Volatile Learning 2 by Providencia Soto-Alicea

Volatile Learning

Volume 1 Number 2

In this issue: Changes for the New Year... Academic Technology Services serves both the Newton and DeKalb campuses. A new workshop schedule will accommodate the needs of faculty and staff for 2013. One person will meet “the needs of the many” (sounds like a Star Trek quote) since my co-worker, Ms. Roxanne Curry, has left and her position currently will not be filled. So please be patience with me as I take this opportunity to make changes to the way you will be best served this semester. As always making an appointment via email or by calling me will be the best way to contact me because I will be more “mobile” travelling between both campuses. Last year I attended the GaETC conference and got some great ideas for new HOT (Hands-On-Training) workshops. Workshops will still be 30 minutes sessions, recorded via BlackBoard Collaborate and posted on the TNT Lab Online website. You will be able to view the workshops schedule on page 11. As always please let me know what you think about the workshops and how I can improve my services to you. Provi:)

Xtranormal Animated Movies Made Easy! Xtranormal lets you have a free account and 300 XP points to create your first animated movie. As an educator with an .edu email address you can ask the help support to add more XP points to your account so you can make even more movies. Even better create a one or two actor script and get the GPTC Academic Technology Coordinator, aka me, to create the animation for you. You can view some animated samples on the GPTC’s TNT Lab You Tube Channel at the link below. http://www.youtube.com/user/ALTLearning/videos?view=0 Xtranormal enables you to tell a story by choosing actors, sets and entering a simple script. Then you create and publish an animated movie. This simplistic “text-to-movie” interface runs via your browser and is really a lot of fun. Just another clever and creative way to deliver content to your students. Their website makes animation accessible to non-animators and requires little to no knowledge of animation to be used. You can review the recorded HOT (Hands-OnTraining) workshop called “Xtranormal Results” for more information about the process at this link http://tntlabonline.weebly.com./hot-workshop.html or check out the Official Xtranormal YouTube channel and the “Behind the Scenes” video at the following link. Be aware that some of the content on their channel is not educational but explicit and R rated. http://www.youtube.com/xtranormal

Angel needs an Extreme Makeover Lets face it Angel is boring! If you attended or viewed the recording of the HOT workshop “Angel: Extreme Makeover Edition” you will discover some new ways to make your online course more visually appealing. Graphics and animations will draw students attention to your content and it is not hard to do. The HTML Editor available within Angel’s pages and folders lets you insert simple GIF animations, graphics and audio/video media into your course. These graphics can be generated by using MS Paint and PowerPoint programs or you can go to websites like www.fodey.com for free Flash graphics or www.makeagif.com to create animated GIF banners. Another way to show student visual content as well as help your more visual learners is to develop documents with an online digital publisher like the one used to develop this “digital” magazine you are reading. It lets you make the content interactive using a flash player interface that lets you add links, navigation options (arrows, thumbnails, and zooming wheel) that gives it the look and feel of flipping through a magazine at a news stand. See a picture of the previous “Volatile Learning” digital magazine below.

http://issuu.com/explore

GIF Banners in Angel GIF Banners can be created in MS Paint just make sure they are the same size. I created one to fit onto an Angel LMS page then downloaded all twelve to the “Make a Gif” website and created an animated GIF.

made the work ethics traits and message stand out more.

It was easy to place into Angel via the HTML Editor’s insert tab. Using GPTC’s logo colors,

Simple GIF animations can be used to illustrate a concept or get your students attention when discussing safety issues. You can view some GIF animated banners on the TNT Lab Online website sample gallery at this link http://tntlabonline.weebly.com./sample-gallery.html

Games Engage Students Oh the games people play now! Let’s see — video games, arcade games, computer games, game apps, board games, card games, roleplaying games. Even complex Massive Multiplayer Online games (MMOG) and that does not include mobile devices that compete for their attention. As if life doesn’t have enough distractions:( We have games in education too. Why? Mostly because instructors have to get students to “play” attention in class with all kinds of devices competing for minds. Students are more knowledgeable nowadays and have adapted game mentalities into their lives. So we need to start “gamifying” classes to keep students engaged . At the GaETC conference I attended last year one of the session was called “Gaming with Gusto”. Ms. Beard and Ms. Fisher had a lot to say and demonstrate about trending game concepts in education. They had great samples of what they did to gameify instructional content for students. One sample can be found at this link to her website at http://fishersu.wix.com/collabornation The Collabornation game site comes with links to PowerPoint presentation, talking avatar that guide students, and quests/missions (assignments) to engage them. Good sound effects, videos and graphics along with a reward system for completion of the “levels” and all assignments within the game encouraged the students to explore. Check out why students love to learn and access the game at home. You can view some screen shot on the next page. For more information view this great infographic about “the gamification of education”. It sums up all related information very nicely at this next link. http://www.knewton.com/gamification-education

