IACON 2011 – Enchanting you with Emerging Technologies to Enhance your Online Class

Thank you for attending or telling someone else about my presentation at the IACON 2011 Conference.  If you are interested in downloading the handout click here.  The handout is also below.

To get the link to the Prezi I used click here.

Enchanting You with Emerging Technologies

to Enhance your Online Class

IACON Annual Conference

Dan Petrak | Des Moines Area Community College | dgpetrak@dmacc.edu

Blog site: www.digitalagelearning.wordpress.com | Twitter handle: dgpetrak

April 15,2011 |Altoona, Iowa

The roles of the teacher and student are changing within today’s technologically enhanced learning environment.  Web sites, dynamic homework systems, gaming, projects and others tools are creating a more student centered learning environment.   Here are some questions to ask during and after the presentation.

How do these technologies change the learning experience for the student?

How do these technologies change the teaching experience for faculty?

 Online Office Hours with Wiziq.com:  Every Tuesday night at 9:00 PM CST, I host an online office hour for my students using a free online communication site called www.wiziq.com. This free communication tool is designed for teachers and students. You can host your own private sessions and share the link with your students or colleagues.  It is free for you and your students.  The only feature you may not get with the free version is recording of sessions.

Math videos on the web:  If students have questions I will point them to a video I find www.youtube.com .  One site I use in particular is http://www.khanacademy.org/   It means I don’t have to make a video for everything and honestly the ones online are usually better than mine.  This also encourages students to look beyond me for answers to their questions and equips them to learn after my class is over.  Here is the link to the Gates on Khan video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuMTSU9DcqQ .  They have now started creating an online homework system to go along with the videos!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw5k98GV7po

Alternative Content Delivery and Learning (www.spaceded.com): I have been taking several courses on http://www.spaceded.com/ .  This simple but effective learning site was created by Harvard Medical School.  I get a question or two sent to me daily and I try to answer them.  To retire a question, I must get them right a few times over several days.  Otherwise, I am directed to learning resources and will be given another chance at a later date.   There are not a lot of math classes, but these types of sites are growing and are a great way to help our students.

Wolfram Alpha www.wolframalpha.com : This is a free site that was launched May 2009.  It is a computation search engine a.k.a. answer engine.  This site has unbelievable capabilities in math, science, economics, and many other subjects.  Here is a link to a short video from the creator Steve Wolfram.  http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html .  I use this in my class all the time and it has replaced many things I used to do with my graphing calculator.  It also has an inexpensive mobile app for your smart phone.

Math Video Games: The genre of video games to learn is something that has been gaining momentum in the educational world.  The best compilation I have found of educational games is on Maria Andersen’s Teaching College Math Blog http://teachingcollegemath.com/games/ .  I use this site as a great resource and vehicle to constantly see what is new in the math teaching/learning world.  Here is the link to her Prezi about using games to learn http://prezi.com/f-5jvqydub8q/playing-to-learn-math-v2/ .

Valdosta State Math and Technology Conference 2011

Thank you to those in attendance at my breakout on Playing to Learn or my Keynote on the The Changing Learning Experience.  You can click here to get the .pdf document I handed out at the conference.  I believe all these changes are forcing us to think about what our role is in the experience of teaching and learning.  Here is the link to the prezi I used with the presentation.

The Changing Learning Experience: What is my role?

Sixteenth Annual VSU Mathematics Technology Conference

The roles of the teacher and student are changing within today’s technologically enhanced learning environment. Web sites, dynamic homework systems, gaming, projects and others tools are creating a more student centered learning environment. Here are some questions to ask during and after the presentation.

How do these technologies change the learning experience for the student?

How do these technologies change the teaching experience for faculty?

Screen Capture with Jing: This free software allows you to take pictures or movies of your computer screen and easily share them with your colleagues or students. Go to http://www.techsmith.com/jing/ to get your free download and account. You will also be given 2 gigabytes of storage/sharing space on www.screencast.com. Check out the video (2.5 minutes) demonstrating what Jing can do http://www.techsmith.com/jing/ .

Math videos on the web: If students have questions I will point them to a video I find www.youtube.com . One site I use in particular is http://www.khanacademy.org/ .  It means I don’t have to make a video for everything and honestly the ones online are usually better than mine. This also encourages students to look beyond me for answers to their questions and equips them to learn after my class is over. Here is the link to the Gates on Khan video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuMTSU9DcqQ . They have now started creating an online homework system to go along with the videos! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw5k98GV7po

Math Video Games: The genre of video games to learn is something that has been gaining momentum in the educational world.  The best compilation I have found of educational games is on Maria Andersen’s Teaching College Math Blog http://teachingcollegemath.com/games/ .  I use this site as a great resource and vehicle to constantly see what is new in the math teaching/learning world.  Here is the link to her Prezi about using games to learn http://prezi.com/f-5jvqydub8q/playing-to-learn-math-v2/ .

