Data-driven Applications in Teaching and Learning
Access a UMConnect recording of the seminar, or subscribe to the podcast or vodcast.
By Tonu Mikk
New technologies create new opportunities to engage students. Each year TEL Grant recipients focus their energy on creating learning applications that are innovative, support learning, and motivate students. At the heart of these new technologies is data, which can be used in many different ways to enhance teaching and learning. In many cases, databases make it possible for new educational technologies to be dynamic and interactive. Databases make it possible to collect, organize and present information in novel and engaging ways. Through the collection of Web site data instructors can learn more about students' learning styles and revise learning activities accordingly. Regardless of what data is used for, it is often employed to increase student engagement.
During this TEL Seminar session, panelists will discuss how they developed databases and data mashups to create multimedia learning opportunities, a repository of case studies, an internet mapping application and online learning style models to promote authentic, engaged learning in varied modalities.
Seminar
February 4, 2009
12:00–1:30 p.m.
402 Walter Library, Minneapolis (East Bank)
Moderator:
Tonu Mikk, Digital Media Center, Office of Information Technology, Twin Cities campus
Panelists:
Jonathan S. Schilling, Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences, Twin Cities campus • Denise A. Guerin, Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel, College of Design, Twin Cities campus • Caren S. Martin, Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel, College of Design, Twin Cities campus • Steven M. Manson, Department of Geography, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities campus • Brenda Kayzar, Department of Geography, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities campus • Pamela A. Solvie, Elementary Education Program, Division of Education, Morris campus
Campus Projects
Jonathan Schilling is creating a Web-enabled database for gathering and displaying wood deterioration examples. Denise Guerin and Caren Martin are studying what formats of presentation delivery on the web may work the best. Steven Manson and Brenda Kayzar are creating an interactive mapping application. Pamela Solvie has created a site that enables teachers to learn about their learning styles, and they then can apply this knowledge in their teaching.
Readings
The following readings may help you prepare for the TEL seminar.
Chang, Rosemary, Gregor Kennedy and Tom Petrovic. “Web 2.0 and User-Created Content: Students Negotiating Shifts in Academic Authority.” ascilite: Proceedings. Melbourne: Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, 2008. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/chang.pdf
Do students undermine the instructor's authority when they contribute to class content? What are the benefits of user-generated content in the classroom? The authors conducted a study of students who created their own podcasts and examined how students responded to the shift in authority from instructor to student. Students did perceive that the instructor-created content was superior to the content students created for their peers. However, the authors found the main benefit of user-generated content is the learning that occurs as a result of the creation process rather than from the product.
Lamb, Brian. “Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix” Educause Review. 42, no. 4 (July/August 2007): 12—25.
Data mashups and content remixes have tremendous educational potential that has yet to be realized. The author of this article advises that educators can learn from past experiences with learning objects, which also had great promise but for many had disappointing results. Lamb argues that in order for an economy of mashups and Web 2.0 technologies to succeed, campuses should cultivate “open and discoverable resources, open and transparent licensing, and open and remixable formats” and a “more freewheeling approach to content reuse.”
New Media Consortium. “User-Created Content.” The Horizon Report. Stanford, CA: The New Media Consortium, 2007. 9—11. http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf
Not that long ago the Horizon Report anticipated that emerging technologies would enable both instructors and students to take more control over teaching and learning and to “contribute, communicate and collaborate.” This overview of user-generated content in education provides insight on benefits to students, including: low-cost, low-risk opportunities to develop skills, comparing their own work to the work of their peers, and creating connections in a learner-centered community.
O'Connor, Terry. “Using Learning Styles to Adapt Technology for Higher Education.” Equity and Excellence in Higher Education. http://iod.unh.edu/EE/articles/learning-styles.html. (Accessed Janary 16, 2009).
The basis of a learning styles approach to teaching and learning is the belief that people have different preferences and natural dispositions that make some methods of acquiring knowledge more successful than others. The research tries to identify teaching methods that are most successful to groupings of people with similar learning styles. Instructors can develop learning activities that better adapted to varied learning styles. The author provides varied teaching strategies and examples of the ways in which technology can be used to implement those strategies.
