Somehow, when I agreed to continue doing R&D for Ocotillo, we decided to call the research area "leading edge technologies". However, in retrospect, it is more of a hodge podge of stuff that isn't necessarily that leading edge. I guess you can decide for yourself.
BTW, if you wish to contact me, send an email to david.weaver@cgcmail.maricopa.edu
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I'm sorry to be absent from the Faculty Convocation this year as I would prefer to be able to talk to you in person about what it is I've been doing in terms of Ocotillo R&D. Reading the last few entries in this blog will give you some idea about what's been going on (and not). I've also put together a number of documents in the new Google Docs & Spreadsheets that you should glance at (or spend an hour) to get a more in-depth view. Feel free to contact me with any questions/comments you may have about any of these materials.
http://lnk.in/46za (I used an URL-shortening service in case you need to type in the address)
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ah829pgqcv4g_0hgz7zn (in case you want the actual addres)
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Jan 4, 2007 01:56 PM
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I videotape portions of almost every class and I like to make the footage (do you still call it that in the world of digital video?) available to students for their podcasts and multimedia presentations. In the old days (say... last month or so) I would have to download the video into iMovie, do some rough editing, export the project as a movie and post it to the class eport site. There were lots of days that I captured the video and got it into iMovie and that was it.
Then, I had a conversation with our computer and video wizards and they devised a scheme in which I drop the iMovie project into a folder on the instructor station. Every minute or so a script "looks" in the folder and starts a process to modify the iMovie project to be cleaner and smaller. When the processing is done, it is put in another folder that is automatically shared with each of the student computers so they can use iMovie to grab the bits they need.
Work is underway to also introduce a script that will share processor time from each of the student computers so that the instructor computer can complete the processing more quickly (hive computing). Another enhancement will be to add Windows-compatible clips so students can copy those to their USB sticks directly (without having to go through iMovie) to use on Movie Maker at home.
Cool stuff, huh?
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Nov 29, 2006 01:01 PM
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I have a non-pointed form of grading. Some have suggested that I do a form of contract grading. I don't know what to call it, but there is a certain body of work that students must do at an acceptable level to earn a C for the semester. To get a B, students must do all of the C work, plus some additional stuff. Students pursuing an A have to do the C and B work plus more.
This semester, I decided to have all students start with audio podcasts. After a few weeks, I was going to have the A & B students graduate to enhanced podcasts. And then, I was going to have the A students move up to video podcasts. So, according to this plan, the C's would be doing audio, B's enhanced and A's video. We have Garage Band on our class computers so I was able to show students how to create enhanced podcasts (audio plus still images). However, many students want the ability to do their work outside of class and I didn't find any Windows equivalent of Garage Band that they could use to easily create an enhanced podcast (but I didn't really look very hard).
So, it turns out that it is actually easier for most students to create video podcasts using Windows Movie Maker than it was to hang around and use our machines. In fact, some students that continued to use our machines found it easier to use iMovie to create a video podcast than it was to use Garage Band to create enhanced ones. I'm now down to 2 podcast formats... what do I do about A's, B's and C's?
BTW, Windows Movie Maker doesn't naturally save in a videopodcast format (I wonder why?), but a student turned me on to a site that de-babelizes document formats. It's awesome! http://media-convert.com/
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Nov 29, 2006 05:47 AM
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In the beginning... well, not quite that long ago... I had students maintain a weekly blog about what was going on in their physics world. Then, with the addition of podcasting as an ePort capability, I decided that p-casts would be cool, too. Whenever I add a new "feature" to my course that requires additional student work, there is some grumbling (go figure). However, I listened more closely to the grumbling this semester and heard the students saying that it was redundant. They were saying the same sorts of things in writing that they spoke on the 'casts, so why make them do both.
