Monday, 27 July 2009 — Pre-Conference Campus Technology 2009

I am attending the Campus Technology 2009 conference in Boston this week.

Today I attended two workshops in the ‘pre-conference’ track.

The first workshop was ‘M01: Maps on a Spreadsheet and Other Google Collaboration Tools’ given by Mark Frydenberg, from Bentley University. Mark lead us through a tour de force introduction to ‘all things Google’. The basic search function was glazed over in preference for the other applications available from Google Labs. We touched on the phone-based telephone look-up Goog-411, created a blog with Blogger, created a wiki with Sites, explored the personal portal iGoogle, explored Knol, learned how to use the RSS app Reader to keep an eye on the “World Live Web – what’s going on in the world ‘right now'”. We looked at Google Docs, including the word processor and the spreadsheet program. I was particularly blown away by some of the features in the spreadsheet app which I had no idea about before, including the ability to use a ‘live search’ function as well as using gadgets to help visualize the information… this was the ‘maps on a spreadsheet’ for which the workshop was named. We also investigated iPhone apps that hook into Google information sources and allow access to Google Docs. At the half-way point I gave a brief demo of Google Wave, for which I have a Developer account. Mark and I logged in to my two developer accounts and showed the basics of how a Wave session can proceed.

The second session I attended was ‘M06: Web 2.0-enabled Interdisciplinary Collaborations: New Opportunities’ by Jim Wolfgang, Director, Digital Innovation Group, Georgia College & State University, and Keith Politte, Manager, Technology Testing Center, Reynolds Journalism Institute, Missouri School of Journalism. This session was an experiential encounter with the concepts behind collaboration. In the workshop we broke into groups and were then lead through exercises examining the meaning of collaboration and ways and tools that can be used to work in a collaborative fashion. We collaboratively developed a wiki page in support of our explorations. The two presenters did an excellent job of tag-teaming the topic and leading us through the exercises. They presented real-world examples of the collaborative projects embodied in their own work with the MU Interdisciplinary Innovations Fund and the Freshman iLife Competition. I came away from this session with a better understand of the diversity of opinion on ‘what is collaboration?’ and I am mulling over the possibilities of implementing some of these ideas myself.

Overall it was an excellent ‘pre-conference’ day, and I am eager to fill my brain with even more information and ideas in the coming three days for the remainder of the conference.

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Virtual First Responder – Experiential Learning

The Virtual First Responder was a 6-hour medical school elective course exploring mass casualty triage training using the Second Life (SL) virtual world and the CAVE® (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) immersive virtual reality system.

Three sessions were held.

Eighteen second-year medical students first participated in an intensive 2-hour session to become acquainted with the SL interface, the basics of movement and communication, and customizing their avatars.

The second session was an exploration using SL to conduct mass casualty triage training using the Play2Train disaster simulator (a special area in SL designed for this type of training). In the classroom, the students worked in groups to evaluate the condition of eight casualty mannequins displaying conditions ranging from shock to severe burns and death. The groups gave each casualty a preliminary triage level. The class concluded with discussion of the experience.

The third session was conducted at the University of Michigan’s CAVE®. After an introduction to the CAVE®, students were again faced with a triage scenario. Wearing specially designed glasses, the students stepped into a white cube-shaped room. The virtual world was projected onto the surfaces of the room while the glasses translated the visuals into three-dimensional objects. The students were videotaped while interacting with these systems, interviewed on camera, and completed a survey designed to gather their impressions of the experiences.

Here is my poster for the Campus Technology 2009 conference in Boston, 27-30 July 2009.

The poster tells the narrative of the VFR project, covering the details of the course design.

Double-click the poster image to view a larger version which is readable.

Hidden Curriculum Presentation

This is a PDF of a powerpoint presentation on the hidden curriculum, the implicit education that surrounds and underlies our explicit curriculum. This is presented in the scenario of a high school that just recently received a technology grant and has implemented an integration program including both technology hardware, software, media library, high-speed Internet and so forth, but has also budgeted for a technology integration team of teacher/technologists to assist the classroom teachers with the integration process.

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Experiential Learning Presentation

PDF of a powerpoint presentation I created on the experiential learning theories of Carl Rogers.

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