Innovations in Online Learning » Miscellaneous

Technology Made Easy: Teaching Tools for Instructors

david wolf — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 14:53:17 +0000

Instructors Notes for Student-Created Content Mapblogs v 2.0 on Prezi

For instructors to maintain a presence and foster a mentoring relationship in their courses, they don’t want to spend the majority of their time trying to learn a new technology. Because the online environment is in a constant state of flux, it might seem like there is always something new to learn about – and that requires an investment of time, which is in short supply for most of us these days. Our new courses at CDL include Instructor Notes, informational materials written specifically for instructors to allow ease with the new teaching tools and resources. Providing this instructional material to instructors may seem redundant at first, but it allows our teachers to spend more time focusing on their students, and less time troubleshooting new technology.

The use of the Mapblog in courses offers a unique example. Because the Mapblog tool has been upgraded over time, it now includes that many more features and can therefore be daunting to new, or even seasoned instructors who are not consistently working with the tool. To address this issue, now included with the upgrade to the new mapblogs, CDL has released interactive instructional material for instructors that quickly review the pedagogical principles of the mapblog, offers tips for grading, and provides instructions for getting started.

An Authentic Learning Experience for a Science Course Using Second Life

audeliz matias — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:54:57 +0000

Instructor(L) with student at the Victorian bedroom that leads to the transformation station.

Things have changed dramatically since the economist Edward Castranova wrote his seminal work Synthetic Worlds in 2005, which made predictions on the emergence of virtual worlds based on a rising real economy in virtual games. Many higher education institutions, particularly those involved in online learning, have discovered the great potential that virtual environments, such as Second Life, bring to their programs.

In The Future of Being Human, we use Second Life to create an embodied transformation in which students can experience a transformation of their virtual selves, transport to various worlds and explore future, past and imagined worlds. For this activity, the College has created a replica of one it’s beautiful Victorian buildings (28 Union Avenue, Saratoga Springs , NY ). The virtual building houses a “transformation station” which will transform students into differently-abled avatars (from human to animal to cyborg). An interactive transportation HUD (heads up display) will transport students to different locations to conduct experiments using the scientific method as they explore various worlds and their technologies.

As with any experiement, students approach this activity using the scientific method. They are required to develop two hypotheses before they start the experiment about: the world(s) they expect to see and the technologies they chose to use; and their experience as an avatar in Second Life. Then, they participate in the activity making observations based on these two hypotheses.

The Future of Being Human was developed under the Science and Math Project (SMP) funded by the Charitable Leadership Foundation. To learn more about the project visit ESC’s SMART Site.

Where Second Life and Real Life Meet

david wolf — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:42:37 +0000

Empire State College participated in the annual Saratoga ArtsFest in June 09 with its exhibit Art Across Boundaries: Virtually Real and Really Virtual.

This event used the Second Life platform to simultaneously feature artists performing at the festival while their Second Life avatar broadcast their performance in real time through Second Life at the 28 Union building on ESC Island. Taking advantage of the global use of SL, the event began with classically trained vocalist Jaynine Scarborough (Juliane Gabreil) performing live in Germany, while her music streams live in Second Life through her virtual avatar. Large projection screens allow an audience in Saratoga to watch the Second Life avatars performances, while participants in Germany could watch the live performance and the SL performance.

Next, professional Argentine tango dancers David Wolf, of the Saratoga SAVOY, and Jackie Lin Wong of TangoPulse performed several dances ranging from the traditional melody ‘Lo Pasado Paso’ by Fransisco Canaro to the more contemporary ‘Cuoro Sacro’ by Andrea Guerra. Finally, the event ended with Sonny and Perley performing international cabaret. Their performance included Perley singing Brazilian melodies in Portugeuse, French melodies, as well as songs in English.

The event was held at the Empire State College (ESC) Alumni House, at 28 Union location in Saratoga Springs, and the ESC Alumni House virtual counterpart. The virtual audience included members from three continents.

Human Conflict & Cooperation – It's Evolutionary!

Bob Kester — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:37:52 +0000

Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud

Evolutionary Psychology: the Context

Evolutionary Psychology is a course that focuses explicitly on social behavior and how evolutionary pressures may have selected for both conflict and cooperation between humans. Throughout, theoretical analyses are integrated with empirical studies to demonstrate how evolutionary psychology can be applied to significant human concerns. Students must master foundational textbooks and apply course content to current events and the observation of behavior in daily life.

The course’s culminating essay integrates scientific literature, current events, and personal observations, while challenging students to reconstruct their views of human behavior from an evolutionary perspective and develop a new constructive perspective solidly grounded in theory, evidence and direct observation.

The Activity: People Watch Journals

Students support their contributions to class discussions with direct observations of people in public places, in films and advertising media. They collect ‘data’ by systematically engaging in ‘field observations’ and then post their observations weekly as a journal entry to inform the discussions. The goal of the discussions is to encourage students to develop the ability to conceptualize and analyze human behavior in terms of evolutionary psychology and then link those analyses to observable human behavior in real-life situations.

The People Watch Journals are regular assignments in which students share, discuss and analyze one another’s real-life observations, employing new concepts as they are introduced throughout the course.

Module	Journal Prompt
Module 1 Intro and Overview	Find a setting where behavior influenced by natural selection might be observed, such as parties, committee meetings, children at play (3 year olds are best; teenagers are good too).Organize the notes from your field observations and enter them into your journal. Focus on describing what you see and the context in which you made the observations. This need not be anything elaborate, a paragraph or two is enough. (Note: this paragraph is repeated in each prompt.)
Module 2 The Evolution of Cognitive Processes	The task here is to search your daily life for evidence of apparent remnants of the hunting gathering lifestyle of our ancestors. I can imagine that organized sport, hunting, fishing and camping provide rich grounds for collecting such anecdotes. The day-to-day lives of children might also provide fertile ground.
Module 3 Sexual Selection and the Challenges of Mating	Pay attention to how people present themselves in ordinary day-to-day situations in terms of behavior, dress, and the use of jewelry and cosmetics. Write down one or more descriptions of one or more interactions that illustrate how males and females react to each other at a non-verbal level.
Module 4 Parenting and Kinship: The Basis of Society	While in the mall or in the grocery store, observe and later write a posting in your journal of observations of parent-child conflict that can be analyzed in terms of Triver’s theory.
Module 5 Cooperation and Competition: The Foundation of Social Life	Pay attention to how people manage conflict in daily life. For example, how do people react when others cut in front of them in line, or how do adults react when teenagers slouch in their presence? (a very subtle display of disrespect, with overtones of a threat).
Module 6 Organizing Social Activity: Status, Prestige and Social Dominance	Whenever two or more people come together, there are almost constant battles over dominance. Watch and listen, searching for little demonstrations of status seeking. Try viewing casual conversation as a stage for dominance displays. Write down one or more descriptions of one or more interactions that illustrate how males and females react to each other at a non verbal level.
Module 7 Primates on Facebook: A World to Which We Are Not Adapted	Collect field observations to support the points you want to develop in your culminating essay. At this point in the history of Evolutionary Psychology, careful observations under well defined naturalistic conditions can still make a real contribution. You have had the opportunity to develop substantial skills as an observer; put those skills to work.