Alternative Content Delivery and Learning (www.spaceded.com): I have been taking several courses on http://www.spaceded.com/ .  This simple but effective learning site was created by Harvard Medical School.  I get a question or two sent to me daily and I try to answer them.  To retire a question, I must get them right a few times over several days.  Otherwise, I am directed to learning resources and will be given another chance at a later date.   There are not a lot of math classes, but these types of sites are growing and are a great way to help our students.

Wolfram Alpha www.wolframalpha.com : This is a free site that was launched May 2009.  It is a computation search engine a.k.a. answer engine.  This site has unbelievable capabilities in math, science, economics, and many other subjects.  Here is a link to a short video from the creator Steve Wolfram.  http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html .  I use this in my class all the time and it has replaced many things I used to do with my graphing calculator.  It also has an inexpensive mobile app for your smart phone.

AMATYC 2010- Emerging Technologies to Enhance your Math Course

Thank you all for attending my session or visiting this blog post.  Here is the link to the handout I used in the session. Please contact me or post here if you have any questions, suggestions or comments.

Here are the two questions I want you to ask yourself during this session?

How do these technologies change the learning experience for the student?

How do these technologies change the teaching experience for faculty?

Online office hours with www.wiziq.com: (Join me if you have a laptop and internet connection at www.tinyurl.com/petrakAMATYC ) This is a free and effective tool I use weekly to connect with my online and F2F students.  The environment features and interactive whiteboard, content sharing, chat, audio and video capabilities.  The session can automatically be recorded as well.  You will need the newest version of flash installed on your web browser.  http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Here is a link to my blogpost video on how I use wiziq.com.  Here is the link to the training document for faculty http://tinyurl.com/petrak-wiziq-faculty and one for student http://tinyurl.com/petrak-wiziq-student

Screen Capture with Jing:  This free software allows you to take pictures or movies of your computer screen and easily share them with your colleagues or students.  Go to http://www.techsmith.com/jing/ to get your free download and account.  You will also be given 2 gigabytes of storage/sharing space on www.screencast.com.   Check out the video (2.5 minutes) demonstrating what Jing can do on the http://www.techsmith.com/jing/ .

Here are the links to the training documents instructional designer at DMACC, Sara Hall, created with pictures http://tinyurl.com/petrak-jing-withpicts without pictures http://tinyurl.com/petrak-jing-text

Math videos on the web:  If students have questions I will point them to a video I find www.youtube.com .  One site I use in particular is http://www.khanacademy.org/ It means I don’t have to make a video for everything and honestly the ones online are usually better than mine.  This also encourages students to look beyond me for answers to their questions and equips them to learn after my class is over.

Math Video Games: The genre of video games to learn is something that has been gaining momentum in the educational world.  The best compilation I have found of educational games is on Maria Andersen’s Teaching College Math Blog http://teachingcollegemath.com/games/ .  I use this site as a great resource and vehicle to constantly see what is new in the math teaching/learning world.  Here is the link to her Prezi about using games to learn http://prezi.com/f-5jvqydub8q/playing-to-learn-math-v2/ .  Here is the link to the Factoris game we looked athttp://hotmath.com/hotmath_help/games/factortris/factortris_hotmath_sound.swf .

.

Alternative Content Delivery and Learning: I have been taking a course designed on http://www.spaceded.com/ by Maria Andersen called “Learn the Curves” http://www.spaceded.com/busynessgirl/courses/545-Learn-the-Curves.  I get a question or two sent to me daily and I try to answer them.  If I get them right, the question is retired.  If I get them wrong, it points me to learning resources and will ask me again another day.

Wolfram Alpha www.wolframalpha.com : This is a free site that was launched May 2009.  It is a computation search engine a.k.a. answer engine.  This site has unbelievable capabilities in math, science, economics, and many other subjects.  Here is a link to a short video about http://www.wolframalpha.com/about.html .  I use this in my class all the time and it has replaced many things I used to do with my graphing calculator.

What amazes me is that all of these technologies were not being use or even invented 5 years ago.  I wonder what the next 5 years will bring.  I do know the learning dynamic is changing and the role of the professor is changing with it.

