I was extremely lucky to spend part of my Tuesday in Morro Bay, CA with members of the MITE team. Loredana, another intern from Poly, and I carpooled up to meet with the team during a meeting, have some lunch and talk about technology and education (shocking!) and get to know each other.
As a high school student I had a few lame part time jobs, bottom of the food chain type positions where my superiors liked me but I was replaceable and we all knew it. MITE, however, welcomed their two students like we had been with them for years. It was an incredible feeling having several experienced professionals not only ask serious questions about what I've been working on but to then complement my work and discuss future potential. Top it off with a great lunch and delivery of a paycheck, it was a full afternoon.
One of our discussion topics after lunch turned to the question of how often am I using technology for things completely outside my education. And I realized...almost always! My major is fairly lab and computer intensive and so when I am at school I can be found working on a press, sitting behind a big Apple monitor, proofing sheets, etc. But once I leave it pretty much stops. I may have lab assignment to finish at home, work on a document in Photoshop or Illustrator, but that's it. I program things into my GPS unit, send my lovely girlfriend text messages on my phone, carry my laptop on campus to check email, design webpages at home for my ska band, post comments on Digg...notice anything? Though all of those things are pretty enjoyable, the entire reason I live in San Luis Obispo is to go to school but it seems like once I'm off campus that experience stops.
7/26/07
7/8/07
MyROC? ROCbook? Something like that.
I think I have laid down the foundation of what I would like to see in the online student-professor environment, I figure I can lay down my "dream system" for stimulating online communication at the academic level.
Right now I only have to remember my Cal Poly email address and my password. That aspect can stay the same, adding additional user names and more passwords and authentication systems would only make things challenging. Students, professors and administrators would all be able to log on. Just like we invite our friends to events and form social networks, professors would establish online groups for individual classes, allowing students to get in touch with the entire class and an instructor from a single webpage. Message boards and folders to upload content would allow discussion and collaboration for labs and projects, leading to peer evaluation and a stronger group dynamic. Professors can upload resources such as lecture notes, podcasts of lectures, relevant external links (to NROC?) and provide feedback on student discussions. Online assignments/assesments would be a possibility, allowing busy students more flexibility in their study schedule. Professors could even create a hybrid environment that allows students to take the class while on a campus while other students are taking the class remotely, all contributing and sharing with each other via this online hub.
A system like this could really be quite simple, it doesn't need to be complex. It shares some similarities with school networks already in use and could make use of the great features developed by NROC, specifically the robust social network and online database.
This may be a ways off and surely would be a large undertaking, but it sure would be nice.
Right now I only have to remember my Cal Poly email address and my password. That aspect can stay the same, adding additional user names and more passwords and authentication systems would only make things challenging. Students, professors and administrators would all be able to log on. Just like we invite our friends to events and form social networks, professors would establish online groups for individual classes, allowing students to get in touch with the entire class and an instructor from a single webpage. Message boards and folders to upload content would allow discussion and collaboration for labs and projects, leading to peer evaluation and a stronger group dynamic. Professors can upload resources such as lecture notes, podcasts of lectures, relevant external links (to NROC?) and provide feedback on student discussions. Online assignments/assesments would be a possibility, allowing busy students more flexibility in their study schedule. Professors could even create a hybrid environment that allows students to take the class while on a campus while other students are taking the class remotely, all contributing and sharing with each other via this online hub.
A system like this could really be quite simple, it doesn't need to be complex. It shares some similarities with school networks already in use and could make use of the great features developed by NROC, specifically the robust social network and online database.
This may be a ways off and surely would be a large undertaking, but it sure would be nice.
6/30/07
Just a little more.
I think that as I write for this blog I'll devote each post to a very specific idea, hopefully keeping my thoughts a little more cohesive. Now that I've finished my first year of college the thing that is most clear to me is that the time I spend online for school is very one-sided, that is, there is almost no interactivity. If I have to login to my Portal (Poly's online network) than it is typically just to check for email from a professor, see if test grades or posted or start planning a schedule for the upcoming quarter.
I wouldn't consider Poly's system bad, everything I have ever needed to do online has worked quite well, however, I would definitely consider it under used. Friends of mine in the College of Engineering are participating in online discussion groups about projects, taking online quizzes that provide instant feedback and submitting assignments digitally. Many of these professors have a highly technical background and can manage the content and information necessary to make this happen. Over in the College of Liberal Arts the situation is quite different, I rarely find more than grades.
To sum things up, instances such as this call for software intended for educators not to necessarily substitute classroom content but to facilitate online communication with students. Some professors, though highly skilled in a particular field, may not have extensive computer skills or may have too heavy a workload to manage physical and virtual classrooms. Mass market online communities like Facebook and MySpace posses some of the necessary qualities: they are very easy to use, allow a wealth of media to be easily shared among a group of people and allow easy communication between large groups. If a product could be produced that takes some of these qualities but tailors them to education, distributing Word documents and Keynote/Powerpoint slides, Flash tutorials, etc., then studying for an exam of collaborating with other students could change radically and lead to increased productivity for both students and professors.
I wouldn't consider Poly's system bad, everything I have ever needed to do online has worked quite well, however, I would definitely consider it under used. Friends of mine in the College of Engineering are participating in online discussion groups about projects, taking online quizzes that provide instant feedback and submitting assignments digitally. Many of these professors have a highly technical background and can manage the content and information necessary to make this happen. Over in the College of Liberal Arts the situation is quite different, I rarely find more than grades.
To sum things up, instances such as this call for software intended for educators not to necessarily substitute classroom content but to facilitate online communication with students. Some professors, though highly skilled in a particular field, may not have extensive computer skills or may have too heavy a workload to manage physical and virtual classrooms. Mass market online communities like Facebook and MySpace posses some of the necessary qualities: they are very easy to use, allow a wealth of media to be easily shared among a group of people and allow easy communication between large groups. If a product could be produced that takes some of these qualities but tailors them to education, distributing Word documents and Keynote/Powerpoint slides, Flash tutorials, etc., then studying for an exam of collaborating with other students could change radically and lead to increased productivity for both students and professors.
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