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Collaboration tool enables productive teamwork across distances

Video Conferencing
 Patrice Clemson at Penn State Beaver uses Adobe Connect, a Web-based videoconferencing application, to reach students at a distance and facilitate team collaboration. Over the last two years, she has gradually incorporated more of the tool’s versatile features into her information sciences and technology courses to aid communication with and among students.

In fall 2006, Clemson used Connect to hold online office hours with a student located at Penn State Shenango who was taking an individualized programming course. Because the application allows users to share their computer desktop with others, she said, “He could show me problems he was having with program code, we could work through it together, he could hand me control of the desktop, and I could help him fix his program. It worked out really well.”

Creating podcasts for others boosts concern for issues, scientific knowledge

mashups
Podcasting
 Laura Guertin at Penn State Brandywine uses podcasting and Google Earth in her earth and geoscience courses to help students grasp science principles. She has discovered that when students use these technologies, the quality of their science improves, they care more deeply about the subject matter, and they are eager to share their learning with a wider audience.

In 2005, Guertin began to record her classroom lectures in MP3 format. She makes them available to students via iTunes U (https://itunes.psu.edu/), allowing them to engage in course content outside class.

Students gain production skills expected in field of communications

Podcasting
 Kathleen Taylor Brown at Penn State Greater Allegheny helps communications students gain a competitive edge in the industry by both grounding them in theoretical foundations and having them plan and produce podcasts and videos.

Today’s journalism, she says, is often “backpack journalism.” Communications professionals who were once supported by production crews now often carry their own cameras and microphones and record, edit, and produce their own pieces. “You may be both in front of the camera and behind it,” explained Brown. “It’s not just writing the copy anymore; it’s writing, producing, and putting that end product out there,” she said.

Podcasts, vodcasts allow students to review concepts on the go

Podcasting
 Greg Pierce in the Smeal College of Business reinforces concepts in his Finance 100 course by augmenting class meetings and textbook readings with podcasts and vodcasts (video podcasts). This allows students to review course material on an MP3 player or computer at any time or place.

Pierce said he decided to create podcasts of his lectures out of a “a sense that students are always on the go and could use supplemental material to enhance their learning.” In summer 2006, he signed up for the Podcasts at Penn State pilot (http://podcasts.psu.edu/) and easily learned to use ProfCast software, allowing him to record narration and synch it with his class PowerPoint slides to create “enhanced” podcasts. He posted his podcasts at Penn State on iTunes U (https://itunes.psu.edu/).

Student philosophers build critical thinking, writing skills through blogging

blogging
 Christopher Long in the College of the Liberal Arts teaches “Tragedy, Comedy, Politics” and “20th Century Philosophy” courses. To help students develop their critical thinking and writing skills, he asks each student to create a blog on which they post assignments. The blogs allow students to write for a broader audience than their instructor alone and encourage them to develop a unique voice. Long’s ability to provide regular, dynamic feedback helps students grow as writers and thinkers.

Teachers in training helped to reflect on practice in greater depth

Carla Zembal-Saul and Scott McDonald in the College of Education teach courses on methods of science teaching. As one activity, students record videos of themselves teaching lessons to their classmates or in school settings. They are then asked to analyze the videos to reflect on their teaching practice. Now these future science teachers are able to reflect in a deeper, more meaningful way, using a video tagging and analysis application called Studiocode.

In the past, said McDonald, students would watch a video, then use iMovie to compile a clip of highlights with commentary. McDonald would then watch the clip and provide feedback. “But it was just a one-on-one interaction between the instructor and the student,” he said. Studiocode has opened up that interaction to allow dialogue with the entire class, say the two faculty.

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