A Threat of Higher Ed's Love Affair with Closed-LMSs

© 2012 Bryan Mills, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Michael Berman (whom I am fortunate to work with at CSU Channel Islands) has been blogging about "LMS Futures," a topic he presented on at BbWorld in Las Vegas this month.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term LMS, it stands for Learning Management System and refers to the application used by nearly all colleges and universities to administer and teach online/blended classes, as well as organize digital content for face-to-face classes (examples of the most popular LMSs include Blackboard, Desire2Learn and Moodle).

The post Michael shared yesterday got me thinking more deeply about the "closed" nature of the LMS.  When I say "closed," I am referring to the way the activity and content within an LMS is disconnected from the open web. I understand the development and adoption of the closed LMS is intertwined with compliance of FERPA policy. Yes, that's part of the conversation but, as we know, priorities guide change. And currently, there are important social shifts that are ignored when efficiency and compliance of policy become our guiding lights. 

I am writing this blog post in an effort to try to encourage awakening in those who use LMSs and may not be part of the usual conversation.  And to understand that the act of implementing a closed LMS within an organization and constructing policies around it, as well as teaching within a closed LMS constructs a "mental model" about using social media that positions social technologies as threatening and bad.  That, I believe, is the wrong direction for us to be headed as college educators situated on the brink of a new social era.

Constructing and Reinforcing Mental Models

A mental model refers to ideas, descriptions, and beliefs that guide one's actions.  Mental models may exist within a broad culture, a company, or a broader organizational context (like higher education).  Individuals are extremely committed to mental models, as they are guide us through our actions at an unconscious level. When mental models are challenged, one's first reaction is to act defensively.  This is one reason why we must be critical of how the technologies used at a systemic level can foster status quo attitudes, which can become intensely difficult to change over time.


Leading Through Change: Inspiring Awakening - by Michelle Pacansky-Brock Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires
Through my social media interactions, conference attendances, and presentations over the years, I have noticed a generalized difference in attitude between K12 and higher education educators on social media about teaching with social media (again, this is anecdotal). I blogged about this observation in 2011 after attending the annual CUE Conference, a large (and awesome) ed tech conference attended largely by a K12 audience.  Essentially, over the years, in K12, there seems to have been rising consensus of teachers who demand access to social technologies for learning. While, in higher education, where more than 30% of students took at least one online class in 2013, the story is somewhat different.

K12 leaders have advocated for access to social media for learning, arguing that, "Knowing how to build successful communities of learning and how to integrate social connectivity within a learning environment is a much more needed outcome than finding a way to control and monitor specific users and content." I wonder how this difference in attitude toward social media in K12 is informed by the lower LMS use. I realize FERPA is a big player in the conversation in higher education -- but, come on, in K12, we are dealing with users who are younger than the permitted age on the Terms of Use for the technologies  being references. The point is, our actions are driven by our mental models.

Closed for Learning

Image by Michael Berman

While there are many innovators in higher ed (whom I am grateful for and I learn from every day in my PLN), and there are colleges/universities that have made the jump to create social media guidelines that foster understanding and stress the value of openness, what I feel concerned about is how the mainstream integration of the closed-LMS system across higher education is constructing and enforcing a mental model in college and university faculty ("Here is your shell, go teach with it.") that undercuts values graduates need to succeed in the workplace today.   According to a 2014 report from ECAR about LMSs in Higher Ed, 99% of higher education institutions report use of the LMS is ubiquitous. These values -- community, sharing, relationship building -- are the very values employers expect college graduates to have mastered and demonstrate within the workplace, which is becoming more and more social each year. 

"The social network is the new production line."

The world has been deeply transformed by globalization and technology. As college graduates enter the workplace today, they are expected to demonstrate how they are unique from others and in what ways their contributions set themselves apart from others. One's digital footprint is an opportunity to do be one step ahead in life at graduation.  And the continuous reliance on the closed-LMS environment continously constructs a mental model for faculty, instructional designers, administrators, all members of higher education that using social media is, in essence, the wrong thing to do.  Moving forward, the mainstream use of closed LMS environments is creating yet another digital divide.

As I discussed in an earlier post,  Gartner predicts that by 2016 many large companies will begin to replace the use of phones and email with social networks.  Ginni Rometty, the CEO of IBM, noted in 2013 that "the social network is the new production line." Value in the social era is cultivated around openness, collaboration, shared visions, and transparency. Individuals who demonstrate their ability to foster relationships through social technologies (which is very different from simply having accounts on or using social media) will be one step ahead of the rest.

