Storify | Stories about TCC 2012 inside social media networks

Posted on April 19, 2012 by

Storify is a useful tool to quickly collate, organize, and disseminate a story, an idea or information. Users search, select and organize content from social networks then add a narrative to build stories that are easily shared on social networks.

Image

Storify story screen capture.

Graduate students at the University of Hawai’i created these stories related to the TCC 2012 conference activities:

Dr. Kim Made Us SMILE at TCC 2012
By Helen Torigoe
http://storify.com/torigoeh/dr-paul-kim-made-us-smile-at-tcc-2012

TCC 2012 Online Conference
By Laureen Kodani
http://storify.com/7Laureen/tcc-2012-online-conference

TCC 2012: Earn Your Badges
By Frank Jumawan
http://storify.com/frankjay808/tcc-2012-earn-your-badges

2012 TCC Conference
By Chel Sea
http://storify.com/ChelseaETEC/tcc-conference-2012

“To create a story one needs an inspiration,” says Helen. “A very inspiring keynote by Dr. Kim yesterday made me think and I will be thinking about his presentation for a while.” “Storify is a great tool to quickly collate, organize, and disseminate a story, an idea or information.”

Helen continues, “Storify may be a good tool to use for a quick reflection after a field trip, a discussion, or a unit. It helps to gather and outline one’s thoughts before writing a paper or a blog.”

“I was just thinking, if Twitter is micro-blogging, then could Storify be micro-journalism?” Indeed.

Readers: What social media curation tools have you used and how have you used them? What value might these tools have in the context of teaching and learning?

Post and share your thoughts in the comment area below.

Posted in TCC 2012 | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Final Countdown to Our Presentation

Posted on April 18, 2012 by

By Frank Jumawan, Guest Contributor
University of Hawai‘i, Educational Technology Doctoral Degree Candidate

In a few hours, Eddie Merc and I will be rehearsing for our TCC 2012 presentation ‘Military Time’ before the actual presentation at 7:30 pm HST tonight.

This is my second year in presenting at TCC and to tell you the truth, it still feels like my first time presenting. Being nervous is normal and sometimes I have that mentality of being excited about proudly sharing something Eddie and I worked hard for. I invite you to see our very interesting topic on time management from a military college student’s point of view.

Good luck to all that are presenting at this year’s TCC Online Conference! Be proud for the work you have put in to show the world your ideas!

Readers: From your experience in teaching or making presentations, how do you avoid or deal with being nervous? What are the three best techniques you would recommend?

Posted in Guest contributor, TCC 2012 | Tagged , | 1 Comment

TCC 2012 Online Conference: Day #1

Posted on April 18, 2012 by

By Marisa Yamada, Guest Contributor
University of Hawai‘i, Educational Technology Online Master’s Degree Candidate  

As the first day of the TCC 2012 Online Conference comes to a close, I find my brain brimming with all the things I learned from a day full of great presentations.  From topics ranging from Stanford’s SMILE program to Teaching Marine Species ID Using Web Based Learning Modules and everything in between,  the conference seamlessly moved forward with an unrelenting pace!

One particularly interesting presentation, presented by Kirsti Dyer MD, was Growing Online Education & Use: Sedentary Lifestyles, Rising Obesity, and Overweight Rates. It raised the question of whether e-learning makes us fat.  I thought she did a stellar job in motivating me to think about my health and behavior during my online era vs. my pre-online days. With straightforward questions like, “What has happened to your weight since taking or teaching online classes?  Gained, Maintained, or Lost?” and “How many hours do you spend online each day (work and non work)?” she forced me to stop and think about how time flies when we’re online and  how some of us forget to stand up every once in a while to get all that healthy circulation going that helps to prevent chronic diseases down the road.  I know that after her presentation, I found myself standing up more often from the chair and vowing to eat healthier and exercise more and this on a non New Years Day.

Dr. Dyer is right. It is a serious concern, especially for lifelong online learners and faculty.  Whether it is sitting on a bouncing ball in front of our computers or taking scheduled exercise breaks during an online class, we must find ways to integrate healthier living with our online learning.

Readers: If you were an online conference participant, how were you personally affected by one or more of the presentations? Share your response by contributing a comment or two in the area below.

Posted in Guest contributor, TCC 2012 | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

What I Learned in Three Hours

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

By Helen Torigoe, Guest Contributor
University of Hawai‘i, Educational Technology Master’s Degree Candidate 

TCC 2012 Worldwide Online Conference began at 7 a.m. HST this morning.  By 10:00 a.m., I had learned several teaching methods that I would like to try out in my classroom.  My classes are still (the old-fashioned) face-to-face but the ideas I gained from these sessions about online classes seem nevertheless applicable.

Virginia Tucker’s research (using Facebook) confirmed the stages of a virtual community – introduction, identification, interaction, involvement, and inquiry (Waltonen, 2008).  Building trust and sense of community happens in stages.

Barbara McKenna and Michelle Reinhardt presented GICE method – guide, inspire, challenge, and empower – to engage and empower learners.  More hands-on instruction during guide and inspire stages, then almost hands-off toward the end, the empower stage.  Evidences of an empowered student might be self-motivation, self-inquiry, mentoring others, etc.

Melissa Holmberg and Therese Kanai said an instructor bio is an important connection for potential learners as it tells them how the faculty member is qualified and why he or she might be interested in what is to be learned.  A welcoming bio would make the students feel comfortable and put them at ease.  There was also a caution to not share too much personal information, especially about one’s children.  In summary, an instructor’s bio should be used to support his or her credibility at a professional level.

Dr. Holmberg and Dr. Kanai had a second presentation about using Skype in an online classroom for office hours, collaboration, and meetings.

Lots of information and learning in just the first three hours.  So much more to come.

Waltonen-Moore, S., Stuart, D., Newton, E., Oswald, R., & Varonis, E. (2008). From virtual strangers to a cohesive online learning community: The evolution of online group development in a professional development course. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 14 (2), 287-311.

Readers: If you participated in TCC 2012, what did you takeaway from it? What practices might you change in your teaching? We look forward to your responses in the comment area below.

Posted in Guest contributor, TCC 2012 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

TCC Student Presentations

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

By Helen Torigoe, Guest Contributor
University of Hawai‘i, Educational Technology Master’s Degree Candidate 

It is that time of the year again: the annual TCC Worldwide Conference entirely conducted online is being held this week.  The conference involves presenters and audience from around the globe.  Speakers, sessions, and social connections all happen in the virtual space.

For the University of Hawai‘i Educational Technology (ETEC) students, this conference has an additional significance as the evening sessions are reserved for ETEC student presentations.  Each Master’s Degree candidate presents his or her project and cheers on fellow candidates. This is a proud moment for each ETEC student presenter who has poured many hours of work and heart into an action research or an instructional design project with a real-world application.  The knowledge gained from the research will be shared with audience from around the world; new ideas will spark more research by others in the audience.  Each presentation will be worth every wrinkle and white hair that cropped up as a byproduct, not to mention the new credentials students can claim as their own in a month.

This year’s student presentations range from Flipped Classroom, to an Organic Gardening module, to Computer Security Strategies.  Guaranteed to be another great set of student presentations!

Readers: We would like to learn more about other programs that require online presentations as part of a graduate degree program. Please respond in the comment area below.

Posted in Guest contributor, TCC 2012 | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Selecting Technology Tools for Life Beyond the Class

Posted on April 14, 2012 by

By Alice Bedard-Voorhees, Guest Contributor

Relative to the TCC 2012 conference theme, I would share this experience in choosing applications for a particular online class.

This past fall provided the opportunity to teach a required online class for English Second Language and adult basic and secondary educators. I wanted to move people into using some tools that could increase engagement, ones that could also be used beyond the class. Certain aspects of the course came to mind: a collaborative exercise formerly transacted on a wiki, student-shared bookmarks, and a writing-heavy orientation in the course. Additionally, the professional development experiences for this group had formerly been  through non-credit, face-to-face workshops and the classes they taught/facilitated were in face-to-face venues.

