Is the Medium the Message?

I must say that I am having a wonderful time reading and responding to the blogs that my students in our Emerging Instructional Technology course are writing. Different students are evolving in their expressions at different levels and it is exciting to see how things are growing. Some students are introducing themselves to the world in their early postings. Some students are sharing emerging technologies (complete with direct links to the sites under discussion.) Some students are reflecting on how we are exploring the exploding world of Emerging Technologies.

One such blog where the student is exploring her world of learning is Put Up Your Dukes.
Sarah is explaining how she is finding direct comparisons between the technology environments found in k-12 with the corporate world. She says that the comments/experiences/problems she is hearing from the Tech Coordinator of Maine about the 1:1 computer initiative is quite similar to her experience in the business world.

Perhaps the most exciting part of her postings is her reactions to learning about things through different forms of media. She has listened to the podcast about 1:1 computing in Maine. She watched and listened to a PowerPoint presentation from Boston College about their research into the differences that providing 5th graders with laptop computers for 24/7 use can make on their learning. She says that listening to the discussion engaged her better than reading a textbook or article. She isn't talking about the content but rather about the medium through which it is delivered.

In 1964, Marshal McLuan said that "The medium is the message."
He was stating that the content was almost irrelevant and that it is the medium through which the content is delivered that "changes our consciousness." This student who is engaged with content because she "can multitask, reflect, make connections, talk to people, hear or see things I wouldn't have come up with on my own."

There is a great deal to be considered here. It sounds like a cliche, but in the multimedia world, we need to engage our students by sharing content with them through media that are important to them and that correlate with their learning conduits.

Complete Fool's Guide to Second Life

I was just reviewing the Second Life Tutorial website that I found while reading Steve A's blog and I found the Complete Fool's Guide to Second Life. This is a 72-page pdf file that takes you on a great tour of what you will experience in Second Life. Wish it had been a video with an accompanying pdf file for later reference. I browsed through it and found that I had learned a great deal of this information by-hook-and-by-crook. It would have been much nicer if I had used this tutorial.

I would strongly recommend this wonderful introductory tutorial. You should also look at the Second Life Tutorial site to see what else you can do in Second Life.

Speed Up Your Audio Learning

I was just reading Steve Pavlina's Blog on Personal Development for Smart People. I just happened to bump into it when I was looking for fancy things I can do with phone texting. While I was there I read his posting, Overclock Your Audio Learning. He was talking about how you can absorb and understand audio material at rates faster than the regular speaking rate. He said that he was able to understand and remember material that was played at 4x the regular rate. This means that he could listen to a 6 hour recording of a book in only an hour and a half. What a great savings of time.

I have experienced this with my iPod. I have listened to audio books at a faster rate. The iPod allows you to increase the rate by 25%. That means that you can listen to 1 hour 15 minute podcast in 1 hour. Not as fast as what Steve Pavilina advocates, but it's faster. Pavilina says that it he can get the turbo speeds using Windows Media Player, but I couldn't find it on my Mac version. Must just be the Windows version. If you're interested, the instructions are included in his posting that I linked up above.

This is a way to compress your learning. I wonder how it would work if you were driving while listening to this. Pavilina says that he learns even better using this method. I believe that the increased speed REQUIRES you to pay more attention. Wonder how it would work with a podcast.

I would be interested in your take on this. Those of you who are listening to podcasts for school or your own interest might try this method. Please comment on how it works for you.

Wiki Webinar from Open Campus

Today I participated (along with 5 other UNI faculty) in a Wiki and Web 2.0 Webinar that was provided by Open Campus and sponsored by the SocialText wiki company. Here are the PowerPoint slides from the Webinar in .pdf format.

It was a semi-interactive webinar where we had to enroll into webinar previously and then we received a URL for connecting. Upon linking to the site at showtime, the screen provided some buttons for downloading the slides for the day. I downloaded the .pdf file and we proceeded through them as the speakers spoke. (I only wish that they had beeped or something when they progressed from page to page so that we could stay in synch.)

The three speakers were:
Gerald C. Kane, Asst Prof at Boston College
Howard Rheingold, Prof at Stanford and UC Berkeley
Jeff Brainard, Director of Marketing at Socialtext (the sponsor)

(These are some really interesting websites and I can't wait to have the time to review their class syllabi to see how they are using the Web 2.0 tools for learning.)

