The Twitter Revolution: Engaging Students in 100+ Classes

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)The Twitter Revolution: Engaging Students in 100+ Classes
Presenter: Thomas Chase Hagood
Event Date: September 12, 2013 - 2:30pm - 4:30pm
Location: North Instructional Plaza Classroom

Since its launch in 2006, the social media and connection website, Twitter, has transformed the lives of millions of individuals. From citizens’ uprisings in the Arab Spring to the sheer deliberative potential that this concise referencing web tool has for democratic self-governing populations across the globe, Twitter has revolutionized the way humansconsume and share information.

Several scholars have explored the enhancements that Twitter can offer the college classroom and its learning environment. As with social activists, art or music fans, or politics junkies, Twitter’s ability to link—in a unique, but almost limit-less fashion—like-minded individuals offers university students and teachers an incredible platform to expand learning and connection opportunities. This capability could easily have a profound impact on engaging students in the 100+ classroom.

This workshop will offer a brief survey of scholarly findings about Twitter in higher education. Much of the session will proceed as a tutorial on the uses of Twitter for faculty who have not explored this social media tool. The session will highlight: 1. How to set up a Twitter account, and will assist faculty members in doing so; 2. How to manage the account, follow other users, and compose tweets; 3. How to manage hashtags, the twitter app on their smartphones or tablets, and other features unique to the Twitter-sphere that might intimidate non-users. Finally, a Q&A and discussion session will examine how Twitter-based interactive curricula has been/might be developed and embedded into class assignments and operations.

Flipping 101: Easy Tech for Better Prep and Rethinking Class Time

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The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)Flipping 101: Easy Tech for Better Prep and Rethinking Class Time
Presenter: José Bowen, Dean, Meadows School of the Arts and Professor of Music, Southern Methodist University
Event Date: September 11, 2013 - 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: Sidney Samuel Thomas Reading Room (MLC)

Technology provides new ways for students to receive first contact with material and also better ways to ensure that students are prepared for class. We will begin by searching for new sources of online content and exploring the benefits of podcasts and online exams. We will play games and practice creating active learning assignments that use free internet content, laptops, tablets or phones in or out of the classroom. Technology can also be used to lower the stakes and raise standards with micro tests, improve reading and writing, and even create opportunities to study source documents. All of these offer opportunities to sparks the sort of critical thinking or change of mental models we seek. If technology can give us more classroom time, how can we design experiences that will maximize change in our students? Dee Fink provides an excellent model for designing courses, but technology creates many more opportunities to rethink the sequence of activities. We will examine how first contact, learning activities and assessment can all be reworked using new technologies.

Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology out of your College Classroom will Improve Student Learning

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The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology out of your College Classroom will Improve Student Learning
Presenter: Jose Bowen
Event Date: September 11, 2013 – 1:00pm – 2:30pm
Location: Masters Hall, The Georgia Center
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Technology is changing higher education, but the greatest value of a physical university will remain its face-to-face (naked) interaction between faculty and students. The most important benefits to using technology occur outside of the classroom. New technology can increase student preparation and engagement between classes and create more time for the in-class dialogue that makes the campus experience worth the extra money it will always cost to deliver. Students already use online content, but need better ways to interact with material before every class by taking online quizzes, doing interactive online assignments, playing games, asking questions or working in online communities. By rethinking our assignments, use of technology and course design, we can create more class time for the activities and interactions that most spark the critical thinking and change of mental models we seek.

FYO Workshop: Engaging FYOS Students in Class Discussions

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The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)FYO Workshop: Engaging FYOS Students in Class Discussions
Presenter: Melissa Harshman
Event Date: September 10, 2013 - 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Location: North Instructional Plaza Classroom

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This workshop, designed for those who teach a seminar as part of the FYO program, will focus on strategies to engage first year students in meaningful classroom discussions. Key challenges associated with engaging new college students will be discussed and successful strategies and approaches for fostering and facilitating discussion will be detailed. Additionally, available technologies that support discussion, as well as assignments and activities that have been fruitful in past FYO seminars in regards to discussion will be shared. Faculty will leave this session with new tools, strategies, and assignments to facilitate discussion in FYO seminars.