Adjunct Advantage October 2010

Thank you for attending my training.  Here is a link to the handout we used.  Please contact me if you want additional help or training in any area.  I am available on Fridays in Ankeny and next semester I will be available much more.  Please post a comment here if you have any suggestions or if you liked what we did tonight.

Wolfram Alpha

Thank you for attending my August Academy session about Wolfram Alpha.  Click here to download the hand out.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

MinnMATYC 2010

Thank you to all of those in attendance today at my session “Emerging Technologies to Enhance Your Math Class”.  I hope it was worth your time and it looks like the recording did work.  Click here to download the handout I distributed during the session.  I do apologize to I ran out, I did not expect over 50 people to attend.  Please share this with your colleagues.

My presentation involved www.worframalpha.com, screen capturing using Jing, and online office hours with www.wiziq.com.  I think it is important for us to constantly look at the impact new technology and tools within math education.  I hope it made you think about what deep procedural and deep conceptual understanding, what is math, and how can we use these tool to communicate mathematics.

Contact me anytime if you have any questions.  dgpetrak@dmacc.edu

IACON 2010

Glad you visited my blog today. I am not a very prolific blogger, but hopefully my blogs are useful to you. Here are the links to recordings of my presentations from IACON conference.
Jing, Wolfram Alpaha, Google Wave

Jing Training Handout

Jing Handout Text Version

Wiziq Faculty Training Handout
Wiziq Student Training document

Online Office Hour using wiziq.com

Every Tuesday night at 9:00 Central time, I host an online office hour for my students using a free online communication site called www.wiziq.com. This free communication tool is designed for teachers and students. You can host your own private sessions and share the link with your students or colleagues. Here is the link to a short video I created introducing how I use the site.

I decided to add an online office hour to my schedule for many reasons.

1) I rarely get students to show up for my face-to-face office hours on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, so I decided to add another online office hour at a time many of my students are available and working on their homework (due Wednesday nights at midnight).
2) I enjoy the opportunity for synchronous communication with my online and f2f students.
3) Many students feel comfortable bringing up questions in an online format.
4) Chatting with me and other students adds layers to a conversation.
5) Asynchronous communication is possible with recording of sessions.
6) Content sharing is easy with interactive tools.
7) Sessions can be created on the fly to assist students at an agreed upon time.
8) I actually have students show up!

I get variable number of students attending based on the homework, testing, and rigor of the current topics being learned in my classes. One of the best features of wiziq is the screen sharing capability. All I have to do is press a button and my students see what is on my screen. I can now teach the way I do in class with e-books, websites, and interactive software without having to upload content into the whiteboard. I would encourage you to take a look at the site and think about all the ways you can use it to collaborate with students and colleagues.

How to convert any file type to about any other file type

Have you ever wanted to change a file into a different format? This is usually a very cumbersome process that may require expensive and difficult to learn proprietary software. Well, zamzar.com is a free file conversion web site. The service supports almost all types of data including: image, document, video and audio formats. So if you don’t like the file type you have, this may be a great way to get that media into a more acceptable format. Here is how it works…

All you need to do is upload the file, select the file type you want it converted to, and the link to the converted file will be e-mailed to you. For example: what if you want a .jpg to become a .pdf or a .pdf to a .doc, this can be a handy tool. I tried to convert a .pdf to a .doc and found it did a pretty good job. The .pdf had a lot of math symbols that did not convert very well, but a normal text document should have no problems. Of course it does not handle all file types and some conversions work better than others. Play around with zamzar.com and use it when a file is not “your type”.

You can upgrade to pay membership at anytime. This will allow you to upload larger files and get priority in conversion over free users. I have not done this and do not plan to at this point, but it may be worth it if you become a heavy user.

Here is a link to a short video demonstrating how to use zamzar.com.

How do you subscribe to a RSS reader service

I know I am new to the blog thing and maybe some of you are too. You can find tons of great blogs, podcast, and videos, but how do you keep up with them? One way is to “subscribe” to them with an RSS tool. The Wikipedia definition for RSS is most commonly translated as: “Really Simple Syndication” but sometimes “Rich Site Summary” is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.

There are many ways to keep track of all the “feeds”. Microsoft Outlook, Google Reader, Firefox “Live Bookmarks”, My Yahoo, and many other browsers and applications can be use to subscribe to a RSS feed. If you go to the bottom of this page, you will find a link to subscribe to this blog as well. I personally use Google Reader to keep track of many of the blogs I read. It even keeps track of which posts I need to read and have read! If you have a gmail account, you are already able to use Google reader. Check out this video on how to find and use the google reader.

Please post comments on what RSS tools you like to use.