Games “7 Ways Games Reward the Brain” from TED Talk at the next link, http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_chatfield_7_ways_games_reward_the_brain.html the speaker, Tom Chatfield, talks about how we might use hard-wired desires for a reward to change the way we learn, watch this interesting talk if you want to learn more about your brain and games.

Collabornation: Ms. Fisher’s game site graphics.

Antediluvian Adventures:

Ms. Beard’s game site at

http://beardj.wix.com/antediluvian-adventures

PowerPoint Games Games using PowerPoint, now let’s talk about game templates that uses PowerPoint, several faculty at GPTC have used a simple Jeopardy game on PowerPoint to quiz their students and have some fun in class. There are a lot of game templates on the web some good and some not so good. Some of the better ones you will find at this website. Dr. Jeff Ertzberger is from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and has game templates that can be customized . His book called “Everybody Wins: A teachers Guide to Customizing Games for Any Curriculum” is available in digital download format and includes access to even more Premium games from the website. He also has a You Tube channel with some videos explaining how to use the games in the classroom. From a simple racing game to sunken treasures and more with instructions and video tutorials. http://people.uncw.edu/ertzbergerj/ppt_games.html http://www.youtube.com/user/uncwedgames?feature=watch

Check out these other websites on PowerPoint games. http://powerpointgames.wikispaces.com/PowerPoint+Game+Templates http://teach.fcps.net/trt14/Power%20Point%20Games/power_point_games.htm

TED-Ed Lessons Newly-launched TED-ED Beta website! Check out what’s new from TED Talks for more innovated “ideas worth spreading”. I think you will find it well worth viewing this video link below. TED-ED lets you customize lessons based on any video from You Tube specially the great videos from TED Talks. At the same link you will be able to view a sample lesson too, http://ed.ted.com/

For those of you that do not know about the TED Talks videos see more information “about TED” at http://www.ted.com/pages/about than check out some of their videos on about almost any subject you can think of. They are truly “riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world”, really:)

Expose some gray matter at your TNT Lab, TODAY! Call Ext. 1146 and make an appointment.

Academic Technology Services The start of a new semester with new faculty and staff coming on board for the New Year 2013 with questions like, what is Academic Technology Services and what do I do in the TNT Lab? That’s a very good question and the answer is … I am here for you, so as “your” Academic Technology Coordinator I am here to serve your instructional design and technology integration needs. I get to have fun inspiring you and I work together with you to enhance student learning. I share the ultimate responsibility to help you work with the enormous amount of information and resources available to you. My goal is to improve your learning environment so you can meet the needs of the students. I assist you in developing teaching materials for both traditional face to face classes and online Angel classes. At the Teaching New Technology Lab (TNT Lab) we collaborate, develop, produce and deliver instructional materials to support your teaching objectives. Services offered are designed to assist and train individuals in both conventional and emerging instructional technologies. Scheduling training and attending workshops provide users with skills to complete their instructional projects. Your TNT Lab provides a quiet place to experiment with technology and design innovative instruction. Setting up an appointment with me ensures that I will have time and resources available to assist you with your instructional project.

Hands-On-Training Workshops @ your TNT Lab Contact your Academic Technology Coordinator at Ext. 1146 or sotomerp@gptc.edu for more information and to register for a workshop Online sessions are available via Blackboard Collaborate since there is limited seating in the actual lab.

Workshop Schedule: Spring/Summer Semester Name /Description

Days/Dates/Times

Campus Locations

Talk Less Teach More - Add audio to your presentation so you can lecture less. Post audio lectures into Angel with Vocarro online recorder. (30 minutes sessions)

Tuesday/Thursday All sessions online Jan. 15 & 17 @ 10 AM Feb. 5 & 7 @ 2 PM