For any faculty at VCU who might happen to read this, I recommend the Institute as an outstanding faculty development experience. The instruction was superb, facilitated by the Center for Teaching Excellence staff, Jeff Nugent, Britt Watwood, and Bud Diehl. In this post, I’m going to comment on some of my initial ventures in the wild and wonderful world of wikis, blogs, and podcasts. I’m just barely treading water in this new Read/Write web but here’s how I’ve gotten my feet wet so far ……

I was a little concerned that perhaps I was taking a seat in the workshop that belonged to someone else– after all, I have been part of a Faculty Learning Community on Using Technology to Enhance Teaching and Learning for two years now — I  wondered, “Should I sign up for (yet another) technology immersion experience?”  I’m glad that I did, for the learning was nothing less than transformative. 

In this one short week, everything that I had been exposed to for two years — the terms, concepts, ideas about collaboration and community — all came together in a great gestalt.  My transformative learning experiences are usually never very dramatic; rather, they exist as an accumulation of (gradual) changes in experience, reflection, and action until I reach the point where I can see the distance I’ve traveled in the way I think.  But this week came as close to a great AH HA as I ever get.  Here’s what I’ve learned …

Lesson # 1: Technology Has a Way of Taking You Places that You Never Intended to Go

I went into the week wanting to learn enough about blogs that I could launch the Blog Project for the graduate students in our Adult Learning program.  We’re changing the way our learners use ePortfolios this fall and moving into blogs as a form of reflective practice (more about this coming in my next post). We never really spent much time (if any) on blogs, but somehow I wasn’t disappointed. 

I left the Institute incredibly excited about developing podcasts (I was never interested in podcasts before … I don’t even own an iPod). Who wants to sit at a computer and listen to an hour’s tape recorded lecture? In the Insitute, I  discovered what I could do with 5-10 minutes of audio content to supplement my classes with additional material beyond what we were able to talk about in class. Just think — short bits synthesizing what I thought was important about a topic, or introducing another author’s point of view to contrast or add to what we were learning! I even learned how to record a jazzy little intro with 30 seconds of free-access music and my welcome to the topic.  Now I can edit with Audacity with ease.   I added a button to our Bb site on my summer course for podcasts, and I’m sure I’ll be creating more now that I see how easy (and fun) they are to create. 

Lesson # 2 – Try it Out for Real if You Want to Know What Works

When I began the Institute week, I wasn’t sure what this wiki thing was really all about, but I was willing to try it out since my colleague Joan Rhodes uses a wiki in her grant-writing work and finds it really useful. During the Institute, we were introduced to Wikispaces, a free web 2.0 tool.  After the Institute I created a wiki for my Human Resource Development course, and the class had a wonderful experience with it.  Here are a few of their comments (posted to the wiki, of course) from the end of class session:

I also found interacting with each other on the wiki to be valuable. I like how the wiki allows for a stream of thoughts/reflections to be captured on one page without having to read through threads as on a discussion board. I think the wiki fostered interaction between us.

In addition to the factual information presented in class I learned a lot about the new technologies that are available for use in learning situations. I have taken this information back to my department and [I am] hopeful we will begin to use some of these tools to assist in the education of our students. I have enjoyed using the wiki and see that it can have tremendous application to our teaching environment.

Additionally, I think one of the best things about this class was that we were a small group and that we used the wiki. Our conversations really took off this semester and I looked forward to seeing everyone’s opinion on the readings. I think we started a community of practice. I hope I’m not stretching the meaning of that concept too much but I really think that’s what we were doing with the wiki. I hope we can continue that with the blogs this fall.

I found myself quite shy in the first couple wiki posts, but got into it and enjoyed it, even though it’s hard for me to read long paragraphs. I’ve always said that I would like to write professionally, and I realized that if I can’t share my thoughts with 8 others in a wiki, that I probably shouldn’t think about writing publically. I think this has been a great experience in terms of having the courage to put thoughts out in public.

I treasure the conversations that we have had in the class and on the Wiki. This has helped cement the learning for me. I am challenged and encouraged hearing the experiences and thoughts of my classmates and Dr. Carter. 

I’ve always wanted to create a more egalitarian space for dialogue in the classroom and the wiki has enabled us to do that this summer. I have to admit, though, that our use of the wiki wasn’t completely true to form in terms of collaborative editing and composing. Instead, we used the wiki, in this initial experiment with it, as a place where I posted questions based on our readings. I asked for comments, reactions, and personal experiences each week.  

As the semester progressed, students had more to say, and with each subsequent week, they began to comment more on each other’s comments as well as present their own ideas. In class, we pulled the wiki up on the SmartBoard, and went through the responses as a group, with each person describing, in more detail, his or her thinking and experiences that led to the comments made on the wiki.

I hope this use of the wiki will be one that we can begin to carry over to our reflective blogging this fall. The wiki made for some of the best conversations I’ve ever experienced in a class. And, yes, I’ve already created a wiki for my Fall semester classes:-).  In the fall, I expect to set up pages on the course wiki for project teams to collaborate on program plans (ADLT 602, Program Planning, Management, and Evaluation) and consulting projects (ADLT 610, Consulting Skills in Adult Learning Environments). 

Lesson # 3 – Sometimes Simpler Isn’t Better

In the Institute, Bud Diehl introduced us to Gliffy, a neat simple little tool for concept mapping. He also shared with us another more comprehensive tool called CMap, which has been developed by a group of researchers associated with several Florida Universities at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC).  

Later, I had a chance to explore the excellent article written by IHMC reseachers Joseph D. Novak and  Alberto J. Canas on The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Use Them.  I decided to use this more comprehensive CMap tool for my summer class.    

CMap requires a free software download and takes a little longer to become proficient in using it than does Gliffy, but its advantage is that students can embed interactive content (audio, video, Word and pdf documents, as well as PowerPoint presentations) into the concepts being presented.  The resulting CMap can be saved as a website with its linked articles and resource contents.    

Even though it was more challenging for students to learn, we gave it a try during this summer HRD class and the results were, well, AMAZING! Two groups of four students developed outstanding maps in answer to the question, How does Human Resource Development contribute to organizational effectiveness?  In doing so, they have organized a rich resource of materials that effectively map the terrain of the field of HRD — no small feat in a 6-week summer class!  

So, my initial forays into putting into practice what I have learned from my Institute experience, coupled with some muddling about in the  web 2.0 world for a couple of years are are taking me (and my learners)into new uses for technology in the classroom and at work. Since many of them are also teachers, trainers, and educators, they, too, have a growing understanding of how these new technologies can bring learners’ voices into the conversation.    

This fall, I’ll be experimenting with VoiceThreads, a tool for group conversation around pictures and video, and developing screencasts with Camtasia, software used to create demos and presentations. Both of these are new tools I learned about from the Institute. More about that in future posts!