ITC eLearning, Day 2

Be What’s next in teaching and Learning

Cameron Evans, Microsoft CorporationToday started off exponentially more engaging than yesterday. The opening keynote this morning was Cameron Evans from Microsoft. He spoke to us about his visions of technology moving forward. There was an interesting video that he exposed us to, which I’ve included below. Of course, he was a big supporter of Microsoft and their products, although he was very light-hearted when commenting about the number of Apple devices in the room.https://twitter.com/evinsmj/status/303872537304121344One of the interesting things that I took away from Cameron’s presentation was the concept of “Super Wifi.” When digital broadcasting took over analog several years ago, it freed up the analog bandwidth. Evans thinks that by 2015-2016, wifi will be served to everyone through that analog bandwidth. I’m not sure exactly how that will work, so we’ll just have to sit back and relax.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0

An Arsenal of Design Tools for an Army of One

Heather Dawson & Nikki Massaro-Kauffman, Penn State UniversityLink to presentation and tools: http://bit.ly/itc2013This session include a variety of tools that can be used in effectively designing courses/multimedia with limited resources.

1. Self-checks: Low-stakes way to ensure that learners assess and measure their own learning. Kudos to the presenters for providing the scripts for others to use the tools. An interesting part about this code is that it’s in Javascript rather than Flash – iOS devices can use it.
2. Drag & drop tools: Presenters have designed a fill-in-the-blank as well as accessible versions.

These are just some examples of interesting applications of tools that the presenters developed for their courses. They emphasized that these examples are for student–>content engagement, not student–>student or student–>instructor.The amazing thing is that the presenters are making the scripts and UI tools available to everyone, so that we don’t have to visit their site to create new activities; we can do it all from right within our own web system. EXCELLENT!Overall, definitely a great job. I’ll be sure to play with some of these tools when I get back to campus.

HTML5, Flash and the iPad

David Megill, and Don Megill, MiraCosta CollegeHmm… what to say about this session. The presenters started off by saying that they haven’t prepped much and the things they were going to present have other solutions that they just found out about. Definitely not a way to start the session – makes me wonder what I’m going to get out of this. 15 minutes in, there is no mention of Flash, HTML5, or iPads.About 20 minutes in we heard the first tool, a browser called Puffin. That browser handles Flash, but not Java. That’s really all I took away from that session. Too bad…

Using QR Codes and Video to Enhance Learning

Douglas Mann, Rowan UniversityIn looking at what QR codes are used for, I can’t say I learned much new at this session. However, the presenter showed us how he is using QR codes in his classes. He also posts QR codes in training rooms, etc. so that sports medicine students can review different wraps as needed. The session overall was quite engaging, especially when he had us break into groups, use a QR code to access a video, then demonstrate what we learned. The presenter openly admits that QR codes may not be necessary in fully-online courses, but for his face-to-face classes they are extremely helpful and necessary.