This will be another education-related post this week; it’s that point in the semester when I can pretty much only think about teaching. It’s all-encompassing until convocation on May 22!
I’m presenting on Saturday at the 13th CSU Symposium on University Teaching at CSU San Bernardino. My talk title is “Social Networking and Screencasts: A Powerful Combination.”
Some things have changed since I submitted my session proposal; I’m now using WordPress blogs to manage my classes, with help from Blackboard’s gradebook, and we’ve also learned that Ning – the site I planned to present about – will be eliminating free accounts. Ning may decide to offer some discounts or special programs for educators, but its path isn’t yet clear. So, my presentation will be a bit less definitive on the social networking angle than it might have been a month ago, but I hope I’ll still be able to offer my fellow CSU faculty some useful tools to consider for their own classrooms.
With regard to screencasts, I’m arguing that including them in a social networking-enabled course site, as I did on Ning, gives students not only the chance to benefit from multiple reviews of class content or demonstrations, but also the ability to discuss them with each other and the instructor at their leisure. The screencasts also save time for instructors and students on topics where multiple explanations are often necessary, as with some class procedures and content questions.
There are a number of other alternatives to Ning (a long crowdsourced list is here; the short list of possibilities I’d personally try is in this PDF handout). I’m sure some of these will offer a similar experience, and I’m also excited that many of them have mobile apps and texting capabilities so students can access their class materials and communicate with their classmates wherever they are.
Below are my slides and notes for the presentation. I welcome your feedback either before or after the talk!
Tags: education, screencast, social media, social networking, student engagement