The compromise that I offered was that they could stop with the blogs, but they needed to include a mini-blog as the description for their podcasts. Rather than just putting a link-name of Week 13 classes and no description, I've asked for a brief written summary of the contents. Some of the students (like Kelsey Meyer) are doing what I ask while others aren't. Next semester, I plan to start with the expectation that they will not have a blog page, but that they will blog within their podcast descriptions.
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Nov 29, 2006 05:31 AM
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Four or so years ago, I decided to offer all of my classes in a blended (hybrid) format. I even wrote an article about it in the MCLI Forum. One of the things that caused me to stop the experiment was that I had to be so organized, ahead of time, and that was contrary to my teaching MO. I've used a mental analogy (and what analogy isn't?) of music styles... to do a significant online piece, I think of orchestral music: all the pieces play a specific part and are prepared (ahead of time) to join at the proper time. My teaching method is more akin to improvisational jazz. I might play a rift in class based on a news story I heard on the radio as I drove in to the school parking lot. I'm sure there are excellent on-line and hybrid instructors that can integrate such extemporaneous, contemporaneous information into their courses, but that was a skill I didn't develop during that year.
Another mitigating factor in my decision was the time requirements of doing a blended course. If the last quarter decade is any model, I tend to change significant components of my courses every semester. I change projects, add whole new grading categories, etc. on a regular basis. My first semester of teaching the hybrid courses required nearly 50% more of my time than teaching F2F. The second semester that dropped down to around 49.9% more time. I thought I saw a trend there. But I digress!
The title of this posting suggested a posting about personal response systems and we haven't gone there yet. I started the semester using our brand new Interwrite PRS systems. My goal was to have at least one question at the beginning, middle and end of each of our ~3 hour classes. I like to track tardies, earlies (when students leave before class is dismissed) and absences. Absences are part of my grading scheme (and 3 tardies/earlies = 1 absence). I'd also read/heard quite a bit about some positive pedagogical impact of using clickers. However, like my experience with hybrid teaching (see, there is a connection!), it requires better planning and forethought than I typically bring to the table. I know I can ask improvisational questions with this system, I just haven't habitized their use yet.
I use a couple of nationally-normed pre/post-tests for both content and scientific attitude and I've decided that I'm going to use the PRS system for students to answer the questions and then show the response distributions and talk about the results. I've always used paper-based responses so I've never had the opportunity for immediate feedback. I'll let you know how it goes...
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Nov 29, 2006 05:17 AM
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A relatively new feature to ePort is the RSS sidebar. Since I have all of my students maintain an ePort, I decided to subscribe to all of their ePort sites from my site so there could be one stop shopping for the latest news in CGCC physics. Student do poke around in each other's business a bit (anecdotal information), but I'd like to promote that more. I'm thinking that I can convince them to include more complete descriptions of their postings and possibly include their names therein so that they can build a fan base?
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Nov 29, 2006 04:50 AM
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For those of you who followed our postings from the last incarnation of Ocotillo, I used the ketchup idea a couple of times to cover for long gaps between blog postings. It's been a month and a half since I posted anything and we have a meeting today where we're going to talk about the website. Since I was the proponent of using the ePort as our communication medium, I decided I should use it as my communication medium.
I decided that, by spreading this ketchup (or is that catsup?) around over a couple of postings, I could make it look like I've been doing more. Is that a good strategy? We'll see...
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Nov 29, 2006 04:31 AM
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I require all students to create an audio, enhanced, or video podcast on a weeekly basis. Ideally, they address three questions: - What? (summarize what was done that week)
- So what? (what did you learn, what does it mean, be metacognitive)
- Now what? (what questions were raised, what do you want to learn, etc.)
If you go to the documents area you'll find a link to one of my student's podcasts so you can get a flavor. I'll post more good sttuff soon...
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Oct 17, 2006 03:27 PM
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We decided to have this site go live today (10/2/06) and there ain't much of today left. So, you'll have to mosey back here from time to time to see if making you look pays off in any way...
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Published
Oct 2, 2006 11:42 PM
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