Faculty Demonstrations

Using Digital Media for Collaborative Learning

Jenell Williams

Lina Metlevskiene

In recent years online interaction and collaboration has become a common element in our students’ university careers. Students may choose to take online courses and their face to face classes may require online assignments. International students need to be able to present themselves and interact in English without the benefit of body language, facial expression and tone of voice. For our international students, it’s very important to be familiar with the different online tools and to be able to use appropriate language in the different online settings. This two hour class combines language instruction with instruction in web 2.0 tools and strategies for working effectively in multicultural environments. Students will use KSOL message boards, blogs, Google Docs, YouTube, and VoiceThread. They will collaborate on a final project on American Culture that will be posted on the ElateWiki, a national award winning wiki created here at K-State.

How to Illustrate Your Instructor-Made Videos

Mitch Ricketts Agricultural Experiment Station

Instructional materials may be more effective when they contain clear visual images that illustrate the principles being taught. We will demonstrate methods for creating effective illustrations, including:

using public-domain illustrations from websites such as http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml
capturing original still photos or video footage using your digital camera or cell phone
creating simple drawings and animations with the help of PowerPoint—even if you have no artistic talent.

To see examples of all three techniques in one instructor-made video, check out the film from the K-State course, GENAG 711.

Visions of Students Video Collage with HTML5

Michael Wesch, Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work

Visions of Students Today is a “video collage” about student life created by students themselves and presented using the wonders of HTML5, allowing us to “cite” books and videos that are being presented in the remix as they are being shown. Our lead developer, Garrett Pennington, used Popcorn.js to create the basic framework, and then provided the research team with two data files where we could enter the thumbnails to be used, their links, where they should be placed, and a timecode for when they should appear.

Michael Wesch
Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work

Garrett Pennington
Office of Mediated Education

Digital English for International Students

Jenell Williams English Language Program

Lina Metlevskiene
English Language Program

Using flexbooks to supplement/replace the traditional textbook

Brian Lindshield Human Nutrition

The price of textbooks has increased 22% over the last four years and in a recent survey 70% of students reported not buying a textbook due to price, despite 78% believing they would do worse in the course without the textbook(s) (Allen 2011). Open educational resources (OER) provide free or lower cost alternatives to textbooks, and OER are increasingly being developed and made available for use. This demonstration will show and example of an OER, the Kansas State University Human Nutrition (HN 400) Flexbook (goo.gl/vOAnR) made in Google Docs. For more information on what the flexbook is, how it was developed, as well as students’ perceptions of it, come see me at my demonstration or see this recent article on it.

Using a Video Camera to Enhance F2F and Online Learning

Royce Ann Collins Educational Leadership

Video cameras are not just for recording and posting to the online website. They are also a great tool to enhance learning from face-to-face experiences. Have you ever wanted to show your students how they act during a small group activity? In courses where social dynamics or group dynamics are addressed, this is a great tool to enhance learning without saying a word. Recorded experiences can then be downloaded and uploaded to K-State online for archiving and future viewing. This demonstration will show how to easily use a video camera to enhance classroom or online learning experiences.

Digital Innovations in Research, Learning and Discovery at K-State Libraries

Joelle Pitts, Libraries

K-State Libraries aspire to guide our community in its quest for intellectual discovery and lifelong learning. We will demonstrate the newly created “Librarian” role within K-State Online and discuss with you ways in which you can “embed” a librarian into your course. We will also showcase our new LibGuides platform for course and subject guides which can be customized to address your research assignments. We will also showcase our new discovery tool for finding articles, books and more with a single search. Finally, you will be able to view instructional videos and other learning objects which can be created and embedded into your courses. Stop by to see how we will be the answer to the question of why libraries remain relevant in a digital world full of options.

Joelle Pitts
Libraries

Lisa Craft
Libraries

Using Virtual Worlds for Teaching

Larry Havenstein, Communications

Demonstrations on how virtual worlds like OpenSim, OSgrid, Reaction Grid or Secondlife can be used in teaching.

Larry Havenstein
Communications

Larry Jackson
Communications

Video Streaming / Adobe Connect

Gerry Snyder Communications

K-State Research and Extension and the College of Agriculture use video streaming and web conferencing to deliver their information to off-campus audiences. Video streaming offers opportunities for live broadcasts of seminars, workshops, and special guest speakers. These videos are also recorded for anytime playback. Adobe Connect is used for online webinars, research collaboration, teaching at a distance and as an online meeting tool. Both of these Internet-based communications tools will be demonstrated at the showcase.

