wk1: there is always first time for everything (part1)

It did happen. Yes. It did. I think I am very lucky to get a very good group. They all seemed eager, at least through the webcam anyway. Now, how well it went is subjective. Overall, I think it went okay but still was surprised at how much slower things went.

What I like:

• Students did interact with me. They asked questions, smiled, took notes, nodded. Best of all, they all seemed very lovely.
• A small group, a little smaller than I expected but still a good size. We will be able to individualize according to everyone's goal.
• Each student had a computer. This made the experience much more interesting. I wonder what would it like for the undergrad when not everyone will have a computer.
• 義斌 is a teacher so he will join the class remotely. This is great! He will be able to experience a "real" online learning and share with us his unique experience.
• I like 義斌's question - Chinese or English. I read both. :-)
• I like 婉玲's question - give her a suggested list of references about elearning. I like challenging question. Of course I like easy questions too. :-)

What I don't like

• Things went much more slower than I like. I think the connection speed, the voice break ups were very distracting. Unavoidable, of course.
• I cannot hear them very well. I don't know if they can hear me okay. I am going to ask them to introduce them to me again using our discussion. I wanted to know them better.
• I did not get to many things I planed to cover. I wish we could discuss the class goals and syllabus a little more.
• I am unfamiliar with the system. I typed their goals, as they were telling me, onto the discussion notes. But I forgot to save them.

Action Items:

• See if there are ways to mute their microphone. This way, when they want to say something, they will have to let me know and I will release the microphone to them.
• Need to get more familiar with the system.
• Consider making this class more blended rather than 100% synchronous. If I have short videos for class instruction, students could watch it prior to class. During class time, then we an do more important stuffs, such as discussion, question, and such.
• Remind students to put the microphone very close to their mouth.
• Next time, remember to record the class.

Oh, by the way, I think I need an upgrade to my computer, with a much bigger screen!

blue screen of death

I just saw the "blue screen of death", twice

Tim told me the lab conference room is available. So I went to see the environment and did a final run of the new webcam. I borrowed this fancy, high-end webcam from Sara. It can adjust the camera position through a software interface. It can also adjust the brightness and many other stuff. The software took a while to load. And when it finally installed and worked, bang! the computer gave me the blue screen of death.

I cannot remember the last time I saw one... back in 1999? when computer memory was still expensive. I restarted the laptop and reconnected the webcam. Bang! Blue screen of death again. Twice in a row.

Now I think it is the perfect time to get panic.

I uninstalled all the fancy stuff. Re-installed the not-so-fancy webcam of my own. Let me get my fingers crossed. This laptop is not bad at all, a little old, 3.5 years? but it is a Pentium 4. The only problem is it has only 512 MB of RAM. Video conferencing is quite demanding on the computer ram, video adaptor, etc. I hope this "old" computer and hold up!

We will see. Being panic does not help. Take a deep breath. Smile.

a new beginning

Okay, let's give it a try.

So far, issues are categorized into is 3 things: 1) language 2) culture, and 3) technology.

For language, I don't know how acceptive students are in using primary English materials. In addition, I often cannot find words in Chinese and have to either say it in English, or have to pause while searching for the right words. However, I don't expect this to be a major hurdle.

For culture, I have left Taiwan too long and living in the states too long. My expectation toward students and my teaching style might reflect so. I will need the students to inform me of anything they like, not like, etc. Again, I do not expect this to be a major hurdle, as long as students are open-minded and willing to share and learn with me.

For technology, there are a host of issues. Some I can anticipate, some I cannot. For starter, I found that using a system such as Breeze is not quite a breeze at all. I don't know how many students have used it. Regardless, I suspect they will get use to its multiple windows and find it rather interesting. Me, on the other hand, find this way of interaction rather tiring. Having to pay attention to all the activities at multiple windows require a high level of concentration and eye-mind coordination. I suspect I might get use to it rather quickly. At least I hope so.

I would love to know about students' experience too. Share with me!

test run, a good run

I was quite nervous before tonight, not knowing if the test run will work. I imagined lots of problems. However, other than the Internet connection speed, it was a good test. In addition, I finally got to "meet" Viktor, who has been very patient in helping me.

The biggest problem tonight, I think, was connection speed and our ignorance to the functions of the system. It took me a while to find the setting that allows multiple speakers. I think my webcam is not in great quality. Looks like I still have to do this from UH instead from the comfort of my home.

I also found out tonight that some students might have used the system while others might not. As a new user myself, I think we will need some time to get use to the system. I am thinking using the tools I am familiar with, such as this blog, my wiki site, google calendar, google group, etc. After all, it is not the tool that is the focus, right? I hope Chair will agree with me. :-)

I also found out tonight that students might need to first apply for an account and then be added manually to the classes. It is okay as long as I know in advance. I was worried about the undergrad class. It will be a great challenge for me and the students if they have no computer during class time. How terrible it would be if they have to sit there and listen to me for 90 minutes in break-up connection without any means to interact with me. I asked Viktor to look into checking out laptops. It is important. Victor seemed to agree.

