Technology for Teachers, Part 4: Collaborative Systems

In this last part of the series (which finally came to an end--my apologies), you will read about a bit more advanced online applications or systems that you may use for teaching. While the systems are actually inherently sophisticated, worry not. These systems that I will talk about are easy to use as they are really created with us--teaching professionals who have very little time to study new technology--in mind.

(Like in my previous post on this topic, you may click here to view my mind map about technology for teaching. Further, I tried to include only free services/applications as they are the ones that are both hard to find and need-to-find.)

Online Presentations
As teachers, we often have lessons which we tend to present repeatedly--not because the student is a slow learner, but simply--because it is a lesson that has to be given, say, every semester or every year.

While I subscribe to the idea that in presentations, the main audio-visual must be the speaker, I would also have to agree to the fact that sometimes--because we repeat the lesson over and over--we forget some points of the lesson. In such cases, don't I wish that I could record my presentation?

Perhaps five years ago, this has been possible but expensive. Nowadays, however, due to widespread availability of open source and online solutions, recording your presentation is free--virtually, because you may still need to pay for the Internet connection.

If you have a webcam, you can shoot yourself while talking and using your audiovisual. Or, if you have, say, Camtasia or Camstudio, you can record your Powerpoint presentations and then add your scripted voice-over to the presentation from your computer. The result is a video file with your voice or a song background which you could upload to--say--Youtube.com, Multiply or Google Video or any website that you may own.

What is the point? With a prepared presentation, you are in a better position to correct mistakes, it is widely available (if uploaded to a website), and you can get feedback via forum or comment (which is what you already have with Youtube and Multiply).

Of course, you could always share it with online document sharing sites, like Slideshare or Scribd.

Of course, this is assuming that you want to record your presentation before it is shown to the audience.

The other side of the coin is simply broadcasting it over the Net, or, using vodcast or podcast. This is essentially using a web-capable, Internet-connected camera so that a realtime presentation/speech can be broadcasted to Internet terminals. Most often, these -casts are stored online, together with the interaction after the speech.

Online Collaboration
What is the use of having the internet if multiple users cannot use the same resource--at the same time?

Prior to Google Docs*, if multiple users have to edit a single document, they have to confuse themselves with multiple versions. With Google Docs (and others that have followed), writers can now share documents, have them edited, without having to worry about multiple versions on which one is the latest.

(*I actually don't know if Google Docs was the first one to have online document sharing and creation service. I know Writely has been acquired by Google, and previously Google Docs was separately accessed. Let me not be sued with this qualifying statement.)

Besides Google, other providers of free document creation and sharing service are Thinkfree and Zoho. In my experience, These two have a better, closer-desktop interface (look-alike) than Google Docs, but I stick with Google Docs because of its integration with other Google services and Google's stability.

What can online collaboration systems do? What else? Freely collaborate!

This collaboration can expand to using online systems for online journals, project management (calendaring, sharing resources and tasks, such as Google Sites, Comindwork, PlanProjects, Zoho), website creation teams, writing a book, brainstorming (e.g., Mind42, Bubbl.Us), online meeting (e.g., Zoho while sharing online files, and others. This essentially made the physical table useless.

(Let me take that back.... I am using a round table right now as I am typing this document. =) )

Collaboration online is now possible in synchronous (same-time) setting.

Learning Management Systems
As a teacher, I know you have acquired a significant amount of files (i.e., PAPERS) related to your work. You might have a student record book, a syllabus (which changes every semester), book and other resources, quizzes submitted by the student, essays, and a lot of other paper outputs.

With an online learning management system (LMS), all of these can be consolidated in one system--paper-free. Take a look at Moodle, for example. Within the system, a teacher can create a document for e-learning, a quiz (with the restrictions such as time), have it recorded, and the student's identity is saved for evaluation on improvement of performance. An LMS also enhances capability of the facilitator to customize the presentation according to the learning style of the learner.

An LMS can do the following: Integrated system for record management, lesson management, and relationship of learning to work performance, continuous learning, content management (lessons).

Moodle is a free and open source system, however, it has to be hosted somewhere, so this would require a bit of support from your organization's IT department.

Online Classroom
I have observed this used--which is good, but--not as effectively as they can be. Social Networks can be used for learning. However, as I mentioned, its use must be studied in a strategic manner.

When we say strategic, we do not only mean organization-wide, but more so, behavior-based or -responsive. Social networking sites help interpersonal relationship between the teacher and the learner, but I would like to suggest that there has to be some indicators on how to evaluate the effectiveness of the applications/systems that are used. This is where organizational strategy should come in.

Other options available are Wetpaint and Ning.

