Mixable-Combining Social Media and Academics-An Emerging Technology

Have you heard about Mixable?   Introduced last year at Purdue University, it is an online web application that students can use to network, complete, assignments, and gain assistance on Facebook and Twitter.  In fact, it is somewhat similar to blackboard.  The major difference is that it is an app on Facebook, the courses never go away after the semester ends, and you can access it directly from your smart phone! 

                                        

There were a total of 150 who took part in the pilot program which was a success!  Since releasing the application, Professors have noticed that more students take part in asking questions versus the normal face-to-face traditional setting, where some students may have been too shy. 

So what about the opportunity for students to cheat on assignments?  Kyle Bowen, the Project Manager of Mixable, states that the concern of cheating will exist no matter the technology, but no student can log on to Mixable completely anonymously; a student id is attached to every user. There are several articles online that discuss this new emerging technology.  Information contained in this blog can be found at WLFI18.com.

Although, this has not broadened to K-12 and Higher Education institutions around the country, it is definitely something to look out for in the next couple of years.  I emailed Kyle Bowen to get his thoughts on Mixable extending to other learning institutions-at this time I have not received a response.

For more information regarding this emerging technology, please view my Graduate Student Presentation link in the discussion board.

E-Portfolios and You

As a teacher or even a practitioner in a different field of work, do you keep track of your achievements?  These achievements can be seminars or workshops you have conducted or attended, newspaper clippings in which you are included in the articles, your teaching license, current certifications, and etc.  In a nutshell a portfolio can illustrate your personal and professional growth.

I revisit my 3 ring-binder portfolio perhaps once a year, considering I have been out of teaching since 2006.  I have certificates, newspaper articles, performance appraisals, conferences I have attended, articles, my current teaching license, copy of certifications, and past transcripts in my portfolio.  Right now it is located in my office at home. But as technology has advanced so has portfolios.  In fact, a lot of people are using the web to create e-portfolios. 

Think about all the features you could use for an e-portfolio.  You could add videos of yourself teaching your students (an online observation if you will) and instead of making copies of all of your certificates and achievements you could scan and upload the documents to your personal e-portfolio website.  Not to mention, you don’t have to go through the hassle of finding where you put your portfolio last because you can just use your url time and time again.

Learning how to create a e-portfolio is also a great unit to introduce to students when covering web essentials. Take the survey to the right of the page and let me know your position on e-portfolios. 

 

What's RIGHT about Copyright?

Where we would be without copyright laws?  Well for starters anyone could take anyone's work without any problems.  Sounds like legal plagiarism to me. We have all seen the copyright symbol (pictured left) but I wonder how many people really abide by copyright laws.   

According to (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008) whether you copy pages from text, music from a CD, or multimedia clips from the Internet, you may be in violation of copyright laws. As the authors mentioned someone put their time, energy, and creative talent into the product that they have created and has the complete right to decide how it is to be used and to profit from his or her work.

I think about ethics when I think about copyright laws.  If it is not correct, then don't do it-don't violate it.  Please allow me to help.  Use the three guidelines below and consider these facts regarding copyright laws:

             1. If you are an educator, you are not granted special permission to buy one license of a
                 particular product, make copies, and distribute to your entire class or school;

             2. Do not place your students work online without permission; and

             3. All info on the Internet is copyrighted in some way, regardless if you see the copyright sign
                 or not-don't take it for granted.

Perhaps number one and number two are the most important points to remember.  As current or former teachers you should be aware of purchasing a certain licenses for educational purposes. in addition, you should  also be aware that the "how many" question is always asked.  Purchasing one license and supplying the software to more than one is unethical.  In Why Teachers Violate Copyright (2008), it is explained that a school district in Texas purchased a single copy of a high-stakes assessment workbook for each grade level, then sent the copies to the district print shop. The print shop duplicated a copy for each student in the district. The copyright owner found out, and sued the district, alleging $7 million in damages!!!!  Be careful not to put you or your school system in this situation. To be on the safe side, use fair use judgement before proceeding in situations like this.

Secondly, refer back to number 2 (one cannot reproduce, distribute, or electronically transmit the work of others without their permission).  This seems easy, makes a lot of sense actually.  As a teacher have you ever posted your students work online without their parents permission? If so, avoid doing it again.  Remember, you must gain the permission of the student and the parent or legal guardian before doing so.

Abiding by copyright isn't hard...just avoid doing the wrong things.

References

Garner, T.  (2008).  Why teachers violate copyright? National Council of Teachers of English.  Retrieved on March 9, 2011 from http://ncteinbox.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-i-have-violated-copyright.html. 

Lever-Duffy, J. and McDonald, J. (2008).  Teaching and learning with technology.  3rd edition.  New York:  Pearson 

Is Social Media Leaving YOU Behind?

We all know that technology is changing on a daily basis.  Did you know that social networks and blogs are the 4th most popular online activities?  Did you know that social media is the hottest internet search, surpassing all others.  Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and if face book was a country, it would be about the equal size of the United States? Don't believe it?  Check out this video by Flashpoint Communications.

Educators should jump on board and incorporate social media into their classrooms.  Blogs are a great start and just the beginning.  Incorporating technology into the classroom is a standard but incorporating some of the latest technologies surpasses the standard.  As a result, your students will not only learn, which is the ultimate goal, but love and respect the fact that even when they were learning, they were enjoying it!