F.R. "Fritz" Nordengren, MPH

In my last learning partner update, I shared the NMC and Educause Horizon Report from 2007. My post was a retrospective look at their findings nearly a year ago.

The report included key trends, critical challenges and technologies to watch, and I highlighted one of the urgent things to notice was a lack of information literacy. Combined with that is an opportunity to look at the skills gap identified in the Horizon report:

There is a skills gap between understanding how to use tools for media creation and how to create meaningful content. Although the new tools make it increasingly easy to produce multimedia works, students lack essential skills in composition, storytelling and design.

I don’t think it is being critical to point out this gap, nor do I think it is limited to students; most faculty lack the same skills and lack the time to learn to be a journalistic storyteller, a visual artist, or a writer for new media. What results is both a lack of information literacy on the user’s part and a lack of creation skills to create meaningful content on the presenter’s part. A lecture which can be a brilliant communication experience, does not become good video simply by turning on a camera.

Many of your have seen or heard of professors moving lectures to Open Courseware at MIT or ITunesU. The New York Times featured Professor Walter H. G. Lewin, age 71, in a feature on December 19. Sure, his lectures are popular; sure he’s bringing lots of PR and potential students to MIT. But the real point that every faculty member and administrator needs to see is buried three quarters of the way down the page in an almost throw-away paragraph:

He said he spent 25 hours preparing each new lecture, choreographing every detail and stripping out every extra sentence.

And also, if you watch his explanation of the pendulum lecture you’ll also notice this is both well edited and multiple cameras were used in the production.

This lecture series adds an example of one additional key trend described by Horizon:

Academic review and faculty rewards are increasingly out of sync with new forms of scholarship. The trends toward digital expressions of scholarship and more interdisciplinary and collaborative work continue to move away from the standards of traditional peer-reviewed paper publication. New forms of peer review are emerging, but existing academic practices of specialization and long-honored notions of academic status are persistent barriers to the adoption of new approaches. Given the pace of change, the academy will grow more out of step with how scholarship is actually conducted until constraints imposed by traditional tenure and promotional processes are eased.

Wow. No adoption estimate was given in the Horizon report for this one.

NOTE: Tomorrow’s Lunch and learn at 12:10 is on using RSS in research and the classroom.

Previously, I wrote about the 12/10 conspiracy. You’ll learn more of my thoughts on why 12/10 is a conspiracy as we go along, but to get us started, what is it?

Simply, 12/10 is a challenge and opportunity to you to try 12 new (free) tools in ten months. Tools that are good not because the are new, but can help you be a better researcher and learning partner. The goal and challenge I want to share with you is to try each of these tools, chart your progress, and when you’ve completed 12/10 we’ll reward you with a USB flash drive emblazoned with the 12/10 conspiracy logo. (Heck, it’s better than a “certificate suitable for framing”)

So here is the list and you do not need to complete these in any specific order. and if you have done some already, mark them off. A key here is this, you are welcome to keep your academic hat on and do these in a serious frame of mind — but I encourage you also to have some fun and play. Play is one of the best ways to learn and discover and if it happens to help you be a better researcher, or teacher, well, I won’t tell if you don’t.

1. Learn about RSS feeds and subscribe to at least one feed (And what do you know, tomorrow’s 12/10 lunch and learn is about: ta da RSS feeds!  Link to learn more
2. 43 things …
   1. Explore 43 things web site, You can create an account, and track your 12/10 progress. Share and cheer our learning partners on (You”l see what it is about when you get there: http://www.43things.com Link to learn more
3. Create a FREE Google Account https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount
   1. Use Google documents to share a work in progress with a colleague Once you have your Google account, you’ll see the link to Google Documents. Link to learn more
4. Take that fancy new Google account and create your own blog using Google’s Blogger (Or use WordPress.) Create your first blog entry. https://www.blogger.com/start
5. Page Flakes is a web page aggregator. It uses the RSS feeds and other tools of any number of web sites so that your sites come together in one url to quickly review. http://www.pageflakes.com/ Create your own view of the Web.
6. Search and alerts: use Google Alerts to be updated on content. Want to be notified by email when your favorite research topic in included on a web page or news article? Want to do a little “vanity” surfing? Google alerts will send you an email and a link whenever it finds new information.
7. Tagging .
   1. Use technorati to tag content you read or create. Dewey had a system. The web puts the taxonomy system in the hands of the viewer. Visit technorati www.technorati.com and explore tagging and what it means to the process of categorization.
8. Podcasting what it is and how it is different from streaming media. Use iTunes (installed on my DMU computers and find a list of podcasts on iTunesU.
   1. Subscribe to a podcast, listen to a lecture
9. Social Networking is the trend du jour. But the concepts of social networking web sites do have some influence on designing effective classrooms online.
   1. Make a profile on Facebook http://www.facebook.com
10. Wiki
    1. Create an account on a wiki (Wikipedia or other) and add content
11. Visit flickr. Sharing photos of everything is the purpose of flickr. You can upload and share photos with family, friends, co workers. A group of slides can be shared with a class or colleague. http://www.flickr.com Link to learn more
12. FD labs flickr toys
    1. Make a movie poster, set of trading cards, or another creation. (Many projects are free, some do cost.) http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/

