Simply put, a wiki is a collection of Web pages to which anyone with access can contribute or modify. Perhaps the most famous wiki is the free encyclopedia, wikipedia. Uses of wikis within K-12 and higher education have been emerging over the past few years. And our own UTK faculty are beginning to use wikis in their courses as a place for students to collaboratively produce and display group projects and research papers.

In an August 20 Campus Technology article The Power of Wikis in Higher Ed, the author notes several advantages to using wikis including enabling student collaboration, fewer projects and papers for a faculty member to assess, and the ability of a faculty member to monitor project progress along the way with wiki tracking tools.

For Online@UT users, the built-in wiki tool can be used to create whole class or small group wikis. The ITC offers workshops on how to configure and manage both blogs and wikis in Online@UT. The next session is scheduled for Thursday, September 4 from 3-4 p.m. Visit our workshops registration page to sign up.

If you are interested in hosting a wiki outside of Online@UT, check out free, easy-to-use tools such at Wikispaces and Peanut Butter Wiki.

The University of Tennessee Knoxville will join Stanford, MIT, and other world-class universities in publishing video and audio podcasts using iTunes U.

iTunes U is part of the iTunes Store within iTunes and works with both Mac and PC*. You can find podcasts by category, college & university, or use the search feature to locate works by author or title. Educational material can be accessed 24/7. The audio and video content make subject matter more “alive” than the printed page. And podcasts can be downloaded to any laptop or iPod for mobile learning.

UTK faculty will be offered course areas to upload podcasts of lectures, guest speakers, lab demonstrations, etc. Podcasts may be restricted to enrolled students, the UTK community, or open to the public. UTK students may also produce their own podcasts as part of their coursework portfolio.

To explore UTK on iTunes U, start at http://itunesu.utk.edu. For more information about UTK on iTunes U contact: jnthomas@utk.edu

Links:

An introduction to iTunes U video:
http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu_mobilelearning/landing.html

*Download this application for PC:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download

Visit the iTunes U Store (iTunes must be installed):
http://deimos3.apple.com/indigo/main/main.html

How University of Arizona faculty are using podcasting.
http://podcasting.arizona.edu/faculty?q=node/14

Have a photo that needs a little work, but you don’t have the full version of Photoshop? Edit that image with PhotoShop Express [beta], a free, online, image editing and storage tool, recently launched by Adobe. Photoshop Express offers editing tools and storage space (up to 2 GB of photos for free). You can also create your own URL that links directly to your gallery where you can share photos with your class, and even share photos with other web tools like MySpace, Facebook, blogs, etc.

To get started exploring the beta version of Photoshop Express, follow the link below and sign up for the service. (You will be required to enter an email address and agree to terms and conditions.)

A picture is worth a thousand words… so take a little off the top, side, bottom, etc., and Photoshop Express can help you make that image display just what you need for your lesson, and enable you to share it with your class.

For more information, click the link below.

https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

A recent (7/1) Campus Technology article Taking the “A” out of Asynchronous contains a series of short case studies on how colleges and universities are using real-time (synchronous) collaboration tools. Faculty are conducting online office hours, creating spaces in which teams can collaborate, and enabling students to share and edit documents with one another.

At least anecdotally, the results of these efforts have been overwhelmingly positive, sparking creativity and enhancing the learning process as a whole. That’s encouraging for the rest of us, since it appears these collaboration trends will continue with vigor in the years ahead.

UT faculty are taking advantage of the affordances of synchronous technology as well - mainly for delivering totally online courses, but we’re also starting to see faculty who primarily teach face-to-face use synchronous tools in creative and effective ways.

Check out an ITC Faculty Spotlight from last year - Beyond Campus: Collaboration - to read about how Dr. Wesley Hines uses the synchronous virtual classroom tool LiveOnline@UT (Centra) in his teaching and research.

“Sing a song of… bacteria, a pocket full of… um… germs?”

Well, songwriters are probably in no fear of me stealing their thunder. 

Yet when it comes to connecting what may be considered an unusual song topic, like bacteria, with teaching and technology… one professor has hit upon a high note. 