Innovation 20/20 Call for Nominations: Special Spotlight on Graduate Teaching Assistants

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Innovation 20/20 SeriesWe are now accepting nominations for Innovation 20/20 sessions. This year I want to focus attention on our college’s excellent Graduate Teaching Assistants. If your department has 1 or 2 outstanding TAs who are known to be innovative in their teaching, I hope you will take the time to nominate them to do an Innovation 20/20 presentation.

Not only we all benefit from learning from their teaching approaches and techniques, but they will receive an important recognition that I’m sure will help distinguish them as they begin to develop their professional dossiers for finding a faculty position in higher education.

To submit a nomination, send the following information to Lloyd Rieber <lrieber@uga.edu>:

  • Name and email of the nominee
  • Nominee’s department and/or program
  • Short explanation of why you are nominating this person
    (e.g. in what way is the person innovative in his/her teaching)

Background:

While it is difficult to pin down what is meant exactly by “innovative teaching,” here are are a few guidelines. Nominees should be more than just good teachers. They are people who take some risks and try new things. They are also people who are known to use one or more unique innovative strategies consistently as part of their teaching repertoire.

The focus is squarely on “innovation in teaching,” but if some attention is given to how technology makes the teaching innovation possible or feasible, all the better.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Many thanks!

Lloyd Rieber
Director, Innovation in Teaching and Technology
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Online Teaching Skill Seminar: Creating Narrated PowerPoints with Camtasia + Creating Captions for Videos (2:00 pm, Friday, September 6, 2013, Room 618 Aderhold)

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playAn important element of Lloyd Rieber’s massive open online course (MOOC) titled “Statistics in Education for Mere Mortals” is a series of pre-recorded PowerPoint presentations. In this Innovation in Teaching and Technology seminar, Lloyd will demonstrate how to create narrated PowerPoints with Camtasia. Lloyd will also show how to create closed captioning as part of the video to meet basic accessibility standards. (Note: The hard part is creating the transcript. I will show the use of a tool called MacScribe that creates transcripts from audio files. The transcripts are far from perfect and need much editing, but MacScribe has some good editing tools built into it.)

This seminar will immediately follow Lloyd’s seminar “Anatomy of a MOOC” at 1:00 pm on the same day.

Want to check out Lloyd’s MOOC? It’s not too late to go and enroll:
https://www.canvas.net/courses/statistics-in-education-for-mere-mortals

Pizza will be provided, so email Lloyd at lrieber@uga.edu to let him know if you are coming.

Lloyd Rieber
Director, Innovation in Teaching and Technology
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Anatomy of a MOOC (1:00 pm, Friday, September 6, 2013, Room 618 Aderhold)

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Anatomy of a MOOCLloyd Rieber’s massive open online course (MOOC) titled “Statistics in Education for Mere Mortals” ends on September 9. During this Innovation in Teaching and Technology seminar, he’ll describe the history of this MOOC, its design, and what he has learned by teaching it. We will also discuss the MOOC phenomena and what it possibly means to higher education.

Want to check out Lloyd’s MOOC? It’s not too late to go and enroll:
https://www.canvas.net/courses/statistics-in-education-for-mere-mortals

Pizza will be provided, so email Lloyd at lrieber@uga.edu to let him know if you are coming.

Lloyd Rieber
Director, Innovation in Teaching and Technology
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Licensing request gives MOOC professor pause

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Mitchell_Duneier

image retrieved from https://paw.princeton.edu

When “star” MOOC professor Mitchell Duneier was approached by Coursera to license his course, Duneier decided to pull his support for the platform, stating “But I also don’t want to be part of a movement that is really about helping state universities achieve cost savings at the expense of their own faculty and students.” It appears this professor is enthusiastic about the potential of MOOCS, yet concerned that licensing agreements may also threaten state university faculty, students, and quality educational experiences.

Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education…

Collaboration With Google Apps

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The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)From The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)

Collaboration With Google Apps
Presenter: Carrie Bishop and James Castle
Event Date: September 3, 2013 - 2:00pm - 3:30pm
Location: MLC 372

Register for this session

Looking for ways to encourage collaboration among your students? Google Apps make it easy for students to brainstorm and develop ideas in small groups, even at a distance! In this workshop, participants will explore the features of Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms.