Techfoot

ELI7014.pdf (application/pdf Object)

The Educause Learning Initiative produces a series of short handouts that provide concise information on emerging learning practices and technologies like podcasting, wikis, and “little clickers.” Each brief focuses on a single practice or technology and describes what it is, how it works, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. The most recent entry is on Google Jockeying.

A Google jockey is a participant in a presentation or class who surfs the Internet for terms, ideas, Web sites, or resources mentioned by the presenter or related to the topic. The jockey’s searches are displayed simultaneously with the presentation, helping to clarify the main topic and extend learning opportunities.

Not sure that I see wide adoption of this one at W&M, but it’s an interesting thought in light of the fears of many faculty that students won’t use their notebooks at all for class related work.

Link to: 2 Cents Worth » OK, No More Staff Development

David Warlick’s recent post suggests replacing the notion of a staff development plan for schools considering 1:1 computer or tablet initiatives with a more comprehensive concept of creating a staff development infrastructure. That infrastructure would include some key components of building ongoing communities of practice where teachers could support each other in managing their own learning:

• Have the time to reflect and retool (at least three hours a day),
• Have ready access to local and global ideas and resources that are logically and socially indexed,
• Have the skills to research, evaluate, collaborate, remix, and implement new tools and techniques (contemporary literacy),
• Are part of an ongoing professional conversation where the expressed purpose is to provoke change (adapt),
• Leave the school from time to time to have their heads turned by new experiences,
• Share what they and their students are doing with what they teach and learn — their information products and relics of learning become an explicit and irresistibly interwoven part of the school’s culture.

Back in the olden days I did lots of workshops on professional development for student affairs folks in higher education based on my dissertation research. One of the points that I made in those workshops was that professional development was more about the attitude of continually extracting and sharing meaning from the work they were doing than it was about participating in activities. David’s list is an excellent summary of how to operationalize that attitude using a set of tools that we weren’t even dreaming about back in 1991.

It would be interestsing to reframe this list to clearly articulate how we could use these tools in build that culture at William and Mary to support our 1:1 computing initiative.

The Highly Designed Dorm Room

One of the highlights of working with students in our fall startup program has been watching the interaction among students and parents in decorating their rooms. Can’t say that I’ve seen anything like this, though.

Patrick Baglino, a Dupont Circle designer, works with multimillion-dollar budgets. He’s decorated mansions in Spring Valley, New York lofts in SoHo, homes in Kalorama and Georgetown, waterfront condos in Florida. He also does dorm rooms.

A recent makeover for two friends at Georgetown University included Ralph Lauren bed linens, window treatments from Anthropologie and a $1,200 Angela Adams carpet. Total price: about $5,000, not including Baglino’s fees.

One interesting statisic was that the average entering freshman spends $1,200 on school items. (This must exclude computers, I would think.) Aggregate figures are pretty impressive:

The breakdown: $7.5 billion on electronics, $8.8 billion on textbooks, $3.2 billion on clothing and accessories, $2.6 billion on dorm or apartment furnishings, $2.1 billion on school supplies, and $1.5 billion on shoes.