As described in an article appearing in The Wired Campus, Professor Sarah E. Forgie of the University of Alberta incorporates parodies of well known songs into her lesson plan to explain the history, and behavior, of bacteria.  She shares the musical creations via podcasts. 

Students seem to be responding well to the podcasts, as Professor Forgie explains, the “…stuff from the jazz band had around 100-percent recall.”

For more information, click the link below. 
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/bacteria

If you’re curious about how to incorporate podcasts into your class, visit the Volcasting website at: http://volcasting.utk.edu/ , or call 974-9670 for more information.

One of the recent posts suggested how to make a presentation more captivating. Using VoiceThread, you can take it a step further and create a presentation that engages students in an online voice or video conversation on a topic.

VoiceThread is an easy-to-use online application. Upload video, images, or PowerPoint slides saved as images. Then record your voice for individual items. Invite selected individuals to view your presentation. Ask them to comment on your slides by typing, recording audio or video comments, or drawing on the image/video itself. You can even embed your VoiceThread in your Blackboard course site!

Play the video below to see VoiceThread in action.

Are you interested in this teaching and learning tool? Let the Innovative Technology Center know! Contact us at itc@utk.edu.

Interesting article from the June 20 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education - Short and Sweet: Technology Shrinks the Lecture.

“Best practices are suggesting that shorter, modular clips … are more successful than 50-minute sections,” says John G. Flores, chief executive of the United States Distance Learning Association. “The days of having someone lecture for 50 minutes via video pretty much are — or are least should be — a thing of the past,” he says.

Another good example of taking lessons learned in the online environment and applying them to face-to-face teaching and learning. However, there are concerns that this is yet another case of oversimplifying education.

Q: What do Dolly Parton and the Library of Congress have in common?

A: Digital media.

Dolly’s music is part of the Library of Congress’ expansive digital media library, a collection of original recordings, prints and photographs, maps, etc. that are available online via the LOC’s Digital Collections and Services website.

If you’re searching for a way to enrich a topical discussion, or empower students to explore online resources, the LOC’s Digital Collections and Services site includes links to articles, digital files, and even webcasts from the library with topics ranging from American History to archived web pages.

The site also includes links to catalogs, research centers, and how to contact a LOC librarian for assistance.

For more information about the site, click on the link below:

http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html

We’ve all heard the cliche; Death by PowerPoint. Of course that only applies to other people’s presentations, not ours! Not convinced? Watch this lighthearted comedy on how NOT to use PowerPoint to see how yours rate. (Video length: 3:55 min)

Okay, so maybe there is some room for improvement.

Here are some suggestions to really make your presentations POP!

Start with a core concept. What are you selling to your audience? Is it best conveyed by using facts or humor?

Make your presentation work as one unit, like a song or a story. It needs a beginning, middle, and an end.

Add more slides, not less. Put less information on each, removing unnecessary words, and rapid fire through them. Synchronizing your speech with the slides must be well rehearsed.

Use symbols and be consistent. If you speak the word Great Britain, display that text but add an image of the British flag. Display the same flag image every time you say Great Britain. This is great for reinforcing visual literacy.

Don’t be afraid to play with text. Change the font size and color for words that have special meaning and, as always, be consistent. Repetition helps with retention! For a key concept, format that word in a larger font size and change the color. Try green for environmental issues, blue for water, or red to denote restrictions. Then every time you use/speak that word, display it in the same font size and color.

Use short simple transitions or none at all. Fade in/out is good but avoid more “active” transitions like the exploding pinwheel.

Let’s look at an example of a PowerPoint presentation that incorporates many of these suggestions. You only need to watch a couple of minutes of this video to get the point. (Video length: 15:12 min)

Wasn’t that CAPTIVATING? If it grabbed your attention it will grab your students as well. This type of presentation works best when kept to 15-20 minutes in length. Too much longer and it may become distracting. It is a great tool for introducing a new concept or as an overview of the class content for the day.

Credit: Presentation Design: From Bullets to Lessig and Beyond, Lecture/presentation, Instructional Technology Conference, April 2008, MTSU, Rhonda Crim-Tumelson and Mary Katharine Klose, University of Alabama

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