Small Group Teaching Fun!

Big Huge Labs has a tool on it’s site called “Cube” that allows you to place photos from your Flickr site onto a cube or die. I found Creative Commons images that represented six of my favorite small group teaching techniques: Snowball, Post-it Note, Brainstorming, Line Up, Role Play, and Buzz Groups and placed these on a paper die I can download and print. (See others at the London Deanery website) My plan is to utilize this die so faculty can begin to practice these techniques during a faculty development workshop in a fun and nonthreatening way...Roll the dice to see what your assigned teaching technique is to practice... Here's an example of what it might look like:

This assignment calls for inserting an image with an attribution.  Again, I find myself unable to resist the image with a good story.  This brain below is made of green jello, and enjoyed by "The Fam" (as photographer hurleygurley refers to her family) at holiday dinners for the past decade.

Some Rights Reserved

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that exists to increase the “common” body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing, as alternatives to full copyright. They grant licenses that work alongside copyright to provide a range of possibilities between full copyright and the public domain, calling the option a “some rights reserved” copyright.

There are six main types of Creative Commons licensing, ranging the from the most accommodating (Attribution) to the most restrictive (Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives). The four other types that fall in the middle include: Attribution Share Alike, Attribution No Derivatives, Attribution Non-Commercial, and Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike. The main concepts of these terms are described below.

• Attribution gives others permission to copy, distribute or display your work (or work based on it) that has a copyrighted, providing they give you credit.
• Noncommercial is very similar to attribution, but is further limited because it can only be used for noncommercial purposes.
• No Derivative Works is similar to attribution, except the permission it is limited to exact copies only.
• Share Alike permits distribution of derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

This is a example of a photo with an Attribution Non-Comercial license.  I was looking for inspiration for my next Ukranian egg, but when I came upon this photo, I couldn't resist posting it.  The photographer, highbloom, commented that he took the shot in passing, that he didn't have time to enter the Pysanky Museum in the city of Kolomiya, Ukraine.  I can't imagine passing this opportunity by!  As Easter approaches, my new dyes are mixed, fresh wax waits in my stylus and my candleholders, and as I search for design inspirations, I would love to feast my eyes on what lies within these walls!

All a twitter

Joe Dale discusses the uses of Twitter in the classroom which includes links to live tweeting during a presentation, a link to free software that enables you to use twitter like clickers, and also post both tallied responses and individual tweets directly into a powerpoint presentation.  It might be exciting to utilize this software to bring audience responses into a presentation without the expensive option of using clickers.

Another site discusses a study of twitter use including the use of twitter to assess and record the student experience.  For research in student affairs, this might be a fascinating way to examine student behavior and attitudes in a particular area.  Their idea of handing out iPod touch phones to collect data, then incentivizing participation by promising to raffle a few off at the end of the study is fantastic.  I'm involved in a study where we're qualitatively expanding on past quantitative work examining the relationship between GPA and study habits.  Imagine the responses we might get to qualitative research questions posed in this manner.  And, we'd have the added benefit of far less words to analyze, plus we wouldn't have to transcribe interviews!

But, I must keep this excitement contained, to be mindful of twitter overlad when I start to tweet, and not become one of what one blogger calls "the Twitterazzi."  I need to maintain some separation from the electronic world, including twitter and all it entails...as posted: