Technology

(Click on this YouTube video and listen to me read some lines from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” I used this as an introduction to my MERLOT presentation, titled Creating Productive Digital Identities in the Online Classroom.)

Can we deliver online college courses through cell phones? How do we apply humor in online courses without face-to-face contact? How can we improve online discussion forums?

These questions bring up just a small segment of the issues discussed by college online educators this weekend at the 2009 MERLOT Conference, which I’m attending in San Jose, California, the center of Silcon Valley.

As I wrote earlier, MERLOT, which stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, is one of the premier higher education organizations related to online teaching and technically enhanced traditional classes at the college level. Its annual conferences bring together academics, information technology specialists and software/hardware company representatives to share knowledge and information in a fast growing field in higher education.

I posted about presentations I find relevant to my own academic interests on Thursday. Let me add to the list:

Delivering Courses via Blackberry: A Mobile Learning Case Study

This presentation is about a learning program delivered through Blackberry devices by Pearson Learning Solutions and Louisiana Community & Technical College.

I Need More Than My LMS

This presentation gives ideas about how to embed more learning tools in open source class management systems, such as Moodle and SAKAI.

Did You Hear The One About? Important Considerations for Instructors in Applying Humor in Online Courses

It’s sometimes difficult to be humorous on a personal level in online courses. This presentation by experienced online instructors shows the upside and downside to using humor in online education.

From ChitChat to Discourse: Improving Online Discussion

This presentation is about using rating functions to improve posts on discussion boards, which are an important part of many online courses.

Here’s the complete program. Here’s MERLOT’s main site.

Much of the discussion at MERLOT this week has been about how to meet the academic needs of our current tech savvy college students and the generation of students that will follow them. It’s organizations like MERLOT that ensure the academy will be ready for them.

I’m at the MERLOT International Conference in San Jose, California this week, catching up on the latest technology related to online college teaching and giving a presentation about digital identity.

MERLOT, which stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, is one of the premier higher education organizations related to online teaching and technically enhanced traditional classes at the college level. Its annual conferences bring together academics, information technology specialists and software/hardware company representatives to share knowledge and information in a fast growing field in higher education.

My presentation, Creating Productive Digital Identities in the Online Class, deals with how faculty and students show themselves in online courses through profiles, social networking sites, blogs, videos and more. How do these identities shape perceptions? How can they foster knowledge acquisition? How should students and faculty present themselves in a digital sense?

The answers to these questions are not settled, and, as new technologies emerge, the questions will change or even become obsolete. But most everyone’s online identity—not just students and faculty—has become an important social and cultural issue.

Click on the YouTube video to watch a slide show that goes along with a recording of me reading some lines from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” I’m using this to introduce the presentation. Whitman, the great American poet, had something important to say about identity in his classic American poem.

Here are some other MERLOT presentations scheduled for Friday that seem promising to me:

Strengthen the Link with Blended Videos: Enhance the Connection between Teaching, Learning, and Technology

This presentation deals with using graphic organizers to make better use of YouTube videos in the classroom.

Podcasting for Educators

This presentation deals with how to use podcasting in classrooms.

Have Digital Library Will Collaborate

This presentation is an overview of the digital version of the Library of Congress.

MERLOT in Second Life

This presentation shows a demo of MERLOT’s Second Life Campus. Some universities now conduct classes in Second Life, a virtual world that has tremendous teaching and learning potential in all academic disciplines.

This is just a small sampling of the presentations offered on Friday at MERLOT and they reflect my interest. Here’s the complete program. Here’s MERLOT’s main site.

(Pictured right is a segment of the Minneapolis light rail system. I'm back in Oklahoma and will resume writing about political issues with my next post.--Kurt Hochenauer)

Is there growing interest in using open source scripts and applications in higher education? I think this is true after attending the MERLOT Conference in Minneapolis last week.

As I mentioned in previous posts, MERLOT stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. The organization helps college professors and instructors incorporate new technologies in their online and onground classes in a variety of ways. It serves as a clearing house for technology-related learning objects and resources. It publishes JOLT (Journal of Online Learning and Teaching). It holds annual conferences that bring together educational technologists from around the world.

There is little doubt that collaborations and business relationships between technology-related corporations and universities continue to dominate how American faculty and students create and advance knowledge in the virtual world. This partnership will continue to thrive, but I sense more administrators, faculty, students and informational technologists are becoming sympathetic to the open source model.

Why wouldn’t they consider open source given the uneven economy?

College tuition continues to rise across the country at astronomical rates, and some of that money obviously goes to support needed technology opportunities for students. As students pay more and more, it is only natural that administrators and faculty might look to get as much technology for the buck they can. Administrators at public colleges also have a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers as well. That responsibility should at least include considering the low cost of open source.

Open source is a free system of scripts and software. Some popular open source platforms include Moodle, which is perhaps the most popular course management system in the world, and the content systems Drupal and Joomla. There are also free open course scripts that focus on operating a business. The script that provides the foundation for the popular browser Firefox is free software.

The beauty of open source—and I’m an open source proponent—is that you can modify the script to fit your purpose. The only requirement is that your modifications must be made available to anyone else using the particular script. What this means is that faculty, students and information technologists can work together in an education environment to design systems and software. They can network with other universities across the country as well.

Corporate course management systems are more administration centered. One MERLOT keynote speaker, Bernie Dodge, said administrators often simply dump a lot of money into technology systems in order to solve a problem because they are looking for a quick fix. But is this sustainable? What about developing informational systems that involve all stakeholders?

Operating a large Moodle site, of course, is not without its costs. It requires developers and script administrators in ratio to the overall use of the script, but it is less expensive than corporate systems now on the market. Louisiana State University recently moved to Moodle, and one Louisiana educator told me in an elevator at the conference that the entire state was moving to Moodle. San Francisco State University recently moved to Moodle as well. The El Paso School District also started using Moodle.

Moodle and open source scripts are not, in their essence, anti-corporation or anti-money. In fact, people use open source scripts to make money all the time, and there are a plethora of opportunities to make money with open source in educational applications.

But when the basic scripts and the ensuing updates are free, then universities are already ahead of the game before they hire their first programmer.

The open source model also reflects the growing interest in sustainability. The scripts can be maintained locally, and you know exactly what type of product you are getting. You can then work together as a community to make your system better. As students work on systems, they learn the computer languages they will need to succeed in our digital world. They can use this knowledge to go into the corporate world or not, but at least they have a choice.