Ed Tech in HE Reflections

So let's take a look at 2 potential tool applications relating to the use of SM (social media) in the higher ed classroom.  1. Google Apps--specifically Google Docs. This tool has almost limitless possibilities, and I feel using it for classwide as well as group-driven curation activities is an incredible opportunity to allow students to collaborate without being limited by time and place. Here is a neat little intro video from the MERLOT repository that talks more about Google Docs: https://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=733524&hitlist=keywords%3Dgoogle%2520docs&fromUnified=tru e  In terms of how one might utilize Google Docs, a proposed activity I offer is to require students to search for an assigned topic, and to utilize Google Docs in a similar fashion to how one might use any wiki. Individual students would search for information, return to the central Google Doc location, and add in documentation. In a developmental psychology course, an examp

List.ly, among many popular curation-driven social media platforms, offers what appears to be useful opportunities for teaching and learning. The main plus to utilizing this tool appears to be collaboration opportunities. For example, in a course encouraging students to learn more about instructional design in education, one might assign list.ly and have students search for pre-made lists, and either note these, or append to them to encourage collaboration outside of the traditional or online classroom environment. Further, students would be able to search for a list and finding it missing, fill in knowledge gaps by creating their own. Here is one example that I found relating to this proposed scenario:  http://list.ly/list/zL0-teachers-as-designers-resources-to-inspire-in-week-3?feature=search Evaluation of the tool itself: List.ly is simple to create, as it allows you to generate the account by linking to other SM accounts. Further, it allows you to follow lists already made, t

While participating in a 3-part online workshop, I was asked to complete a reflection on my personal/professional philosophy on the use of SM (social media) in OL (online learning). In doing so, I started out with first laying out what I've done at this point. Here it is up to this point: SM has been used for connections with remote (OL) students. I began this initially by collaborating with a friend and colleague and building out an online VW in SL, many years ago. We actually built out a tremendous re-creation of our campus, which was interesting, but a time-waster in some ways as there were many educational opportunities to be had from pre-built sites on SL.  From this, I took my remote OL students on tours of sites--we were in a developmental psych and then an adult dev & aging class, so we toured a dementia site, an autism site, and many others. These allowed students to engage with others and immerse themselves into VR scenarios. One of the more interesting oppor