Risking It All: Learning in the Social Era

Risking It All: Learning In The Social Era from Michelle Pacansky-Brock
 

This past week, I had the pleasure to present the keynote at the Academic Affairs Symposium for Rasmussen College in Minneapolis, MN and Tampa, FL. The back-to-back events came on the heels of my attendance at the Online Teaching Conference (OTC) in San Diego, CA, providing for a flurry of a travel for the week, but also some immersive conversations.  Lynda Weinman of Lynda.com was one of the keynote presenters at the OTC (watch the archive of her talk here).

I had heard Weinman speak at the MoblEd Conference at Pasadena College in 2009, but that presentation did not share her personal learning journey. Weinman's story was captivating and held so many poignant lessons for educators today -- from embracing our inner passions, recognizing that we're all good at something (and it's not going to always be reading, writing, or math), sharing the values she took away from her alternative higher education experiences at Evergreen State College where there are no grades, acknowledging that it was feminism that empowered her to recognize that she could truly be whatever she wanted to be in this amazing world, and being candid about the challenges of raising a child and being a successful professional.

Weinman's presentation had the conference attendees on their feet. It was not filled with cutting edge terms or glitzy tools. It was grounded in her real life journey, the raw experiences that make her human. 

After that moment in the audience, I knew I had some work to do on my own keynote presentation for Rasmussen, which would be shared at a symposium themed, "The Human Element in a Digital World."  I had already planned to open my presentation with a story about my son's very first video he recorded at age 7 after receiving his first hand held video camera for Christmas. He came to me and said, "Mommy, I made a video. Will you put it on YouTube?" Not really knowing much about YouTube at the time other than it was a website where people could share videos (which I valued as "pointless"), my parenting instincts replied with red flags. What does one do with that question? Ultimately, I obliged...taking a risk. You see, the video he recorded was a screencast of his handheld DS video game, showing the evolution of a Pokemon character. My son, at age 7, the very day he received his first video camera, was intrinsically driven to record this "screencast" and share it back to the same digital community from which he had learned to play Pokemon. He was teaching...in a global community.

Before long, comments came in on the video to which he commented back. There he was, age 7, engaging in a global dialogue with his personal learning network -- explaining where to find find Barboach to other players. Today, the video has more than 18,000 views. My son is almost 14 now, has a collaborative YouTube channel with a friend, and still looks back on that video with great pride.

Sadly, his formal learning has not kept in line with the type of connected learning he experiences in his informal learning. This is a problem today. Education is not the same as learning (another key phrase I picked up from Weinman's keynote) and this problem drains the relevance, as well as the passion from students.

The gap between learning and education is widening as the workplace for which we prepare our students for (one of, but not the only, objective of higher education) continues to shift to the social era.  Gartner predicts that by 2016 many large organizations will begin the adoption of social networks as a form of interaction that will significantly supplant the use of phones and email.  Value in the social era is cultivated around openness, collaboration, shared visions, and transparency. Those who demonstrate their ability to foster relationships through social technologies will be one step ahead of the rest.

But forming professional relationships via social technologies is an outcome that stems, first, from an individual's ability to understand who she is, what she loves to do, and what intrinsically drives her.  How else does one know who to connect with?  These are the factors -- the golden nuggets of life -- that are lost in today's educational system.  An individual won't create a blog, start to Tweet about a consistent and relevant topic, or even re-share existing web content through curation tools if one does not have a sense of where she fits into this world. And that is the fundamental problem with education.

In my keynote for Rasmussen, Risking It All: Learning in the Social Era, I attempted to highlight these issues but I also tried to frame them around my own story.  I shared the fortuitive psychological derailment (I really don't have better words to explain it!) that emerged after I had open heart surgery at age 34 when my children were 3 and 5. Three years after that surgery, I voluntarily resigned from my tenured teaching position at a community college, which I really thought was a job I'd keep forever.  I found myself with a new calling that involved supporting and discovering the role of online learning in higher education and I knew that I needed to find a new position to follow this calling.  I accepted a new role about 200 miles away and relocated my family. The position didn't work out. Seven months later, I resigned and had no job. Crazy? Stupid? Maybe.

I turned to my social networks, continued to blog, increased my Twitter network, and literally started to create small jobs for myself. This process took me to dark, scary places but it also brought me face-to-face with figuring out who I really was and what I wanted to do every day. I tried things -- many jobs.  Some lasted longer than others but duration was no longer how I measured success; for I understand that every step I was taking was a critical part of my learning journey. Failure really is the best teacher.