K-State Research Exchange

Marty Courtois Libraries

The K-State Research Exchange (K-REx) provides a safe, permanent, open access digital archive in which faculty can deposit their journal articles, book chapters, and other scholarly work. K-REx is indexed by Google, Google Scholar, and other search engines, so having an item in K-REx greatly increases access to and the potential readership of a publication. Over 200 K-State faculty have deposited their work in K-REx, and those items have been downloaded thousands of times.

The Library handles all aspects of depositing items in K-REx including metadata description, copyright compliance, and assigning a permanent URL. With Kansas State University’s recent signing of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, K-REx provides a vehicle for faculty to meet the Open Access requirements of the Berlin Declaration: to ensure all users have free access to their work and that their work is deposited in an online repository using suitable technical standards.

This demonstration will highlight the ability of K-REx to increase the impact of faculty’s scholarly work. Visit K-REx at krex.ksu.edu

Utilizing outside experts while maintaining course consistency

Jodi Freifeld One Health Kansas

The topic of One Health is very broad, encompassing all the interconnections between human, animal, and environmental health. Drs. Beth Montelone and Bob Larson are building an online, graduate-level One Health course that utilizes experts from across campus and beyond to help explain many One Health topics. This demonstration will show how consistency within the course is being maintained for the students while utilizing numerous topic experts.

“She Told Me Stories”: Documentary Kansas History Film Project

Screening and project discussion of the film “She Told Me Stories,” which was created by K-State faculty and staff from Spring to Fall of 2011.
Supported by a grant from the Kansas Humanities Council, K-State faculty and students traveled to Garden City, Topeka, Beloit, Alma, Westmoreland, Clay Center, Nicodemus, and the Kickapoo Nation (as well as within Manhattan), to interview community historians, non-academic chroniclers, Historical Society members, and family memorykeepers about the Kansas history they have preserved as well as their activities as preservers of culture. Faculty and students taught ourselves technical and interview skills to conduct the video interviews, and several members of the project learned FinalCut Pro to edit over 200 hours of film into the 50 minute documentary. This demonstration will screen the film, and will have project members available to discuss the filmmaking process.

Michele Janette
Women’s Studies

Creating Interactive Staff Education with Softchalk

Need to create a learning object, a lesson, a short course or a whole group of lessons? Join Shelley Cunningham as she demonstrates how she uses Softchalk to develop interactive staff education modules and K-State Online to document staff completion of training.

Shelley Cunningham
Lafene Health Center

Challenges of Merging Learning Techniques in K-State General Entomology Distance Education

Mike Smith Entomology

The distance eduction course ENTOM 312 General Entomology began successfully in Fall 2011, utilizing traditional PowerPoint and Quicktime movie formats to deliver 16 learning modules. A laboratory course is nearing completion that involves over 500 high-quality multi-angle images and Quicktime movies of major insect orders and species. Present efforts are focused on developing a workable method for students to learn insect taxonomy. The course will be the first such attempt to offer a General Entomology laboratory where students will make insect physical and virtual insect collections.

Keeping Up with the Geeks: Teaching in the Online Environment

A presentation of technologies that will help you to transform on-campus courses into online courses effectively without needing your own geek squad. Technologies presented include Dropbox, Prezi, Diigo, Jing, and Campus Pack.

Robbie Sparrow
Hospitality Management and Dietetics

Portfolios and participation rubrics: A dynamic duo for online assessment

Doris Wright Carroll, Special Education, Counseling, and Student Affairs

This program introduces the use of portfolios and participation rubrics and highlights creative ways to engage online classes in their use as effective assessment tools.

Personal Financial Planning Skills with Time Value of Money, Trading on Margin, and Short Selling

Online demonstration of tools developed to train distance-based graduate students in Time Value of Money, Margin Trading and Short Selling.

Ron Sages
Family Studies and Human Services

By hook or by crook: evidence based library website redesign

Tara Coleman, Libraries

Learn how one library team used cunning, charm, and magic (or LibQual, Google Analytics, and usability testing) to turn 3,500 into a streamlined library website.

Tara Coleman
Libraries

Harish Maringanti
Libraries

The Real World: Real Experiences Through Online Learning

L. Susan Williams

I’m often asked what’s the difference between distance education and “real” classes. Hmmmm. I – and my students, I believe – operate as if we ARE in real-world experiences, REAL education. Here I demonstrate two assignments – Streets and Connecting with Corrections – that engage distance students in learning “where the rubber meets the road,” or, where life really counts. The real world. I enhance communication through “off-road” technology such as instant messaging, flip cams, and videoconferencing.

