Online Virtual Communities

Our faculty development group in the CIT is participating in a book club. This month we read an article titled "Examining information exchange and virtual communities: an emergent framework." The article focused on the components of a successful virtual community. The article was very timely as the CIT is planning to cultivate an online community at JMU. I believe that building a thriving online community can be very challenging. The authors discussion of need fulfillment and level of interaction in the community seem like obvious components of a successful online community.

Everyone sets priorities in their work and personal lives. Those priorities revolve around necessity and fulfillment. As the CIT begins to build an online community, I think it is important for us to plan and evaluate why it is necessary and fulfilling to be a part of our community. What will our community offer that is useful and interesting to the higher ed culture? In an evaluation of your own online development, what components attract you to participate in online communities?

I think we are entering an interesting and exciting era involving online personalities and identities. The possibilities seem endless as social networking evolves and we experiment with the usefulness of the available tools.

Hersberger, J.A., Murray, A.L., and Rioux K.S. (2007). Examining information exchange and virtual communities: an emergent framework. Online Information Review, 31 (2), pp. 135-147.

Widgets and My Voice

I have been playing with my blog to see what interesting things I can do. I have always wondered about widgets and decided to include one in my blog- notice the neat little clock in the lower right hand corner.

A web widget according to Wikipedia "is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page." There are tons of widgets that have been created and can easily be dropped into a web page or in my particular case a blog. Try looking at widget box which includes widgets for Blogger, Wordpress, myspace, facebook and several others.

In my brief experience I had to try several widgets before I found one that fit easily into the design of my blog.

On another note, just for Rich- I am literally trying to find my voice this week, which will be evident in class this evening! :)

Google My Maps and Twitter

Interesting blog entry about how KPBS, an affiliate NPR station in San Diego, used Google Maps and Twitter to update citizens about hazardous fire areas in California.

"Putting the Pedagogy into the Tools" K-12 Online Conference

I attended the "Putting the Pedagogy in the Tools" session by Anne Davis at the K-12 Online 2007 Conference. The session was engaging and demonstrated the exemplary uses of using technology in instruction. Anne provided a narrated presentation to begin her session and then encouraged the participants to view her blog, which included examples and resources of different instructional technology tools.

Overall, I found her session to be very informative. I especially enjoyed her introduction (the narrated presentation) which included all images and no text. The images she used definitely reflected her narration. Not many people use PowerPoint or other presentation tools in this manner. Recently, a JMU faculty member mentioned that just including bullet points doesn't necessarily engage the student or provide for further contemplation. Providing an image on the other hand encourages the student to really think about what the image is saying in conjunction with the instructor's voice. I think this is an interesting point, which makes me contemplate textual PowerPoint presentations. Perhaps, by including questions on the slides for participants rather than statements we could provide more engagement and deeper learning.

Whew- The Digital Imagination

I was very pleased with the Teaching and Learning with Technology conference that we hosted last week. Gardner Campbell the keynote speaker gave a superb and thought provoking keynote speech. He spoke about keeping our imaginations open when it comes to instructional technology. You can hear a podcast of his speech on our conference website or on his blog. All of the presentations were engaging and I hope satisfying to the conference participants.

Another highlight of the conference, was making connections with instructional technology folks from other universities. There could be great collaborating potential with VCU, University of Mary Washington, Virginia Tech, EMU, Blue Ridge Community College, just to name a few. Perhaps, we could use the new and emerging social technologies to collaborate with the different schools. I think it would be interesting to keep in touch and bounce ideas off of each other as we support faculty in the every emerging world of technology!

Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference

The countdown is on- 6 days, 20 hours and 40 minutes until the conference begins. This is the first year that I have planned our annual conference. Not only is this the first year of planning, but the first for other aspects of the conference. This year we sent out a call for presentations and ended up with some great responses. We are also inviting faculty from other Virginia Universities and Colleges. This year, so far, 98 people are registered. My goal was 100, which I think can be reached by next Thursday.

We also invited exhibitors from off campus. We will have 8 participants including Adobe, Apple, Blackboard, eInstruction, Smarthinking, Taphere, Venture Interactive, and The Center for Faculty Innovation (a JMU exhibit.)

I think all of the hard work and planning are finally coming together. I hope this entry is somewhat informing because I'm not sure that I could have focused on a different blog topic as the conference is taking over my brain.

Please visit our wonderful TLT Conference website for more information! (I can't take credit for designing it, but it sure looks great to me!!)

Social Learning Environments

I think that the use of Social Learning Environments may be more easily implemented into higher education. As we discussed in class, due to internet restrictions it much more difficult to incorporate social learning tools in the K-12 environment. In fact, higher education has already begun to experiment with social networking.

The Center for Instructional Technology is hosting it's 4th annual Teaching and Learning with Technology conference this October. The theme is Social Learning Environments. Our keynote speaker is Gardner Campbell from University of Mary Washington. He will address how educators can embrace new online tools and incorporate them effectively into education. For more on Gardner's thoughts you can visit his blog.

As for my own thoughts, I think that social learning environments have great potential for education. As educators, we know that students learn and make connections when they are actively learning and working collaboratively. This is exactly what social networking provides for students. For example, blogs, wikis, and virtual worlds allow students to work together collaboratively. Distance and possibly time (depending on the technology) are not an issue. An English instructor at JMU uses a wiki for his students to write collaboratively.

I think we are just beginning to scratch the surface with social learning environments that are accessible to students. There are probably more opportunities to use these technologies that we can even imagine. These opportunities will continue to grow as technology advances.

Web Page Design

Web page design is a tough topic. I think there are general rules that are good to follow but it is hard to meet everyone's needs and preferences. I have created several web pages in the past and there always seem to be new best practices each time. Here are a few general rules that I'll include-

• Easy to use, organized navigation (simple, easy to move back and forth and understandable)
• Easy to read- color of background and text (In the past I was steered towards white or very light colored backgrounds. Now there are dark backgrounds with light colored text that look very professional.)
• Simple layout (page is not overwhelming with too much text or too many graphics, pages should not include lots of animated graphics that detract from the message)

I mentioned everyone's needs above in my introduction. I think it is important but difficult to address everyone's needs. We should be aware of "universal design" and try to make our pages easily used by everyone, including design and elements that help those with disabilities.

Using Technology Effectively and Resources

I guess I will just jump in with some useful technology resources. JMU is a member of EDUCAUSE and the New Media Consortium (NMC.) I have been able to find lots of useful resources from both sites.

The CIT is focusing on modeling effective pedagogy when using instructional technologies. Both the EDUCAUSE and NMC provide useful information in support of this endeavor.

I'll focus for a moment on modeling effective instructional methods. I have taught two workshops in the past couple of weeks focused on creating an engaging discussion board for students. I think both workshops went well. As trainers of technology, I think it is important not to get wrapped up in the "technical how to," but to help educators choose appropriate technologies that support their learning objectives.