Another realization I have had through this journey of mine is how grateful I am for experiencing the type of real-life job search college graduates have today (and my own children have ahead of them).  I feel more empowered to stress the value of social media in the higher education learning landscape because

1. Personal and professional success will improve if individuals can demonstrate how to create value in the social era 
2. By fostering one's social presence one engages in a reflective and challenging conversation in a public platform that begins to help us become agile and adaptive professionals, while discovering our strengths and motivations

Today, I feel most fortunate to have found a culture at CSU Channel Islands under the leadership of Michael Berman, that genuinely takes risks -- as opposed to just talking about how we all should be taking risks. I am one of those risks. In March, CSU Channel Islands hired me remotely to support their faculty in their efforts to develop high quality, humanized online learning.  I feel grateful to be able to pursue my passion, share my talents with my new team, work closely with amazing educators, have the support and flexibility to share my ideas as a speaker, and not need to uproot my family again.


I believe educators must engage actively with social technologies to understand how value is constructed differently in the social era. Without this experiential learning, the mainstream perceptions of Twitter as nothing more than a hedonistic, superficial playground for celebrities and their followers will never be overturned. My engagement with social media has empowered me to learn a great deal about myself and allowed me to reconceptualize the idea of a "career."  I view my life now as a fractal, ever shifting and in a perpetual state of change.  As I look back and learn from my experiences, I understand that I cannot control the future. I can only prepare for it. And the best way to prepare for change is to consistently be genuine to myself, be good to others, and learn from absolutely everything.  This is the life -- the personal and professional life -- that more, rather than fewer, of our future college graduates will experience. 

Social Media: Its Impact on Life & the Workplace and 3 Takeaways for Higher Ed

I have been reflecting deeply on some startling predictions I read recently that indicate significant changes within the organizations of workplaces.  In an effort to be adaptable and agile in today's rapid changing environment, business leaders are embracing social business models.  One of the major changes that is expected to occur in just a few years is a significant increase in the use of social networking within organizations to facilitate stakeholder relationships and communications -- replacing today's commonly used tools, the telephone and email (Gartner).  

This led me to discover some compelling data from IBM's 2012 study, Connected Generation: Perspectives from Tomorrow’s Leaders in a Digital World, which examined the perceptions and values of a global sample of 3,400 college and university students.  The study found that the way college students are using social media is fostering a greater sense of awareness of global issues, increasing an individual's perception of his/her voice in society, and increasing engagement in real life activities.  There is no data to indicate that college age students value virtual relationships more than face-to-face relationships but there is evidence that these two types of connections are valued equally. 

The IBM report certainly doesn't paint the typical portrait of the technologically obsessed, apathetic college student that is so commonly referenced in discussions about technology and college teaching.  In fact, it seems to suggest that engaging in the use of social technologies has some educationally compelling outcomes.

What are the takeaways here for higher education? 

1. We must be active participants in the social era.
   The ability to use social technologies to foster relationships is a highly valued skilled in a global, digital society. As the use of social networking trickles from informal learning (i.e. the perceived "fun" stuff like YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, etc.) into the workplace, faculty, staff, and administrators must recognize that they too must step up and join the conversation. Twitter handles will need to become commonplace, just as email addresses are.  Experiencing the value that comes from interacting with one's own Personal Learning Network (PLN) will need to become part of the natural progression of being part of a campus community. 
   
2. Social media tools are valuable assets to the college learning landscape.
   The boundaries between formal learning and informal learning in the social era must blur in order to sustain relevancy, students for success in the social workplace, as well as find one's authentic self through the development of one's own digital footprint. Recognizing this is one thing, overcoming barriers (like leading the way through the gray areas of FERPA because it's the right thing to do) will set the successful organizations of the future apart from the rest.
   
3. "Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation." -Brene Brown 
   Risk-taking is the new norm. This is true for professors, for support staff, for administrators, for college presidents, and for students. We all need to learn to embrace discomfort, to experience vulnerability, and to know that through this pathway we will find new opportunities to create the learning spaces of tomorrow and the learners of tomorrow.  This is hard. This is very hard. The successful college leaders of the future will be those who will do the things they imagine to be the right thing to do, instead of just talk about them or imagine someone else doing them.

Archive of Inclusive Learning: Lightbulb Moments

Here is the archive of Inclusive Learning: Lightbulb Moments, a Hangout on Air from The Center. In this Hangout, +Deborah Lemon and I share and reflect on our own growth and development as online educators and discuss how the integration of social tools into our online learning environment has fostered community-oriented learning that nourishes our students' learning differences and creates personal, relevant learning. Deborah showcases her online Spanish class which is taught in Facebook and I share my online ice breaker designed in VoiceThread and examine how the option to express oneself in voice or text is impacting my students' learning. What are your two takeaways? I'd love to hear them! #CCCLEARN

    Thanks for sharing with me today, Deborah! I always learn so much from you. 