A New Age: A New Audience

This session will look at current trends and national demographics and the need for new approaches to teaching. In particular, this session will focus on how one professor has transitioned from a traditional distance delivery format to an online delivery format. Discussion of how content and technology were integrated into an online delivery format will also be shared. Samples of course modules and video integration will be available for participants to preview as well.

Della Perez
College of Education

Adaptive Technology: how students with disabilities access coursework

I will have software running to show faculty how students access coursework. This technology can show you why some students struggle with accessing information. I will talk about common pitfalls in creating PDF files and other instructional content.

Repurposing Gaming Technology for Education

Gaming devices offer exciting, low-cost options for enhancing learning options in wide variety of subjects. See how WiiMotes, WiiFit Balance Boards, and the Microsoft Kinect can be utilized within the classroom environment.

Nathan Bean
GK-12 Program Coordinator

Unlock the secrets of the universe with video green screening!

Brent Anders, Artur Gregorian, Zachary Caby, Office of Mediated Education

See how using green screen in video can be used to enhance video for use in your online or face-to-face classroom. Come by and experience it for yourself as we put you in virtually any environment. You’ll see yourself on screen with motivating/creative and educational backgrounds. The potential power of this tool is virtually limitless, feel the power!

E-Learning Faculty Module Wiki

The E-Learning Faculty Modules Wiki is an online asynchronous modular resource for faculty who need assistance as they develop coursework. The team created the wiki for all levels of experience. Over 25 faculty and staff from across campus have contributed to this project.

High quality courses are imperative as we face competition from other universities who seek to serve the same students. Kansas State University has a real desire to ensure that all courses offered to distance students are well designed, expertly taught, and adhere to legal considerations.

Lynda Spire
Division of Continuing Education

Rosemary Boggs
Division of Continuing Education

Managing Institutional Date with Data Cookbook

Miriam Clark, Information Systems Office

The Data Cookbook provides a central, highly visible Web-based location to store and manage our institutional data knowledge. By defining business and technical terms in a specific way (to allow access to precise information stored on various databases on campus), it saves hours of staff time spent explaining, researching, and learning the meaning of the terms used across Kansas State University.

Administrators and various functional offices are using the Data Cookbook to define core data in collaboration with partners on campus. This will make the reporting process more efficient in addition to providing a central place to share our terminology.
The Data Cookbook is one of those things you can jump into right away. It includes approval, sharing and collaborating features. (More information about Data Cookbook in general may be found at http://www.datacookbook.com).

Come join me and see what the Data Cookbook can do for you! This presentation will include some real-world scenarios of data requests for reports and the uses of the knowledge in the Data Cookbook to extract that specific information for official reports. This tool is used by faculty to define the institutional data they need for their research and other work on campus.

Visualizing Naturalistic Landscapes

The LARCP department will be highlighting how synthetic landscape generation software is being used to depict virtual landscapes featuring highly detailed terrain, vegetation, water, and full atmospherics. This software is suitable for illustrating proposed meadow and wetland landscapes and how it might be possible to integrate planting design with stormwater runoff modeling.

Creating the Online Lecture: Utilizing Adobe Presenter for Distance Education

I will be available to discuss the various ways I used Adobe Presenter to create an online course, Foundations of Homeland Security.

Nicholas A. Krehbiel

K-State Online: K-State’s teaching and learning hub

K-State Online provides centralized tools for teaching and learning at K-State and provides the base for utilizing other tools such as online TEVAL or the Survey System. Stop by to find out more about K-State Online, ask questions about its use or, if you have never used it before, learn about what it can provide you and your courses.

Scott Finkeldei
Office of Mediated Education

Amanda Tross
Office of Mediated EducationK-State Online: K-State’s teaching and learning hub

The Information Technology Assistance Center (iTAC)- the first point of contact for your technology needs.

iTAC is the answer to your technology needs at K-State.
Services include: equipment checkout, answers to computing questions, scanning documents, help with your online course, audio/video production, help with eid/password and more. Join the iTAC staff for a tour of our most heavily used services,
investigate some of our newest equipment in the checkout system, practice scanning a document, view our ticketing system and more.

iTAC staff

Get to Know K-State Pro

TanyaBeninga

K-State Pro is a course management system designed to deliver an interactive, web-based classroom to students and professionals. It is a simple, yet powerful, set of tools for managing resources in both the traditional classroom setting and in true web-based applications. K-State pro is modeled after K-State Online and offers many of the same features without the restrictions of working in a credit-based format and the flexibility to involve professionals not directly associated with the university.

Teaching, Learning and Technology Showcase