Report can be found at: http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/going_distance_2011

Thanks to David Wicks for originally sharing.

Thanks to a post by Laura Pasquini, I came across this clever video by Marc-André Lalande sharing the benefits for educators to utilize Twitter professionally. I myself have long been a proponent of the use of Twitter by educators and this is yet another great explanation of the benefits. Check it out!

Each year, Educause completes a study of technology use in higher education. The 2011 ECAR study of undergraduate students and information technology…

…sheds lights on how information technology affects the college experience. ECAR has conducted this annual study since 2004, and though students’ ownership and utilization of technology changes from year to year, students consistently rely upon their instructors and institutions to meet their technology expectations and needs. The 2011 study differs from past studies in that the questionnaire was reengineered and responses were gathered from a nationally representative sample of 3,000 students in 1,179 colleges and universities.

While complete details about the study are available, here is a nice infographic that summarizes the key findings:

Here is a listing of the key findings displayed in the infographic above:

Institutions

• 43% of students agree their institution needs more technology
• Only 1 in 4 (22%) of students strongly agree their institution uses the technology it has effectively
• Only 1 in 5 (19%) strongly agree technology is integrated seamlessly into their courses
• More than 1 in 7 (15%) of students think technology breaks or is broken more often than it is used in the classroom.
• Students like basic online services at their institutions, with the following percentage of students saying their institution does an excellent of good job at these online services:
• Course registration: 86%
• Making grades available: 81%
• Offering library resources: 75%
• Making transcripts available: 70%
• Making financial aid information available: 70%
• Offering textbooks for sale: 53%
• Students say they learn more in blended learning environments:
• No online components: 20%
• Some online components: 58%
• Completely online: 9%

Instructors

• Sudents value the technologies instructors use, and use effectively! Percentage of students responding “extremely effectively” among instructors who use:
• Projector: 65%
• Wi-Fi: 59%
• Laptop computer: 58%
• Desktop computer: 57%
• Document camera: 56%
• Gaming device: 55%
• Printer: 54%
• HDTV: 53%
• Thumb drive: 52%
• Digital SLR camera: 50%
• About 1 in 3 students (31%)think the instructor often requires the help of others to get technology up and running successfully
• More than 1 in 2 students (51%) think they know more about how to use technology than their professors
• 39% of students wish their instructors used e-mail more often
• About 1 in 3 students (31%) wish their instructors used e-books or e-textbooks more often
• 32% of students wish their instructors used a course or learning management system more often

Software

• Applications most frequently used by students:
• Word processors: 96%
• Institution library website: 88%
• Presentation software: 85%
• Spreadsheets: 83%
• Course or learning management system: 73%
• E-books or e-textbooks: 57%
• Programming languages: 33%
• E-portfolios: 21%
• Almost all students use e-mail (99%), text messaging (93%) and Facebook (90%)
• Communication tools most frequently used (several times a day):
• E-mail: 75%
• Texting: 74%
• Facebook: 58%

Hardware

• Technology ownership: A majority of undergraduates own about a dozen devices:
• iPad: 8%
• Netbook: 11%
• eReader: 12%
• Handheld games: 38%
• Desktop computer: 53%
• Webcam: 55%
• Smart phone: 55%
• HDTV: 56%
• iPod: 62%
• Stationary games: 66%
• Thumb drive: 70%
• DVD player: 75%
• Printer: 81%
• Laptop computer: 87%
• Essential technology: Percentage of students who said these technologies are “extremely valuable” for academic success:
• Desktop computer: 57%
• Thumb drive: 64%
• Printer: 73%
• Wi-Fi: 78%
• Laptop computer: 81%
• 37% of students have used smartphones for academics in the past year
• How smartphone owners use their devices for academics:
• E-mailing professors: 66%
• Checking grades: 62%
• Texting other students about coursework: 61%
• Looking up information on the Internet in class: 45%
• Texting professors: 19%

I learned from a post by David Wicks of a service called Visual.ly that plans to offer a tool allowing users to make custom infographics. Here’s my infographic of my personal Twitter data-generated infographic…I see I have a 32% “interestingness” rating… ~ Jason @jrhode

For those new to Google Reader, I’ve recorded this brief tour of the EDUMOOC Google Group with a few tips for keeping discussion threads organized.

