Creating a Virtual Presence For Your Students

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At some point, I do plan on getting to blogging about the future of education and the new vision that is emerging in the Ed Tech filed for changes to the Learning Management System. But for now I am going to continue on with the practical ideas – things that current online instructors can use to add new life to existing classes, or things that new instructors can use to make their classes stand out from the pack. Most of the ideas I have shared so far are things that have been used in classes successfully at some point (even the EFGs are currently being used in one school). These ideas may not be for everyone, but they are some interesting ideas to dig in to. After I get all of these practical ideas out, then I will probably move on to the three C’s of social media usage in online learning (also known as “how you are using Web2.0 wrong and may not know it”) as well as hitting on some crazy ideas for the future.

For this post I want to get to something that I have used myself and that I know other bloggers here have used: creating a virtual office or classroom for your class.

If you back up several decades, before the dawn of the Internet, several researchers were investigating why some teachers were perceived by students as having better teaching styles than others. They found that there were at least two concepts that made the difference: immediacy and social presence.  (there are other words that get used somewhat interchangeably for these two, but I will stick with these because… well… I guess just because I like them the best).

Yes, I know that these are ancient terms by now. Immediacy and social presence are not as slick and cool to blog about today as they were a few years ago.  Maybe if I called it “Social Presence 2.0” it might sound cooler. But a good idea never gets old, so I still find these concepts are crucial to online success.

The surprising thing a few decades ago was that these things didn’t happen naturally in a face-to-face class. Just because instructors were in the room, that didn’t mean that a student felt they were accessible or approachable.  Instructors in face-to-face courses had to work to achieve these concepts, because it  was found that students preformed better when they felt a greater sense of immediacy and social presence.

Obviously, it was also found that this is true for online learning as well. But achieving these concepts in a disconnected asynchronous online course might prove more challenging. Thankfully, many people have stepped up through the years to prove that it is possible.

So how do you give students a sense that you are there and that you are aware that they are there also? Here are a few ideas:

  • One often overlooked way is by participating in class discussions yourself. Don’t just throw a question out there and let students hash it out. That seems basic, but so many professors miss that while just count responses for a participation score. Ask your students to expand on stuff they posted, or let them know that they never even really answered the question. But get in there and let them see your name every week.
  • If possible, turn on avatars. No, not the tall blue people with funky USB-ports for hair… I mean those small pictures that you can put next to forum and blog posts. Those don’t exist everywhere, but I encourage you to enable them wherever they do exist (and then ask students repeatedly to use them). Avatars help students inject their personality in to their work and the class as a whole. I also suggest that you encourage students to use an avatar that is actually a picture of themselves rather than a cute dog or their favorite movie star. That just makes it a bit more more realistic.
  • Create a virtual office online and use an embeddable chat tool for office hours. I know that many LMS programs have a chat tool now, but many of those are open rooms for anyone to come in. Not good for one-on-one conversation. Tools like Meebo can help you have a chat without giving away your AIM ID to students (or making you create a new one to maintain separation of personal and professional lives).  Meebo is basically an Instant Message chat tool. It gives you a web-based widget that lets you chat without installing a chat program. Chats happen through a web browser.  You can place the widget in an online “virtual office” and students can see when you are available for a chat session. (see my virtual office with Meebo here) You sign in on your end and keep that tab open on your browser when you are available.  Google Talk also has a similar widget if you prefer their service.
  • Speaking of Google, I am sure there are many ways to use Google Wave to connect with your students. Assuming, of course, they can all get invites.
  • One of the more radical ideas out there is to use a virtual world like Second Life to create a virtual office or classroom.  While many professors are doing just that, most of us don’t want to shell out money for a small space of virtual land in Second Life to set up virtual lounge chairs. The good news is that Second Life is not the only option – there are free, browser-based virtual worlds out there. One such option is Vivaty. Vivaty is a bit on the “dude, let’s party” side of the web, so take that in to consideration before jumping in feet first. While you get the benefits of a rich, free interactive environment online, the trade-off is that the FAQs tell you how Vivaty makes you look more cool (dude). That may not be a big deal to some, but I thought it needed to be pointed out. Nothing looks worse to students that a professor trying to look hip and cool. But if you avoid those trappings, it might be an interesting site to try out. Vivaty also lets you embed videos and picture slide shows in your room that you create, and that room can them be embedded in a web page.