Preparing College Students for the #Social Job Search

If you identify yourself as part of higher education, I expect you agree that preparing students for a successful job search is one of your priorities -- not the only one, but certainly one of them.  Just like so many of aspects of life, looking for a job is an entirely different reality today than it was just a few years ago.  And, no, I'm not referring to the economy in this post.

More Companies Using Social Media
The use of social media by Fortune 500 companies has increased significantly in recent years, leading to transformed relationships with customers and more transparent communications with leaderships. Use of corporate blogs increased from 16% to 38% by F500 companies from 2008-2013 (UMASS Dartmouth, 2013). In 2013, 77% of these companies had corporate Twitter accounts, 70% had Facebook accounts, 69% had YouTube accounts, 35% were present on Google+ (none had a presence a year ago), 9% had Four Square and Pinterests accounts, and 8% were using Instagram.

 

Why is this important to college educators? Well, it's important to us because this sharp increase in the value of social media to major corporations is, first, reshaping many concepts that underpin our disciplines but, secondly, and more broadly, the increased use of social media identifies a need for college graduates to have a developed their own mastery of using these very same networks to build their own professional brand.  

Some of you may be thinking to yourself that this trend is very industry specific and, well, you have a point that certain industries are certainly different than others. For example, we all know that academics aren't going to be hired based upon their Twitter followers.  But what I believe is so important and precious is the fragility of preserving the openness of where one is headed in life at graduation.  To presume that one will thrive in a particular industry and ignore the opportunities of flourishing in others may be a missed treasure.  I graduated with an undergraduate degree in Art...I'm still trying to figure out where I fit into this miraculous world (and loving every minute of it).

Why Social Recruitment is on the Rise

A recent survey of 1,600 human resources professionals by Jobvite found that 94% of recruiters use or plan to use social media in their search for new employees and 78% of them have hired at least one employee through social media.  The survey revealed that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are primary sources for locating talent; however, what's more interesting is how recruiters are learning from what they find online about prospective employees.  By locating an individual with a particular skill set on LinkedIn, for example, a recruiter may further validate that individual's presentation, industry-related presence, overall expertise within a field, or even cultural fit by clicking over to her YouTube channel and viewing videos she has uploaded or examining the number of Twitter followers, as well as their own social worth within the particular field. Blogs provide deeper validation of an individual's writing ability, as well as one's ability to negotiate and interact with others who may leave comments that challenge the views represented in the post. 

All in all, social recruitment can provide much more context about a person's skillset and fit within a company than a resume.  And in today's competitive job market, wouldn't you want to set yourself apart from others?  That's not to say resumes are dead, however. Rachel Louise Ensign at the Wall Street Journal argues, "a paper resume can make or break a bid for a job" because hiring managers still want to review a resume on paper before meeting a candidate in person.  

Preparing our Students

Perhaps, the question is, "What are the odds of getting that interview without a professional presence on social media?"  And, more importantly, how is are experiences students have in college preparing students to cultivate this presence? Integrating social media into our teaching and learning landscape holistically fosters an effective and professional use of tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, even Pinterest is being used in college. Today LinkedIn shared the video below which lucidly points out simple ways students can build a presence on their site. 

I'm going to share this video with my students -- I hope you do too!  And while you are at it, take a few moments to explore Pathbrite, another new, open, free ePortfolio site which provides robust integration services for those who are interested.  Pathbrite is a great way to have students create ePortfolios for a class, program, or institution that are easily "taken with" students after graduation and even embedded directly into LinkedIn.  I have my own Pathbrite ePortfolio embedded on my LinkedIn page.  That's another way we can teach our students -- by leading by example. :)  

I would love to hear from some of you about how you and/or your institutions are preparing students for success in the social job search. Please share!

Video: Using Facebook to Improve Critical Thinking Skills in Online Classes

Recently, as part of my "Learn with Michelle" series, I had the pleasure to interview +sabita persaud, Assistant Professor in the Notre Dame of Maryland School of Nursing, about her intriguing application of Facebook in her accelerated online graduate nursing course.  In this video, you will learn how Dr. Persaud transformed a medical case study (with permission from the individual's family) into a fictitious Facebook profile that her students "friended."  As Persaud played the role of the patient, she revealed mysterious symptoms and reached out to her "friends" for help.  The students responded by applying and synthesizing ideas from their learning units, offering opportunities for deeper learning and formative assessments to prepare for their exams.

What were the results of this experiment? How did the quality of the student interactions compare with previous activities, constructed in an LMS discussion board?  Watch the video and find out!

This video may also be viewed on YouTube.

Hangout! Using Twitter & Facebook to Improve Critical Thinking in an Online Graduate Nursing Class

Hangout On Air!

