This week’s assignment was to interview a colleague regarding the use of social media/web 2.0 tools in teaching/learning.  I had the pleasure of interviewing my colleague, Parhum Delgoshaei.  He is both a career educator and, in my opinion, also a career techie.  He is the manager of educational programs at the Consortium for Building Energy Innovation – http://cbei.psu.edu and GridSTAR – https://smartenergyacademy.psu.edu/gridstar/). He had many interesting things to say, so, while the guideline was to try to keep the podcast around 10 minutes, I felt that his responses were valuable and worth going over the limit a bit.  So I hope you don’t mind the extra six and half minutes it will take you to listen to our podcast, but I believe it’ll be worth the time.

I had some optional questions in case my original list of questions was too short, so I have a bonus podcast if you are interested.

The podcast (16 minutes 36 seconds in length) answers the following questions:

• Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
• More specifically, can you please tell us a bit more about your background as a learner and educator?
• Have you used social media and web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning?
• Ideally, how should social media and web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning?
• Why do you think there’s a gap between how social media and web 2.0 are currently used and they should ideally be used?
• What have you learned as a result of working with these tools?
• What suggestions would you have for someone who wants to incorporate social media/web 2.0 for teaching, learning, or professional development?

The bonus podcast (6 minutes 8 seconds in length) answers these questions:

• In your personal learning or professional development, what technologies do you find most valuables?  If you could only pick ONE tool (hardware/device, software/app), what would it be?
• Can you think of a technology you tried that was a “failure”?  Why?
• Can you think of a technology you tried that was very successful?  Why?

Aside 1: Power of Access

Today was another reminder of how powerful the web 2.0 can be in accessing resources (and in this case, people) that you couldn’t normally have access to.  Parhum is someone that is “out” working in the field of online, asynchronous courses, and, while I personally learned a lot from my conversation with him, now this knowledge is available for ANYONE ANYWHERE.

Aside 2: Motivation

Motivation has come up over and over again over the last few weeks.  Parhum brought up the concept of student motivation as well.  He mentioned that students are motivated when they have control, autonomy, and caring Relationships (Self Determination theory).  While this is especially important in an online setting, I could see how they could also contribute to increased motivation in a face to face setting.

Aside 3: Recording Hardware

I used a M-Audio Microtrack II (http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-9900-52278-00-Micro-Track-2/dp/B000VXKPZ6) with a stereo microphone (1/8″ input) to record the podcasts.  I also recorded them simultaneously on my smartphone just in case.

Before we recorded, Parhum and I discussed that the goal was an informal conversation.  With that in mind, the goal was to just ask the questions and record the conversation – the recording was the second take only because I messed up the introduction on the first take.