Information and Knowledge Sharing
Information and knowledge are better shared. This can be done using the systems described above to create an online journal (or eJournal) on one end of the formality spectrum, and wikis and online communities on the other end.

Of course, journals are peer-reviewed, with peers meaning recognized experts, while a wiki is a community-reviewed publishing and content-management system.

Zoho and Google Sites both have these features.

High-End Technology Applications
There are certain functions that are not applicable to all educational systems/institutions. For example, the engineering profession may require simulation software; management courses may require operations research and statistical software; and accounting may need accounting software.

My only share at this point on this section is that there are open source or free license options. You do not need to limit yourselves to proprietary systems that are just as hard to learn to use. Take for example statistical software.

I appreciate SPSS (I DO!), however, the price is just not that appealing to students in the Developing Countries (like mine). If you would use just the basic statistical procedures (hypothesis testing, t-test, the usual statistical procedures you see in statistics book for management or social research) and the data to be entered is not that big (say, less than a thousand), you may want to use OpenStat or other open source software.

Back to the Basics
Let us not forget that technology has to be used properly. Take into consideration the content of your lesson, the learning style of your learners, and your own propensity to the technology you plan to use.

And of course, do not forget budget.

As for the management, I strongly suggest a strategic integration for use of technology. This helps sharing experience and style in using technology for teaching.

If you need clarification on how to use any of these, do not hesitate to contact me by posting a comment with your contact email.

Next: Strategy for Adopting Technology for Teaching

Technology for Teachers: Social Networking, Website Publishing and Online Collaboration

In my last post, I talked about blogs and social networking. I would like to continue discussing about the opportunity of these technologies and discuss also the opportunities in website publishing.

Blogging or Online Journals
Blogging is not just for ranting or fielding your opinion. For me, it can be a person's online mindmap (although not graphical in form). Blogging allows one person to give a lesson, a point of view, or update. The real beauty of blogging is that you do not need to learn a lot of codes in order for your ideas to be made available in the Net. For example, this post will soon be available via Google Search because this will be indexed by Google and other search engines.

Blogging also allows you to start the next idea, social networking, because your audience (if you set it up) can contact you by writing you an email or subscribing to your blog. RSS, or Rapid Site Syndication, allows you to push information without getting personal information from your audience. (That is why blogging is an effective marketing tool as well.). Blogging, when used with other available (free!) online services, can be a creative and effective two(!)-way communication tool between you and your subscribers or parters in your ideas.

Social Networking
Social networking may actually have been a redundant term had the Internet not been discovered. Networking, as far as I know, originated from the social sciences, not from computing. Network is another term for relationship (as far as I know). Anyways, social networking is simply making your identity available forr contact with people of mutual interest.

While social networking started with Friendster's advertised goal of making contact with friends and personal relationships, the idea blossomed to professional collaboration, as emphasized by social networking sites as Linked-In.com. What exactly can this do for you?

Social networking allows you to advertise your specialization and your ideas and stay in contact with professional networks so that you can grow professionally. You can also learn new techniques and trends in social networks. It can also allow you to connect and collaborate in light of geographical and temporal differences. Lastly (in my limited experience, of course), social networks allow you to easily get recommendation with people that you may want to be in contact with but you yourself cannot do so simply because you do not know the someone personally.

Social networking should not be seen as a waste of time, but an opportunity that should be properly used for both your and your organization's goal.

Website Publishing
Ten years ago, website publishing is reserved for the people who have the money and the know-how to publish their ideas. Before blogs were made available, website publishing was viewed as a one-way street.

Enter free websites given by internet service providers, such as AOL, MSN, EarthLink and SBC Global. Followed by educational institutions that gave online storage to their instructors. Website publishing became easier to produce than before.

Nowadays, the line of demarcation between website publishing and blogging is blurred. After all, blogs are websites. Perhaps one distinguishing characteristic is their perceived purposes.

Blogs are still perceived to be opinion-based and -oriented, while websites are (at least, theoretically) information- or fact-based online content. Whether the content is reliable or not, however, is another matter.

Websites have a significant flexibility in their content, while blogs have limitations on the layout and the content--particularly due to the provider's terms. Nonetheless, weblogs or online journals are fast keeping up with the demands of the bloggers to be able to communicate content in very creative ways.

Your blogs or personal websites can be redirected to your own domains (for as low as USD 4 per month!) so that your visitors need not to remember your "http://www.domain.net/something/something-again/your-username/blog-folder/index.html". For example, using Google Sites' service, I created an online newsletter, and had our IT unit redirect a folder to that website.

These online opportunities, when used with each other and other available services, can significantly alter the way you implement training, and significantly improve the effectiveness of your training and teaching sessions.

Look out for Part 4, when I discuss the rest of the opportunities.