New Media, Social Media, and Learning Syllabus

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Contents

Instructor

Name: Dr. David Wiley
Room: MCKB 150-E
Phone: 801.422.7071
Email: david[dot]wiley[at]byu[dot]edu (I will generally respond to email within 24 hours)
Instant Messenger: educommons@mac.com (AIM)

Student Blogs

Students, please hit the edit tab at the top of this page and add your blog to the list below.

Class Meeting Schedule

M, W, F 3:00p-3:50p

Textbooks and Course Materials

There is no required textbook for this course. All materials, readings, and services required for this course will be freely accessible via the Internet. Please see the links in the Course Topics section below for the materials we will work from this term.

Because this is a tools course, we will spend much of our time in practical issues related to how to use tools, and there will be only a few theoretical readings in the course. If you are interested in more theoretical perspectives, a great place to begin would be Curt Bonk's course Web 2.0 and Participatory e-Learning and the accompanying wikibook Web 2.0 and Emerging Learning Technologies.

Course Topics

Week 1: Why New Media and Social Media? (Week beginning September 1)

Week 2: Blogs, RSS, and Microblogging (Week beginning September 8)

  • Free blog hosts: Wordpress, Blogger
  • RSS - RSS in Plain English video, and the Wikipedia entry for RSS
  • Feed readers: NetNewsWire (Mac) and FeedDemon (Win), Google Reader (web-based)
  • Twitter, also Twitter on Wikipedia Twitter in Plain English
  • Identi.ca, an open source Twitter clone
  • Assignments. (1) Explore the websites linked above. (2) Create a blog on one of the free blog hosts above (skip this step if you already have a blog you intend to use for the class). (3) Add the address of your blog to this page using the Edit tab above. (4) Write a post on your blog that describes a little about yourself and why you signed up for the course. (5) Do some digging around in Google, Yahoo, or your search engine of choice and find an interesting article about educational uses of blogs. (6) Make a second blog post linking to the article and describing why you found the article you linked to particularly interesting. Can you extend or improve the ideas described in the article in some way?
  • Notes from Classroom Discussion.
    • Instant Messaging Found to Slow Students' Reading. Quoting the article:
      For the experiment, students were randomly assigned to take part in one of three groups. The first group read the text on screen with no interruptions. The second group answered instant messages first and then did their reading. The third group multitasked, fielding instant messages as they read. Instant messaging is a form of real-time online written communication that is faster than normal e-mail. The messages, which included questions such as “What classes are you taking this semester?” were designed to be typical in context and in frequency to the instant messages students would normally receive on their computers. Even after taking into account the time students spent on the instant messaging, the researchers found, the third group took about 15 minutes longer than the other two groups to complete the reading—roughly 50 percent more time than the other two groups took. All three groups, however, fared about the same on a test given later on to check their understanding of the text. (Note though that the articles said that the students took longer to complete the reading--even after the time spent on the instant messaging had been taken into account. From the article-- "Even after taking into account the time students spent on the instant messaging, the researchers found, the third group took about 15 minutes longer than the other two groups to complete the reading—roughly 50 percent more time than the other two groups took.")
    • Godwin's Law says: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Week 3: Wikis (Week beginning September 15)

  • Wikipedia, Wikieducator
  • Wikipedia Community Editing Guidelines
  • [LDS Media blog on wikis]
  • Murder, Madness, and Mayhem
  • Assignments. (1) Explore the websites linked above. (2) Using the Discussion tab and the History tab (particularly the Compare Selected Versions feature) at the top of the Wikipedia entry on the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, explore the manner in which the Wikipedia entry on the Church has evolved. If you feel so inclined, improve this Wikipedia article or another of your choosing in a small way. (3) Write a blog post explaining your reflections and thoughts on the dynamics collaborative authorship in an open wiki. Also, describe any improvements you made to an article on Wikipedia. (4) Do some additional Googling in search of articles about educational uses of wikis. Make a second blog post linking to the article and describing why you found the article you linked to particularly interesting. Can you extend or improve the ideas described in the article in some way?

Week 4: Social Objects (Week beginning September 22)

Week 5: Social Networks (Week beginning September 29)

Week 6: Sharing, Part 1 (Week beginning October 6)

  • Assignments. (1) Explore the websites linked above. (2) Create an account on Delicious and use it to bookmark and tag some sites. (3) Create an account on Flickr and use it to share and tag some photos. (4) Spend some time looking at the Popular section of Delicious and the Interesting section of Flickr. (5) Do some digging around in Google, Yahoo, or your search engine of choice and find an interesting article about educational uses of Delicious or Flickr. (6) Make a blog post in which you link to your Delicious and Flickr accounts, share your impressions of the services, link to the article you found, and describe an interesting educational use for each service.

