Nano saves Dj

Well here it is. My first blog post unrelated to Computers and Education.

Anyhow, I can't particularly remember how I came across this blog post but, nonetheless I found it really neat. This is the link, but if you don't want to read the whole story, I'll give you a brief summary right here.

Lupe Fiasco, a fairly well known rapper discovered by Jay-Z was playing a show in LA with a 300+ audience when his DJ messed up the set by playing a scratched CD. During his biggest single, Kick Push, the track skipped back to the beginning of the verse over and over again until a proclaimed fan saved the day.

The DJ discovered that someone carrying their iPod Nano happened to have the instrumental versions of not only this particular song, but the entire album (yes that's right, just the beats), to at which point it was brought up on stage, plugged into the system and played for the remainder of the set. I never would have thought an iPod could actually have such a profound effect on the outcome of an evening, but there you have it.

IT and teaching

Key Findings: The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2007 (Caruso and Salaway, 2007)

What I found most interesting about this study was the correlation between the Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education and the five positive categories respondents identified about IT as an enabler of learning (p.13). For the most part, respondents agreed that:

- technology facilitates organization and control in the learning environment
- technology facilitates communication with faculty and classmates
- technology can make content more accessible, including class material and Internet resources
- technology in courses is valuable when directly linked to applications useful to future
employment
- technology is an enabler of learning when professors use it effectively

This list touches on most of the Seven Principles outlined in last weeks article.
With the exception of instructors who use IT poorly, who don’t gauge the diversity of technological literacy students have, and a few other barriers, the results of this study suggest that IT improves teaching and subsequent learning, to which for the most part I agree. Powerpoint is arguably an effective tool for presenting course material. This form of presentation typically utilizes a laptop, projector and Whiteboard. These are all beneficial means of presentation when used effectively. That being said, I think CMS applications make for a more organized and interactive course management system that benefits both instructors and students, but I feel that this particular technology is not significantly responsible for improvements concerning student’s attentiveness, engagement and desire to learn in the classroom.
This portion of the study also provides some insight on class discussion last week. The study’s findings stated that over 58% of students either agree or strongly agree that their instructors use IT well in their courses. I think students are comparing their responses for this question to their own knowledge on the particular IT used. If students know little about Moodle (only the basics: how to navigate through, download a syllabus, etc.), and see that their professor has used one or a few more applications than they know what is even for, they generally assume that their instructors are experts. It has become less frequent since my first year at Mac, but from time to time I also notice instructors having difficulties setting up the connecting cables and whatnot to get their presentation running. I think generally, instructors at Mac are really only adequate users of IT (with the exception of Multimedia profs, of course).
I feel that if instructors knew more about the tools they use to teach classes, we would see even greater effects from the use of IT in teaching.

Seven Principles

Good Practice in Undergraduate Education:
1. Encourages contact between students and faculty
2. Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students
3. Uses active learning techniques
4. Gives prompt feedback
5. Emphasizes time on task
6. Communicates high expectations
7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning

The Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education stress the importance of all these principles, but only a few stand out as areas needing considerable improvement with respect to instructors at Mac. I have picked only two to look at for now. Firstly, professor’s need to give prompt feedback.
I have always had a problem with receiving timely, honest, and thorough feedback from teachers and professors, especially since I started University. I’m hoping I have just been unlucky, but I have found that most of the prof’s teaching the courses I have chosen are to a degree naïve to not only student’s desires, but also to the quality of instruction students require to excel at the Undergraduate level. It seems that close to every professor I have had since the beginning of my career at Mac is either teaching far too many courses a semester, and as a result their assignment/test grading load is unmanageable, or could care less about how long they take to mark. I can honestly say that more than twice have I sat down to write a test or paper not having seen the grade and/or comments from the test/paper written weeks before. A number of prof’s don’t understand how valuable prompt feedback is to students. We need time to read comments, address mistakes, and learn from them, all before the due date for the next assignment rolls around. This is really a critical part of the learning process. The professor is as much responsible for communicating to students what they don’t know or fully comprehend as they are for what they should know. If students don’t know what they don’t understand, the same mistakes will be made until they’re told what the correct way is.
The first principle – to encourage contact between students and faculty - also has potential room for improvement at Mac that could prove valuable to student’s desire to learn and not only interact with their professors, but with each other at a higher intellectual level. Prof’s at Mac are all across the board on this one. I’ve heard of instructors inviting students to visit them in their office, not in their specified office hours, to talk about issues not even relating to the course, while at the same time I’ve heard of prof’s not even showing up for their office hours. For many students this one-on-one time is really important. University is not supposed to be just about learning who Marshall McLuhan is and why his theories are important, but it is also supposed to prepare students for interacting with others in the real world. Meeting with prof’s and discussing current issues, an assignment, test grade, or whatever, will motivate students to study harder because they know their professors really do care.
Prof. Geoffrey Rockwell has said that most professors at Mac have at some point read the Seven Principles – but who really knows how long ago that was. I firmly believe that a refresher course taken by all professors at Mac, in which the Seven Principles were considered a guideline to good practice in undergraduate education, would enhance the quality of education at this school.