There is it, the 12/10 list. You can do as many or as few as you like, and in any order. But I think if you set your reluctance to try new things aside, and quietly, in the privacy of your home or office, just peek at some of these tools, you might find some new ways to learn, share, and have fun.

As you complete a 12/10 conspiracy item, drop me a note. — OR — send me the link to your 43 things page so I can cheer your progress.

Our goal is to do do these 12 thing in 10 months , the last day of the 12/10 conspiracy is July 31, 2008.

Trivia.quiz

Last week’s question we didn’t have a winner. It was:

According to the Educause study, what percentage of the 2007 report students indicate they prefer a “moderate rather than an extensive” use of IT in courses:

69%

59%

49%

and the right answer was 59%.

This weeks question: What is the 12/10 conspiracy?

a) a chance to better understand some learning tools by trying 12 tools over 10 months

b) figuring our this whole “web 2.0″ thingy

c) a deranged concept by the ed tech strategy guy

d) a way to win a cool USB drive

e) all of the above

Right answers to me

Learning Partners,

As many of you know, this is my first official blog in my new role as Education Technology Strategist. Without a doubt, the longest job title that will physically fit on a business card.

First, what exactly is an Education Technology Strategist?

Let me see if I can answer that by using examples from other practices and work worlds:

The role of a strategist is part architect, part engineer, and at times, part day laborer. Most everyone who reads this has learned and discovered that the rate of change of technology in our learning environments is accelerating…perhaps exponentially. Just like the role of an architect and engineer is to translate the client’s wants and ideas into a plan that can lead to a finished space, the role of an education technology strategist is to translate the clients wants into a virtual learning space.

That makes sense, why is this the best time for an Education Technologist Strategist?

There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of technology solutions marketed to both students and to faculty. Many, if not most, are excellent products….but like people…not all “play well with others”. Equal with the number of solutions is the number of expectations. There are probably as many different technology expectations on campus as there are people.

Those of you who saw my interview presentation saw the Apple® Macintosh® television commercial from 1995 where the presentation won’t load and the audience starts shouting out “tips” (“try typing sysedit.exe”). 12 years later, the audience is still shouting out ideas: “try this software”, “we need to be like Facebook”, “we need more Flash®”…So where do we turn?

This is what I hope to bring to the table ….

my role is to help all of us, as learning partners, choose the path for our use of technology in the learning environment.

Just as Mac® and/or Windows 95® were not the perfect answer in 1995, there are few perfect answers today in 2007. Some learning situations, indeed, should be totally self paced and available on-line. Other learning situations, are difficult if not impossible for most people to learn without one to one in person contact.

So what you can expect from me:

Weekly (or so) I’ll publish a blog covering learning environments and technology. I’ll try to include a tip to two along the way. I can send it to you by email so it arrives in your Outlook. If you want a different way to receive the same information, you can subscribe to the blog as an “RSS” feed (RSS is a way you can have information sent to you when a web site changes.) Many people use RSS to receive updates on news and their favorite sites. If this all sounds like hi-tech mombo jumbo…..no worries….. for now you’ll get this via email. and if you choose later, we can spend some time sharing how RSS works and you can decide it it will make your world any easier.

I’m also working on a series of digital media presentations that help explain the basics of digital media so that you can understand how to make better use of clip art, photos, video, and some common software tools.

I’ll seek your help and guidance on what you are interested in learning and working with. (Seriously, some of it is pretty dull like pixels, and lossless or lossy compression algorithms) but in the end, it helps explain why your photo suddlely looks awful in PowerPoint, or why it takes 12 minutes to download a video that taks 30 seconds to watch.

Trivia.quiz contest question of the week: the first DMU learning parter to email me the correct answer wins this week’s prize: a beverage of their choice delivered to their desk, courtesy of me!

QUESTION: If MySpace was a country, it’s membership population would place it between which two countries in world ranking?

• Between Brazil and Pakistan ( 7 and 8 )
• Between Japan and Mexico ( 12 and 13 )
• Between Turkey and Congo ( 19 and 20 )