Week 7: Sharing, Part 2 (Week beginning October 13)

  • Audio
  • Podcasts
  • Screencasts and demos
    • Software for creating screencasts and other demos
  • Videos
  • Assignments. (1) Explore the websites linked above. (2) Create a brief podcast, screencast, or video on a topic of your choosing (e.g., describe your favorite talk from the recent General Conference?) and share it via one of the services listed above. (3) Do some digging around in Google, Yahoo, or your search engine of choice and find an interesting article about educational uses of podcasting, screencasting, or video sharing. (4) Do some more digging around in Google, Yahoo, or your search engine of choice and find an interesting way someone is using podcasting, screencasting, or video to share the gospel. (5) Blog links and commentary to your contribution, the educational article you found, and the gospel use you found.

Week 8: Sharing, Part 3 (Week beginning October 20)

  • Presentations
  • Highlighting and Annotations
  • Analytics
  • Assignments. (1) Explore the websites linked above. (2) Find an interesting instructional technology presentation on SlideShare. (3) Use Diigo to highlight and annotate a classmate's blog posting. (4) Participate in class discussion about web analytics. (5) Blog links and commentary to the presentation you found, the blog post you annotated, and your thoughts on the analytics discussion. Also, think "out loud" about how can we use these tools to share the gospel.

Week 9: Final project draft/status presentations (Wednesday October 29)

  • Come prepared to walk us through your current progress on your chapter
  • WE WILL ONLY MEET ON WEDNESDAY THIS WEEK!

Week 10: (Week beginning November 3)

  • Writing week!! NO CLASS MEETINGS THIS WEEK; please spend your time writing.
  • Make sure your current draft is in the wiki by the end of the week.


Social Networks draft--Whitney and Yvette[1]

Week 11: The Personal Learning Environment (Week beginning November 10)

Week 12: (Week beginning November 17)

  • One on one meetings with Dr. Wiley reviewing your writing

Week 13: Toward the Inevitable "Web 3.0"... What's on the Horizon? (Week beginning November 24)

Week 14: Final projects presentation dry-runs and feedback (Week beginning December 1)

  • Review week!! Provide feedback on three colleagues' chapters
  • Writing week!! Finish your book chapters with feedback from Dr. Wiley and other colleagues

Week 15: Final project presentations (Week beginning December 8)

Assignments

SELECT YOUR SPECIALIZATION - In consultation with Dr. Wiley, choose one of the tools to be discussed during the semester. Collect links to openly licensed (or, if none exist, freely available) tutorials for your tool. Prepare and lead class discussion of your specialization on the day it appears on the schedule, using and sharing the tutorials you have found. Dr. Wiley will model the process and mentor you throughout the semester.

FINAL PROJECT ASSIGNMENT - In response to the need expressed in Elder Ballard's article linked in the first week, as a class we will create a website and accompanying book called New Media for Latter-day Saints. Using openly licensed tutorials and materials, writing that you and other students produce during the semester, and additional material that you create, produce an article / chapter about the tool you specialized in during the class.

The draft article template is here.

BOOK CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS

http://opencontent.org/wiki/index.php?title=New_Media%2C_Social_Media%2C_and_Learning_Chapter_Template

Course Policies

Grading Scale

Everyone starts the class with a B. The only way to receive a lower grade is to fail to complete the weekly assignments with a degree of quality comparable to your ability. In order to earn an A in the course, students will need to make an excellent contribution to book, including both chapter authoring and chapter reviewing duties.

Honor Code Standards

In keeping with the BYU Honor Code, students are expected to be honest in all of their academic work. Academic honesty means, most fundamentally, that any work you present as your own must in fact be your own work and not that of another. Violations may result in a failing grade in the course and additional disciplinary action by the university.

Students are also expected to adhere to the Dress and Grooming Standards. Observing these standards demonstrates respect for yourself and others and ensures an effective learning and working environment. It is the university’s expectation, and my own expectation in class, that each student will abide by all Honor Code standards. Please call the Honor Code Office at 422-2847 if you have questions about those standards.

Preventing Sexual Discrimination or Harassment

Sexual discrimination or harassment (including student-to-student harassment) is prohibited both by the law and by Brigham Young University policy. If you feel you are being subjected to sexual discrimination or harassment, please bring your concerns to the professor. Alternatively, you may lodge a complaint with the Equal Employment Office (D-240C ASB) or with the Honor Code Office (4440).

Students with Disabilities

If you have a disability that may affect your performance in this course, you should get in touch with the office of Services for Students with Disabilities (1520 WSC). This office can evaluate your disability and assist the professor in arranging for reasonable accommodations.

Diversity

The David O. McKay School of Education and Brigham Young University are committed to preparing students to serve effectively in a diverse society. In this course students will learn methods and material that may be adapted to various settings and contexts. Students are expected to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to effectively apply the course content when working with individuals and groups with varying abilities and with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Late Work Policy

Late work may or may not be accepted and may or may not be harshly penalized at my completely subjective, mood-influenced, and possibly biased discretion. If this makes you uncomfortable, please turn in your work on time.

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