Using Twitter & Facebook to Improve Critical Thinking
in an Online Graduate Nursing Class

Wednesday, July 10th

9am-9:30am PST/ 11-11:30am CST

no registration required
View Live at: http://facultyecommons.org/learn-with-michelle-hangouts-on-air/
Tweet questions during the Hangout with hashtag #learnwmpb

In this Hangout on Air, I will interview Dr. Sabita Persaud, of the Notre Dame of Maryland University School of Nursing who will discuss how and why she facilitated a 7-week nursing case study by dawning a fictitious patient identity.

Throughout the online course, students followed and responded to Facebook updates and Tweets from the patient, “Cee Veeay,” who shared evolvingly complex symptoms and reached out for advice through social media exchanges.  Students actively engaged in lengthy discussions with “Ms. Veeay,” offering her advice about her symptoms, leading to greater student engagement, critical thinking, and increasing the relevancy of their learning experience. These interactions prepared students for their exams. Dr. Persaud will also share how this teaching approach refreshed her own engagement as a college instructor!

I am so excited to speak with Dr. Persaud about this inventive teaching approach and I hope you will listen in and ask questions via the Twitter backchannel! 

Can Gameful Learning with Social Media Change the World?

Can Gameful Learning with Social Media Change the World?

Today, May 21 at 11:30am Pacific/2:30pm Eastern!

https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/chu0boai9td61aiv7mib0ujkiag?authkey=CI_i-_SC2Mr8ggE

Once upon a time, making change in the world was a lofty goal that, to a student, seemed achievable only to those with great power.  Today, anyone can use social media to sculpt their own network of influencers -- friends, celebrities, politicians, thought leaders, non-profit organizations -- without ever meeting any of these people face-to-face.  How are these new social realities affecting the way we teach our college classes?  What would a class look like that embraces social media at its core as a tool to empower students to change the world?

Join me, Michelle Pacansky-Brock, author of Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies, for a Google+ Hangout on Air with Jason Rosenblum  and Robert W Strong from St. Edward's University as they share their innovative approach to teaching their Global Social Problems course.  The course design uses a gameful approach, influenced by Jane McGonigal. In Fall 2011, professors Rosenblum and Strong challenged students to complete a series of missions to tackle global social problems: Research problems, take Action to deal with those problems, and Imagine potential solutions with those problems.

In our Hangout on Air, we will discuss this course design, their plans to revise the design, the tools the students used, and the students’ responses and learning outcomes to this creative teaching approach. Click the link above for access to the live video stream of the Hangout on Air in Google+.

Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout Archive

Today I had a really exhilarating "Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout" with Brad Belbas, Suzanne Friedman, Deborah Lemon, Jaime Vandergrift, and Amanda Volz.  Great ideas and tips were shared!  Deborah Lemon shared her screen and showcased a fabulous and practical application of VoiceThread in which her Spanish students create their own VoiceThreads that include brief webcam recordings of themselves demonstrating their Spanish speaking skills.  Their peers leave comments using their own webcams (a required component of the assignment) and the student (creator) joins in by commenting back.  The result is an asynchronous video dialogue in Spanish.  We had a great, reflective discussion about the importance of creativity as a skill in the 21st century, the value of VoiceThread as a digital ePortfolio tool in higher education and I had a chance to demo how to use Identities and the Move feature to facilitate an effective conversation with feedback in VoiceThread.

Join me next month!

I hope you enjoy the archive!  If you'd like to join in on our next "Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout" scheduled for 10am PST / 1pm EST, please go to my Google+ page and add me to your Circles.  The live stream of each Hangout is always embedded on the Hangouts page of my blog if you'd just like to watch.

New Report: How Are (and Aren't) College Faculty Using Social Media

Moran, M, Seaman, J, Tinti-Kane, H. (2012). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and Facebook: How today's higher education faculty use social media. Pearson Learning Solutions and Babson Survey Research Group.

A new report was recently released by Pearson and Babson Survey Research group which examines the personal, professional, and instructional uses of social media by more than 4,000 college faculty of varying age groups. 

Who participated in this survey?

