Technical and Pedagogical Support and Resources

I will be using this page to post links to Technical Support and other resources useful for Educational Technology.

Hardware and Software Support

• Desire2Learn: The help site for the Content Management System (CMS) in use at WMU. While there are specific local resources (Teaching and Learning Commons within the system), this is the help page created by the creators of the software.
• Ideas for educational use: 
• CMSs are often used and referred to as E-learning. These e-learning sites can contain course materials or feature separate training modules. The goal is to be able to create an on-line and constantly available resource/replication of your classroom.

Professional Reference Books/Support Site

Online/Openly Available Instructional Resources

• Lynda.com : Lynda is a great source for accessing a variety of educational videos on a variety of topics
• Jing: A product by TechSmith, Jing lets you easily make videos and photos that capture what's on your computer screen.
• Ideas for educational use:
• To save precious in-class time, review comments on student essays through video. Students can then return to listen to your feedback numerous times through their editing process.
• Create videos for flipped classroom style discussions; this is especially important for giving students process-based guidance whether it's in terms of how to use a library's search engine or how to navigate their Elearning course.
• YouTube: YouTube lets you host videos for free. While you don't make videos using YouTube, this helps them to remain available to students for as long as you have the videos available.
• Ideas for educational use:
• 30 topics in 30 seconds: Create short 30 second review videos on topics you've covered throughout the semester. This can help students review for a comprehensive exam. Or, the same idea can be utilized to cover information not usually covered in class i.e. grammar rules, vocabulary, etc.

Educational Support Tools

Social Media

• Twitter: Twitter is a great tool because many incoming students already use it as a part of their daily lives and routines. Creating a Twitter account specifically for your class (mine is @profsrw) and can also use class hashtags i.e. #engl050srw or #profsrwq 
• Ideas for educational use:
• #1050questionoftheday: Ask your students a question at the same time everyday, or every day that class meets, have them respond by replying to your initial tweet and/or including a special hashtag. This can happen before class/training to help student/participants start thinking about topics before class; this can also be used during class to let students answer questions simultaneously.
• #1050help911: Give your students a hashtag that could be used in case of emergency for student to student and student to teacher contact; this may be a quick notice of a student being late for class due to a traffic accident or a last minute question on a homework assignment. 

• Tumblr: Another social media tool, Tumblr is a social blogging network that uses a re-blogging system that integrates aspects of discussion and the ability to add other media i.e. pictures, gifs, videos. Similar to Twitter, hashtags can be used to seek all posts on a given topic. Blogs can also be set-up to accept submissions, so that students could submit writing to the class blog via the system.
• Ideas for educational use:
• Submit an article on _____: Creating a blog that allows users to submit content means that students can do group research on topics. Assigning a specific topic for a research paper but using the class to find sources together can help reinforce the communal nature of research and writing in the "real world." It also supports research and information literacy teaching objectives.
• Facebook: The most effusive social media tool, course groups/pages/events can all be created to act as a "one-stop-shop" of communication points that is already a part of daily life for most students. Students can edit privacy settings and interact socially to continue course discussion and questions outside of the classroom.
• Ideas for educational use:
• Public Writing: Facebook is a very public sphere, created Groups/Pages or posts that relate to class can experiment with the medium of Public vs. Private writings. Giving students the assignment to ask their friends/family to respond to something they post on Facebook can give context for forms of communication.

Blogging and Website Creation

• Wordpress: An easy to use blog creation website that can easily be used to create a full website.
• Ideas for educational use:
• Public writing and sharing with classmates. Responding to class topics on a blog gives student an ownership over material that they haven't had before i.e. they can change how it looks, link to other content, include more variety of content than a written assignment. In addition to this, students can use RSS feeds or other kinds of subscription to read each other's blogs.
• Blogger: An easy to use blog creation website that can easily be used to create a full website; has the added feature of being a Google product and therefore is connected to Google accounts.
• Wix: An easy to use website creation site, primarily aimed at small businesses, it has a simple user interface that allows for professional and unique website construction. It also has both free accounts and more robust options if the user decides to pay.