Tri-State Best Practies: Teaching With Technology

While at the Tri-State Best Practices conference last month, the most interesting panel I attended was the one on teaching with technology. I had spoken earlier in the day about wikis, so I was interested in seeing what others would do.

Rich Lauria spoke on wikifying your classroom

  • More than a blog, less than a CMS
  • Can do things Blackboard cannot
  • Wikis organize your work
  • A lot of attendees interested in paperless syllabus because students lose them
  • I am interested in getting them info immediately
  • In other words, if it is Saturday and we don’t meet until Wednesday they need and deserve access even if they lost it.
  • Rich uses PBWORKS too
  • Some debate about whether wikis should be viewable by all or only logged in students
  • Every semester I have a number of students who show my eng101 wiki to their friends to help them with their work

Maria Schrita from Hudson CCC up next on using Youtube in classroom

  • Students can view Youtube at home or their convenience
  • Using short youtube videos to intro debateable issues

Jessica Fargnoli from Bergen speaking on using audio/video captures in the classroom.

  • This is something I would like to do more of in the future.
  • 84% of internet users download or watch video
  • Echo 360 is a popular software
  • A lot of people in the room curious about why you would publish student work publicly versus privately

Tri-State Best Practices Keynote: Arms Wide Open: Educating The “Almost Ready” College Student

Dr. Laurie Behringer gave the keynote during lunch. A lot of what she said concurs with our findings on my own campus, but it was nice to hear from someone else as well.

  • Students often come in “blind” to student placements
  • Nationally, only 31% of developmental math students pass college level math
  • Students often don’t have college ready skills…they don’t understand how to keep up with syllabus or check email…they often don’t know they have an advisor
  • Students are often lost with one on one advisement
  • Learning communities are very important
  • Student comments: “I’m just here to get out of here” “I don’t have time to socialize”

Tri-State Best Practices: Professional Passions & Projects

I ended my day at a panel on bring personal passions to the classroom.

Mike Walsh from County College of Morris spoke about the paperless classroom.

  • Paperless classroom
  • Books used to be used until they were beat up
  • Powerpoint, internet, etc have led to obsolescence of books
  • Walsh can get five years out of books in his field
  • Textbooks filter out unnecessary stuff
  • College bookstores are no long subsidized by schools (profit and bottom-line)
  • Book writing is not financially viable for authors
  • Supplemental DVD/LMS/etc add to price for students
  • Has semester on a flash drive

Harold Kahn from Bergen spoke next about bringing your “cause” into the classroom

  • Kahn uses articles about dog rescues to teach reading comprehension
  • A cause can lead to a correlation to service learning projects