Sessions

Panacea or Pandemonium: Using Digital Technology to Teach Ancient History
[|Ken Leyton Brown] Universities are having issues with podcasting lectures. Not all students are using them for all subjects. Some students are using them. Studies show that students who use podcasting have higher grades than just showing up for lectures. -felt the classroom was not a testing site. -there needs to be a sound pedagogical reason for introducing technology. -digital technology is promoted for outside class use because there is not enough face to face time with the professor. -he made use of WebCT and created some games. -If there is no teaching going on then there is no learning going on.

S. Edmond J. Wilson [|www.delicious.com/semond]
 * Gaming can Help Students Learn ... Really**

Good Games are: Challenging Interactive Sense of Achievement Goals and Purpose Immersive and Experience

Games to use with Tool Sets [|Never Winter Nights] 1 and 2 Elder Scrolls and Oblivion Command and Conquer Arden: Shakespearian Game Revolution: American Revolution Game

Edmond did a demonstration of the Never Winter Nights tool set and designed a fast game.

As an online teacher at Credenda I could see us using the tool set to design a game and using Jing to create flash files and make a choose your own adventure style of video. This would be cool.
 * Kristine's Thoughts:** The issue with this is that for students to play they also need the game installed on their computer.


 * Randy's Thoughts:** I attended this session as well and agree that games may be a valuable tool in our teaching toolkit. Some of the issues might be training, time and what platform to use to create the games. The presenter uses existing games and modified them. This is a problem if the students or school does not own the Consumer game in the first place. Microsoft has a online game creator at []. I have not tried it out yet to see if might meet some of our needs. Another option might be DarkBasic - [], also Dark GDK - [].

Creating Personal Learning Networks [|Deirdre Bonnycastle]

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Great presentation! Very interactive... didn't learn a lot but it made us think about what we are doing and why. We are worried that if we start to twitter it might just become a war of words between us, plus Kristine and Randy would become addicted then we would have to have an intervention.
 * Kristine's To Do: Promote herself on the net, beat Ashton in followers

On another note- looks like we're close to where everyone else is in terms of tools being used in the classroom.

Check out her blog: [|The Active Learning Blog Carnival]

[|Alec Couros]: ICT Coordinator/Professor, Faculty of Education/University of Regina [|Dean Shareski]: Digital Learning Consultant Prairie South School Division
 * Lazy Profs**

media type="custom" key="3723623" - pushed the networked and open course approach - good point: school should make students understand their work has beyond their classroom walls - using technology in the classroom is a mindset not a skillset - [|next vista-] educational videos - [|PhD Dissertation - Examining the Open Movement: Possibilities and Implications for Education- Alec Couros]

Much current literature refers to the Instructional Designer as a change agent. The term "change agent" is turning up increasingly in ID job descriptions and resumes.

This session looked at how Instructional Designers can facilitate instructional change. We considered four models of Instructional Design and looked in depth at RIPPLES, a model by Dan Surry. It was decided that all four models had merit. RIPPLES was a good model because it forced the developers to look at all aspects of developing a new course. Resources, Information, costs, timelines, people and so on. Other models used similar information, but were less involved.

Some of the discussion centered around how the content specialist might not be a great teacher, so the designer helps the content specialist present material in formats that enhance learning. In Credenda, often it is a content specialist that develops the course, so the example is not totally approriate for us. On the other hand, if we as designers work with the teachers teaching the course, and share knowledge about what works and what doesn't, we may have an ever more efficient model.

The [|Australian Flexible Learning Framework] has a good number of resources in the areas of developing learning content, privacy issues, online learning communities and change mangement.

**Ways of Knowing I: Designers Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Metaphors of Instructional Design** Katy Campbell - **Dean, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta - Presenter**
Narrative inquiry gives us a way to explore and share our understandings of the cultural community of instructional design. This session synthesizes the results of a set of research studies about instructional designers' identity development and implications for their practice. We looked at ourselves as Instructional Designers and each of us chose a metaphor that would describe us in our roles. Some metaphors were: gardener, shepherd, leader, change agent, subversive agent and chameleon. The way we approach our roles is based on our experiences before we became Instructional Designers. We bring skills learned for other disicplines. As well, our personalities affect how we do things and how we relate to others. media type="custom" key="3729787"

====**The Net Generation: Myths, Realities and Implications for Higher Education This presentation looked at a variety of books and studies that call today's students "The Net Generation". Dr. Mark Bullen highlighted the lack of acceptable research that led to calling that definition. He also referenced research that contradicted some of the current beliefs. His belief is that this is not a generational change but a social change. Not all young people are comfortable using all of the net technology and many older people may be. His main precept is that we should not be changing how we teach to embrace only the new technologies. While there are some things which can enhance teaching and learning, not everything has proven to be effective. Any changes we make in teaching in learning should be well researched before we adopt them. media type="custom" key="3729901"**====


 * Podcasting, Course Casting, & Sidecasting at the U of S**

with C. Brooks, C. Coupal, K. Premkumar, B. Wallace, I. Tan

This was a research presentation on how students utilize recordings of their lectures. In the survey, 81/89 students (on campus students) responded. They used opencast.org open source software taping classes.

Findings: - 44% of students viewed recordings. - Students skipped through lectures using controls to access the content they needed, rather than listening to whole lecture. - Attendance showed minimal change, so students didn't skip classes just because recordings were available. - Recordings help in understanding and retention of content. - Students rated the recordings very low when they viewed a recording of the content from a professor they weren't taking the class with (two classes were taking the same content, but only one instructor recorded content). - Students engaged in discussion in the recordings didn't feel their privacy had been invaded. - set up of the recordings focused on consistent design and access.

Linda's comments - the findings seemed consistent with my own experience using Elluminate Live lectures with distance students, even though the research here focused on the f2f students and how they utilized the recordings.


 * A Methodology for Examining Self-Directed Virtual Communities**

with Jaymie Koroluk

A four-year research program, funded by SSHRC, in the process of examining self-directed learning with the aim of understanding how virtual learning communities support learning in non-formal learning environments.

Linda's comments: The presentation was concise and seemed consistent with the research I conducted on my own thesis on the preferred modes of interaction in online nonformal education and training. Since the research is in its early stages, there were mainly questions, rather than conclusions presented.


 * Copyright Reform and Licensing**

with Steve Wills

The presentation examined three areas: status of institutional reprography licenses with Access Copyright; the Copyright Board of Canada ruling on the Access Copyright tariff for photocopying in schools; and the most recent copyright reform bill.

Agreements have made to have no changes until September 1/2010 - right now this includes just photocopying, but after 2010 may include scanning and portals. If the next contract isn't signed Access Copyright could impose a tariff.

Briefly touched on the new ACE system (Access Content Electronically).

Indicated that there's a new broader view of Fair Dealing since the 2004 Decision by the Supreme Court of Canada - see []

There are still many areas of fair dealing under discussion.

Linda's comments - very interesting! Since I have always attended copyright sessions for creators, rather than consumers, some of this was rather surprising. As a creator I expect to have my right to earn income from my works protected for myself - and as per current law - for my estate. Current copyright protection lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years (the current in the U.S. and United Kingdom - Canada is life + 50 years currently).

Instructional Design
 * Ways of Knowing II: Cultures of Design**

with Katy Campbell

Reported on a two day symposium in Singapore exploring the notion of instructional design cultures and how we view "knowing."

Conclusions - Tacit knowledge is explicit in instructional design. Instructional design is based on what has meaning in cultural context or sensitivity.

Linda's comments - While an interesting presentation, applications to instructional design seemed limited.