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OLG Meeting Notes Feb 6, 2004 ...

Ocotillo Online Learning Group
Meeting Feb 6, 2004

Phoenix College
1:30 - 3:30 PM in the Catalina Room, lower level of the libary
campus maps for Phoenix College

Blogs, Blogging or being Blogged? Blogging is not a fad but a wonderful opportunity to teach and learn. We have several presenters who will share how they have used Blogs personally, in their instruction, and as a resource for students.

Welcome and Introductions

Sandra Wells (Phoenix College)
Sandra Wells welcomed the group to the meeting.

What's New in Online Learning at Our Campus

all participants
A round up of who's doing what (briefly!) per site represented.

• Estrella Mountain- transitioning self paced courses to fully online courses in spring 04. Learning communities are being defined.
• Phoenix College - currently 6000 students on WebCT license, examining option to go to unlimited licensing.
• South Mountain - CIS 236/237 (Web-based Teaching) are being offered this semester online via Blackboard as accelerated courses for faculty.
• Scottsdale - Sharon Blnaton is now a new Dean of Technology.
• District Office - update/reminder on Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) prizes and submissions. Also Chandler-Gilbert's e-portfolio system has been loaded on to a MCLI server that will be made available to faculty at other colleges to experiment. Alan will give a demo next month.

Weblogging at Maricopa: Chemistry

Chris Heilman (Phoenix College)
Richard Saling filled in for Chris who was stuck at another meeting. Phoenix College has started using MovableType (a server based weblog system, free) for some weblog development. Richard gave a brief demonstration of Chris HeilmanŐs personal blog, that runs on Userland Radio (desktop based authoring, publishes to Radio hosted server, fee based service). See Chris' blog, with a great deal of commentary and postings of his digital photography:
101 three sixty five

Weblogging at Maricopa: Anthropology

Rick Effland, Melanie Kroening (Mesa)
Why chose blogging? What we have done to position ourselves for the future use of this if the pilot warrants. From a pedagogy perspective how can Blogging support e-portfolios and learning? How are students using the blogs?

Melanie worked to make the blog format simple, straight forward, and easy to use. Mesa also uses Moveable Type largely because of its price (free), and that as open software she was able to program to customization used at Mesa for account set up, tie-in to student portal accounts, etc.

Rick shared his use of blogs from his Anthropology class "Buried Cities and Losa Tribes" where students are assigned to write out of class reflections on what they learned in class. Students each have their own individual blog and their blogs are also connected (with RSS feeds) to the blogs of 4 other students in their co-hort as well as Rick's instructor blog.

He feels it is more important to get the idea out than to focus on grammar and spelling however, he has found that since students know the blog is published online and that others can see it, the have made more effort to have their writing be grammatically correct. He has found that more he has been energized by the feedback he gets from students so quickly and often via the blog.

Three students from Rick's class attended the meeting and shared their views on blogging. All three students reported that the blog tool was very easy to use. One student had experience writing her own Live Journal blog, but the other two were new to using computers in their classwork. The ability to see other studentŐs perspectives was important to them. One student reported her increased motivation to blog rather than do traditional homework or papers. They agree about the reinforcement of thinking about the class experience at a later time. Best quote, "This is so easy, my dog could do it!"

Seee some of the reference links below:

1. Explanation of the Blogging Process within my Buried Cities and Lost Tribes Class:
   http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/
   anthro2003/blogging_spring2004.html
2. A reference for accessing any of the Blog Worlds that students are currently building (Click on the name to access any student blog). Comments are open to visitors on any blog entry:
   http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/
   anthro2003/blog_list.html
3. Documentation [PDF] for how to use the blogs:
   http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb
   anthro2003/blog_documentation.pdf
4. A link to the Blog Calendar kept within my Mac.com account:
   http://ical.mac.com/WebObjects/iCal.woa/
   wa/default?u=reffland&n=Buried32Cities322004.ics
5. Class Web Guide:
   http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/
   anthro2003/asb222.html

Break!

all
Enjoy some snacks while networking.

Weblogging at Maricopa: Digital Video

Cheryl Colan (Phoenix College)
Cheryl gave a brief demonstration of how to add static web pages to a Movable Type weblog, for example, a page thatd escribes the purpose of the blog, by creating a new index template.

Use of this technique allows you to update any page of your site anytime, from anywhere you have Internet access. If your site has multiple contributors (as does her Campesinos de Arizona blog), you can give everyone permission to update static web pages. This technique has enormous potential for groups, such as academic departments, to update their own sites without turning to a webmaster for assistance, and requires only a minimal understanding of HTML.

Cheryl runs a blog from her own hosted server (she pays $10/month) and for set up she chose the option of having MovableType install it on her server for a $40 fee.

See also:
Campesinos de Arizona project journal for making of a documentary film
Cheryl's personal blog

Weblogging at Maricopa: English

Alisa Cooper (South Mountain)
Alisa makes blogs a requirement for students in her first year composition course and developmental writing courses. We use Blogger.com, a free web based blogger utility for these courses. Students use the blog as their writing journal. They respond to writing prompts three times a week. Students write five sentences on a topic. Alisa selects random student blogs to share in class, thus motivating students to check spelling and grammar. Students also write a summary of the class. Each student is assigned one day to post summary of the class on their blog.

The blogs are public, and students are encouraged to read other students' journals/blogs. Some examples:
English 101
English 071

Alisa also use a blog (iBlog for the Mac) in her hybrid freshman composition course as an interactive tool to keep students informed about what is going on in class. It is organized into five sections: FAQ, Assignments, Computers, Final Essay, and Lectures. All blog entries have options for students to send me feedback via email or post comments about the blog post for all to read. The blog has a calendar, RSS feed option, hit counter, and weekly polls.
http://blog.freshmancomp.com/

Because the course is a hybrid and students are not required to attend each session, Alisa also updates the blog for the class to let students know what they may have missed in class each day.

Problem-Solving Corner

all
Bring your questions! This is your opportunity to ask your colleagues about online tools or methods, or to ask for help from the participants in dealing with any issue of using online learning technologies. We encourage your participation - your colleagues may have many wonderful solutions for one of your problems!

A faculty member asked if anyone knew of an effective tool for online meetings with faculty. Several suggestions were offered including: CourseForum, Blackboard/WebCT (used as a committee rather than a class), Yahoo Groups, and the Midas chat feature.

Door Prizes

all
Stick around to see if you win one of the prizes (you must register on the sign in sheet and be present to win).

The prizes for this meeting include:

• Joe Cruz won "Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace" by Rena Paloff and Keith Pratt (speakers for the October 23 and 24, 2003 Dialogue Day on "Teaching Hybrid Courses"
• Julie Magadan won "Lessons from the CyberSpace Classroom" by Rena Paloff and Keith Pratt (speakers for the October 23 and 24, 2003 Dialogue Day on "Teaching Hybrid Courses"
• Melanie Kroening won "Designing With JavaScript" by Nick Heinle
• Michelle Traveler won "Earth Air Fire Water" - royalty free stock digital photo CD for Macintosh
• Alicia Bennett won VRExcursions - Earth Science simulation software for Macintosh/Windows

We will again make use of the prize patrol tool!

OLG Prize Patrol
by Alan Levine
Get the .swf file to use for yourself or the original Flash MX file to see how it is done.

Next Meeting...

March 5, 2004 at South Mountain.