I dropped off on Saturday’s post and there were a few remaining talks I attended, shoving a few fresh concepts into my already overflowing noggin.
Saturday afternoon:
1. There was a sparsely attended talk on using concept maps in blogging which I attended mainly because it was pointed out to me earlier in the day. I am intrigued by concept maps but haven’t master the concept, as it were. The basic premise was that the instructors used a common approach across two different disciplines for students to integrate and connect the ideas across topics as well as within subjects. The students developed concept maps and posted images of them onto a class blog. Apparently, the students disliked making them and claimed they gained nothing from them, but the instructors claimed their was demonstrable improvement. I did not see how they demonstrated the advantage of using concept maps other than the students made improvements in making the concept maps, themselves.
I like the idea of using concepts maps to help students to connect concepts and organize their understanding of a particular area but I didn’t get a whole lot out of this talk that I will put in place. I am motivated to put "landmarks" or "signposts" up at different points in the semester where students are encouraged to assimilate the skills and knowledge from the course by communicating the most challenging ideas they’ve faced. This communication might come in various ways, including blogs or discussion board entries, oral discussions, presentations of material or even concept maps.
2. Tweaking Online Calculus: continued. This presentation was an impromptu (or encore) performance by Maria over at Teaching College Math Technology Blog. I attended one of her earlier talks and she was pushed and pulled into various topics that were outside the realm of that talk. This was her opportunity to delineate some of the specific technologies she is using in her courses: Avatars, Jing (for screen capture), discussion boards, tablets, live classroom,digital pen technologies. Certainly, these technologies are providing excellent ways of taking the classroom to the student wherever they are and whenever they want. My favorite good idea from this session was to have a different student each class use a digital pen to take the notes of the class and then upload those notes to the course website.
How about this for cutting edge technology: Livescribe: a digital pen which not only created a digital version of hand written notes from class but also voice records the professor while the notes are being taken. You can then click on any part of the notes and it will replay what voice recording when that was originally written.
I skipped the Gala because I reached my social limit for the weekend. I slept a little too well and woke up later than I wanted but I still made it home for dinner on Sunday. It’s good to be home!
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