Tech Toys

December's session was a "technology bazaar" featuring SMU community members and their favorite new tech toys. Folks brought in the Droid2 and the DroidX, iPads and Pods, Kindles, the Pulse Smartpen, and even the new XBox Kinect. Visitors had an opportunity to try things out while munching on Christmas goodies.

Here are some links to information about these toys:
Gifting of Kindle e-books
LCD vs e-ink
Projector-equipped Android
iPad Pilots in Higher Ed
iPhone4 and Mobile Video Conferencing
Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
Multi-tasking, Wireless Printing come to iPad
E-book study
Xbox trailer
Harmony Remote Site
Projector Reviews

Tegrity Session

The November session featured a dynamic panel of students and faculty who shared their experiences with Tegrity. Panel members were asked to respond to questions about how they learned to use Tegrity, what they were using it for now, and what benefits they experienced as a result of their use.

Faculty comments included:
". . . my evaluations have improved in those courses that I've used Tegrity in."
"I spend less time outside of class explaining things that I explained in class."

A student commented that he started using Tegrity because "I am not a note taker. I love being able to engage in class, ask questions all the time, and I am not the fastest writer."

Missed the session? Watch it here

Copyright Presentation

Nancy Simms, a lawyer/librarian from the University of Minnesota who specializes in copyright law, gave a lucid and relevant lecture on some of the copyright issues facing academics today.

Missed the program? View it in Tegrity

October's Program

Nosh with Nancy Sims this coming Wednesday the 27thof October. Nancy Sims is the Copyright Librarian at the University of Minnesota and will be filling us in on all the latest issues regarding copyright in the digital age. Stop in to listen and lunch. 12:00 noon in the McEnery Center.

In September's session Jason Spartz and Sarah Bearbower filled us in on all the latest SMU technology updates, and the new Library Director introduced herself with remarks concerning the library and its role in the 21st century in a liberal arts university.
See all the action from last month's session on Tegrity

It's Back!

The Chat Chow conspirators have announced a new menu for Fall/Winter 2010 and are now extending a warm invitation to all faculty and staff to attend:

Lunch with Laura

Find out what's new this semester. Meet the new library director Laura Oanes, see the new library space, and hear all about the latest SMU technology updates.

Wednesday | September 22 | Noon-1:00

Noshing with Nancy
Nancy Sims, Copyright Program Librarian at the U of M, will discuss copyright issues relevant to higher education, including using teaching materials in class and online.

Wednesday | October 27 | Noon-1:00

Tortillas & Tegrity
Hear first hand how Tegrity recordings are influencing teaching and learning. A panel of students and faculty will share their experiences.

Wednesday | November 17 | Noon-1:00

Tech Toys
Check out the latest tech toys. Feeling comfortable with technology in your personal life is often the first step to incorporating it into your professional life--and there's plenty of time to add a toy or two to your Christmas list.

Wednesday | December 1 | Noon-1:00

Can't make a session? No problem--they will all be recorded in Tegrity.

Last Chat Chow of the Semester: Date Change

The last Chat, Chow, and Web 2.0 session of the semester has been pushed forward from Wednesday April 21st to Friday April 23rd. Rebecca Hopkins is on board to share her experiences with the 5 Tees grant. If you can identify what the 5 tees stand for, you will win our door prize.

Hope to see everyone on Friday the 23rd in the McEnery Center at 12:30.

View the session on Tegrity

March Session

Join us on Wednesday March 17th at 12:30 pm for "Ere Their Story Die"--a session on e-portfolios. A portfolio has been described as a "collection of a student's work specifically selected to tell a particular story." Do your students have the technological tools to create portfolios for the 21st century? Discover what some of your colleagues are doing to meet this challenge.

As always be prepared to identify the source for our session's title (think poet) to win a door prize.

View the session in Tegrity

February's Session: Always Sombody Else's Horizon

This month's topic was the Horizon Report, the annual international guide to technology trends likely to have a large impact on teaching and learning.Mobile computing and the open content movement made the cut for technologies likely to be important to educators in one year or less. In two to three years the report indicated that electronic books and simple augmented reality technologies will be adopted. In four to five years, it predicted that gesture-based computing and visual data analysis will be widely in use.

Get the full report.

If you missed the session, see it on Tegrity here

Upcoming Sessions

February 10 "Always Somebody Else's Horizon"
The Horizon Report, the annual guide to technology trends, comes out in January. Find out what's ahead in one year, in two to three years, and in four to five. What are the critical challenges? How will we respond?

March 17 E-Portfolios--"Ere their Story Die"
A portfolio has been described as a "collection of a student's work specifically selected to tell a particular story." Do your students have the technological tools to create portfolios for the 21st century? Discover what some of your colleagues are doing to meet this challenge.

April 21 The Adventure of the Five Tees
Find out what famed educator Rebecca Hopkins is up to with the 5T grant. What can the rest of us learn from her experiences using technology in the classroom?

January Session: "Oh the Mind, Mind has Mountains"

The January session featured demonstrations of mind mapping software. According to Wikipedia, "mind maps are diagrams used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to or arranged around a central key word or idea." Joe Dulak, Academic Skills Center Director, talked about how he is using Cmap Tools to work with his students. This free program "empowers users to construct, navigate, share, and criticize knowledge models represented as concept maps. " You can download the program here.

Dr. Tricia Klosky, Associate Professor of Social Science and Coordinator of Criminal Justice, very successfully uses FreeMind with her students to help them map the process and progress of their research. She has seen remarkable improvements in student performance since introducing this tool.

Some other mind mapping tools include: Thinkmap's Visual Thesaurus, Google's Mind Map, and EBSCO's Visual Search (you can choose this in any of the EBSCO databases).

Watch a YouTube video with Tony Buzan, a leading figure in the mind mapping field, for more background.

This month's door prize was awarded to Dr. Patrick Barlow, Director of College Assessment, for correctly identifying the source of this session's title as coming from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Missed the session? View it now on Tegrity

January's Program: "Oh the Mind, Mind Has Mountains"

Mark your calendar for the next Chat Chow session. Wednesday, January 20th at 12:30 famed educators, Joe Dulak and Tricia Klosky, will be on hand to demonstrate how they are using mind mapping techniques. Remember there is a prize for the first person who correctly identifies the allusion in this month's title (hint--think poet).