In 2012 and 2013, so far, there has been a lot of talk about massively open online courses, which are commonly known as “MOOCs”. Almost every session that we attended at the 2013 EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) Annual Meeting mentioned MOOCs, and the 2013 Horizon Report predicts that MOOCs will see widespread adoption in higher…
Category: Emerging Techologies
2013 NMC- ELI Horizon Report
On February 4, the NMC Horizon Report: 2013 Higher Education Edition was released. The Horizon Report is a joint initiative between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). Topics covered in this year’s report include:
Emerging Technology and Pie: Using Wikis in the Classroom
If there is one thing more enjoyable than learning new ways to utilize technology, it is learning about new technology while eating delicious pie. Yes. Pie. Three types. But we’ll get back to that. The Wiki (made popular by the ubiquitous Wikipedia) was the topic for the first Emerging Technology and Pie workshop of the…
Creating a Writing Network through Twitter
In his TeachOIT post “Twitter: What’s the Point?“, Tony explained a few ways Twitter has been useful to him both socially and professionally. I’d like to add a further way that Twitter has improved my academic life. As a graduate student, finding the motivation to do academic writing can be…elusive at times. Many doctoral candidates…
Twitter: What’s the Point?
During last week’s “Overview of Emerging Technology” a good portion of the audience indicated an interest in hearing about Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service that is receiving lots of press coverage. The general question people asked is “what’s the point?” I’ve been using Twitter for a little over a year so I demoed how Twitter looks and mumbled…
TeachOIT Podcast #2: Social Bookmarking with Delicious
In the first of our two-part series “Catching Up with Emerging Technologies” Tony and Fred discuss the social bookmarking tool Delicious. Why should you care about social bookmarking? Listen and find out! TeachOIT Podcast #2: Social Bookmarking (10 minutes) Podcast Opening/Closing music is “The Future Soon” by Jonathan Coulton, used under a Creative Commons…
Why Build Virtual Worlds?
Why build a virtual world? Philip Rosedale, founder of the popular virtual world Second Life talks about the desire to build and create, and about how virtual worlds make that possible in ways that were not previously available/plausible. Though I certainly don’t agree with all of Rosedale’s arguments about the merits of virtual worlds, he raises some…
A Vision of Students Today
This video made the rounds on the Internet (and TeachOIT) about a year and a half ago, but when we showed it at the beginning of our two most recent “Emerging Technologies” workshops I don’t believe any of the attendees had seen it, so I’ve decided it is worth sharing again here: [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/dGCJ46vyR9o” width=”425″…
Faculty Spotlight: Exploring Virtual Worlds with Second Life
For our second Emerging Technology and Pie event of the semester Florence Sullivan, professor in the School of Education, joined us to talk about her explorations of virtual worlds. Popularized by Second Life, virtual worlds are three-dimensional(3D) spaces in which people can communicate, explore environments, and construct their own virtual objects and spaces. When you…
Tips for Engaging Students with Wikis
“If you build it, they will come” doesn’t always work with technology, and wikis are no exception. How do you get students to go to the resources you establish as part of a class, and how do you get them to engage with the material or the tool once you’ve gotten them there? If you…
An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube
Kansas State Univeristy’s Michael Wesch present a fascinating overview of some of the history, trends, and themes observed as part of his ethnography of YouTube. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/TPAO-lZ4_hU” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] At 55 minutes this is somewhat of a commitment to watch, you might want to wet your appetite by checking out two short videos…
Faculty Spotlight: Facebook for Instruction
For our first Emerging Technology & Pie event of the semester Steve Fox, lecturer in the Journalism Department, joined us to present on his use of Facebook and Twitter in undergraduate Journalism courses. We had a good number of new faces showed up, and a wide range of ages and departments were represented in the…