NERCOMP EVENT
Social Software for Teaching and Learning: Insights from Early Adopters
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This workshop will consider how social software (weblogs, wikis, social networking websites, and virtual worlds) can alter and expand the dynamics of classroom and distance education interactions. Presenters will offer observations and guidance drawn from their own practice. Participants will see from example how to apply social software to particular pedagogical needs, and will learn from teachers with experience using these tools what has worked for them and what needs further thought and refinement. We will look at how social software can be used to foster both community ties and constructivist pedagogy. We’ll consider whether their pre-college experiences using social networking websites like MySpace make today’s entering students more open to collaborative learning than were their predecessors. And we’ll discuss some social networking opportunities that might be of interest to professionals working with educational technology.
Workshop Organizer/Host: Peter Hess of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date/Time:
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
9:00am - 3:30pm
Registration begins at 8:00am
Location:
UMASS Amherst
Campus Center
First Floor
Amherst, MA
Special instructions:
PLEASE NOTE: Due to construction access to the Campus Center has changed. Please click on the map link under Location.
Getting to the Campus Center Parking Garage… From Massachusetts Avenue (after exiting from Route 116) At the second set of lights turn left onto Commonwealth Avenue – Boyden Gymnasium is on the corner of Commonwealth & Massachusetts Avenues. Due to construction, Campus Center Way is closed, continue on Commonwealth and take a right onto Holdsworth Way - please refer to the map link under Location for details.
Parking is available in the Campus Center Garage, pick up your parking pass at the registration desk and pay $5 when leaving.
Park on the 2nd floor of the parking garage and walk thru the hallway into the Student Center and go down to the first floor.
Pricing:
NERCOMP Members: $85
Non-Members: $185
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Additional Information
Event Schedule:
8:00am – 9:00am Registration and Coffee
9:00am - 10:15am Social Software in the Classroom: Happy Marriage or Clash of Cultures?
Speaker: Eric Gordon, Assistant Professor of New Media, Department of Visual and Media Arts, Emerson College
More and more schools are appropriating social software tools into the classroom under the general assumption that connectivity and networking is necessarily productive for teaching and learning. But the social dynamics cultivated in sites like Facebook and MySpace can sit uneasily in the classroom. These sites are non-hierarchical platforms in which young people can “hang out” and “chat” without fear of surveillance. And even though this expectation of privacy is unfounded (anyone, including parents and advertisers can easily pry into these spaces), the dynamics of the community depend on it. In the classroom, however, the expectations are different. These communities are limited, controlled and heavily monitored by professors. The success of these communities, then, depends on the students’ ability to be comfortable in them while continuing to operate within existing classroom hierarchies. So, how do the dynamics of academic platforms overlap with the dynamics of popular social software platforms? To what extent does “hanging out” contribute to teaching and learning? And conversely, to what extent does academic surveillance destroy community dynamics?
10:15am – 10:30am Break
10:30am to 11:45am Teaching and Learning in a Virtual World
Speaker: Rebecca Nesson, Instructor, CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion,
Harvard University
The experimental course, “Cyberone: Law in the court of Public Opinion” is being offered to students at the Harvard Law School and is also being made available to off-site students though the Harvard Extension School. For the off-site students, student and staff interactions will be mediated through a course Wiki, discussion boards, and, most importantly, through Second Life, a 3D virtual world that is inhabited and created by its users. Participants in the course will discuss their experiences with and impressions of using these modalities, and will share any implications they have drawn from this encounter with them.
11:45am – 12:30pm Lunch (included)
12:30pm – 1:45pm Electronic Constructivism: Inspiring and Motivating Students with Thought Provoking Questions and Emerging Technologies
Speaker: Dr. Maureen Brown Yoder, Director of Online Learning, Lesley University
How can social software enhance inquiry-based teaching and constructivist approaches? Participants will see examples of how thought provoking questions and intriguing scenarios can lead to transformative thinking and original projects. Using discussion boards, blogs, and other asynchronous applications, students can collaborate to research, analyze their findings, and create original products. WebQuests and other constructivist approaches will be highlighted, and examples of ways to inspire imaginative thought will be included. Data from a survey of 500 online students and faculty in a fully online Master's degree support the claim that this type of instruction contributes to an almost 100% retention rate and very high student satisfaction. Participants will leave this session with practical suggestions for thoughtful ways of using emerging technologies to enhance teaching and support learning.
1:45pm to 3:00pm Social Computing Tools in the Curriculum
Speaker: Katie Livingson Vale, Manager Curriculum Integration Support, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The current college age demographic is quite comfortable with social computing tools - email, blogs, wikis, instant messaging and online collaboration through multiplayer online games. Katie will discuss ways in which MIT has been experimenting with incorporating social computing tools into the undergraduate curriculum and admissions process, and how students' experiences with online games may shape their ability and interest in collaborative learning projects.
3:00pm – 3:15pm The Education Technology Group
Creating an On-line community for people involved in Educational Technology
3:15pm - 3:30pm Debrief and Schmooze
3:30pm End
Speaker:
Eric Gordon
Eric Gordon is an assistant professor of New Media in the Department of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College. His work concentrates on how new technologies transform perceptions of public space, community and privacy, with a specific emphasis on the American city. While at the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at the University of Southern California, he was a principal designer of MediaBASE, a rich-media discourse tool that facilitates media-based conversation in the classroom.
Speaker:
Katie Vale
Katie Vale received undergraduate degrees from Brown in Cognitive Science and Anthropology and a doctorate from Boston University in Curriculum and Teaching with a specialization in Educational Technology. She is the manager of the Curriculum Integration Support team within MIT Academic Computing. Katie teaches seminars on technology-enabled education and social computing tools at MIT, and has been an Adjunct Professor at the School of Education at Boston University. Research interests include computer-mediated communication, computer-supported cooperative work, and evaluation of instructional technology, and MMORPGs in education.
Speaker:
Maureen Brown Yoder
Dr. Maureen Brown Yoder is the Director of Online Learning at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has also been the Program Director of the Technology in Education Online master's degree program for the past nine years. Dr. Yoder works with administrators and faculty on issues of online program development, academic and administrative implementation, supporting online students and faculty, and building a supportive infrastructure. Dr. Yoder is a proponent of high quality instruction incorporating emerging technologies and constructivist learning strategies while delivering practical, relevant, content. Dr. Yoder has conducted workshops on these topics nationally and internationally. She is a former elementary and middle school classroom teacher and technology specialist. Dr. Yoder received her doctorate at Boston University in Educational Media and Technology.
Speaker:
Rebecca Nesson
Rebecca Nesson is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Harvard. She has previously taught Extension School classes on Internet & Society: Technologies and Politics of Control, has served as the head teaching fellow for Principles of Programming Java (an introductory computer science class), and served as a consultant for Electronic Music: History and Aesthetics of Popular Music since 1960, also taught through the Extension School. The first two of these courses have included distance students who participated in the courses entirely online. The third included a significant online component in all student work.
Related Media Files:
Contact Information:
Lisa DiMauro
860-345-2081
ldimauro@wesleyan.edu
Hotel Information:
Rooms are available at the Campus Center Hotel located right on campus.
Rooms are reserved under Block Number 1796, the rate is $68 per night. The room block will be released on October 30.
Call the hotel directly at: 1-413-549-6000
For additional information go to:
http://www.aux.umass.edu/hotel/
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