I am sure there are many other ideas out there. What do other people use to create greater interaction and immediacy, especially in asynchronous formats?

Do blogs eat brains?

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theyrecomingbarbara

While in graduate school at Georgetown, I had one faculty member who, upon learning that I was a student of Russian and Russian Area Studies, noted rather dramatically:  “Cyrillic rots the brain!”  I guess old Cold Warriors never die.

Then this morning comes this post, found courtesy of the original Edupunk, Jim Groom.  Once you read past the zombie-related stuff (ahem), it is a fairly good explication of what blogs can do for you.  Not brain-rotting in the least, actually.  “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”

And if you’re not already a reader of Jim’s blog or his Twitter feed, I highly recommend them both for ideas and connections related to teaching and learning in a network age, as well as A-list B-movie commentary.  Among other gems from Jim this past week:  news that the actress who played Barabara in Night of the Living Dead is now a communication consultant in Flagstaff.  How’s that for connectivism in action?!

This line of thought (connectivism and the undead) fed nicely for me into a blogpost I read this morning as well, from Gardner Campbell.  In discussing how today’s more complex learning environments require correspondingly more complex models of assessment, he notes that

Rather than proliferate crude measures of recall or reductive “normed” evaluations of various templated essays, we should think much more deeply and comprehensively about assessment. To do this, we’ll have to start with what it means not only to learn something in the sense of committing it to memory, vital as that is, but also to understand it, to be able to sense and articulate and share the structure of that knowledge as well as the conjectures and dilemmas that surround it and propel it into new areas of inquiry. We need to think about domain transfer, and ask what kind of learning fosters the analogical and metaphorical thinking that leads to conceptual breakthroughs. We need to think about the teacher’s theory of other minds, as well as the students’. We need to master strategies of indirection that empower each other to imagine…

In other words, through rich, digital means of “complexifying” learning such as blogging—at its best collaborative, reflective, and emergent authoring and creation—learners cannot and should not be zombies.  And neither should we.

Getting Started?

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Instructors feel pressure to incorporate technology into their teaching: institutional pressure, collegial pressure, student pressure, and societal pressure.  If you are an instructor who is not particularly comfortable working beyond word processing and e-mail, then technology can quickly become a bête noire.

Below are the first five of ten tips for getting started. The tips are borne out of my experiences working with a variety of instructors with a range of technology skills and affinities. The goal is to make the prospect of teaching with technology a little less daunting and the bête a little less noire.

The progressive thinkers who post regularly to this blog have expansive, forward-thinking ideas that will likely form the basis of future teaching and learning. Those contributors may find this list too provincial.

While I agree that the ideal marriage of technology and education involves rethinking from the ground up, I am not looking in that direction here.  My hope is to encourage those who are starting to walk.  After you walk, you will be ready to run, and then you will fly with the wing walkers.

  • Be sure that content and learning objectives are always your guides. Technology is not the end product nor is using technology the goal. Technology is a tool that is effective only when it helps your students achieve the learning objectives. Technology can be the catalyst for learning.Before you consider using blogs, wikis, or any other technology tool, think carefully think about your content and the learning goals.
    • Is there a goal that your students often have trouble achieving?
    • Is there a task your students regularly have a hard time realizing?
    • Is there an activity your students do not practice enough in class?
    • Are there materials you have always wanted your students to access but that have not been available?

    If you answered yes to any of these questions, then technology may be able to help.

