Concluding Comments on CUIN 7376: What I Learned.

The curriculum of this course was similar to the courses I've taken on statistical methods. However, in this class the methods studied were not statistical methods, but rather Web 2.0 tools. This was like those other methods courses in that we learned about a large number of methods, without going into much detail as a class on any one of them. This is appropriate, given that most of the tools we looked at will not be of obvious immediate use for one teacher. It's up to the individual student to figure out which tools will be useful in their own situations. In the future we will find uses for tools that are not apparent now, so it's important that we are exposed to a large variety of tools so that we can recall them in the future. Mastering the intricacies of one specific tool is a task that each student can do on their own, in their own time as they find it is useful to do so.

This semester in Cam's class I've become much more aware of how involving students in the process of teaching can greatly increase the power of a course to educate. I already knew that you learn more as a teacher than as a student (at least passive student anyway). I like to joke with my students that teaching is a great scam, because the more I get them to teach each other and do my job for me, the better a teacher I am. Of course, I'm only joking since coordinating students to teach each other is at least as much work as giving a lecture.

That said, I think this course was about as good an example I can think of where the students acted as teachers for themsleves and each other. By having us turn in our homework as blog posts and forum posts, it allowed us to learn form each other. Given that each one of us learns and expresses ourselves in different ways, the "educational power" of the course is greatly expanded when the talents of all the students are harnessed as they were in this class. It's unlikely that a student will be unable to engage with at least some of what the other students present.

An example of this is that I learned about Vyew by reading Jing's blog. I reviewed Twiddla which is similar to Vyew, and after comparing the two I think I would prefer to use Vyew. It would be a lot of work for one person to review all of these tools, but by having the class share the labor, a lot of information can be processed and made available for everyone in the class.

The course was a bit of a whirlwind, but I think the workload was very reasonable, in part because the course was so efficient at spreading the labor, as I said before. It was hard to keep track of all the little projects we had to do, but they were all in the syllabus.

I have begun using some Web 2.0 tools in my teaching (e.g. bubbl.us), and I think the impact of CUIN 7376 will become more evident as I continue teaching. Problems and needs will come up, and I will have a new tool kit to search for solutions to those currently unanticipated challenges.

Prezi on bubbl.us and learning about animals!

Here is a link to a Prezi I created on using bubbl.us to create dichotous keys as a full class group activity.  Thank you to my General Zoology students for your feedback that helped me put together this presentation!

Web 2.0 Tool Review: Compfight!

Name: Compfight
URL: http://www.compfight.com/
Type of tool: Productivity
Description: Compfight is a search engine for finding images on Flickr.  Compared to searching Flickr with its built-in serach engine, Compfight has a number of distinctive differences.  Perhaps the most noticable difference is that, upon performing a search, Compfight loads many more images to one webpage than Flickr's own serach engine.  Flickr loads 21 thumbnails per search results page, while Compfight loads more thumbnails than I was willing to count. 
Here is a screenshot of search results within Flickr for images tagged "squid":

And here is a screenshot of search results for "squid" using Compfight:

The Compfight search result page may take a few moments to fully load if many matches are found.  The image thumbnails are unlabeled, allowing more thumbs to fit on the page.
Compfight has several search options.  The first is searching for tags or searching for any text.  The second option is to search within the Flickr Creative Commons, within commercial images, or both.  A third option allows you to choose to show or not show original images.  I guess "original" means images made originally for Flickr.  I didn't see any explanation for what this means.  There is also a "safe" mode to filter out offensive images that is switched on by default.
What to you need to know to use Compfight?:  Compfight is an image search engine.  If you can use Google you should be able to use Compfight.
What to you need to have to use Compfight?:  Compfight requires a network connection and a webbrowser.
How do you use Compfight?:
1) Navigate to www.compfight com.
2) Choose your search preferences (e.g. Commons, commercial, etc.).
3) Type in your search term, and hit "enter."
4) Scan the photo thumbs found, and click on the one you want to use to enlarge the image.
An educational use of Compfight: For a biology teacher, probably the best use of Compfight would be searching for images of biological specimens, (animals, plants, fungi, etc.).  As with most search engines, I found that I got more biologically relevent results if I used scientific nomenclature.  I found more photos of actual squid specimens if I seached for "Loligo," which is a genus of squid frequently used in college bioogy labs, than when I searched for "squid." 

Here is a screenshot of Compfight search results for "loligo":

As you can see in the screenshot, there are considerably fewer search results for "loligo" than for "squid" (not surprising), but the images are much more frequently photos are real squid specimens,  as opposed to squid artwork which isn't of too much interest in a biology class.
I am in the practice of using Google Image Search when I want to look for images of biological speicmens.  It does appear that Compfight gives more search results to choose from than Google.  For students looking for images to use in a report or presentation (e.g. a presentation on squids), the instructor could point to Compfight as a resource to use. 
What are the advantages of using Compfight in a teaching environment?: Compfight allows you to quickly locate a large number of high quality photographs, including photos of biological specimens.
What are the disadvantages of ising Compfight in a teaching environment?: Compfight only searches Flickr, and Flickr is mainly limited to photos, not graphs and diagrams.  When I am teaching biology, I frequently search for simple diagrams and graphs to illustrate certain points, and this tool is of very limited use in finding images of graphs and diagrams.  

My Personal Learning Network diagram

Using bubbl.us, I have constructed a diagram of my personal learning network:

I included both sources I use for formal education (e.g. university department webpages) and sources for informal education/entertainment (e.g.Netflix and Hulu), since learning occurs in both school and outside of school.

Dichotomous keys of Arthopoda, Echinodermata, and fish and invertebrate chordates

Here are dichotoumous keys my Zoology 1413 class made using bubbl.us.  For purposes of making a quick flowchart during a presentation, I think bubbl.us is a better choice than flowchart.com.  I think flowchart.com is more intended for making a polished flowchart that looks just like the way you want it to look, while bubbl.us is better for a classroom acitvity.

Dichotomous keys are used mainly for identifying specimens.  They do not necessarily have to follow evolutionary history, although they often do.  In this dichotomous key, the chondrosteans and the chondrichthyans are on one branch together, even though they are not closely related among the fishes.  They both happen to share a cartilaginous skeleton, but they did not inherit that cartilaginous skeleton from a common ancestor.

Dichotomous keys for annelids and mollusks using flowchart.com

In my Zoology 1413 class, we constructed these dichotomous keys for identifying the general varieties within the phyla Annelida and Mollusca.  I'm adding them here as a reference for my students studying for the lab quiz.

My groups CUIN 7376 Voicethread presentation on education for the 21st Century can be found at  http://voicethread.com/?#u1728153.