Additionally, I’ve recorded this tutorial on how to setup Google Alerts for EDUMOOC and subscribe in a RSS feed reader, like Google Reader.

I personally plan to follow the #edumooc hashtag on Twitter as well as my Google Alerts in Google Reader as my primary means for following the EDUMOOC conversation. How do you plan to aggregate and filter contributions? Leave a comment with your steps!

Better yet…record a screencast demonstrating your process or workflow and share it with the rest of us!

~ Jason

In just over 2 days, over 1,000 participants from three dozen countries have sign-up for participate in the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) devoted to exploring Online Learning Today…and Tomorrow! There has been a lot of buzz over this latest MOOC, hashtag #EDUMOOC. For those who have never participated in a MOOC before, you’re in for a treat as this will be an online learning experience unlike any other.

If you are new to MOOCs, take a few minutes to view these brief videos by Dave Cormier that answer the questions “What is a MOOC?” and “What is ‘success’ in a MOOC?

I can’t stress enough the importance, as Dave described in his video, of defining for yourself how you will define ‘success’ in the learning experience and in being proactive in adding your contributions to the conversation, as well as reading others’ contributions and commenting. Here are my top 5 tips for others preparing to embark on #EDUMOOC:

1. Setup a blog (if you don’t already have one) and post to it. While we do have a Google Group for this MOOC, if you are looking to build your personal learning network beyond the scope of this course, it’s helpful to have your own online home where your conversations (ie: your initial posts and replies) can persist long after the MOOC is over. So, if you’ve not already done so, setup a blog using a free tool like Blogger, WordPress, Posterous, Tumblr, etc. This may sound obvious, but once you setup your blog, go ahead and post to it…at least once per week during the MOOC. I personally plan to spend more time on Twitter than the Google Group or blogging, but will post my reflections and more lengthy conversation contributions to my blog and then post the link on Twitter. On my WordPress blog, I use the free WordTwit plugin that automatically tweets each new blog post I make.
2. Give Twitter a try. You’ll find during this MOOC that there will be a variety of different locations where conversations will be taking place and Twitter will no doubt be one of the most active. If you’ve never tried Twitter before, now is your chance to give it a try! Sign-up for a free account at twitter.com and include in any of your course-related tweets the hashtag #edumooc. You can then search Twitter, either at twitter.com or on any of the Twitter apps, the course hashtag #edumooc to see the entire flow of “tweets” related to the course.

   A great place to learn more about Twitter is to take a look at the archived presentations and links for the session, Using Twitter for Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development in Higher Education that David Wicks, Skip Via, and I offered this past January where explored best practices for using Twitter in teaching, learning and professional development.

3. Let people know of your posts!. When you post to your blog, be sure to let the rest of the EDUMOOC community know that you’ve made your contribution to your blog. The easiest way is to share a link to your post on Twitter, using the hashtag for the MOOC, #edumooc. You also can reply to the thread for the week in the Google Group with your contribution.
4. Bookmark online resources of interest. When you come across online resources that others are sharing that are of interest to you, bookmark the links using a social bookmarking service. I personally use Diigo and have found it to be a fantastic way to create my own digital online locker of resources that I can then access in the future. When you bookmark an online resource, use the course tag edumooc.
5. Set boundaries for yourself. The larger the MOOC, the easier it is to easily become overwhelmed with the amount of resources shared and volume of conversations that take place. Don’t feel like to have to keep up on everything that’s happening in the course. Set goals for yourself and give yourself permission to get out of the course what you need from the course. I personally plan to set aside 30 mins. per day to check Twitter and read through the previous day’s contributions to the Google Group to stay up-to-date on the conversations and to participate. Remember that the more you contribute, the more you will in turn find others engage with you.

Those are just a few of my tips…what other tips do you have for individuals preparing to participate in a MOOC? Leave a comment with your tips, or better yet, post your own on your blog and leave a comment here with a link to your list!

If you’ve signed-up for #EDUMOOC and stumbled across this blog post, leave a comment and say hello! MOOCs are all about connections and networking with others!! You can also fine me on Twitter @jrhode or Facebook at facebook.com/jasonrhodephd

**UPDATE 6/23 – I’ve recorded a couple of screencast tutorials and posted here with a few more details on how to get started with the Google Group, as well as setting up Google Alerts and subscribe to see what those who are blogging during #EDUMOOC are saying**

As I previously shared, I’ve been experimenting with creating a ebooks in the ePub format and am very impressed with how simple it really is! Here’s a screencast I recorded with more details on how I created my sample ePub.

Links to sample Pages and ePub documents I mentioned are at jasonrhode.com/myfirstepub

If you are a Windows users, there are other utilities for automatically converting existing PDF or HTML files to ePub. I must admit I’ve not tried any of these yet so I can’t confirm whether or not they do in fact work.

If you’ve tried creating an ePub, whether you used Pages or some other tool, leave a comment let me know your experience!

I’m intrigued by the increasing growth in the use of SMS (ie: text messaging) in mobile communications and it’s implications for online learning. I’ve recently been experimenting with providing my students the ability to contact me via text message (sms) as well as to allow them to opt-in to receiving course-related news and reminders as text messages from me. I’ve explored several different work flows and options for accomplishing this and am sharing here the text messaging approaches I’ve tried thus far.

Google Voice

First off, I setup a free Google Voice account at http://voice.google.com using my Google Account. When setting up a Google Voice account, I received a phone number that I can give out that when called, simultaneously rings any of my phone numbers that I wish. I setup my Google Voice number to simultaneously ring my work phone and mobile phone. My Google Voice phone number is in fact is the phone number that I give out to all of my students to contact me if needed.

What I also realized is that in addition to voice calls, I can also receive send and receive text messages from my Google Voice phone number for free! So, if my students send a text message to me at my Google Voice number, it goes to my Google Voice account.

I also installed the free Google Voice app on my iPhone so that now when I receive a text message at my Google Voice phone number, it shows up in my Google Voice app.  I can then choose to send a reply back if I wish, again for free directly from the Google Voice app. Here’s the home screen of my iPhone with the push notification that I’ve received a new text message in Google Voice.

Launching the app, I see a preview of the message that I can click on it to read the complete message. My Google Voice Inbox also contains any other voicemails that I may have received at my Google Voice phone number.

With my Google Voice app, if I have my students’ mobile phone numbers, I can send them text messages for free from my Google Voice app. This is a great free solution and allows me to give my students and single phone number to reach me at, either voice or text message.  However, I was also looking for the ability to more quickly broadcast a text message to all my students who opt-in to receiving such messages.

SMS Email Gateways

Nearly every mobile phone carrier provides free delivery of text messages using a sms gateway.  The list of SMS gateways at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SMS_gateways tells which email address to use if you want to send an email and have it arrive as a text message on someone’s phone. The number must contain no punctuation. For instance, to send to a number typically expressed in the USA as 987-555-0100, you would email 9875550100@SMS-gateway.

I invited my students to opt-in to receiving text messages from me by simply emailing me their mobile phone number and carrier.  The carrier part is important, as each carrier has a different SMS gateway. As each student sends me their phone phone number and carrier, I lookup the SMS gateway for their carrier and add the sms email address to my list of email addresses for the class.

Then, to send a text message to my students, I simply launch my email client and copy/paste their sms email addresses in the BCC field and then enter my message to be sent in the body of the email.  It’s important to remember that text messages are limited to 160 characters, so emails sent via sms with more than 160 characters will be truncated beyond 160 characters.

I opted to not include a subject in my email as many phones don’t display the subject. Upon sending the email, each student receives the email as a text message.

This is the option that I’ve preferred to use for sending announcements as text messages to students.  I’ve also send personalized feedback to students using this same work flow.

Twitter

A third option for allowing students to receive course news and announcements via text message is to setup a Twitter account for the class where news and announcements will be posted and then make use of Twitter’s built-in follow via sms feature.  I gave this a try for my Illinois Online Network Spring 2011 “Social Networking in Online Learning” advanced online seminar.  This course introduced Twitter to students, so it made sense to try Twitter’s sms delivery capabilities.

I setup a Twitter account for the course at http://twitter.com/ionsn1111 where I posted course-related news and announcements.  I then posted the following message in Moodle for my students:

Are you the type of person that prefers to receive text messages over email? Did you know that you can receive our course news announcements that I post to Twitter at http://twitter.com/ionsn1111 also as text messages to your mobile phone? Simply text “follow @ionsn1111″ to 40404 to receive all future course announcements as text messages.