    Even though the advice to avoid using technology for technology’s sake has become trite, it remains sound.  Better to pass on technology than to tack it on to you course because you feel you have to in order to keep up with the times. 

  • Know that one size does not fit all. You know your content, and you know what it takes for students to learn in your course.  Consequently, with your expertise and some exploration, you can identify the kinds of technologies that can potentially help you teach and help your students learn.Like other teaching approaches and tools, a tech tool that works swimmingly for art history may not be at all effective for political science.  Be inspired by what others are doing, but try not to feel like you have to do the same thing. Never stray from the needs of your content.

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  • Start small if you feel tentative.Instructors do not have to start integrating technology into their courses by completely re-working everything from a to z.  Using tech tools is not an all-or-nothing choice.Everyone is at a different place on the tech-savvy spectrum.  No matter where you start, you have plenty of room to grow.
    • Start small.
    • Identify and try a technology tool.
    • Become comfortable with one technology tool.
    • Note how you learned and how you became comfortable with that technology tool.
    • Evaluate that technology tool’s effectiveness.
    • Gain confidence.
    • Repeat the process.

    The first venture is usually the most difficult.   After navigating and surviving once, you will be calmer, more confident, and better equipped to consider other technology tools that can help you and your students achieve more learning goals.

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  • Plan ahead.Generally, planning and developing prior to launching contribute significantly to the effectiveness of technology-enhanced instruction.Ideally, time would be available to
    • Think through the teaching and learning needs.
    • Learn and reach a comfort level with the technology.
    • Plan carefully your use of technology.
    • Test your technology piece (so you can identify kinks and troubleshoot as many problems as you can before students find them).

    Realistically, time is a luxury. You may not have time to design, develop, and test your technology before your course starts, so you have no choice but to develop as you go.

    If you do have a choice, then start planning and developing before launching. My guess is that if you were to ask instructors who have implemented technology-enhanced instruction both by developing ahead of time and by developing while teaching, they would recommend developing ahead of time if at all possible. 

  • Become well acquainted with the technology you are using.You do not have to become a card-carrying member of the Best Buy Geek Squad, but you will feel more sure of yourself if you attain a comfort level with your technology tool before asking your students to use it.Even though UTA offers many resources for tech support, your students will ask you questions about how to post comments to your blog or how to record a clip with Audacity. Completely unforeseen questions will arise.  They always do.  At that point, of course, you can take time to research or call upon tech support.  If you can help with the basics, though, everyone benefits.

Teaching and Technology in German

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One of my students, Patrick Modrovsky, is majoring in broadcasting and minoring in German. He thought that interviewing me and talking about the way I use technology in the classroom to teach German language and culture might be newsworthy. Here is the link:

http://utanews.com/ March 11, 2010 (The date is important, because as time goes by, older news items “are scrolled” down to the bottom of the page.)

I understand from Pete Smith that Peggy Semingson does a lot with video. I couldn’t find what you have your students do with video, Peggy (I need to go back to your post), but found your blog and your youtube site again, Electronica and Literacy (http://www.youtube.com/user/peggysemingson). Students must be thinking, judging, involved, and engaged when producing something that could be used as a portfolio piece.

It seems there are two areas where technology can intersect with active learning: 1) instructor methods and materials and 2) student interactive learning and demonstration of learning/thinking.

The Web Is Changing: It’s Time to Dethrone the LMS!

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Do you know what bugs me about the Learning Management System (LMS)?

Well, a lot – but I will start with just two things. Whether you have noticed it or not, the web is constantly changing. Does anyone remember when they predicted that all colleges would have at least one class offered online through AOL?  What happened to that? LMS software updates have long production cycles – leading to out-dated “new” features appearing whenever a “new” version is released. The model is too slow to keep up with the web. Aren’t we on Web5.0 by now anyways?

Another thing that bugs me about the LMS is the name itself – one that is straight out of the business world from whence it sprung. Learning is to be managed? How about setting it free to explore and investigate?