• 4,534 faculty members 
• 75% of respondents teach full-time
• 25% of respondents teach online
• slightly over 50% of respondents are female
• over 1/3 of respondents have been teaching for 20 years or more

Some key findings, cited in the press release, include:

• 64.4 percent of faculty use social media for their personal lives, 33.8 percent use it for teaching
• 41 percent for those under age 35 compared to 30 percent for those over age 55 reported using social media in their teaching
• Faculty in the Humanities and Arts, Professions and Applied Sciences, and the Social Sciences use social media at higher rates than those in Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science
• Blogs and wikis are preferred for teaching, while Facebook or LinkedIn are used more for social and professional connections
• 88 percent of faculty, regardless of discipline, reported using online video in the classroom

Some additional interesting observations include:

• Only 14.4% of faculty use blogs or wikis in teaching to "post or create" 
• Twitter is used by only 7.9% of faculty for "personal use" but isn't even included in category of tools used by professors to "connect professionally"
• While LinkedIn surpassed Facebook as the #1 tool used by professors to "connect professionally," it is still used by less than 25% of faculty for this purpose
• 33.8% of faculty create their own videos
• All perceived barriers to using social media have decreased

The survey and infographic(s) are available for download online after you submit your name, email address, institution, and title.  The infographics are embedded withing a PDF document. 

Thanks for the great info Pearson and Babson.  One thought...it would be quite nice if the format of this survey was more "social" and akin to sharing, keeping in line with its topic. 

Also, some additional topics that I'd personall love to see would be data about *why* faculty use social media in their teaching.  That is, what is that drives them to integrate tools outside of the learning management systems that their institutions pay so much money for, when there are so many widespread barriers.  And how are institutions responding to this shift?  Are we seeing a shift to enterprise-wide adoption of social media tools? Who pays for the tools that are not free?  What is the breakdown between 4-year and 2-year institutions and full-time vs. part-time instructors? 

Thanks for sharing!

Video: Our Most Misunderstood Teaching and Learning Asset

This month, in my featured GETInsight blog post, I reflect on the ways in which video has been transformed as a medium and has transformed many aspects of our lives and I lay these significant shifts on top of the minimal changes in how video is applied in higher education today as a teaching and learning tool.  I invite you to read the post and view the related video, Online Learning in the Social Era: Human, Connected, and Inclusive, and leave a comment here or on the GETInsight blog in response to how you feel about whether or not video is engaged as effectively as it could or should be in online teaching and and learning today.  Be sure to consider video as a tool for both instructor *and* student use.  I would love to hear your thoughts!  Enjoy the post and the video and please share!

Click here to go straight to the GETInsight post, "Video: Our Most Misunderstood Teaching and Learning Asset"

*Each month, I write a sponsored blog post for Cisco's GETinsight blog, which is part of the GETideas.org network, a global community of educators with a shared interest in discovering ways to change and innovate education through technology.

Kindle Version Now Available! Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies

I delighted to share that my book is now available in Kindle version! Please share the good news. :)

Read Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies on your Kindle today!

Are you an iPad user? Get the free Kindle app.

Author Book Chat: Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies

You are invited to participate in a special Author Book Chat I have prepared in celebration of the launch of my new book, Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies.  I will be responding to comments throughout the month of September.

The book chat has been designed with VoiceThread and is available for you to view/comment in below below and may also be accessed and/or forwarded through this link.  The book chat includes several slides intended to engage college educators in a thoughtful conversation about the question, "Why teach with emerging technologies?"  If you are new to VoiceThread, you'll want to listen to my introductory comments on slide one.  If you are an experienced user, click to Slide 2 to get started.  Please feel free to forward this book chat to your educational networks.

Book Chat

with Michelle Pacansky-Brock

Author of Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies

"Why Teach with Emerging Technologies?"

On an iPhone or iPad?  Click here.

Archive: "Can't You Just Lecture to Me?"

Last week, I was a featured keynote presenter for the inaugural Learning 2.0 Conference.  It was a great experience.  My favorite part was just the excitement and magical sensation of knowing I was sitting here in my home office presenting to a group of educators who were tuning in from around the world.  It was a truly global audience -- so very cool.

If you missed my presentation, here is the title, description, and link to the archive which will launch Blackboard Collaborate.  Enjoy!  And check out the recordings of the other keynotes here.

"Can't You Just Lecture to Me?" Strategies for Transforming Reluctant Learners when Teaching with Emerging Technologies 

Have you heard that line before? Teaching with emerging technologies requires not only a new technical toolkit but also a new set of skills for transforming reluctant students from passive into participatory learners.  In this presentation, I will share stories and strategies from my own classes, showcased in my new book Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies, to assist college instructors with supporting students who are reluctant to embrace new forms of learning, use social media for learning activities, and play an active role in a learning community.  Links to handy PDF guides will be shared to assist you with building a foundation for student success in your Learning 2.0 classroom. 

Click here to access the Blackboard Collaborate Recording, when prompted selected "Allow" or "Run" to initiate the session: http://tiny.cc/bfjvjw

Hangout Tomorrow with Michelle & the VoiceThread Team

Hangout with Michelle and the VoiceThread Team

Tuesday, August 14th 

3pm PDT/ 6pm EDT

Topic:  Strategies for Increasing Student Voice and Video Comments

Participation options explained below!