I think the classes will be okay. Let's see in 2 days. Now, I just need to get the materials ready, ha!

Some functions of Breeze are more straightforward than others. I am going to learn as I go.

Wisdom Master Pro

A long tutorial for students - http://elearn3.ksu.edu.tw/base/10001/door/tpl/student.pdf
A long tutorial for teachers - http://elearn3.ksu.edu.tw/base/10001/door/tpl/teacher.pdf

and a friend provided me with this site, much nicer http://ds1.k12.edu.tw/base/10004/course/10000069/content/kmskill/kmskillT.htm

Still, will take a while to get use to all the function. In addition, the connection seems very slow from here.

eLearn magazine's 2007 prediction

http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=42-1

Iinteresting read. As an IT student, what do we need to prepare ourselves for 2007 and beyond?

wiki still possible

just started to play with this pbwiki site, pretty easy to use, I think

Maybe we can put the class projects here.. Still thinking... Maybe ask the students.

http://drmuffin.pbwiki.com/

开放学习沙龙－“世界是平的”

开放学习沙龙－Thomas L. Friedman “世界是平的”－观点分享http://myoops.blogbus.com/logs/4020705.html

http://myoops.blogbus.com/logs/4021240.html

creating materials for online courses

To have a 2 or 3 hours of live web course sounds high risk to me
What happened the network was interrupted?
It bound to happen.

So, I think it is important that I develop some lecture movies so students could watch whenever they like. Camtasia costs $129 education price. Then someone pointed me to camstudio 2.0 - http://www.camstudio.org/ Maybe the functions are not as fansy as Camtasia, but initial try worked just fine. Not sure how to do editing afterwards (such as cutting out bad segments). Adding screen annotation did not seem easy at this point. We will see. It is opensource. Do not complain.

team work

Keep reading this great book draft from Dr. Curtis Bonk. I am in the section about reflection and I find myself liking it more than the previous section - reading. I guess I am more of a reflection person than a reading person. Love the ideas of having a group blog, or having "critical friends" to respond to each other's blog. I think there could have several differrnt kinds of a reflective blog:

• summary - synthesize what you have learned, what surprised you, what extended what you already know, show self growth
• debate - agree or disagree with someone else's opinion, class reading, or anything said/shared/discussed in class. Provide supporting evidence.
• trend - bring awareness to a current trend and write a report on it
• resources - share useful information/resource and indicate how this resource could help with the class
• pros and cons - opinion about a particular issue and provide pros and cons after research
• critical friend feedback - think about how your feedback could help the other person
• reaction/position - to a case/reading/class activity/blog/etc

It is also a great idea to have students self-check how have they contributed to the class learning.

Many good ideas..

not too much reflection

I was advised that reflective blogs, wikis, etc. Sounds good. but do noth ave them do too many reflections. I wondered why... Maybe students would not reflect too much about their learning. I put down on the syllabus


Elements of a coherent reflection: self-awareness, learning displayed, logical, informative reflection.

Let's see. I think it is very important students stop and think about what is going on.

ask for feedback

Superbowl Sunday....

Sent my syllabus to a colleague for feedback. I am anxious to upload it to the course system. I am worried that only 1 student has signed up for my class. Maybe the classes will not make? Either way, planning the course has been a wonderful experience for me. Learning a lot just by thinking about how to structure a course and how to teach online.

Some initial ideas

I am the only instructor and one of the reasons I even got thisopportunity is because the chair could not get any professors to tryteaching online. The chair also wanted this to be an experiment foreveryone. So I might even ask the students to take turns to join theclass online. Otherwise, the expectation is, we will meet onlinesynchronously every week. The week of AERA, I will make itasynchronously of course. We will be using a home-grown platform(assuming something like webct). I might do it from school so I havebetter connection. I have not been given the login to the platform soI have no idea how to use it or its functions. (go figure!)

I have a rough idea of the "big picture" and I am kind of excitedabout it. The Chair wanted some kind of "comparison" between US andTaiwan in terms of IT program. So I am thinking like a 4,5 unit class.

Unit 1 - IT program structure : goals of IT, core requirements (whyand what kind of knowledge/skills will these courses provide), etc. Wewill see some examples and students (work in groups) will proposetheir idea IT program

Unit 2 - IT program implementation: how we teach, online, f2f,blended, team teaching, linked course, portfolio-based assessment,communicate-based collaboration, etc. Students will propose their ideaimplementation combination.

Unit 3 - IT program environment: the computer lab, layout design,hardware, software, staffing, service to students/staff, etc. Studentswill propose their idea lab environment

Unit 4 - IT perspective jobs: using Youmei's office as an example -faculty development, knowledge & skills required, use some real caseand have students propose solutionsThere will be small weekly group assignments leading to presentationfor each unit. Students receive feedback from the entire class.

At theend of the semester, they put everything together and have to presentas if they are presenting at a college recruitment event....I amthinking to ask for reflective journals (blogging). I am also thinkingto have a pbwiki for them to turn in their assignments.

This is for now...

同學們歡迎

國立台東大學2007春季
初四科技
教科碩二