Harriet Watkins and I (along with some covert input from Pete Smith) have been theorizing what a new LMS could look like if we turned the whole concept inside out.  What if we had Social Learning Environments instead of business-like management tools?  We have a few ideas that we are going to be presenting at the Texas Distance Learning Association’s 2010 conference in Houston – march 21-14th.

  • The Web Is Changing: It’s Time to Dethrone the LMS!

    Rapid changes in online learning concepts such as learning communities, personal learning environments, and complexity are driving a need to dismantle the learning management system as we know it. LMS systems and instructional design are in need of major overhauls and are in danger of becoming obsolete if they don”t evolve. Students need a place to connect and collaborate at complex levels rather than hide behind a “walled garden.” Two colleagues at UT Arlington will present a new paradigm as an innovative alternative to the existing LMS concept as we know it.

Come hear us talk about the challenges that LMS companies face, as well as where they could go in the future to address those problems. Be sure to stop by and say “Hi” if you do come.

If you haven’t been to TxDLA before, I would highly recommend checking it out. We’re going to be covering a wide range of topics from practical ideas to emerging technologies. There is going to be between 800-900 other distance learning practitioners gathered together to learn, network, and have a good time. Oh – and there will be Laser Tag this year 🙂

One Semester in the Life of a Web Class…

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We often ask our student to reflect, in writing, on what they are learning. But how often do we challenge ourselves to do the same as teachers? This semester I set out to chronicle my experiences teaching a web class, week-by-week. I realized that my past experiences with teaching web classes were vague and jumbled in my mind, and I thought it worthwhile, for myself, to keep an ordered record of my experiences this semester. By writing it all out, I hoped to work through issues and concepts that might otherwise just fade away without being resolved in my mind. I chose to put my diary online for others to see. It can be found here. It’s not very intellectual, or polished, just a record of experiences, affirmations and frustrations that ebb and flow every week.

Sometimes people ask me what it’s like to teach a web class, and I find myself unsatisfied by my own ‘overview’ responses. For me there are so many ups and downs in the experience of teaching a web class that it is difficult to summarize it simply with a pat answer. Next time someone asks me what teaching a web class is like, I’ll say check out my blog posts! It’s all there: my mistakes, my successes, the good things students do, the bad things they do, everything that is on my mind at any given time during the semester.

Ego, Passion, Desire, Love, Respect, Relationship, and Attention Span

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My reading of the posts in this blog, and the links posted by the writers, got me to thinking and wondering about attention span.

What is the research on long attention span? I find we talk a lot about short attention spans when dealing with lectures. However, people of many ages seem to be able to attend for long periods of time when involved in other tasks: games, sports, creative writing, other kinds of writing, conversation, falling in love and obsessing on the person of one’s focus, mulling over an unsolvable situation – constantly and continually, obsessing on an idea — reading, writing, and talking about it, telling one’s own stories over and over … and over, watching a movie, playing guitar, doing research, partaking of an exciting discussion where we want to jump in.

So what is it about education that puts students to sleep and bores them?

I understand those who state that students do not listen to and absorb ideas in greater than 10-15 minute segments, when those ideas are produced in the form of a lecture. Most of us have experienced students’ nodding off or their attention wandering, as we closely watch what they are taking in when we are talking.

I have also noticed in my German Media on the Web class, taught in a computer classroom, that the computer seems to hypnotize students, and they must literally be pulled away in order to, as a group, attend to small group discussion, or to listen to anything I have to say, or to do a task like providing me with ideas about stereotypes of Switzerland which I can then put on the board for all to see. (My ideal German media on the web classroom: computers, break-out areas for small group or whole class interaction, chalk/white board for brainstorming, and screen for examples and shots of critical websites — also a latte machine.)

