In your teams, take some time to discuss these questions and be ready to share your thoughts.
- What do you see as the higher education translation into k-12?
- You’ve all been to traditional conferences, did the back channel conversations (powered by social media) change the experience? What are some takeaways as it relates to your own future learning environments?
- Characterize your identity and relationship to the other TLT participants
- Did you get a sense that there was a clear TLT community based on your interactions with the people there? What sort of evidence can you state as to whether it is a community?
STEVE KERLIN says
Back channel conversations at TLT:
Twitter – is twitter a distraction or an asset? We noticed benefits of twitter at the conference in that twitter was a tool that we could use to get up to date information on what was going on in other sessions that we were not in attendance and as a way to maintain the schedule of the conference (e.g. notice to meet at the tagteam table). Twitter may have also served as a distraction (e.g. a presenter specifically asking a tweeter what she was doing on her computer instead of listening attentively to her presentation). There was also an interesting conversation on twitter during the conference on this exact topic.
Takeaways for future – When it is ok to use these technologies? When is it distracting to the presenter and participants? What about the people who type REALLY LOUD? What about people using their cell phone to tweet, twit?
Should the instructor/presenter set the ground rules at the beginning? What if the instructor encouraged tweeting but made it visible on a projection screen to the entire audience.
Our membership in the community at TLT. Age may have been a factor in our identity within the community. Graduate students were such a small demographic at the conference that we may not have been noticed much. Some of us felt as if we were still just learning to use the technologies that others at the conference were immersed in. Some of the presentations had a specifically intended audience that was not graduate students. More students may provide valuable input about the effective use of the technologies that the presenters were showing and telling. Where is the data about effectiveness and reactions from students?
Other thoughts/observations:
Powerpoint, powerpoint, powerpoint. Why does everyone use powerpoint. And if they are familiar with it then why can’t they use it efficiently? Technology conference != techno savvy people.
Angel != technology.
Real programmers vs. web 2.0 pseudo-programmers posers.
Stickers and mugs were a big hit!
Thank you,
Group wiki-wiki
rsw136 says
Group: We’re Working on It
Our discussion revolved around the second bullet point. Our conversation raised more questions than answers. We thought about taking the concept of interactive learning, where the potential exists for every voice to be valued, to be integrated into a K-12 classroom. We wondered…
What would incorporating Twitter in a high school class look like? What structures would need to be in place to be successful? How would you define success for that environment? In order to make it happen, would what we value have to change?
Further discussion focused on cultural norms of learning during presentations. How do back channels change how we present and learn? What does it feel like to have someone talk about you, in essence, behind your back? Is it better to know or not know?
Brandon Rubenstein says
I am going to tell you what we talked about.
BENNETT NEIL ULMER says
We talked about how important it is to include preservice teachers in a forum like this to give them a heads-up about what is to come down the road.