Using Ning as an Educational Technology

         Ning (http://www.ning.com/ ) is an online platform for users to create their own social website and social network. What I like about this tool is that it permits me to create custom social networks for a particular topic or need, and cater to specific audiences. I would create a website for each class and post upcoming events, test, or resources that can help my learners understand the weekly topic better or in a different view. I would also use Ning for group work by taking advantage of their built in blogging, discussion forums, and live chat capabilities. This would help promote collaboration within the group, the class, and with me.

Using Twitter as an Educational Technology

Twitter (https://twitter.com/ ) is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read "tweets," or text messages, limited to 140 characters. Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface, Short Message Service (commonly known as “texting”), or mobile device apps. I chose this tool for its popularity. According to Twitter’s fact sheet, there are over 230 million monthly active users and 500 million tweets are sent per day (https://about.twitter.com/company). Therefore, the chances of are good that many of learners would already have a twitter account. I could set up a twitter account for a class, seminar, or training and ask questions throughout the course. In addition I can encourage learners to text in feedback, ideas, or comments, thus allowed me to adapt parts of the lessons on the basis of instant feedback.

PODIO

As I read Palmer’s (2007, p. 77) paradox of bounded and open educational space, I could almost hear the excitement in his words. Especially when describing how open spaces leads us to the many different paths of discovery (p. 77). Collaboration in itself is a path of discovery, but when combined with online tools this path takes on a variant spectrum within this path of discovery. One such tool is PODIO (https://podio.com/). This is a very organic tool that permits groups to communicate and share ideas by integrating many cloud accounts (such as DropBox, SkyDrive, Google Drive, ect.). This tool can be used for simple class projects to complex business department or organizational wide projects. By allowing you to assign task to each member and visually gauging the progress on each individual task and the project as a whole, this tool can help the team be more proactive by ensuring that bottle necks won’t be a problem later due to procrastination. The fact that each group member can customize their “workspace” to suit their productivity and learning needs is also an added bonus. The ability to easily meet with your team through instant messaging, chat rooms, or video chat rooms and then tracking each meeting’s decisions and dialog through GoToMeeting can help recalling and searching important topics. PODIO also has the added benefit of permitting the team to share all of its work with a third party, thus allowing them to get an independent party’s suggestions, advice, or even approval. The only drawbacks to this tool are: 1. to access all of the wonderful benefits there is a cost involved per member, 2. although the tool can be used with mobile devices, it is more efficient (and therefore clearly meant) for a desktop, and 3. it requires a high level of technical skills, which could limit your user’s ability to navigate and be efficient.

References

Palmer, P. J. (2007). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life (10th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass.

Digital Game Based Learning (DGBL)

An emerging technological trend that caught my eye and made me want to investigate it even further is Game-Based Learning; more specifically Digital Game Based Learning (or DGBL). This trend is a process in which educators are using games as a strategy to enhance the learning experience. According to the Horizon Report (2011), game-based learning supports collaboration, problem-solving, and communication. In addition game-based learning also allows for experimentation, the exploration of identities, and even failure. These attributes are all “well-suited to an information-based culture and rapid change” (Horizon Report, 2011). As I read the section about game-based learning, fond memories of my third grade computer lab time flooded my mind. I was instantly transported to those days when the excitement of waiting for “The Oregon Trail” to load up on the computer felt like I was drag racers seeing the light switch from red, to yellow and finally green. This game changed my life. I started learning how to develop software at the age of ten, started selling my computer games at thirteen, which led to me starting my own software company at age sixteen, all this was a result of this very simple game.

While the Horizons Report (2011) states that this trend will be adopted anytime now, it amazes me that it has taken this long to be adopted. I remember many of my teachers using card, board, and even digital games to enhance my learning experience throughout my life. Being that now a days American society is constantly connected through digital devices, it makes me wonder why such a great resource that is not fully being exploited. Why has it taken this long? Why can’t we start doing this now? Van Eck (2006) concludes that one reason could be the fact that Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) has not been recognized by “serious” gaming companies as a profitable venture. This leaves educators with three choices for introducing DGBL into the classroom. The first, and the least recommended by Van Eck, is for educators to develop their own “funducational” digital games. The problem with this is that, since most educators have little or no understanding of the art, science, and culture of game design, the games become so “academized” that the “ fun is sucked out of it” (Van Eck, 2006). The best option according to Van Eck is to have a joint venture between a gaming company and national education foundations. Unfortunately, it’s hard to show the profitability of this venture (Van Eck, 2006). This leaves us with the option of using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games (such us Grand Theft Auto) for DGBL. Van Eck (2006) recommends this option because the games are proven to be liked and all that is left for the educator to do is identify applications for the games. Some recommendation that he gives are: Civilization to teach history, CSI to teach forensics and criminal justice, SimCity to teach civil engineering and government, and Grand Theft Auto to teach ethics, morality, citizenship, and law (Van Eck, 2006).

References

The New Media Consortium, & EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2011). The horizon report: 2011 edition. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2011.pdf

Van Eck, R. (2006). Digital game-based learning: It's not just the digital natives who are restless. EDUCAUSE review, 41(2), 16.