So what happens in the brain that makes students nod off or lose the thread when listening to lectures? What makes me nod off when listening to someone? What is it about a computer that hypnotizes students in a face-to-face class with computers in the classroom? And, on the other hand, what makes me attend again to a lecture (if the lecturer is not someone like the great Hans Kellner, who I understand mesmerized students when he was here)?

I’m coming to the conclusion that it has to do with what is happening in the brain and how the brain is processing ideas. It may have to do with tapping in to “expertise” and “experience,” and what we ourselves are bringing to the table. It may have to do with passive reception of authoritative knowledge versus bringing an attitude, an interest, a motivation, an agenda, or previous knowledge and understanding to the task of “listening to a lecture” – or a different frame of reference – different from that of the instructor – SCARY, or doing a different kind of task. It may have to do with choice. It may have to do with having a real reason for attending to ideas. A real reason for attending a face-to-face class. A real reason for attending an online course.

The following story is an example of what I’m talking about:
I recently attended a lecture, and I sat next to a student who was nodding off. I realized that the speaker was very knowledgeable, but that there wasn’t much that students without background knowledge in the field could grasp onto. I realized that I too was a bit bored by it all, until – until I heard the speaker say something that tapped into my understanding and previous knowledge, and that tapped into a new idea (for me) that I began having about the subject matter – an “aha” experience. After that, and for the rest of the lecture, I listened attentively, because I wanted to see if what he said continued to fit into this new framework or frame of reference that was happening in my mind. There was now a reason for listening to the lecture that far surpassed “getting information” from him or “politely thinking about the topic” – a real reason, my reason. The reason for attending had to do with me – not with him. I was having a new thought separate from him, I was enjoying that experience, and I was gleaning the “confidence” fallout from having what I considered a good idea, and I was enjoying making connections! Pleasure!

How do we get away from the fear and the “knowing” that students have about us – that if they say something we do not like, it will affect their grade? Some students don’t care. Others are quiet because of this. How do we avoid being the professor who said, “I don’t know what you think about this poem, [or theory or factoid], and I don’t care”? Even when students frustrate the heck out of us?

So learning theorists and scholars, am I on the right track? Is engagement something much more than attending and “being there” mentally? Is it passion-, desire-, even ego-driven? Is true learning perhaps totally passion-driven? Think of people like Einstein who let everything go in order to think all the time. Is it relationship? Do we hate to interact with profs who disdain us and therefore leave their content behind? Do we love to interact with profs who respect us and become energized and we change our majors because of them? Do we know the difference? (Yes, of course.) Do we as profs love to interact with students where there is mutual respect – they for us and we for them? If we disdain our students, do we sabotage learning? If they disdain us or are afraid of our grading them, how do we change that?

We guide them, compassionately, to the challenge. It is our prompts, our thinking, our interventions that make the difference. But it’s not the punitive and rigid intervention of the past. It has to be something different. Or?

Are these ideas too “affective?” I don’t think so, if we go beyond the surface of what is being said. After all, we are not organisms that are made up of three separate parts: body, mind, and emotions/spirit. We are whole organisms, whose affect plays a great part in our intellectual endeavor: what we choose, why, with whom we interact, and the environment in which we either develop our capacities or kill them, or something in between. “Create an environment in which people can thrive.” How do we do that for all students who are willing, no matter what their background?

When Staleness Creeps In To Your Content

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No matter how student-centered you are, no matter how often you tell others you are not a “teacher” but a “coach”, at some point you are going to be putting some content in to your course.  Even coaches will sit down their players and show them how to do things on a regular basis. Your students need to hear from you – and I don’t just mean a weekly due date reminder or an occasional “atta boy” comment.  Students need to hear your take on issues, facts, controversies, current events, trends, etc.