Those considerations shaped choices for technology and interactions for this course. I chose Google Docs over the wiki because Google Docs could be a tool that could be used by their Adult Ed students at a future date, and learning to use Google Docs could be a resume item for the Adult Ed students as well. I made their use of the doc as easy as possible: I put it up there and gave them the link from the online classroom, so they could get to it immediately.

While social bookmarking is a tool for media literacy and either Delicious or Diigo seemed obvious choices, the ability to highlight and add sticky note passages and pages on Diigo pages made it a tool that the adult educators could also use with students in their classes for literacy and research-and-writing. For social bookmarking, I created a class account and gave them the steps they needed to create an account and request to join the group.

Last, the synchronous meeting tool (Blackboard Collaborate) would be a way for instructors to having meetings with students from wherever each person had internet connection, adding flexibility to a college sites that cover 12,000 square miles. The instructors in this course were asked to present in this tool as well, and initially expressed a lot anxiety about using Blackboard Collaborate. After having a training session and presenting at a later date, some participants said, “Why didn’t we use Collaborate earlier in the term?”

Making it easy for students to use the tools can make all the difference in launching the use as part of the learning rather than having it be a great distraction. Secondly, as a result of the very positive response to the live sessions with this group, I am now making it a point to offer a voluntary brief synchronous session each week in my other classes for questions about content or exploration of the tool itself.

Editors note:
Alice Bedard-Voorhees maintains the Constant Learning Org blog found at:
http://constantlearningorg.blogspot.com

Readers:
Please share your thoughts by commenting on this post.

  • What technology tools do you use for your classes?
  • How did you arrive at this decision?

Mahalo.

Posted in Guest contributor | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

TCC 2012 Special: Webinar on Badge-based Learning

Posted on April 7, 2012 by

NOTE: A recording of this session is available at:
http://www.tcconlineconference.org/badge-based-learning-and-21st-century-skills/ 

Aloha,

TCC 2012 and LearningTimes presents a special, pre-conference webinar on Badge-based learning. There is no charge for this event, and conference registration is not required.

Badge-Based Learning and 21st Century Skills
Jonathan Finkelstein, President and Founder of LearningTimes
April 10, 2012
4:00pm – 5:00pm EDT

For other timezones:
http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=1&iso=20120410T16
http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20120410T16&p1=179 

Jonathan is also director of the BadgeStack project which is being integrated into TCC conference activities.

We are living in an age of opportunity for learning, specialization and innovation like none ever seen before. How do we connect interest-driven learning, as well as new skills and literacies, to a broader ecosystem of accreditation and recognition to enable each learner to capitalize on the learning experiences that they are already having, or to inspire and help them to seek out new ones, as well as to communicate their achievements and skills to necessary stakeholders? A digital badge ecosystem could play a critical role for diverse learners across the Web, and help translate that learning into a powerful tool for getting jobs, finding communities of practice, demonstrating skills or seeking out further learning.

This event is free and does not require registration for TCC 2012. Feel free to invite your friends and colleagues. Fifteen (15) minutes prior to the event, go to:
http://www.tcconlineconference.org/badge-based-learning-and-21st-century-skills/

For more information:
tcc@learningtimes.com

TCC REGISTRATION
There is still time to register for TCC 2012. Registration provides real-time and recorded access to keynotes, regional speakers, and 100 other concurrent sessions.

To register:
http://www.tcconlineconference.org/

For information about unlimited registration for groups and campuses, contact Sharon Fowler, fowlers@hawaii.edu or register as a site at:

http://www.tcconlineconference.org/register/

Contact Sharon also for a special University of Hawaii faculty & staff discounted rate.

CURRENT PROGRAM TIMETABLES
The current schedule of sessions is posted on the TCC 2012 Program wiki along with descriptions of each session.

https://tcc2012program.wikispaces.com/

We hope to see you online shortly.

Cheers,
-Bert Kimura, Curtis Ho & Sharon Fowler
for the TCC 2012 Conference Team

Posted in TCC 2012 | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment