From the CETL Library: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms

In a world of ever-growing technological opportunities, it can be overwhelming to consider implementing Internet technologies within your courses.  This book by Will Richardson offers thorough explanations on how to utilize a wide variety of technology-based tools to strengthen the teaching and learning experiences within your classroom.  Just glancing at the table of contents illustrates several different technologies that you may not have previously considered using as learning tools within your classroom.

 

These include:  

• Weblogs – a way to consider blogging with your students
• Wikis – an easy collaborative tool for sharing and editing
• Multimedia Publishing – including podcasting, video & screencasting, and live streaming 
• Social Networking – effectively using Facebook and Ning

These topics are then broken down into subcategories, each one contemplating the execution within your classroom and the effects that you can look for through their use. 

 

The final section of the book is reserved for discussing the impact of these tools on education.  Richardson considers the relevance of these tools as well as their effect on the learning process, the overall mastery of a subject, and the significance Internet technologies can have on students in their future careers.   He writes that within their careers, students will most likely be asked to work with others both close to them and from around the world.  They will be asked to read and write in linked environments so that they can perform, research, analyze, write about, and share online content.  “Compare that to an educational system that, by and large, asks those same students to work independently on paper for a very narrow audience (usually the teacher who gives the grade), and the disconnect becomes painfully clear.”

This book is written for novice or experienced technology users.  Richardson’s real-life classroom examples and how-to tips make it a great resource for those looking for relevant ways to incorporate technology and collaboration within their courses. 

  

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms can be found in the “Instructional Technology” section of the CETL library.

Written By: Jessica Moser

From the CETL Library: My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a student again?  Maybe you’ve contemplated the ways in which the world of education has changed since you left it as a student and entered it as an educator.  Perhaps the frustrations of watching your students’ strange habits, their seeming disinterest in your course, or their apparent lack of priorities have made you wonder what the heck is going on in their minds.  Rebekah Nathan wondered the same things.

“After more than fifteen years of university teaching, I found that students had become increasingly confusing to me.  Why don’t undergraduates ever drop by my office hours unless they are in dire trouble in a course?  Why don’t they respond to my (generous) invitations to do out-of-class research under my guidance?  How could some of my students never take a note during my big lecture class?  And what about those students who bring whole meals and eat and drink during my class?  Or those other students who seem to feel absolutely no embarrassment in putting their head or their feet on their desk and taking a nap during class?”

Teaching was becoming more difficult for Rebekah as understanding her students became more difficult.  She was faced with the challenge of attempting to teach to a population that was slowly becoming foreign to her.   So, as an anthropology professor and researcher, she decided to take things into her own hands and conduct a year-long research project in which she enrolled as a freshman student at the very university she worked at.

My Freshman Year is the result of her research findings through this study, and explores habits, routines, thought processes, and priorities of the college students she was surrounded by.  During her time spent as a student, she observed the ways that students handled stressed and balanced their schedules, she interviewed them on their professors and classes, and she participated in all aspects of the college life including classes, movie nights, residence hall activities, intramural sports, and living in the dorms.  Her results are certainly eye opening as well as entertaining.

To read more about Rebekah Nathan’s experience, head over to the CETL library and pick up a copy of My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student from the “Understanding the Student” section.

Written By: Jessica Moser

From the CETL Library: Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do

“People on the street may not have recognized the Vivaldi he was whistling, but they could tell he was whistling classical music.  This caused him to be seen differently, as an educated, refined person, not as a violence-prone African American youth.”

This book by Claude M. Steele provides an insightful look into the stereotypes surrounding us throughout our lives – both the ones that we ourselves emulate, and the ones we recognize in others.  Through several of his experimental studies on this subject, Steele suggests we look closely at the stereotypes we inherently see and consider the ways that we allow them to affect our perceptions.

Filled with several different case studies and social experiments, Steele has compiled a collection of experiences covering a wide range of populations including specific portions focused on race, gender, sexuality, age, and assigned groupings based on specific topics (i.e. “overestimators” vs “underestimators”).  Each of his studies showed a specific interest in how populations reacted to stereotypes that were either emphasized or smothered depending on the study.  The findings for each are fascinating and work to broaden our personal self-perceptions as well as our perceptions of others.

One such revelation stands out in particular when Steele specifically looks at the grade disparity seen between white and black students upon arriving to college despite having equal SAT or ACT scores.  After implementing several experimental testing situations, Steele discovered that black students tended to score lower on their college work.  Further exploration as well as Steele’s projected reasoning behind these lower scores can be found in chapters 2 and 3.

This book provides an interesting look into the circumstances that surround the stereotypes we have, the ways in which we use them, and the ways we allow stereotypes to affect different aspects of our lives.  A good read for anyone interested in the diversity they find within their classes, and how to become more aware of the ways their own perceptions affect the ways they teach in some way, shape, or form.

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do can be found in the “Diversity” section of the CETL library.

Review Provided By: Jessica Moser

From the CETL Library: Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

“To this day, when I speak, I find visual input to be distracting. […] That’s why I usually look somewhere neutral—at the ground of off into the distance—when I’m taking to someone.”

Published in 2007, this book isn’t one that is necessarily new to the scene of studies on autism spectrum disorders.  However, John Elder Robinson’s first-hand account of living with Asperger’s syndrome provides interesting insight into the learning experiences, struggles and accomplishments that accompany such a disorder.

As you may already know, Asperger’s syndrome was originally discovered in 1981 by Hans Asperger.  It was later added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1984 on the premises of Hans’ observations that children who were often intelligent with above average vocabulary skills exhibited autistic behaviors with pronounced deficiencies in social and communication skills.  Since then, research on Asperger’s and autism has expanded vastly, with recent findings discovering 1 in 150 people fall somewhere on the autism spectrum.  (Asperger’s was removed as a specified autism disorder in 2013, and was replaced with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder ranked on a severity scale.)

Why is this important to note?  Teachers are consistently told that they should get to know their students in order to build stronger rapport in their courses, thus increasing student motivation, participation, and achievement.  There’s no question that John Elder Robison’s autobiographical lens can be helpful to understanding autism spectrum disorders as he describes his own experiences growing up with the disorder, and thus lead to a deeper understanding of how to best reach students outside of the “neurotypical” population.

Most importantly, John Elder Robison’s story strengthens the need for differentiated instruction in classrooms.  Considering the best ways to understand, appreciate, and build upon student differences is one of the key ingredients to differentiating your curriculum, and getting a glimpse of a behind the scenes story provides a good way to gauge how to implement those concepts in your own ways.

A great read for those who are looking for a stronger understanding of their population of students, or are interested in reading a funny, descriptive, and memorable first-hand account of someone’s own experiences with an autism spectrum disorder.

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s can be found in the “Understanding the Student” section of the CETL library.

Review Provided By:  Jessica Moser