Uri's Jing Creation

I post this jing as an introduction to my teaching.

Uri

Pseudo Information?

We are all concerned with finding authoritative information, information we can use. Tomorrow, Groundhog Day, presents an opportunity to reflect on authoritative information versus pseudo information. If Puxatony Phil sees his shadow, this will be very important to many people. However, it is pseudo information because it will not really affect the length of winter. Winter will go on and on and on ... at least in Chicago! That is just science at work.

A brief history of my blogging experience

I have been blogging on and off (mostly off) with the Blogger tools for about four years (http://urifrommissouri.blogspot.com/. I had read some library-related blogs and then my library at the time (Schaumburg) initiated a hands-on tutorial “12-things we learned about technology,” much like we are doing now (thanks Jim and Julie). During the Schaumburg library program I developed a blog and blogged pretty regularly on marketing in libraries. I took a hiatus for a while (not uncommon among bloggers) and then was reenergized when I started taking online classes through the Illinois Online Network and a couple of my classes (like Technology Tools) required blog posting. This class has introduced me to blogs. I find that I am fairly competent at basic blog posting and recognize that blogs can have an important role in institutional branding, so long as they have a good purpose and are maintained regularly.

Finding Already Created Content

The Internet is a global library and there are many opportunities to use already created content in an online class. Of course, the key is to make it relevant to your class. Everyone really seemed to like th video below, which talks about some of the differences between scholarly and popular articles, an important concept in information literacy.

http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/peabody/tutorials/scholarlyfree/


I have used the website above as a way of introducing the concept of scholarly and popular magazines. I have students watch the video below and then post three differences between scholarly and popular articles. The students do this in a discussion forum so they can see each others' work. I also respond to every post so there is feedback from me. Some instructors question whether it is true learning if the students can simply copy from one of their classmates. I feel that mimicry is a form of learning and feel that students are inhaling good ideas, especially when they can see my comments.

Synchronous Communication -- Communicating in Real Time

Getting people together for an online class can be a bit difficult. Afterall, many students (including yours truly) sign up for online classes because of the flexibility it affords in terms of when we learn. However, synchronous communication has an important place in the online world because it helps create different and collaborative learning situations.

We did a number of synchronous activities in this class, including Elluminate and Second Life. The Elluminate session was the most dynamic online conferencing I had. I think this is due to the number of participants (6) and Susan did a good job of engaging us. Still, I found it pretty hard to concentrate over time. I think 30 minutes might be a good target for time. In terms of classroom dynamics, it was nice to hear voices of people who I have corresponded with, so perhaps Elluminate will work best if given after the class has developed for awhile. Technological glitches can be problematic, such as when Susan's audio cut out from time to time.

Asynchronous Communications -- Audacity and Twitter

One of the great strengths of online learning is that students can learn when they want, allowing them to reflect and share back without the real time pressure of communicating when everyone else is physically there. Asynchronous Communications with tools like Audacity and Twitter allow instructors and students to correspond in a meaningful way.
Audio exchanges through tools like Audacity are a great way to bring your voice into the online classroom. Explaining concepts or simply extending a welcome are two ways of applying this technology to your classroom. Here is a link to audacity .

Twitter encourages short communication exchanges, a short hand way of blogging, in a way.


 

Creating Content -- Jing

Videos, especially those that are self-made, are a great way to personalize the learning process and show students how to do things or remind them of something you want them to be able to review at their own pace.  I found Jing to be pretty easy, although I was helped by having a colleague who could help me over some of the rough spots.

Here is a Jing video I created to go over an extra-credit assignment.