September 2015 archive

19
Sep
2015

presentation design rules

categories: instructional technology

5 presentation design rules worth breaking

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/09/15/5-presentation-design-rules-worth-breaking/

Rule to break: You need a cohesive theme. What to do instead: Give your audience a tasteful curveball

If you really want to keep your audiences engaged and awake, try throwing in a completely one-off and random picture that still tie into your message

Rule to break: Your slides need to be perfect. What to do instead: Optimize your environment

room décor, body language, or even sounds

Rule to break: Follow a proven template. What to do instead: Craft a story that shines

Use case studies to supplement your tips. Interject yourself into your narrative. Pull your audiences into your experiences, anecdotes, and perspectives.

Rule to break: Be blunt. What to do instead: Use subtle cues

I use software that lets me zoom in and out of the content I’m sharing

Rule to break: Break rules. What to do instead: Use your best UX judgment

You’ll want to break some rules: just not all of them. A rule that you should never, ever break is the importance of keeping things readable.

19
Sep
2015

twitter audience

categories: social media, Twitter

6 Steps to Finding Your Twitter Audience

http://snip.ly/qS1o#http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228113

smart tools, six steps…

1. Target keywords in Twitter bios. Say you’re promoting an app for a half-marathon in Chicago. With the help of a few tools you can quickly create lists of your targets.

  •  Social Bro: Those with a subscription can search all Twitter bios by keyword (runner) and location (Chicago), name and url to find the active profiles that fit your needs. Additionally, you can organize your search results into Twitter lists.
  • FollowerWonk: With this free tool you can search profiles by keyword, name, location and url. The results can be exported to xls or csv.
  • Twitter‘s “people search” feature: Any user has access to this recently launched feature, however, searches are limited to keywords.
6 Steps to Finding Your Twitter Audience

2. Find active users and influencers.

3. Find those who use a particular hashtag.

4. Organize your results.

5. Don’t forget your tweeps.

6. Interact and monitor.

 

19
Sep
2015

World of Classcraft

categories: gamification, gaming, information technology

Game On: Physics Teacher Creates World of Classcraft

http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/04/30/game-on-physics-teacher-creates-world-of-classcraft/

World of Classcraft, a not-so-subtle nod to the world’s most popular online role-playing game

n a manner similar to other role-playing games, students assume a class—in this case a Mage, a Warrior, or a Healer—that each boasts specific abilities. Working in teams of roughly six to eight students, Young said each student aspires to gain experience points related to positive classroom interactions, and avoid losing hit points for negative activities.

For example, students get 50 experience points for finding a mistake in class notes; 60 points for answering a classroom question correctly; and 100 experience points for good attitude and participation throughout class.

Alternately, students get -10 hit points for arriving late to class and arguing with the game master (teacher) and -30 points for not fishing homework.

17
Sep
2015

first year experience: functional literacy

categories: digital citizenship, digital identity, Digital literacy, information literacy, instructional technology

Digital (Re)Visions: Blending Pedagogical Strategies with Dynamic Classroom Tactics

http://praxis.technorhetoric.net/tiki-index.php?page=PraxisWiki%3A_%3ADigital_Revisions

I therefore approach that aspect of the FYW class with this baseline assumption: Most of the eighteen- to twenty-year-olds who attend The University of Arizona already communicate via digital technologies in various ways and can learn to use template-based applications with relative ease, especially if they are first given time during class to collaborate on penalty-free projects with select applications.

Beyond that initial experimentation with the capabilities and functionality of new technologies, what FYW students most need to learn in our limited time is a thing or two about conventions that span across many online publishing venues and multimodal genres (such as nonlinearity and linking) and basic design principles (such as visual organization, coherence, and impact). Also essential are multiple conversations about fair use, copyright, and other ethical concerns regarding representation of self, others, and ideas that students must consider when going public with their compositions. Such an approach builds on what Stuart Selber (2004) calls the “functional literacy” of digital technology that FYW students typically bring to these classes, challenging students to develop critical and rhetorical literacies and become questioners and producers of digital texts.

I ask my FYW students to translate their written public arguments (open letters; letters to editors, public figures, or organizations; opinion columns; perspective-forwarding creative nonfiction) into more visually and/or aurally oriented arguments (via Prezi or YouTube; through the creation of editorial cartoons, infographics, public service announcements or other multimodal texts). (For more information, see the assignment sheet

17
Sep
2015

assistance with technology

categories: announcement, educational technology, information technology, instructional technology

We, the faculty from InforMedia Services

are willing and able to help faculty,
staff
and students
with their academic endeavors in technology.

We offer one-to-one sessions,
production and
instructional design assistance,
workshops,
instructional sessions
and in-class technology instructions.
you can reach us by email:

ims@stcloudstate.edu
trhergert@stcloudstate.edu
pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu

Follow us:

IMS blog: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SCSUtechinstruc
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InforMediaServices?ref=hl

17
Sep
2015

social media and critical thinking

categories: assessment, digital identity, Digital literacy, digital naitives, e-learning, instructional technology, learning styles, online learning, social media

Does social media make room for critical thinking?

social media critical thinking

social media critical thinking

Sinprakob, S., & Songkram, N. (2015). A Proposed Model of Problem-based Learning on Social Media in Cooperation with Searching Technique to Enhance Critical Thinking of Undergraduate Students. Procedia – Social And Behavioral Sciences, 174(International Conference on New Horizons in Education, INTE 2014, 25-27 June 2014, Paris, France), 2027-2030. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.871
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Bailey, A. (2014). Teaching Alice Walker’s The Color Purple: Using Technology and Social Media To Foster Critical Thinking and Reflection. Virginia English Journal, 64(1), 17.
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Eales-Reynolds, L., Gillham, D., Grech, C., Clarke, C., & Cornell, J. (2012). A study of the development of critical thinking skills using an innovative web 2.0 tool. Nurse Education Today, 32(7), 752-756. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2012.05.017

Baldino, S. (2014). The Classroom Blog: Enhancing Critical Thinking, Substantive Discussion, and Appropriate Online Interaction. Voices From The Middle, 22(2), 29.
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Ravenscroft, A., Warburton, S., Hatzipanagos, S., & Conole, G. (2012). Designing and evaluating social media for learning: shaping social networking into social learning?. Journal Of Computer Assisted Learning, 28(3), 177-182. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2012.00484.x
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finding ways to capture meaningful informal learning experiences by explicitly linking these to formal structures, and providing frameworks within which informal learning can then be validated and accredited (Cedefop Report 2007).