For most of us, a blog has been the extent of how we keep the content flowing while avoiding the creation of online textbook monuments.  Blogs are great for that, but they do have a few short-comings.  For one, they tend to be text heavy – which can grow stale after a while. You can insert images, videos, and audio clips in posts – but that takes a lot more time and effort to accomplish even after you have produced the media.  And even if you own a iPhone, blogging is much easier if you are sitting at a desk. Blogging on the go sounds great, but it is still pretty time-consuming.  If only there were a way to make this all easier…

Enter in to this equation Posterous.  Their tag line says it all: “The place to post everything. Just email us. Dead simple blog by email.”  That is the basic idea – but here is low-down. You create an account, based on your email. Then you create an email and send it in. Posterous takes your email and turns it in to a blog post. The subject becomes your title and the body becomes your post. But that is not all. You can add tags with ease.  But you can also attach images, audio files, and videos – and Posterous will crunch it all for you and add it to your post. You can even designate where you want the pictures to go in the post.

But that is not where it stops. Posterous will then push that content out to any site you want it to:  Twitter, Picassa, Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, and even a WordPress blog (there are even a few sites they publish to that I had never heard of).  They only give you about a Gigabyte or so of storage (you can buy more) – but you can always use other sites to hold your larger media – like videos (on YouTube).  Posterous does all of the heavy lifting for all of that.

So how can this help the educator/coach/what-we-are-supposed-to-call-ourselves-now? Well, for one – it makes mobile blogging much easier.  There is even an app that lets you take advantage of the built-in camera on your smart phone to shake things up a bit each week. After a couple of weeks of text blogs – why not record yourself and post a video blog? Or why not go somewhere in the city and film something that connects with your content? A civic event, an art exhibit, building architecture, etc?  Maybe even go talk to a colleague or content expert and record the conversation (with permission, of course), and then upload that audio one week as a blog post. I know these will not be the best produced videos in the world, but the spontaneous nature of them will give the students a sense that they are “following you around” as you practically apply what is being taught in class.

Why not even make it seem more like a tour of your subject? You serve as the lead journalist of the group. Take them on a tour of the city from the perspective of your subject. Mix up the media (text, audio, video, images, etc) each week. Don’t get so formal with everything you say. Start off some of your posts with statements like “You know, I was pondering the engineering concepts in this week’s reading while at Starbucks – and I had this revelation about the relationship between this coffee cup and this week’s subject.”  But really film yourself at Starbucks having the revelation.

The less you script it out for yourself, the more fun you will have and the more students will enjoy it.

Remember what I posted a few weeks ago about Delicious as content? Posterous can push your content to Delicious. So add your class tags every week and your content will be inserted in to your class stream on Delicious seamlessly.

Oh – and don’t forget those web cams on your desktop computer. You don’t necessarily have to have a smart phone to do any of this. I know this might be hard to believe, but good revelations can also hit us while we are sitting at our desks.  So do some media productions there if you like.

(this post was cross-posted at EduGeek Journal)

Creating Cuaderna Vía

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Last summer, Chris Conway and Ignacio Ruiz-Perez approached me about helping them with a new idea they had – a Spanish-language literary journal for UT Arlington students called Cuaderna Vía.  They already had an issue’s worth of content, but needed help producing the tangible journal.

Over those months, we designed and produced a print edition of Cuaderna Vía’s first issue, but I also spent time using Open Journal Systems (OJS), a component of the Public Knowledge Project, to produce our online version, found here:

http://bit.ly/bWrW6c

Cuaderna Vía is not a peer-reviewed journal – but OJS does provide the capability of setting up a peer-review, online journal.  Within the system, as the editor of a journal, you can accept manuscripts, assign reviewers to them, copy-edit them, and produce a completely customized online version of your journal.

It’s not as easy to set up as many Web 2.0 applications out there – you can’t simply log in somewhere and it’s all ready for you.  You will need to assistance of someone with passing knowledge of web database applications (preferably PHP/MySQL).  But beyond the initial setup, it’s a matter of filling in forms to set up your look and feel and routine tasks to operate your journal.

