05.18.07
Posted in General, Conferences at 5:46 am by Norm Garrett
I was presenting at a conference the other day (the Faculty Summer Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign) and all of my preparation and planning was foiled by some simple settings. When I arrived at the location (30 minutes early as is my usual practice) and connected my laptop, I couldn’t get the projector to take the input from my computer. After fiddling around with settings, etc., for 30 minutes or so, I decided to cut my losses on that and go to backup plan #1. Backup Plan #1 was my flash drive. Unfortunately, as is NOT my usual practice, I had neglected to copy my PowerPoint slides to the flash drive ahead of time. For whatever reason, I now could not get my computer to recognize my flash drive. Time for Backup Plan #2.
Backup Plan #2 was to use the Internet-connected computer in the room to access a web page I had set up with the html version of my PowerPoint slides. At first, I used Firefox as the browser to view the slides, only to find out that the html version of the presentation (created directly from PowerPoint) wasn’t totally compatible with Firefox. One of the participants in the session, who was following along on her computer, mentioned that she was viewing it fine in IE. So I switched to IE and we finished the session.
In Hawaii last fall I had to resort to Backup Plan #3, which was speaking from the printed handout. We had an earthquake that killed the power on Oahu for almost 24 hours and we were presenting without electricity. That experience made me very grateful for the backup plans.
My suggestion? Always have multiple levels of safety nets:
- Ask for the conference to supply a computer even if you intend to use your laptop
- Always have your flash drive with you and always have it loaded with your presentation and other materials you might need
- Have hard copies of handouts and even your slide presentation
A good presentation isn’t about the materials or the slides. It’s about the content. But you can get so frustrated by technical problems that you lose site of that and technical problems can kill your presentation. The same is true in the classroom. While technology is often viewed as a way to save time and effort, it often turns out that using it is more work. There certainly is risk involved. In the end its use can pay off, but don’t walk the tightrope without a safety net (or two).
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03.09.07
Posted in Conferences at 11:17 pm by Norm Garrett
The Illinois Online Conference was a great success. Here are some observations:
- The live Elluminate sessions were great. There was a lot of interaction between participants. Even in the concurrent sessions there were at least 20 participants, at least in the sessions I attended.
- It was interesting how many international participants we had this year. Just those I met included Australia, Argentina, and Germnay. Isn’t it amazing how an online format can flatten the world?
- Topics were varied and addressed just about every aspect of online and distance learning.
- There were many web poster sessions to visit in addition to the live sessions. In addition, there were quite a few recorded (podcast and vodcast) presentations that were excellent.
In all, it was a fun and productive conference. One thing it did was make me want to hook up with some of the participants in person just to have a bull session. That’s one thing that’s missing from a real conference: The ability to go out for dinner and continue talking things over. Maybe we’ll figure out how to do that remotely too. The virtual dinner would be a great addition to next year’s conference.
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02.10.07
Posted in Conferences at 12:25 pm by Norm Garrett
If you want to participate in a conference that is rich in ideas for online learning but flexible and easy to attend, try out the Illinois Online Conference. There are both synchronous and asynchronous sessions and a wealth of information and ideas about online learning.
If you are interested in registering for the conference, which is to be held on February 14-16, go to the conference website. For a sample web poster session for the conference, try out my IOC 2007 page.
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02.04.07
Posted in Conferences, Web 2.0, Learning Theory at 12:39 pm by Norm Garrett
For the past couple of years, I have spent most of my research time and travel funds presenting webiners, conference sessions, and workshops on network theory and learning communities. In a nutshell, my philosophy is that social networking can be leveraged by teachers to supplement “traditional” instruction. In order to do this, the social network in a classroom has to be jump-started. That’s where technology comes in. Blogs, wikis, forums, podcasts, and the like can be used to fertilize a learning community that has natural roots to begin with. Even though I present and speak on this all the time, I haven’t (to date) posted a blog entry about it.
In higher education it is even more critical for the instructor to push-start the community, since the community isn’t as naturally formed as it might be in a group that meets 5 hours a week (high school) or even 30 hours a week (elementary school). 150 minutes per week isn’t, under normal circumstances, enough time for a community to sprout and begin to grow. Accordingly, if the instructor isn’t actively involved in fertilizing the community, it will not sprout, or sprout and quickly die.
The results of this are clearly seen when we apply network theory. Network theory tells us that in a class of 30 we have a potential 870 connections (the formula is n(n-1)). Chances are, if the collaborative network is not allowed to grow, we have only 29 connections (the teacher to all 29 students). Consider the difference that takes place when even a portion of the potential network connections are used by students in peer-to-peer interaction: A geometric increase in connections.