Each month, I hold two events for the higher ed VoiceThread community: a webinar showcasing different ways that college professors are using VoiceThread, and an online office hour that is an opportunity to engage in a less formal conversation about teaching with VoiceThread.  Office hours are your chance to ask logistical "how to" questions which I respond to visually using the screenshare feature and engage with other educators about topics related to teaching with VoiceThread.

Beginning tomorrow, I am making a change and using Google+ Hangouts on Air as the platform for my monthly VoiceThread office hour.  I'm excited about this change and hope you will be too!  Please join in.  You will have two options for participating.

Options for Participating in the Google+ Hangout On Air

• Option 1: Participate -- Up to 10 people (including me and the VoiceThread team member) will be able to join in on the live, online discussion.  The live participants will have the opportunity to participate in video chat (you can choose to disable your video camera and participate through voice only) to ask questions and share ideas.  First come first serve!
• To join as a participant, you must add Michelle to your Circles in Google+.
• Then at the scheduled time of the Hangout, you will see a notification in your Google+ feed that the Hangout has begun. Click "Join Hangout."
• Option 2: View Only -- While the Hangout is in progress, a live stream of it will be embedded in the "Hangout" page of my blog.   An unlimited number of viewers may watch the live Hangout by visiting that page.

How Learning Changes When Students Become the Teachers

Each month, I write a sponsored blog post for Cisco's GETinsight blog, which is part of the GETideas.org network, a global community of educators with a shared interest in discovering ways to change and innovate education through technology.

In this month's post, I share a detailed overview of a non-traditional learning activity I use in my online History of Photography class.  I have found that many educators see the potential in using web 2.0 and social media tools to activate student learning but what's critical at this moment is for specific practices to be shared so we call can come together, consider them, discuss them, and evolve them into what's right for our own classes.

The activity I share is titled Visual Thinking and it's a 2-week activity that uses VoiceThread as the platform for a student-curated learning unit about mid-20th century photographers.  In the activity, students take ownership of researching one photographer, contributing media (examples of the photographer's work) and voice or video comments to the VoiceThread to fulfill the content criteria for the activity, as well as an open-ended discussion prompt. The following week, the class re-engages with the newly curated unit, delving into each other's discussion questions. 

I invite you to peruse the details of the activity by reading the post and reflect on the deeper question that guided this teaching experiment for me, "How does learning change when students become the teachers?" This question will be further explored in a free VoiceThread-sponsored webinar I am hosting on Thursday, July 19th at 12pm PST/3pm EST. 

Click here to read the post.  Enjoy!

Motivating College Students with Social Media & Web 2.0

Each month, I write a sponsored blog post for Cisco's GETInsight blog, which is part of the GETideas.org network, a global community of educators with a shared interest in change and innovation through technology.

This month's post explores the dual topic of the role a professor plays (or should play?) in motivating students and the opportunities social media and web 2.0 tools hold for boosting motivation in the online environment.  Included in the post are my perspectives on this topic and a specific sample of an Animoto video I created and shared in my online class to announce winners of student-nominated blogging awards (also embedded above -- shared with permission from my students).

Click here to read the post.  Enjoy!

Social Media Meets My Great Grandparents

Last week I shared a status update on Facebook requesting the help of "friends" to solve a family mystery.  I have an old postcard that was written by my great grandmother, Elise, in 1915 in Germany to her husband, Theodore, while he was away at war.  The letters on it are incomprehensible to me and my immediate family and I've always wanted it translated. 

I tagged several friends in my post, including two relatives from Germany (who I have never had the opportunity to meet).  Along with the post, I included a link to a VoiceThread I had created with a picture of the postcard (front and back) and my questions in voice and text (to help with translation).  You can view that VoiceThread above.  (By the way, additional photos have since been added to the VoiceThread in response to the dialogue -- a couple of which I had never seen before.  The VoiceThread is becoming a family archive and I hope to continue adding voice descriptions and stories to it.  Imagine the relevance this will have to my own grandchildren.) 

The postcard is a family relic and I had been told by my mother that it contains a message from my grandmother, who was home caring for her five daughters (one of them my grandmother, Ella), while her husband was away on the battlefields of World War One. I wanted to know more than that though -- especially what the red text on the right side of the postcard said.  The meaning of the postcard had been conveyed to me through my mother through oral stories but what did the postcard really say?

Within 12 hours of the status update, a dynamic exchange had ensued between my cousin, Thomas, in Germany, and a close family friend, Lore, who lives in the US but is from Germany.  A high school friend, who I haven't talked to in more than 20 years but now lives in Germany, assisted with identifying the type of script used on the postcard too.  The script, apparently, is not German but Suetterlin.  This is one of the reasons why it's been so hard to translate over the years.  Lore, apparently, had received instruction in reading and writing in Suetterlin when she was young. 

