Blog Pile

Day 2 at MIT

My colleagues and I had another full on day of absorbing and observing at MIT. the night before, our host and contact Phil Long took us to an outstanding Afghan restaurant in Cambridge, called Helmand. Friday started with a bit of blue sky, but the snow did not wait long to start its thing. In […]

Uncategorized

Just a Wiki? Not! Check Out Jotspot

Interested in wikis, but turned off by the geeky interface, the technical set up hurdle, or the fear of spam? You’ve got company. But I just quickly scanned Jotspot, billed as “the application wiki”. From what I can scan, it is a second generation wiki offering a WYSIWIG editing interface (“Nothing new to learn. If […]

Uncategorized

Open Source Home Page

This is a nice feature on the MIT web site– Propose a Graphic: We encourage the MIT community and the public to submit images or designs for the MIT home page. Like open source software, the MIT home page improves with each individual’s contribution. The designer of each day’s image is credited on the home […]

Blog Pile

Out and About At MIT

I’ve been in the sub-arctic zone known as “Boston” since Wednesday (hey, it is 85 degrees back home!) for some visits at MIT. Yes, that MIT. This was set up partly to learn more about the iCampus initiative thanks to a gracious invitation from Phil Long at last fall’s EDUCAUSE conference. I am here with […]

Uncategorized

Another Great Student Panel

We’re getting some great responses and interest in a second student panel we assembled in the last two weeks. Back in February 25, 2005, we had a 5 member panel for our ePortfolio Dialogue Day. For that one we even managed to capture and post the audio from the 55 minnute session. The following Friday […]

Blog Pile

Ocotillo Presentation Under The Belt

Today was our presentation on our “Ocotillo” project titled Maricopa’s Ocotillo Evolves Again: 18 Years of Faculty Led Instructional Technology Initiatives: Since 1987, Ocotillo has been a faculty led initiative to promote the effective use of instructional technology. Like its desert plant metaphor, Ocotillo has evolved again into four new action groups, leading a range […]

Blog Pile

Session Review: Computer Hacking as an Educational Tool

Whew! I found a stellar presentation session today…. all hope is not lost . Margaret Hvatum and Gayla Stewart from St Louis Community College presented “Computer Hacking as an Educational Tool” (no web links ;-):

For education to happen, students must be interested and engaged in the subject material. Computer hacking interests students and motvates them to read, do research, talk in class, and present their findings on hackers. Since both white-hat and blach-hat hackers exist, students also learn to develop their own value systems as the class explores the topics of hackers, what they do, illegal versus immoral behaviors, and appropriate versus inappropriate use of technology.

More or less, this is an excellent approach for a freshman new student experience course, where they learn some literacy, research, and writing skills. What was also good about this session was that it was only half lecture format, as the second half, participants engaged in a scnerio activity that had as look at different viewpoints on the issue of hacking.

Some notes follow…