Dr. Conway and Dr. Ruiz-Perez are using it to showcase the work of their students.  I can see OJS providing an excellent learning opportunity for would-be academics – learning first hand how to be a reviewer and how to write an article able to withstand the peer-review process. OJS will also open up student work for the world to see.

The Future of Education: The ABCs vs. the EFGs

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I’ve been pondering an article called “Future Ed: Remote learning, 3D screens” for a few days now.  While this article covers some interesting geeky stuff (such as ocular implants and 3-D screens), there are also some great nuggets of wisdom in there about the notion that what we teach needs to change – along with our technologies:

Barker pointed out that with more tech-savvy learning, the curriculum will have to change, too. He and his wife funded a five-year experiment in Chattanooga, Tenn., to create a 21st-century curriculum founded not just on learning the ABCs, but also the “EFGs”: Eco ed (“How do we interact with the planet?”), Futures ed (“How do I shape my future?”), and Global ed (“What is my relationship with other human beings?”).

Each student had to learn a 500-word vocabulary in six languages and, in sixth grade, choose one in which to be fluent, including cultural knowledge. Physical fitness focused on lifelong sports such as tennis and golf, not team activities. Grade levels were kindergarten “through competence” — that is, when students accomplished all of the program’s lofty goals, they graduated.

Personally, I get more excited about these approaches to changing education than others.  The “death to the university” concept is too much “baby and bathwater” to me, and the open education movement is sometimes too caught up in hopeless romanticism (or unhealthy bitterness) for my taste. I don’t think people in either one of these movements have really thought about what would happen if they got their way.

Anyways, the article covers a lot of ground in 4 pages, so give the whole thing a read with an open mind. Assessment, socialization, and realistic school reform (i.e. ideas for change that involve educators keeping their jobs) are all covered.

This entry was originally posted at my other blog, where I went on a rambling tangent against the thought that universities as we know them are going away. Instead of bludgeoning anyone with that again, I thought I would connect the quote above to some of the ideas we have been exploring at UTA recently:

  • Eco ed – when most people think of ecology, they usually think of “green” efforts. That is a good place to start – considering how we can use technology to make our classes more environmentally friendly is always a good idea. But an additional way to think of ecology is how our classes interact with the greater subject environment that they are a  part of. How does your subject connect with the classes students had before? How will it prepare them for what classes are coming next semester? How do students apply what you are teaching to the house, apartment, neighborhood, or city that they live in? (Pete Smith will love that I am already bringing constructivism and connectivism in to this blog – or maybe he will comment on how I am making Dewey spin in his grave….)
  • Futures ed – To me, this matches exactly with what Dr. Mark Taylor has been teaching us about Generation NeXt for a few years. Students need to know what is in it for them. In fact, I think you could take the entire last teaching by Dr. Taylor and insert it right here. “How do I shape my future?” could also be translated in to “What is in this for me?” Students that can answer this question about your class will find greater value in what you teach.
  • Global ed – this is taking eco ed to the next step. What is going on in the world today that involves your subject matter? Chris Conway and Jose Tamez have been doing a great job with this in some of their Business Spanish courses by seeking out business experts from around the world. They interview these experts and then post the recordings of what transpires to teach students important global business concepts (the Ethablog by Henrique Oliveira is one great resource they bring in to their class). But even if you don’t teach a globally-focused subject, you can still find experts around the globe that are blogging and discussing your topic. Have your students visit those sites, maybe even have them leave some comments or interview some of the authors for class projects. The important idea is to get students to join the greater global conversation that surrounds your subject matter.

The one warning I have is that all of these ideas might be too much to fit in to every class if your department does not co-ordinate your courses. Take global ed for example – if students have to join a different site for a global conversation for every class they take every semester, it won’t take too long before they hit overload and just abandon them all. Maybe your department can come up with a way to hit the EFG’s from a department level – giving students a set of ideas and sites that they use over their entire degree program?