If you’d like to try out this feature of Twitter and then later no longer want to continue receiving the text messages, you can text “OFF @ionsn1111″ to 40404 and you’ll no longer receive the messages.

Here’s what the text message sent looks like, as well as the automated receipt send to subscribers confirming that they are subscribed. New subscribers also receive the latest message posted to the Twitter account for the class.

Students don’t need to have a Twitter account!  They will receive all future tweets posted to the class Twitter account as text messages.  Using Audioboo to tweet audio announcements, students in this course subscribed using via sms also received audio announcements!

This third option using Twitter is perhaps the simplest for the instructor as the students need to take the responsibility to follow the course Twitter via sms and the instructor simply posts to the class’ Twitter feed.  The drawbacks are that this approach doesn’t allow the instructor the flexibility to send a text message to an individual student and students can choose to un-follow course news via sms.

Overall Impressions

I’ve found my experiment with communicating with students via sms thus far to be a very positive one and I plan to continue making use of sms for communicating with my students in the future. I’m curious to hear at the end of the course feedback from my students who tried the texting experiment their thoughts on the value of texting in fostering social presence in our online community.  I’ll be collecting feedback from my students and will continue to refine my texting practices and plan to share my findings in the future.

I’d love to hear from others who also are using text messaging in their teaching. Do you currently make use of text messages in your teaching?  If so, what work flow works best for you?

Also, if you found my instructions here useful, leave me a comment and let me know your experience!

NCES has just released a new web application, the Elementary/Secondary Information System (ELSi). ELSi is comprised of three separate tools, which allow users to quickly view public and private school data, view commonly requested tables and create custom tables and charts using data from the Common Core of Data (CCD) and Private School Survey (PSS). ELSi utilizes frequently requested variables and tables—it’s a fast, easy way to obtain basic statistical data on U.S. schools. ELSi gives the user the ability to create customized tables by choosing row variables, column variables and filters to refine the data.

To view this new tool, visit: http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/elsi/

This web application is a product of the National Center for Education Statistics at the Institute of Education Sciences, part of the U.S. Department of Education.

Lawrence C. Ragan, Director of Faculty Development for Penn State’s World Campus, discusses their online instructor performance expectations. In this short video clip he shares the following general guidelines for PSU’s online faculty for teaching an online course:

1. Show up and teach
2. Monitor the learning experience for the students
3. Develop regular patterns of communications
4. Communicate to the learners if there are changes or adjustments to the activities or flow of the course
5. Respond to learner inquiries within 24 hours (12 hours if possible)
6. Be very concise and clear in feedback
7. Submit assignment and exam grades promptly (24-48 hours for assignments)
8. Communicate to learners when they can expect feedback from you
9. Use communication tools from within the learning management system
10. Ensure a quality learning experience by correcting errors in course materials as soon as possible
11. Have a good relationship with your institutional support services
12. Have ready and reliable access to your online course

What additional performance recommendations would you recommend for online faculty? Leave a comment with your suggestions!

Google recently announced Google Buzz, a new microblogging tool integrated within Gmail designed for starting conversations about the things you find interesting. Here’s a quick video introduction to Google Buzz:

It will be interesting to see how Google Buzz can be leveraged for learning opportunities. Since Google Buzz is integrated in Gmail, you won’t have to create a new account or password to use it. This should make Buzz easily accessible to students and teachers that are using Gmail but yet at the same time will isolate users who don’t or choose not to have a Gmail account.

What are your thoughts about Google Buzz? Might you consider trying it either Buzz in your classroom?

I just found Diigo Educator Accounts, which are special premium accounts provided specifically to K-12 & higher-ed educators. Once your Diigo Educator application is approved, your account will be upgraded to have these additional features:

• You can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
• Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums.
• Privacy settings of student accounts are pre-set so that only teachers and classmates can communicate with them.
• Ads presented to student account users are limited to education-related sponsors.

Learn more >>

I’ve personally applied for my own educator account upgrade and I encourage anyone else with a Diigo account to do the same. In doing so, you’ll be able to continue to use your Diigo account that you’ve already setup but you’ll have additional teacher-only features that may be even more helpful to you and your students as you use Diigo in your teaching.

You can find me on Diigo at diigo.com/user/jrhode

Google Wave is a

…web-based application that represents a rethinking of electronic communication. Users create online spaces called “waves,” which include multiple discrete messages and components that constitute a running, conversational document. Users access waves through the web, resulting in a model of communication in which rather than sending separate copies of multiple messages to different people, the content resides in a single space. Wave offers a compelling platform for personal learning environments because it provides a single location for collecting information from diverse sources while accommodating a variety of formats, and it makes interactive coursework a possibility for nontechnical students. Wave challenges us to reevaluate how communication is done, stored, and shared between two or more people (7 Things You Should Know About Google Wave).

Google Wave is currently only available in a limited preview but I’ve been fortunate to receive access. I’m personally using Wave to design a new online social networking course that I am working on developing for the Illinois Online Network and am finding the tool to have a lot of potential! More about that project in another post.

I have received a few invites that I can give out to others who would like to try to Google Wave. If you’d be interested in giving Google Wave a try, please leave a comment here with the email address you’d like to have the invite sent to and if I still have an invite available, I’ll send one your way!

From time to time I’m asked what books I recommend for someone interested in learning more about Web design. For those interested in a bit more step-by-step guidance with the basics of Web design, here are two books that I have in my personal library and I highly recommend.

Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to (X)HTML, Style Sheets, and Web Graphics (3rd ed.). ISBN 10: 0-596-52752-7

This thoroughly revised edition teaches you how to build web sites according to modern design practices and professional standards. Learning Web Design explains:

• How to create a simple (X)HTML page, how to add links and images
• Everything you need to know about web standards — (X)HTML, DTDs, and more
• Cascading Style Sheets — formatting text, colors and backgrounds, using the box model, page layout, and more
• All about web graphics, and how to make them lean and mean through optimization
• The site development process, from start to finish
• Getting your pages on the Web — hosting, domain names, and FTP

Learning Web Design starts from the beginning — defining how the Web and web pages work — and builds from there. By the end of the book, you’ll have the skills to create multi-column CSS layouts with optimized graphic files, and you’ll know how to get your pages up on the Web.

The book includes exercises to help you to learn various techniques, and short quizzes to make sure you’re up to speed with key concepts. If you’re interested in web design, Learning Web Design is the place to start.

• Read the complete Table of Contents
• Buy it at O’Reilly.com

The Non-Designer’s Web Book: An Easy Guide to Creating, Designing, and Posting Your Own Web Site (3rd ed.). ISBN: 0-321-30337-7

If you think web design is beyond your reach, or if you want your existing web site to look more professional, this thoroughly updated classic is the place to turn! In these pages, best-selling authors Robin Williams and John Tollett share the creative ideas, useful techniques, and basic design principles that are essential to great Web design-all in the context of the most current technology, software, and standards. Throughout, the authors’ aim is to inspire you and spark your creativity rather than sedate you with pages and pages of code. To that end, you’ll find loads of real-world examples, interesting illustrations, and the simple instructions you need to implement the techniques and concepts described in these pages.

• Read sample chapter, "What are Web pages anyway?"
• But it a Peachpit.com

Blogs have become common tools for communicating and collaborating online. While setting up a blog takes only a matter of minutes, effectively incorporating blogs into online teaching requires purposeful planning and structuring of activities to leverage the power that blogging brings to the learning environment. This presentation I gave at the 2009 SLATE Conference shared the experiences of incorporating instructor and student blogs into an online course as well as practical recommendations for those considering utilizing blogs in online learning. Sample instructor and student blogs as well as activities designed specifically for blogs were reviewed.

In addition to recording the session using a FlipVideo camera and sharing via Vimeo as well as a podcast in iTunes, I also experimented with live streaming the session using Twitcam. My colleague, Stephanie Richter, moderated the live stream / Twitter comments. The interactive online handout contains all the links, screen shots, and examples that I shared and/or referenced. Enjoy!

Cite this presentation as:

Rhode, J. F., & Richter, S. L. (2009, Oct. 16). Blogger beware: Teaching with blogs best practices. Presented at the 2009 SLATE Conference, Chicago, IL