Audio/Video/Podcast Activity - Multimedia Interview Assignment

Ahhh, finally.

I had huge hopes and dreams for this project, as soon as it was assigned, I knew that I wanted to interview Shalin Hai-Jew, Instructional Designer for Kansas State University.  She is such a wealth of knowledge.  After scheduling the interview Shalin respectfully declined to be video recorded, so I thought I would take advantage of this opportunity and use Xtranormal!  I bought a new app for my phone, because I had seen a multi-media presentation where this app was being used to interview people out in the field, for those of you that know my line of work, that is the real field, with dirt and in this specific case, sorghum.  So that was probably my first mistake, as I am fortunate enough to have some great audio recording equipment that I use with my program and should have gone with what I know, so strike one!

Strike two arrived once we started the interview and Telecommunications showed up looking for ports in her work area.  We had already started the interview and I wanted to respect her time, so I didn't stop the interview and was hopeful that I could "clean" up the audio in Adobe Audition after the fact, so what you will hear is some background noise of the Telecommunications.

Strike three arrived on Saturday when I had effectively cleaned up the audio to the best of my ability and went to include my own interview questions and found that I couldn't clean them up, so using the tools I had, I tried to record my audio independently.  Xtranormal doesn't like the Mac OS, so here we are, a day late and more frustrated than proud of my project with several different levels of audio in the presentation.  Regardless, it was a fun way to present our interview.  



Overall, I really enjoyed the experience, I learned some valuable lessons, and SoftChalk is a great tool that I would like to integrate into some future courses.  Here is some additional information regarding SoftChalk, including a link to the game that Shalin created.

Creating an Online Global Health Course and Game (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE.edu

 SoftChalk
 

Audio/Video / Podcast: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners.

First and foremost, thank you for stopping by since I am really late on getting this post, I totally missed this assignment and have been working on my interview.  I love Podcasts!  I actually download them on my iPhone and listen to them in the car on my rides between Manhattan and Kansas City.  One of my favorites is from TED and the most recent one I listened to was regarding heart disease and women.  You can view them at  http://www.ted.com/.  What is great is that there are different ways to produce and enjoy them, some of video, but I am a fan of the audio only variety as they allow a little more flexibility in how they can be enjoyed.  It seems like there is a podcast for everyone, from church services to running, photography, you can find a podcast from almost everywhere.  I am a huge Apple consumer, so I find most of my podcasts at the iTunes Store and what I really love is the vast array of free podcasts.  We have become a society that loves to share, so it is great to find like-minded people sharing information. 

Pros to integrating audio and video podcasts into the curriculum are:
- Interactive way to engage students
- Easy way to integrate quick pieces of information that can be interchangeable as materials/information change 
- Can appeal to all types of people depending on if the visual aspect is utilized or not

Cons
- Copyright and legality issues (Kind & Cox, 2011)
- Validity of the information presented in the podcast

Overall, I think they are great, and use them in my personal live so I would love to see them in my "student" life as well!

References:
King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. Charlotte, NC: 
Information Age Publishing. 

Wikis for Critical Thinking and Contextual Application

A continuation from last week's wiki assignment, below you will find a more detailed instruction regarding the previously discussed wiki assignment from Grain Elevator Entrapment:  Causes, Prevention & Rescue.  This wiki experience will develop critical thinking skills through real-life scenarios taken from actual incidents of grain elevator entrapments in recent years.   My previous thought was to require an Emergency Action Plan be created, which would fall more aligned with West & West's (2009) contextual application.  However, after further developing the plan, I think that it would be more beneficial for students to apply learnings from the course materials to an actual scenario and in groups of two determine the outcome.  Below is the modified lesson plan for the new wiki assignment.   

Title:  

"What if" grain entrapment scenarios wiki project. 

 

Target Audience:

Participants in GEAPS 545 - Grain Elevator Entrapment:  Causes, Prevention & Rescue

 

Learning Objectives:

    •    Further develop critical thinking skills by using learnings from course materials to determine how to react in an entrapment situation or prevention scenario. 

    •    Utilization of tools to determine how grain entrapment prevention can occur.  

Process: 

1. Locate your group in the group area with K-StatePro.  Use the Group message board to coordinate the wiki layout, design and interaction.  Join the wiki, via the link shared by the instructor.  Some resources available to support the wiki building process can be found here:

             http://blog.wikispaces.com/category/tips-and-tricks  

             http://00100-ws-tips-tricks.wikispaces.com

2.  Access your wiki page and answer your "What If" scenario.  For frame of reference, the following are two examples of the what if scenarios:

Group 1:  You are the manager of a small locally owned, exempt cooperative that employs family members as well as high school kids.  As corn is being pulled out of a bin, you notice that it is getting hung up and needs to be knocked down.  In addition to it being hung-up in the bin, the corn has gone out of condition.  What if one of your high school employee's volunteers to go into the bin, how would you proceed? 

Group 2:  With business booming, as the manager of a large commercial grain facility, you are asked to build a one million bushel grain bin to accommodate the growth.  What if you had unlimited financial resources, what safety and prevention tools would you install prior to and during installation?

3.  Complete the wiki by the assigned date in the syllabus, leveraging and appropriately citing materials used for the scenarios.    

 

Evaluation

 

Collaborative Effort:  as seen in the history and individual bibliography - 5 points. 

 

Peer Assessment:  as determined via the Axio survey sent post wiki - 10 points.

 

Content:  Content provided is accurate, resources suggested are used and cited when appropriate.  Content is organized and could be utilized as a potential training tool at your facility upon completion  - 15 points.

Visual appeal and Interactive Component:  Wiki is visually interesting, using different font sizes and headings when needed.  Graphics/widgets are leveraged in an appropriate way to bring attention when necessary and don't take away from the content of the page.  There is an interactive component on the page to engage visitors to the wiki - 10 points. 