Education is clearly a social process but it is probably much closer to an ongoing discussion or debate than an extended celebration with an ever-expanding network of friends (p. 179, Ravenscroft et al.)

the community of inquiry (COI) model developed by Garrison and Anderson (2003) and social network analysis (SNA). European Commission-funded integrated

project called MATURE (Continuous Social Learning in Knowledge Networks), which is investigating how technology-mediated informal learning leads to improved knowledge practices in the digital workplace
Fitzgibbons, M. (2014). Teaching political science students to find and evaluate information in the social media flow. In I. Management Association, STEM education: Concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/igistem/teaching_political_science_students_to_find_and_evaluate_information_in_the_social_media_flow/0
Cheung, C. (2010). Web 2.0: Challenges and Opportunities for Media Education and Beyond. E-Learning And Digital Media, 7(4), 328-337. http://login.libproxy.stcloudstate.edu/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26db%3deric%26AN%3dEJ916502%26site%3deds-live%26scope%3dsite
Pattison, D. (2012). Participating in the Online Social Culture. Knowledge Quest, 41(1), 70-72. http://login.libproxy.stcloudstate.edu/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26db%3dkeh%26AN%3d79921213%26site%3deds-live%26scope%3dsite
Key to using social media is the ability to stand back and evaluate the credibility of a source of information, apart from the actual content. While developing this critical attitude toward traditional media is important, the attitude is even more crucial in the context of using social media because information didn’t go through the vetting process of formal publication. Can the student corroborate the information from multiple sources? How recent is this information? Are the author’s credentials appropriate? In other words, the ability to step back, to become aware of the metatext or metacontext is more important than ever.
Coad, D. T. (2013). Developing Critical Literacy and Critical Thinking through Facebook. Kairos: A Journal Of Rhetoric, Technology, And Pedagogy, 18(1).
http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/praxis/tiki-index.php?page=Developing_Critical_Literacy_and_Critical_Thinking_through_Facebook
Many instructors believe that writing on social networking sites undermines the rhetorical skills students learn in class because of the slang and abbreviations often used on these sites; such instructors may believe that social networks are the end of students’ critical awareness when they communicate. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber (2009) contended that electronic writing forms actually require “sophisticated skills of understanding concrete rhetorical situations, analyzing audiences (and their goals and inclinations), and constructing concise, information-laden texts, as a part of a dynamic, unfolding, social process” (p. 18). It is this dynamic process that makes social networking a perfect match for the composition classroom and for teaching rhetorical skills: It helps students see how communication works in real, live rhetorical situations. Many students do not believe that communication in these media requires any kind of valuable literacy skills because they buy into the myth of how the news media portray social networks as valueless forms of communication that are decaying young people’s minds. This is why I introduced students to the passage from Invisible Man: to get them thinking about what kinds of skills they learn on Facebook. I found the text useful for helping them acknowledge the skills they are building in these writing spaces.
Stuart A. Selber (2004) in Multiliteracies for a Digital Age criticized so-called computer literacy classes for having “focused primarily on data representations, numbering systems, operating systems, file formats, and hardware and software components” rather than on the task of teaching students to be “informed questioners of technology” (p. 74). In a time when, as Sheelah M. Sweeny (2010) noted, “the ability to stay connected with others is constant,” it is increasingly important to engage composition students in critical thinking about the spaces they write in (p. 121). It is becoming clearer, as technology giants such as Google® and Apple® introduce new technologies, that critical literacy and critical thinking about technology are necessary for our students’ futures.
Valentini, C. (2015). Is using social media “good” for the public relations profession? A critical reflection. Public Relations Review, 41(2), 170-177. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.11.009
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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811114001817
p. 172 there is no doubt that digital technologies and social media have contributed to a major alteration in people’s interpersonal communications and relational practices. Inter- personal communications have substantially altered, at least in Western and developed countries, as a result of the culture of increased connectivity that has emerged from social media’s engineering sociality ( van Dijck, 2013 ), which allows anyone to be online and to connect to others. Physical presence is no longer a precondition for interpersonal communication.
(Jiping) The Pew Research Center ( Smith & Duggan, 2013 , October 21) indicates that one in every ten American adults has used an online dating site or mobile dating app to seek a partner, and that in the last eight years the proportion of Americans who say that they met their current partner online has doubled. Another study conducted by the same organization ( Lenhart & Duggan, 2014 , February 11) shows that 25% of married or partnered adults who text, have texted their partner while they were both home together, that 21% of cell-phone owners or internet users in a committed relationship have felt closer to their spouse or partner because of exchanges they had online or via text message. Another 9% of adults have resolved online or by text message an argument with their partner that they were having difficulty resolving person to person ( Lenhart & Duggan, 2014 , February 11). These results indicate that digital technologies are not simply tools that facilitate communications: they have a substantial impact on the way humans interact and relate to one another. In other words, they affect the dynamics of interpersonal relations

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