would say google docs cause it gives you that collaborative platform and those basic office applications
you need and then I would say email because despite it being thought of being the dinosaur
of technology communications it's still I think really fundamental to students
and it's really important them. If I was going to teach a class I would organize my Angel page
very well. I would definitely
keep up with the calendar on Angel so then students would know exactly when
its due instead of having to go through the syllabus that's never there. Also in a class
in one class I had to work with a team in Singapore and we used
Moodle and that really worked well because not only could we
collaborate within it and see each others, we had forums so we could respond to each other,
our teachers and teaching assistants could also look at what we were doing.
Do you have an answer? Do have a response?
I think maybe I would work with the University to build something from scratch.
No when I say this I think, I think, I think, I think
Davis had the best point in that he said that collaboration is what's missing. I think Caitlin
which she has harped on over and over again is standardization and I think boil it down into it pieces
you have docs is which is way people using google docs. The reason I use dropbox is because I can access both
on line and off line. You know you have obviously the kind of dates from the syllabus
and the things that you need to, when to be at class, when your exams are and
as Davis said you need to have a social experience to be able to communicate and collaborate with the people
in your class. So whether thats a specific tool or that's building something from scratch
I think I would with the later. I would like to ask
the students a different question, thats possible that these students aren't the ones that really need to answer. For me the most
interesting thing with the new technology has been the capacity to open a back channel
discussion during class time for those students to scared to put their hands up and that's been
really tremendous, I get a lot of feedback in real time and to me thats been the been the things
really shifted things on. None of you guys really mentioned that, does that not of interest to you or your classmates?
I think for some of us, I know personally I haven't had
really a professor who kinda of embraces that experience.
I think if more people or more instructors could find a way to kinda of engage that
and make sure so that perhaps if it's a student who is you know afraid to ask a question
make that process anonymous so the questions is still asked and they get their answer, who ever can find a way to do that
I think it would be a really effective learning tool. I have had that, sorry, no, I've had that
experience once in my freshman year we all had to make a video in
our class and we showed it and during the videos people
in the classroom could write into this system that someone in IST
designed and it was real time updates as to what people were saying about the video.
Believe or not people are people are writing the most obscene things
I couldn't believe it that someone would write that but if there is a way to control I think that would be great.
I think the difficult, the difficult piece of all this is
the more tools that we introduce in this system, whether its Twitter in class or Facebook or
google doc or dropbox is that you then have a more disparate web that students have
to keep track of. So literally when I'm logged into my computer I have a gmail open, a Google calendar, a Google docs,
dropbox folder on my hard drive, now you're talking about Twitter, Yammer and Angel and
just quickly becomes unmanageable in terms of the number of piece that are disparate
all over the place. So I think the back channel is important but hopefully again as Davis said whether that's
the chat type interface or back channel interfacing that directly with the learning management
tool I think would be a great benefit with students. Ok, Chris you had a really good question
here that I want to open up to voting so what was the. Do you want me to actually voice it? Yes I want you
say it out loud. [ Laughing ] Multi channel. The model that we are using in this room
right now with Twitter would that be degenerated an under graduate class to be talking about
I don't know your mom and the model of using
Twitter is this model right then people can take you seriously they've been posting interesting things
with that degenerating an under graduate class let's say of this size
or would it be taken seriously? So yea A if it would be taken seriously or B
it would be degenerate. [ background noise ]
Using this model where we have Twitter
running right now. Would it A improve the class
or B would it bring the class down?
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[ laughing ]
Where's Jim Leous?
So what do you guys think? Do you guys think that this model
do you think that they think that this model in a class like this would improve the environment or would it break
down and become distracting before we show this? I think it would depend on if
well I guess would you have the statuses going on while class was up.
Yep just like this. I think it would take away, I think people are going to be looking at that rather then whats going on with the teacher.
As well as if you have a large classroom people are going to think they anonymous and say whatever they want
just like with my example I said about people updating or writing things about the videos going on
people writing funny things, I myself wrote O' Doyle rules because that's my last name
an in Happy Gilmore movie so people don't take things serious especially if you know
it can't really be tracked. I think it depends really on the course subject
of the class and the kind of students you have in the class for upper class men in a smaller section
that take the course work seriously and interest in the subject matter I think it would be effective for like a freshman
seminar I wouldn't touch it. I think back channels are really good at
highlighting salient points you know I think this is a good example of when
something is especially quotable is said it's recycled on
Twitter and therefor reenforced and I personally find that to be helpful for
remembering it. What seems to be popular kind of in the tech world
right now is a group messaging system whether its group me or beluga or I think google now
is working on disco. I think that I don't think I'm not sure about Twitter specifically
because one think I'm thinking about as I've tweeted ten, fifteen times now is do the rest of the people
following me on Twitter really want to see all the things that I'm tweeting about in this kind of
semi private setting or various it's a theres a lot of specificity to tweeting about this
particular Symposium, so I guess the question is how do you direct the back channel way that people feel comfortable
sharing their questions or concerns and also maybe in private. So if a student has
questions in class you know I'm sitting in International Economics I may not want every
single person to know that I didn't understand that mechanism, I saw this when I did with junior high
junior high kids I actually allowed them to text in questions to me directly and as I was speaking I could
see what the questions were and either stop and answer directly a questions or
weave in an answer directly into the response. So I think one it there might be
something in between that would work in the scene that all the comments aren't public for everyone to see
You know that David had a questions that he didn't understand, you know the distrivie
equation and in a scene that the teacher could see that and stop and answer and I think that
might be intermediate solutions. That's actually how I do it, so I do it through paul everywhere
and it's completely anonymous and most of the time I would just have it on
my portable computer next to the podium so I watch whats going on. If something interesting happening
in the class or discussion I flash it up like this most of the time it's not there. I repeat again what that does
gives a channel for those people to nervous to put their hand up and I think it works extraordinarily well for empowering
some students that aren't normally getting a show in the class. I will,
so that's what you thought
so A is degenerating, no A is it would improve. Yea
following from you I mean when I when I had paul everywhere up
so that the entire class could see last year I found out that one of my students had sex with my wife over
spring break and all sorts of other things you know that they would post up for the whole class to see and it was
funny in the moment but really but then it you know
hard to contain it. But those are the kind of things,
that's where it will go in a big class, I mean that's the kinda of place it will go.
I just want to comment on that, I think again it's about you know I tweeted at [ ? ]
I think it's about accountability and indemnity if you on the Facebook you can't hide
your identity you know, you know my user and my profile that is tied to me and so
if there is some way to a secure identity then I don't think people
are going to degenerate into those kinds of commentary, commentary.
All right well you know I hate to do this, cause I could I could do this all day and I know you guys
probably could too I can see how energized you are to sit here for another hour. I want to thank can we get a
round of applause for our students and faculty fellows.
[ Clapping ]
In closing again, I want to send out and absolute sincere Thank you to everyone
who came and who had such a huge hand in this and I want everyone to know that
this event is the most energizing event for those of us who think about
Teaching and Learning With Technology at this University and I can not tell you how empowered I feel to go back to work
even with all the crazy things that are going on in Harrisburg to go back and do better for you guys and
that's something that this event is about. It's about us opening up a dialog and better understanding
what it is that you guys really want us to be thinking about and how we do our work. So thank you to you and thank you
to all of you and have a great year and we will see you in 2012.
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