Reference:    West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for Online Collaboration: The Power of the Read-Write Web.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

 

Wikis for Collaborative Learning and Knowledge Construction

Title:

Use a wiki to develop an emergency action plan in the event of a grain elevator entrapment

 

Target Audience:

Participants in GEAPS 545 - Grain Elevator Entrapment:  Causes, Prevention & Rescue

 

Learning Objectives:

Understand the procedures necessary in the event of an entrapment

•   Consider all aspects of an entrapment, including personnel and fire/rescue

Utilization of the wiki for gap analysis 

Materials Needed: 

Template of emergency action plan which can be found here.

Additional resources regarding grain entrapments, which are provided in the course work and here.

Process:

Locate your group in the group area with K-StatePro.  Use the Group message board to coordinate the wiki layout, design and interaction.  Join the wiki, via the link shared by the instructor.  Some resources available to support the wiki building process can be found here:

http://blog.wikispaces.com/category/tips-and-tricks 

http://00100-ws-tips-tricks.wikispaces.com/

Evaluation

Collaborative Effort (as seen in the history and individual bibliography) – 5 points. 

Peer Assessment (as determined via the Axio survey sent post wiki) - 10 points.

Content – 15 points.   Content provided is accurate, resources suggested are used and cited when appropriate.  Content is organized and could be utilized as an action plan in the event of an emergency.

Visual appeal and Interactive Component – 10 points.  Wiki is visually interesting, using different font sizes and headings when needed.  Graphics/widgets are leveraged in an appropriate way to bring attention when necessary and don't take away from the content of the page.  There is an interactive component on the page to engage visitors to the wiki. 

Wikis: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners

Wiki's are an area that I feel much more comfortable.  This could be because I reference them quite often.  The research referenced in King and Cox (2011) was older but mentioned that Wikipeida searches account for 30% of visits for terms and meanings.  I would venture to guess that figure is quite higher today.  So what is a wiki exactly and what does that goofy word mean anyway?  I was interested to find out that wiki is actually derived from a Hawaiian word, Wikiwiki, which means quick (King & Cox, 2011).  They have been around for much longer than I ever knew, the first one developed eighteen years ago.  As with blogging, there are definitely some advantages and disadvantages and interestingly enough, in my mind they parallel some of the opportunities and advantages of blogging.

     Advantages

• Interactive - wiki's allow several people to contribute to materials, edit if given rights and be engaged in the development process.
• Collaborative - because of the flexibility in editing on a single topic, several people or groups of people can contribute to a wiki.   Because of this flexibility, people from all over the globe can contribute to and engage in the same wiki, sharing information freely. 
• Easily modified - some topics, technology for example, are always evolving.  Information could change during the time it takes to publish a book, but with a wiki, it is easy to access and update data as evolution of thoughts, ideas and new research is presented.  
• Dynamic - wiki's allow content to be presented dynamically, not relying on time stamped changes to impact the quality of the materials delivered (West, 2009).  There are also so many different widgets now available that are easy to use and can be plugged into a wiki making the content interactive. 

     Disadvantages

• Interactive - if wiki's aren't protected, then they can be updated by anyone, so there is opportunity for non-applicable contributors to add, edit and delete important data to wiki's. 
•  Technical - wiki's can be basic or advanced depending on the level of comfort of the wiki developer(s).  There can be a huge learning curve for someone who has never had the opportunity to work with wiki's in the past or don't have the comfort level with technology.  This can take away from the learning experience.  In a collaborative environment, this can also be detrimental if one group member has a higher comfort level than another and doesn't feel they can contribute.  

Wiki's are a great tool to utilize with adult learners because it allows knowledge to be brought in a all levels.

This wiki was shared on another blog, but was done in Dr. Royce Ann Collin's Social Foundations last spring.  It is awesome, I really encourage you to check it out.  The ladies that put it together really set the bar high.

Feminist Pedagogy

Reference

King, K.P., & Cox, T.D. (Ed.). (2011). The professor's guide to taming technology Information Age Publishing.

West, J. A., & West, M. L. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. 

Blogging: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners

Ahh, to blog or not to blog.  I personally think the biggest challenge that K-State students face is blogging in a safe and academic setting.  Currently, Axio isn't set up to allow blogging, which can pose a bit of a challenge.   They are working on the functionality, but what they are finding is it isn't as easy to integrate blogging and wiki software directly into the established platform.  

Cherry Cream Soda

With regards to the advantages of blogging, it allows students to express some personality.  This is sometimes hard to convey in a distance setting, but if you sat next to me in class on a regular basis, you would see that I own more purple shirts than any other color.  I actually set my blog up to reflect the official Kansas State University purple hex code #512888.  I am using Cherry Cream Soda font, which is cool because it reminds of me my childhood.  I don't think I could have that freedom with message board posts.  
Blogging also allows an area for free thought.  I have used them in a previous class for reflection.  Sometimes I am not the most eloquent writer, so this causes a little personal frustration.  In addition, I feel like blogging needs to be interesting.  I follow a few blogs, but I follow them because of the way they are written and expressed.  There is almost an artistic component to it, which is an area that I have some opportunity.  

When comparing and contrasting blogging to message board posts, I tend to lean more towards message board posting, mostly because it allows, for my learning style, a more organized way to present and follow threads of several people, where a blog is more focused on one person's reflection.   

What I did find interesting was how the case studies showed the most success in three people exercises (King & Cox, 2011).  Having the same people review your blog throughout the semester could provide beneficial feedback.  I think that there is a place for blogging in the classroom, especially as a reflection tool, but when it comes to engaging several people into a discussion, I prefer the message board format.