Bentley was closed today due to Hurricane Sandy, but with a few web-based collaboration tools, my classes went on. Probably not the best way to do this, but join.me shared my screen and provided a chat window; sync.in provided a quick way for students to share notes, and ustream let me broadcast audio and video to the class. I had read about Ustream Producer which lets you broadcast the screen, but didn’t have a chance to install it before class started. I will make sure I look at it before the next hurricane (or snow storm… the hurricane season may be over soon, but winter is on its way!)
Where the Skies are Cloudy All Day
Today I was the keynote speaker at the Connecticut Business Association’s 109th Annual Conference. Who knew this organization is as old as the Jolly Green Giant and Pepsi?
I spoke on cloud computing – as a collection of services (software, infrastructure, data, and platform), and the types of applications they enable.
My second presentation focused on the Flipped Classroom. After discussing pedagogy of the flipped classroom I showed some videos that students in the CIS Sandbox made, and then demo’ed how to create them using Screencast-o-matic. We then discussed ways to use the new found time in the classroom for interactive learning.
EdCetera
Sometimes I wonder who reads my blog. Recently I received an email message from Jennifer Funk, a writer for EdCetera. She saw a blog post about how we used VoiceThread to create an interactive lecture on cloud computing in IT101 last year, and asked more about it. I told her how we also used VoiceThread in the CIS Sandbox and with my colleagues in Romania. She wrote a blog post, “How a Prof Used 1 Tech Tool to Build 3 Co-Learning Spaces” which appears in the EdCetera blog, a blog about educational technology. Thanks for sharing the story!
Aligning Open, Physical, and Virtual Learning Spaces in the CIS Sandbox
My conference presentation at IFIP-OST 2012.
Transforming the Enterprise with Social Media
I taught in the International Summer Institute at Bentley earlier this month.
The course explored uses of social media in the enterprise and the underlying technologies that enable these opportunities.
Check out the readings and comments on them from the participants.
More Cloud Tools for Teachers
Here’s the presentation I gave this morning at Campus Technology 2012 in Boston. Thanks to Matt Somma for assisting!
ImageSpike
I’m preparing for my workshop at Campus Technology in a few weeks. One of the applications I may show is imageSpike, which lets you create interactive graphics such as this one, taken from the web page announcing the update to my Web 2.0 Concepts and Applications text book.
What is Cloud Computing?
I was teaching about Cloud Computing in IT 101 – or maybe I should say my students were teaching about Cloud Computing in IT 101. I posted a slide deck up on VoiceThread, and asked them to read enough about the topics that they could add two comments to the slides. Together, they would come up with the lecture. They had to watch the collaboratively constructed lecture before class, and then in class, we talked more about some of their comments, clarifying buzzwords they might have used, or discussing questions that arose as a result of their readings and presentations.
Listen in here.
Turning Students into Good Digital Citizens
Technological Horizons in Education Journal asked several educators what they thought it means to be a good digital citizen. I commented on skills necessary to be literate in a digital world.
The article begins:
In today’s world of near-ubiquitous connectivity, in which ordinary people have almost instantaneous access to unlimited stores of information and the ability to interact with anyone, anywhere, anytime, what does it mean to be an effective citizen? What skills and knowledge do our students need to participate fully in a world transformed by technology? What role should our schools play in developing effective digital citizens?
Teaching about the Cloud is a Breeze
Here’s my presentation from the NBEA Conference in Boston. I was asked to talk about teaching Cloud Computing. I had some fun writing the description of my session.
Foggy about the Cloud? Clear up your understanding of software, infrastructure, platform, and data as a service in an easy lesson you can teach using familiar Google productivity tools. Learn how the Cloud precipitates from consumer apps to the enterprise. The forecast also calls for a flurry of cool applications to share in your classroom.