As an example, I have created a network diagram of a class in which there are 19 students and a teacher. Very few of the students interact. In a second example, each of the 19 students has a relationship with approximately half of the other students (a relationship would be incoming, i.e. the student gains information, or content, from the other student). Take a look at the second network diagram and then consider the amount of learning that is likely taking place in the second network versus the first. The instructor is still the central connection, but the addition of dozens of additional network connections augments the content, varies the type of learning (appealing to different learning styles), and results in a more dynamic and richer learning environment.
I am finishing work on a website for the Illinois Online Conference 2007, which takes place on Feb. 14th and 15th. Here is a link to the site if you want a preview.
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10.16.06
Posted in General, Conferences at 5:30 pm by Norm Garrett
I am in Hawaii, having survived yesterdays earthquake, and had some observations I shared with my graduate students. Here is the posting from their class blog:
I had mentioned in class that I would be gone most of this week presenting a paper at a conference. The conference is ELearn 2006, an international conference on ELearning, held this year here in Hawaii. I arrived late Thursday and my presentation was yesterday. At 7 yesterday morning, local time, we had a 6.5 magnitude earthquake. My room is on the 14th floor and it was a wild ride for about 10-15 seconds. Of course, before going to bed the night before I watched a Discovery Channel documentary on the 2004 tsunami and so the first thing that entered my mind, since our hotel is right on the beach at Waikiki, was that. There turned out to be no tsumani because of the depth of the quake (about 12 miles down), but had there been one, it would have arrived here only 20 minutes after the quake. Power went out and was out for over 14 hours before finally being restored about 9:30 last night. By the way, I did give my presentation, but without electricity. Our meeting rooms here have large windows that open, as all face the sea. We opened all the windows, had plenty of natural light and a nice sea breeze, and went ahead with the conference sessions (without, of course, our computers, PowerPoint slides, etc.). I think it turned out OK, though, because the sessions were more informal, allowed for more interaction, and weren’t tied to the canned presentations as much. When it became dark and the power had still not returned, the hotel issued us all light sticks (like kids use on Halloween). They worked fine and we got by.
I wanted to comment on a few observations I had with regard to technology and our dependence upon it. These are small examples that happened here:
- One of the biggest problems at the airport was the toilets. The autoflush systems need power to operate and there is no manual flush backup. Nobody at the airport could use them, and people were stuck there all day (of course, we didn’t know about any of this at the time, since we didn’t have power … I read it in the Honolulu paper this morning)
- Cell phones worked sporadically on auxiliary power, so I got all my news by calling my wife in Illinois, having her look at CNN.com on the Internet, and report to me what was happening here! She wanted to know what was going on, but we were clueless here because we had no communications (TV, Internet, etc.) except cell phones. So she told me what was going on around me because I had no way of finding out.
- When you lack communication with the outside world, you become a community of your own, operating independently of that outside world. Most all of the guests in this hotel (which is a considerable number … it is 25 floors with hundreds of rooms) stayed here, since venturing out was dangerous (no traffic lights since all power on the island was out). Many rumours flew around with no way to verify any of them unless you could get through on a cell call. Without cell phones, it’s hard to say how we would have found out anything. People talked, made friends with total strangers, and just sat around and relaxed. It was really something you don’t see much of any more under normal circumstances.
- People are very resilient and can adapt quickly to unforseen and unanticipated situations.
- We have a great reliance on technology. If it weren’t for the disaster preparedness plan that this hotel has, things would have been a lot worse. They broke out supplies of water, food, and kept us fed all day even though there was no supply coming from the outside into the hotel. They had auxiliary power and knew exactly which things to keep powered and which to shut down. We had lighting in the emergency stairwells and all hallways, but all other lights were off. They kept the ice machines in their kitchens powered so they would have ice for us, and minimal power to be able to cook. They also powered their refrigerators and food stores so that they could provide us with food, having no idea how long the power would be out, as well as the speaker system when they needed to talk to us. They had the supply of light sticks to give us so that we could navigate in our rooms after dark and their employees were well-trained on what to do, moving right into disaster mode without missing a beat. The employees had battery-powered lanterns to cook and work by and they had really planned ahead for this contingency. So while we didn’t have elevators, Internet, radio, or TV, we got along fine as a group and got through it all unscathed.
Today, everything is pretty much back to normal, but a few hours without technology was, actually, quite refreshing. I wouldn’t recommend the earthquake to anyone, but getting away from technology for awhile is good for the psyche.
See you next Monday.
