FLC Tech Tools 2011

A few weeks ago was Tech Tools 2011…and I am still recovering. Tech Tools is a one intense week of workshops for language instructors. Using both theoretical and practical applications we explore technology tools readily available to instructors to aid in creating in-class and out-of-class activities for foreign languages. We focus on student-centered activities with task-based goals and include web-based platform like blogs, wikis, YouTube, Skype, and other software/systems like Audacity, Podcasts, Windows LIVE Movie Maker, MS PowerPoint and more.

How do we do this all in ONE week? Well, lots of preparation and practice. We have multiple instructors teaching various technologies while also paying attention to pedagogy and specific needs of these learners. While this is not easy, we try and work individually with the learners since they have a range of backgrounds and technology skill-sets. The following highlights some of the features of the workshop.

The entire course material and activities are based on a Google Site. Learners immediately get a taste of a wiki and learn some of the features. Next, they learn about the use of a blog and how to use them in a class setting. The biggest difficulty of using social net platforms is dealing with privacy and security since we are dealing wuth teachers and school students. Of course this is a huge issue in schools.

We guide the learners through the principles of image selection (Google/Flickr) and video selection (YouTube). I bet a lot of people don’t know about YouTube’s language selection, captions, and limiting videos by countries. These are essential tips for language instructors. More video editing is introduced in Movie Maker Live. Audacity introduces them how to edit audio files and use them in various ways – podcasts as a great example. Learners are now able to use these images, audio files, and videos in a PowerPoint presentation along with learning other important facets of making a successful PowerPoint presentation.

Collaboration plays a big part in teaching today. Skype was used for collaboration from various locations. Group work and wikis also enhanced collaboration. Choosing and using authentic material was also a big part of the course. YouTube videos, images, and Google Earth brought in an element of localized material/culture.

Though the week was intense, the learners were able to incorporate some of the new technology into their final presentations – that included KMZ files from Google Earth, audio/video file they had created/edited, use of a wiki or a blog, and more! It was truly an accomplishment for the learners and us instructors as well to see these results.

If you like more information on enrolling into Tech Tools, please feel free to contact me!

Technologies discussed in this post: Social networking, Blog, Wiki, Movie Maker, Audacity, PowerPoint, Skype, YouTube

Contact me:Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Pandora VS Last.Fm (Part 2)

A few months ago I wrote a post comparing Pandora and Last.Fm streaming radio. These 2 services are very much alike and I thought that Last.Fm had the edge due to the social networking aspect, the added services for smaller bands, and the concerts/shows listing.

Things have changed a bit since - mainly that Last.Fm is NOT free for mobile devices like iPads and phones. Here is a comparison of the main features of the 2 services (Winner in RED) :
(More features compared in PART 1 as well)

Mobile listening	Free for 40 hrs per month. US only.	NOT free anymore. Unlimited radio play for $3.00/month
Upgrade	Yes $36 annually, Pandora One	$3/month, Subscriber
Pausing the music	Yes. PAUSE feature come in very handy. Believe me!	Only STOP permitted.
Lyrics	You can get lyrics for songs (not all)	NO
Shows/Events/ Calendars	Just added information on local shows, but not as good and lacks organization.	Yes detailed shows and venues information, including recommendations for user
Station control	Pandora has great station control: You can move a particular song to another station; Bookmark song/artist; Create new station with song/artist you listened	Has 'recommended' stations.
Song Selection and Variety (Here's a first five song list from music artist WILCO station)	Wanders about a bit from song/artist genre. So more 'variety': *Outta Mind Outta Site- Wilco *Windfall- Sonvolt *Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues *Glad Its Over - Wilco (Heroes) *Pelz Kolmet - Kingsbury Manx *Subterranean Homesick Alien - Radiohead	Sticks quite close to the artist style of music. Music style is consistent and has less 'surprises': * The Jayhawks – Blue * Whiskeytown – Dancing with the Women at the Bar * Ryan Adams – Sylvia Plath * Billy Bragg & Wilco – Hoodoo Voodoo * Uncle Tupelo – Graveyard Shift * Loose Fur – Elegant Transaction
Multiple artist station	No. But you can combine stations.	Yes - type in different artists directly

Bottom line - Pandora is better if you prefer to 'explore' the music. Last.Fm sticks closer to a certain style of a chosen artist and might be great if that's what you want. Last.Fm concert listing and social networking tools are lot advanced that Pandora.
If you are interested in learning more about music, getting your own band recognized, are interested in live music, and want to connect with other people with like tastes, then Last.Fm is for you.

Verdict - Pandora now takes slight edge.

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Social Network and the Oscars

Several people have asked me what I thought of the movie Social Network and whether I would recommend it.

I have watched all the 2010 Oscar (Academy Award) best movie nominees and this is my take on Social Network, and why it should win best movie of 2010. It was deftly directed by David Fincher (who also made classics like Fight Club and Se7en) but did not include any major stars to draw audiences like the other nominees. Every other nominee (except Winter’s Bone) has multiple Hollywood heavies in significant roles. And it was based on a ‘maybe’ story/book unlike some other Oscar nominees based on ‘true’ events (like The Fighter, The Kings Speech, or 127 Hours) that audiences are typically suckers for.

So why is Social Network the best movie of 2010.

Firstly it is not a cliché crafted just for the Oscars with EPIC, principel karacter flaw, artsy-faRtsy themes (Black Swan, True Grit, The Kings Speech – all pretty good movies BTW). We have also repeatedly seen movies about famous people and moments in history winning these Best Movie awards. Social Network is not one of these historical movies. Or is it?

Fincher is immensely successful in showing how tech companies like Facebook (and in some ways Google, Apple, Microsoft etc) have started – i.e. with an idea and some brilliant (or crazy) minds. These folks have defied odds and have gone through the grinder to create some of the most successful companies of this generation. Past movies have tried this before, but with not much success (see Startup.com for a good one). The movie's premise of the geek starting up a company amidst a high profile university and controversy works effectively with the relatively unknown cast of characters.

But Fincher taps into something bigger. Social networking (and Facebook) has changed the way people live and interact. No longer is Facebook just a photo-n-update tool. It's quickly becoming a major vehicle for groups and communities, voice and expression, and as we have seen recently – revolution. The influence of Facebook (and Twitter) can't be denied as one of the catalyst for the recent uprisings in the Middle East (Tunisia, Egypt and maybe others?) So maybe the movie is about big moments in history and famous people after all (?!?) I don't mean to say that Fincher foresaw this, but the movie shows the seeds of a historical moment/company.

While other movies might have the best actor (Colin Firth), best actress (Natalie Portman) or even the best visual effects (Inception), Social Network is relevant, contemporary, well-casted, well directed and fresh. It is revolutionary like the concept behind it and maybe it in turn will start a new trend in Oscar winners.

So 2 Thumbs Up or 5 Stars or 10 popcorns or tomatoes if you like - but Social Network is a must watch!

Technologies discussed: Facebook, Twitter, social networking

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Lessons from the SLOAN Online Learning Conference

This is Part 1 - Whats going on in Online Learning
Part 2 - is here - Social Networking etc.

Expectations From the Conference
I work as Technology Integration Specialist at the Foreign Language Center (FLC) at the Ohio State University (OSU). Even before I selected a conference to go to, I wanted to achieve a few goals from the trip/conference. These goals relate to enhancing online learning at the FLC and the various language departments. This hopefully will benefit other folks at OSU too.
These were my primary queries:

• What are the some of the major hardships in online learning?
• What are the trends in social networking? New technologies?
• Audio and video creation/updating and sharing?
• How are other organizations using videoconferencing?

The Conference
I picked the Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning. This conference fitted my search criteria and covered the topics that I was looking for - blended learning, international applications, open educational resources, social networking, and more. It did also help that it was in sunny Florida in November, which is usually when snow hits Ohio. The venue was the Caribe Royale Hotel and Convention Center, centrally located and nearby to the various theme parks that flood the Orlando region. Sessions Attended
Like most conferences, there were several concurrent sessions almost every hour and it was difficult to pick one over other. Its a good idea to try and come for conferences like these in a group/team so that important sessions can be covered. However I knew from past experiences that there would still be enough good sessions that I could attend.

Learning more about faculty response to online/blended learning was my principal goal. Uttendorfer in “Bringing Face-to-Face Instruction Back into Online Faculty Development” talked of the common problem that we face in online teaching i.e. of having different types of faculty with various skills levels and at various locations. He highlighted how they tried to bring the various faculty in the ‘same page’ by standardizing the methods to capture lecture (with Camtasia) and with the use of webinars (with Elluminate) for collaboration.

Storandt and Dossin also talked of the difficulty for faculty to transfer to online classes in their “Best Practices in Professional Development and Assessment for Online Instruction”. One of the primary reasons for this difficulty is due to the lack of support and training for the faculty. They reviewed the PBS TeacherLine service - a professional development resource for online course instructors. Such a model can certainly be used and/or adapted by other organizations as well.

I also wanted to learn a bit on what students thought of these online courses. According to
studies by Tao, Lim, and Bruder who presented “Why Do Our Online Students Stay?”, online students are significantly more likely to dropout than campus based students. They shared the results of their study and presented factors found to positively help retention. These included: enhancing the interaction between students and their instructor, offering on-time students support, and maintaining at least one synchronous component among various asynchronous features.

It is evident that moving from a traditional course to an online/hybrid course requires a lot more than just the technology to support it. In their presentation Pyke and DeGodev mentioned that moving to an online or hybrid class is certainly not an easy process and it requires a LOT of planning. They stressed the need for a shared vision, the implications of having an institutional need for redesign as a major driver, and the value of aligning departmental goals with the project.

Betts, from Drexel University also had very good suggestions for moving to an online course in “Online & Blended Program Sustainability: 10 Questions All Administrators Must Be Able to Answer.” Though online education has been growing at a very past pace, there have been lots of growing pains. It is very important to understand the economic and demographic factors that are changing the higher education landscape. She stressed the need to engage students and personalize the online educational experience.

Looks like the shift to online classes will continue and we as facilitators have to be prepared and provide the right technology and support.

REFERENCES: PRESENTATIONS (as appearing in this post)

1. Michael Uttendorfer “Bringing Face-to-Face Instruction Back into Online Faculty Development”.
2. Barbara Storandt and Lia Dossin “Best Practices in Professional Development and Assessment for Online Instruction”.
3. Jinyuan Tao, Dan Lim, and Mary Bruder “Why Do Our Online Students Stay?”
4. J. Garvey Pyke and Concepcion DeGodev “Redesigning Courses Means Redesigning Processes, Programs, and Sometimes Even People”.
5. Kristen Betts “Online & Blended Program Sustainability: 10 Questions All Administrators Must Be Able to Answer”.

Technologies discussed: Online learning, Blended learning, Webinar, Lecture Capture, Learning Management System

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Lessons from the SLOAN Online Learning Conference - Part 2

This is Part 2: Social Networking and my poster on videoconferencing at the FLC.
Part 1 is here: Whats going on in Online Learning.

Social networking is certainly a hot topic in education. The conference had several sessions on social networking, web 2.0, and other related topics. I made a point to attend some of these sessions since this was one of my top criteria for attending the conference.

As expected the buzz on social networking was high, though it seemed that many were still not sure how (and why) to use social networking in the classroom. Hilbelink (Kaplan Higher Ed) stated that one of the issues with social networking sites is that they are in a constant state of change. The information can become overwhelming to absorb and difficult to filter and becomes frustrating to stay up-to-date. In her presentation she mentioned that social networking can add to a personal learning network, supplementing other learning and professional endeavors such as journal reading, conference participation, and association membership.

Though doubt on the use of social networks in classes was high, examples of successful social networking use were many. Stoloff, a professor from Eastern Connecticut State was using ePals to connect with other instructors, and participants made use of international virtual connections to supplement their understandings of education in other nations. In his colloquium, local students developed projects on cultural aspects of one of these nations – culture, music, food, etc. These presentations were posted on a wikispace/blog and the international participants were able to critique the presentations and to correspond with the local students. Through this international/intercultural exchange, undergraduates learned of commonalities and differences between student lives across the global. Connections like these give a better understanding of culture than just textbooks or Internet articles.

Shelly Nice (Berkeley College) agrees that social networking has moved beyond an emerging technology and is very common among students in higher education. In her presentation “Research on Using Social Networking in the Classroom” she stated that it is now possible to integrate Facebook into a traditional course and class material can be shared in various forms and from multiple media outlets: computers, cell phone, etc. The audience (as expected) was very interested in seeing how Facebook and similar social networking mediums could be used in education and had very good questions.

Poster Presentation - Videoconferencing Technology: Reaching Out to Learners All Over the World

The objective of my poster presentation was to share the various ways that the Foreign Language Center (FLC) has used videoconferencing technology to enhance language learning at Ohio State University (OSU). I have noted that in several other organizations videoconferencing (VC) systems get only used for some classes and very little else. At the FLC, we have found numerous ways to use the VC system to benefit the faculty, students, and the university community. Besides language classes the FLC has used videoconferencing for training seminars, different types of conferences, departmental meetings, interviews, dissertation defenses, meetings with various experts to talk to students, and more. The FLC hosted famous French musician Moussu T for a live concert and a Q/A session that was groundbreaking for a video based session. Other interesting events include career seminars, an American Sign Language (ASL) conference, talking to authors in various countries to discuss their books for learners here at OSU, and more. In addition, the FLC is now able to digitally capture these sessions and stream and/or reuse them.
The presentation was well received. Many participants were interested to learn more about how we had done these events. Many were curious about costs and how these connections were made. The entire presentation can be downloaded from here!

REFERENCES: PRESENTATIONS (as appearing in this post)

• Amy Hilbelink, “Out of Social Networking Sites”
• David Stoloff, “Web Collaborations for an International, CrossCultural Education Colloquium”
• Shelly Nice, “Using Social Networking in the Classroom”

Technologies discussed: Online learning, Blended learning, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Facebook, Learning Management System

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Top Five on Twitter - Tech News and Updates

Part 2 of TOP FIVE Twitter accounts to follow. This one is on technology blogs and stories. These are the best resources for updates on new technology- gadgets, websites, reviews, social networks, and other tech matters that will help you catch up with technology without having to do a whole lot of boring reading. These recommendations are based on my actual use and the value I have got out of these.

To recap - one of the recommendations I posted (especially for new users of Twitter) was to keep accounts you follow between 50-75 so that your Twitter page is not cluttered. Another recommendation was to experiment with follows and un-follows until you find the tweeters that fit YOUR needs and not just based on others' recommendations.
So here goes:

Top Five - Technology News and Updates

Account	What	My Comments
# 5 Harry McCracken	Founder of Technologizer (tech site). Also a columnist for TIME.com. Updates on all kinds of technology equipment.	One of the most followed tech writer/blogger. Lots of great updates on 'personal' tech like mobile phones, computers, etc.
# 4 Campus Tech	News and additional tech resources on Education technology.	Tweets are not as often as I would like. Also quite specific to Education. Maybe not for everyone. But great resource if you are an EdTech.
# 3 Gizmodo	Lots of great updates on gadgets and other 'fun' technology. From the makers of the Gizmodo site.	Only recently started following, but have looked at the website for a while. Tweets are interesting and the content and links keep you entertained. Lots of 'cool' links.
# 2 Mashable	Web related news and updates - social media, tech and digital news and analysis from Mashable com.	One of the bext resources and news on web related, web2.0, and social networking sites updates.
# 1 Tech Crunch	Breaking technology news and opinions from the TechCruch blog site.	The BEST news and review of technology, gadgets, web sites, and all things tech that you can use in a neat and consistently updated package.

Technologies discussed: Twitter, Short Messaging Service, SMS, Search Strategies

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Follow me on Twitter - aarkae

Top Five on Twitter - Columbus Events

People from all walks of life ask me why and how I use Twitter. Why I use Twitter is because it is my primary source of information from people and organizations that I think are the best in the business. I get my news, tech information, local events, and even humor and daily inspiration from Twitter. They all pop-up in my Twitter page and I glance at it a few times a day and sometimes look at the links that are mentioned. These few minutes give me a wealth of information on things that I need and care about the most.

How I use Twitter is still a work in progress since it has evolved from following a bunch of random people to now (more) knowing what and whom I follow (and un-follow). I look at lists for the best tweeters in the various fields I am most interested (example - education, technology, sports, entertainment, local events, etc) and pick the top few (on my own terms) and follow them for a while and then keep or un-follow them, if need be. I also try and keep the tweeters between 50-75 so that my Twitter page is not cluttered.

In the next few posts, I will provide a Top Five list of accounts that I follow and recommend – according to categories like Technology, Education, Entertainment, Local events, etc. For those of you are who are new to Twitter, or are considering Twitter, or even looking for a strategy, these TOP FIVE lists will be a good launching pad for your own Twitter account.

I start with local events (in Columbus) since technology and education will surely scare off some people, and I want you to get a feel of how Twitter can get you information that can be useful in your personal life (besides your professional).

Top Five - Columbus Events and News

Account	What	My Comments
# 5 614 Magazine	Information on local events and discounts on food and entertainment	Quite Random. Needs better organization. Feels like spam at times. But still very useful!
# 4 Sandbox Columbus	Coworking community in Columbus – good place to network and learn about shared resources	Not enough Tweets and quite specific. Maybe not for everyone. And too many 'join us' tweets.
# 3 Experience Columbus	Things to do in Columbus from the former Greater Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau	Sometimes too many tweets and links on things that are general and covered by other tweeters.
# 2 Fake Dispatch	Humorous look at news (mostly) from the Columbus region	Funny and informative at the same time. Can you handle it?
# 1 Columbus Underground	Complete look at local events and entertainment from the ColumbusUnderground folks.	The best view and review of not just local events and entertainment, but city development and planning in a very organized Twitter account.

Technologies discussed: Twitter, Short Messaging Service, SMS, Search Strategies

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Follow me on Twitter - aarkae