The writing on the left side of the postcard, by Elise, shares her happiness upon hearing recent news that Theodore was healthy (we assume she had received a note from  him not long before this was written).  The postcard is date stamped 8-16-1915.  But there is a handwritten phrase in red dated 8-25-1915.  This phrase says, "killed in action."  I had understood that the postcard had been returned to my grandmother with this handwritten mark upon it.  However, my Facebook community keenly identified that the red letters are in ballpoint pen, indicating that it was written much more recently than the Suetterlin text which was made with a fountain pen.

The death of my great grandfather has been verified by another of my relatives in Germany who has located a photograph of Theodore's grave -- on which the date 8-23-1915 in inscribed (matching the red text on the postcard).  Since I posted this on Facebook, I have also received never seen before pictures of Elise's parents (my great, great grandparents) including one of them standing in front of their own porcelain shop (these have been added to the VoiceThread).  My cousin has also shared stories with me about Elise which I've never heard before -- she said that her husband had volunteered for the war but soon thereafter was "shot in the head." She was a strong woman, up until her death at age 99.

The postcard is a precious family relic to me.  It is a metaphor of love, loss, and the incredible courage and human commitment of both Theodore, who voluntarily left for the war, and Elise, who raised five young daughters alone in early 20th century Germany.  

With the combined help of Facebook and VoiceThread, a new layer of family history has been revealed and more keep coming.  I'm very grateful to be alive right now.  We have an unparalled opportunity to leverage social technologies to learn about and tell our own stories. We are all experts in something -- and when we have the opportunity to share those gifts with others, the power of social technologies is felt.  That is part of our quest in this century, I believe -- to identify our passion and area of expertise and share it with the world.  This empowers each of us to give something back to the world and leave our mark.

Finally, as an educator, I'm realizing the significance of this "moment" and how important it is to weave these opportunities into our students' learning experiences.  Doing so would illuminate the deeper relevance of social media to our students to open up their own stories -- and encourage teachers to move away from our reliance on textbooks to facilitate learning.  Mashable shared a related story today about how social media is informing world history events.  How many history professors are working this concept into their curriculum, I wonder.  I remember how difficult it was for me to connect with history when I was young -- I can't imagine how different my academic experience would have been if I were introduced to history through an opportunity to tell my own story and share it with the entire world.

As a result, I'm thinking about integrated a project into my online History of Photography class that requires students to "tell a story" involving a photograph and a defining family event. This project would include a research stage in which social media would be used to reveal new bits of information and the story would be shared in a student-generated VoiceThread.  I really can't think of a more valuable learning experience.  What do you think?  

History is yours.  What's your story?

How Recruiters Use Social Networks (Infographic)

I saw this infographic on Mashable this week and thought it was incredibly relevant to my previous post, College Students: Why Social Media Matters To You.  This infographic does a solid job of pointing out the potential for social media use to result in negative and positive effects on future employment.

How are new college grads learning how to craft their social media presence in the most effective way?  Is this a skill that could or should be an outcome of a college degree?  Is your college's career services department integrating these skills into their workshops and other services?  And what about our online students?  I'd love to hear your thoughts and any related activities on your campus.

Dear College Students: Why Social Media Matters To You

Many new college grads are realizing is that their college degree is lacking an important proficiency: a social media presence.  A friend of mine recently graduate with his BS degree in Finance.  He had a great lead on a job at a high tech company and things felt promising.  But the feedback he received was, "Spend some time developing your social network profile and then our recruiters will consider you."  That's not something he learned in college.  But, arguably, it should have been.

Why?  Because in a participatory culture, what others say about you is more important than what you say about yourself.  Step up, folks. It's time to join in. 

If you're on the social media sidelines, here are three simple steps to join in:

1. Define your niche.  Everything starts with your niche.  If you imagined yourself on a stage, what are you speaking/singing/dancing about?  Why would people want to be in your audience?  Who are those people?  These are the people you want to connect with.  These are the people who want to learn from you.

2. Start your LinkedIn profile, build your connections -- and, perhaps most importantly, get recommendations from your connections. 

3. Create a Twitter account, start following interesting people who have something smart to say or share. 

4. Give back.  Social media is a two-way street. 

• Create a blog and share what you know.  This includes ideas, reflections, tips, strategies (in all formats -- writing, videos, PDFs, you name it!). 
• Tweet relevant, thought provoking ideas and resources (in the form of links).

5.  Worried about privacy?  Then don't share private information.

Go. Do it today.  Your future may depend on it.