Dr. Garrett
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08.24.06
Posted in Uncategorized, General, Conferences at 9:48 pm by Norm Garrett
Well it has been a good summer and I got a lot accomplished. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to keep up the blog but I’m back at it now. Currently, I have several projects in progress that I worked on feverishly over the summer. The research I did was time-consuming but rewarding and I will be sharing some of my findings over the next few months on this blog.
Among other topics, much of my time has been taken up with writing grant proposals and papers for conference presentations. My next presentation will be at ELearn 2006 in Honolulu in October. This is an excellent conference for educational technology and its use in higher education. If you’ve never been, consider it (this year would be a good year to start since it is in Hawaii).
It’s good to be back at it and have another first week of the semester under my belt.
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05.26.06
Posted in Conferences, Archives at 2:05 pm by Norm Garrett
This year’s version of the annual Faculty Summer Institute, held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was a good one. Overall, the conference went well and the enthusiasm of the participants led to some really good collaboration opportunities. This year, the organizers tried something new: Everyone was allowed to select a particular track they were interested in and learning teams were created around those tracks. The learning teams met three times during the 4-day conference and then were given five minutes in the closing session to present some of their ideas. The end result was a good list of resources and ideas that I still have to sift through. I’ll be sifting through them in the next few weeks and presenting salient points here. Judging from the presentations, there were some excellent ideas to consider and I look forward to looking at them all in detail.
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05.20.06
Posted in Conferences, Tools at 9:53 am by Norm Garrett
It is interesting how the concept of RSS feeds is finally beginning to take off. Last week I presented a webinar for the Instructional Technology Council (a community college consortium) and had 30 participants from all over the country. They asked some really good questions at the end of the presentation and we even went 15 minutes over our allotted time trying to answer them. My face-to-face session at their conference in Savannah, Georgia, last February was well-attended and participation from the group was excellent.
Yesterday, I got a call from a writer for Distance Education Report, a scholarly journal on distance education. We talked for 45 minutes as I explained RSS to him, how it works, and how it can be used in the classroom to create learning communities that are peer-to-peer, self-organizing, and easy to use in the classroom setting. We had a wonderful conversation about RSS. Even as a technical writer, he had no idea how it worked and was eager to understand not only how it worked, but how it could be used in education (particularly distance education).
This week I am presenting a double-session hands-on workshop and a 75 minute forum on using RSS, blogs, and wikis in learning communities. Again, these will be well-attended based upon pre-registrations. So it seems that interest in RSS technologies and how they work is rising. At the beginning of 2005, there was a major survey done of Internet users where one of the questions asked was if they had ever heard of RSS and, if so, whether or not they were using it. Only 5% responded that they knew what it was and only 1% were using it. Those figures have to be a lot higher now, as awareness has increased. It would be interesting to see that survey repeated now and to examine the results.
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03.10.06
Posted in Conferences, Future at 11:06 am by Norm Garrett
If you are looking for a good conference that lets you do some real interacting with your colleagues, try the Faculty Summer Institute at the University of Illinois. It’s an informal conference aimed at educators who are interested in distance learning, online courses, etc.. It is mainly organized by ION (the Illinois Online Network) at the University of Illinois. I have worked with ION for a number of years and they really are pioneers in the area of online learning.
I have spoken with the organizers about the format and topics for this year and it looks better than ever. It will not only have the usual presentations on timely topics, but will have some tracks and groupwork in those tracks, so there will be an opportunity for hands-on collaboration. In addition, the collaborative technologies we like to talk about will be used (conference blogs, wikis, etc.) in the conference itself. I highly recommend attendance if you are interested in online learning.
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02.14.06
Posted in Future, Blended Learning, Learning Theory, Learning Styles at 9:18 am by Norm Garrett
After my post about push vs. pull learning, I flew to Savannah, Georgia, to make a presentation at the ELearning 2006 conference. On Monday, February 13th, we listened to keynote speaker Marc Prensky, noted author and futurist, speak about “Engage Me or Enrage Me,” emphasizing how we need to deal with the wired generation as they come through the school system. If you say that the wired generation is everyone born after the Internet went public then we shall say, for purposes of argument, that it’s everyone born in 1994 or later. That means that the front of the wired generation is now in 7th grade. In higher education, we’ll get them in about 6 or 7 years. Given the speed of curricular change in higher education, that’s the blink of an eye.
Marc gave several keys to dealing with these students and be able to glimpse their world. One of the main keys he discussed is the idea that learning can’t be push (predominantly the current model), but must be pull. He then went on to talk about engagement of learners, which is a prerequisite to pull learning. If you are interested in Marc’s ideas, you can visit his website.
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