Teaching the Facebook generation:
A wish list for course management software

Brian Whitmer and Devlin Daley

Today’s generation of students know how to use the web for a lot more than just checking their email. They’re perfectly comfortable with dynamic web pages and highly interactive content. They spend hours a day on social networking sites communicating and collaborating with friends. So why is it that the only interaction they have with Learning Management Software is when they check to see if their grades have been updated?

LMS systems offer a hub of interaction for today’s online students — at least, they should. Instead of collaborating within an LMS, students are organizing themselves into independent Facebook and Google groups, and teachers are making outside blogs for their students to follow. Some teachers avoid LMS software altogether because it’s too clunky and confusing. There’s a growing disconnect between what LMS solutions provide and what students and teachers actually use or want.

At Instructure we’re working to create a new type of course software that embraces the open technologies of the web. Our real goal, though, is to create a system that will actually get used. We have our own ideas about how to make a modern LMS really shine, and we’ll start the presentation off by going over some of these thoughts. Then we’ll open it up for discussion to hear what you want/need in an LMS. We’re building this product for you, and we want to make sure it’s something that will actually fit into your educational plans.

This presentation will be the chance to start participating in the creation of a meaningful, useful educational product. It’ll be an open-discussion opportunity for us to get to know you better, and for you to get excited about a fresh new take on educational software.

Title: Empowering Language Students to Share the Arts Through Technology

Purpose: This presentation will describe how technology-medium art projects helped ESL students in an intensive English language program to practice their listening and speaking skills. The use of simple, but exciting, technology-based art projects motivated students to collaborate and apply advanced content and language.

The use of technology in this course was designed to accomplish the language and content objectives of a Humanities English for Academic Purposes course. Language goals were accomplished through group collaboration in which students were required to plan, apply, and critique art and artistic ideas. Students were assigned to work in small, mixed language-background teams that required them to problem solve and defend their opinions in English.

Students also applied content objectives as they interacted with authentic content (through the campus art museum) and current technologies (including podcasting and digital film making). As a result, in addition to practicing their language skills, they also engaged with artistic content and materials and they learned how to use relevant communications software including Apple Garageband and iMovie. Projects for this course included audio tours of campus art exhibits and short films for a campus film festival.

Objectives: This presentation will give an overview of the course objectives, how the technology projects related to course objectives, and how students reacted to the projects.

Applications: Suggestions are offered for educators, of both content and language courses, who wish to integrate similar technology projects into their classrooms.

Thematic Relation: This presentation demonstrates not only how teachers can integrate technology into theirt classroom, but also how they can show their students how to use multimedia technology to communicate their appreciation of the Arts.

Information: This presentation will make use of student made projects (with appropriate approval) to support the ideas being shared.

2nd-Day Hands On: Empowering Students to Share the Arts Through Audio Podcast Tours
This workshop will encourage attendees to create their own audio podcast tour right on the Utah Valley campus. Attendees will go through the same process that classroom students do: plan the tour, take photos, write the script, record the audio, edit the tour, and then publish the podcast.

Biography
Robb is a language educator and teacher trainer with the English Language Center at Brigham Young University. He is also pursuing a PhD in instructional psychology and technology with an emphasis in language assessment.

It’s All About the Love handouts

Sharing the Love presentation handouts

Title of presentation:

It’s All About The Love – Creating and Supporting A Technology-supported Learning Community (TLC) in a Community College, Professional-Technical, or Undergraduate Setting

Purpose of presentation (why is this important and who is the target audience):

With full workloads, many undergraduate and community college faculty members find it difficult to maintain their current courses and, at the same time, look for ways to best meet the learning needs of new generations of students. Many of these students, as digital natives, are both prepared for and expect to see courses that are formatted to their learning styles. In many cases, this calls for the integration of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and the remodeling of long standing course outlines and materials. Add into the mix concerns and confusion about actually using these technologies, and catastrophe is in the air.

This presentation is targeted for individuals coming from a wide variety of teaching environments who are looking for ways to synergize their efforts in developing curriculum and acclimating to current trends in ICT. We would also encourage individuals who work with faculty development (instructional technologists, administrators, etc) to attend to consider ways of applying these practices in their own development efforts.

Objectives of the presentation (what are you planning to do):

The intent of this presentation is to talk about the practical experiences of developing and maintaining a TLC. The focus will cover the practical stages in implementing a TLC, lessons learned, and examine some of the products that have been developed through the TLC.

Practical applications (how can your results/strategies be used by others):

After the presentation, an attendee will:

* Understand the sequence involved in establishing a viable TLC
* Be aware of pitfalls and shortcuts involved in the process of establishing a TLC

Relationship to the conference theme:

The underlying theory of the TLC is the exchange of ideas, practices, and content among participants. Not only are these ideas exchanged, they are often modified, altered, and improved (talking of both the content and the faculty generating that content.)

In addition, the conference also addresses the concept of teaching with technology. By definition, technology is defined as a tool or process that can simplify an existing process or procedure. One of the most important goals of the TLC is to simplify or support faculty efforts to expand or innovate their courses. By using a distributive model of effort, faculty can greatly magnify their efforts in developing a new course activity or in learning a new technical process.

Information (data or theoretical base) to support what is advocated:

The presentation and workshop will rely primarily on the experiences of participants of the Gen. Ed. TLC. We will include as a part of the presentation additional resources and journal articles we used as references as we developed our working organization and goals for the TLC.

Participants interested in the original presentation materials can email the presenter for copies.

2nd-Day Hands On: Sharing the Love: Harnessing the power of ICT in a TLC
In this workshop, participants will be look at how they can develop stronger courses through the use of a TLC.

To access the sample site, please follow the following steps:

1. https://134.50.150.145/icet/login/index.php

2. There will be several security warnings. Please select the “Allow” or “Accept” options.

3. Create a new user account. Fill out the required info. This information will not be saved, so there is no need to use correct or verifiable information. However, you do need to use a correct email in order to access the course.

4. You will receive an email from “Michael Spall” containing a weblink to the course. Clink on the link.

5. You will be taken back to the website. Select the course titled, “Sharing the Love:…”

Biography
Clayn Lambert is an instructor in the General Education department at the College of Technology at Idaho State University, where he teaches courses in English and Critical Thinking. He received a Master’s Degree in English from the University of Idaho. He also provides support for instructional technology at the College of Technology, providing training and strategic assistance related to ICT throughout the college.