All three presenter provided useful information. I think that the most exciting one was Gerald Kane. He brought about a number of interesting concepts about using a wiki to provide the tools that can make student activities more interactive and student centered.

My favorite part about his presentation was his statement that he used his wiki to create a “mashup” of Web 2.0 tools. I like this word, mashup. I have heard it used to describe combining audio files and video files, but never with Web 2.0 tools. This made me think about Mashup curriculum. This is a curriculum that is the product of combining a variety of Web 2.0 tools and environments to create a global interactive world of learning.

Dr. Reingold showed the syllabus for Participatory Media Literacy.
It is filled with Web 2.0 tools that he is using to engage his students. HOW EXCITING!!!!

I need to find a way to integrate this into my Emerging Instructional Technologies course that I am teaching this semester. Look out students!!!!! Here it comes!!!!!

Online Audio Track of the Webinar
I have just received a link to the audio broadcast of the Webinar.
This audio broadcast extends to the whole 1 hour and 9 minutes. If you want to see the slides with the audio track, you need to download the slides and then progress through them as the presenters give their presentations.

Using YouTube to Teach

Well, I just created my first tutorial video for YouTube. Actually, I created it for my Emerging Instructional Technologies course at the University of Northern Iowa, but I am storing it on YouTube. I tried to upload it to TeacherTube, but it took forever to upload it and I finally quit it and went for YouTube.

The tutorial instructs my students how to add blogs to their Google Reader utility. It is quite informal. I did the personal introductory part in my livingroom and then did the screencast (video capture of what was happening on the screen) just using my computer and computer microphone.

This video, Adding Blogs to Your Google Reader is accessible on YouTube for you to watch and then try out.

STUDENTS: I would suggest that you:
1) Watch the video to see how to do it.
2) Try adding this blog, Dr. Z Reflects, to your Google Reader.
3) Go to our wiki page where students are posting their blog addresses
4) Add your classmates' blogs to your Reader and keep up on what they are saying throughout the semester. You might even want to react to their comments to build a REAL learning community.

This may be the beginning of something big.

Z

Zoho Rocks!

Google has its studio of tools, but Zoho is close on Google's tail. I learned about Zoho from Kathy Schrock's presentation at NECC 2007, but she only mentioned the Zoho database. Since then Zoho has added a number of applications. These applications include:
Zoho Writer - Online Word Processor
Zoho Sheet - Online Spreadsheet
Zoho Show - Online Presentation tool
Zoho Notebook - Create, Aggregate and Collaborate with multiple types of content online.
Zoho Planner - Online todo list
Zoho CRM - Customer Relationship Management. This looks like a help desk for small businesses. The first 3 lines are free and then it is $12/month for each line after that.
Zoho Creator - Online database (I embedded my first database file below)
Zoho Wiki - Online Wiki
Zoho Chat - You guessed it - a way to type at each other online.
Zoho Mail - Collaboration groupware. Sounded interesting but it is a beta and I believe that it is all written in the Indian language (Hindi? Tamil?) I look forward to this being developed.
Zoho Meeting - Hold an online meeting. Looked like you can share slideshows, communicate through VOIP, even take control of another person's computer for troubleshooting.
Zoho Polls - Create surveys and polls.

These are all free. I haven't had a chance to look at all of them, but it looks promising.

I am embedding a form for completing my database for Web 2.0 Applications below. I copied the HTML code from the Zoho Creator database page and pasted it into the HTML for this page. I have even set it so that I will receive an email notification whenever someone adds a record.

Check it out. This looks good!!!!

Web 2.0 Applications

I am fascinated by the available Web 2.0 Applications. My proposal for doing a presentation on Web 2.0 Applications at the Iowa Technology and Education Connection (ITEC) conference in October was accepted so I am now looking for cool Web 2.o Applications, Gadgets and Gizmos.

What do you know about these? What are your favorites? If you have one, add it to the form on my other posting.

Here is a list from Kathy Schrock:
http://kathyschrock.net/web20/

Go2Web20 is an innovative and comprehensive index of Web 2.0 applications:
http://www.go2web20.net/