Session Abstracts

Blogging and Facebooking

  • Sybil Priebe, North Dakota School of Science and Technology, Wahpeton
  • "Be The Blog: Myself as a Test Subject."
  • Since throwing myself into the "blogosphere" in 2002, I've blogging privately and publicly as well as used class blogs in my Composition/Literature courses. I've researched the bad's and good's of blogging; dissecting student blogging has become my odd passion. I've happily annoyed other academics (and, yes, even non-academics) with my blogging knowledge/experience for quite some time, so why stop now? As an eternal optimist, I have a few recommendations for why students and teachers should jump on the blogging wagon.
  • Melissa Vosen, College of University Studies, NDSU English Department
  • "Building Communities: Using Facebook in the Classroom"
  • Social networking sites, such as Facebook, can be used in both face-to-face and online courses to promote collaboration and challenge traditional concepts of authorship by creating a sense of community between students beyond the four-walls of the classroom. This presentation will discuss how instructors can incorporate Facebook into their curriculum; for example, instructors can ask students to build Facebook applications, create a course group, or use Facebook as an invention tool for other projects. This presentation will also explore recently created Facebook applications that allow instructors to import Blackboard materials to Facebook, creating an online one-stop-shop for students.

Academic Libraries and Social Media

  • Heather Tompkins, Carleton College;
    Char Myhre
  • delicious, rollyo, squidoo... It seems like new social web tools with provocative and sometimes very funny names come out weekly. This proliferation of web applications has many implications for libraries and research support. We will take a closer look at some of these technologies, including social bookmarking, RSS, customized search engines, and how they can be used effectively to support library instruction, teaching and learning, and professional development.

Introduction to Second Life

  • Clark Coffman
  • While much has been in the media the last couple of years concerning Second Life, those media reports often paint only half the picture of what goes on in Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world with many design and communication tools that educators have found can be used in unique ways to engage students in learning. Second Life allows users and programmers to bring in all the media types we currently use for communication and may represent the 3D web of the future. This Second Life presentation will demonstrate those tools and illustrate who is using Second Life for education.

One Step Forward, Three Steps Back: Learning about Communication in Second Life

  • Graduate Students in Communication
  • In spring 2008, graduate students in Dr. Ann Burnett's Advanced Communication Theory class embarked on a project in Second Life in order to develop a theory about how communication functions. Students and professor each created an avatar, attempted to navigate SL as best as possible (with Clark Coffman's help), and received IRB approval to conduct focus groups with its citizens. By March 18, we hope to have conducted several focus groups, and, for this conference, will be prepared to talk about early lessons learned in addition to any findings we have developed with regard to our theory.

Some Social Factors with Immersive Virtual Environments for Education

  • Dr. Brian M. Slator, NDSU Worldwide Web Instructional Committee
  • Immersive Virtual Environments for Education are used for teaching the principles of Biology and Geology along with other disciplines, and do so in a socially constructed manner. It is common to see students meet others in virtual space, participate in cooperative and peer-mentored interactions, and afterwards express a more positive attitude towards learning. This presentation describes such systems and describes a series of studies conducted over the years, using an identical experimental design. The general results of this study are that: 1) gender does not affect success in games of this type and 2) neither does pre-treatment computer literacy or 3) previous gaming experience, and 4) that 3D versus 2.5D interfaces do not significantly effect the students' perception of the learning experience.

Introduction to Wimba Collaboration Suite

  • Lyn Willoughby, Instructional Designer, Distance & Continuing Education;
    Cheryl Thompson, Instructional Services Specialist, ND Interactive Video Network;
    Tammy Cummings, Instructional Services Consultant, Information Technology Services
  • The Wimba Collaboration Suite includes a virtual classroom - live voice and video at a distance - and also podcasting capability, voice discussion, and instant messaging features that are integrated with Blackboard in a familiar, easy-to-use interface. The Wimba system became available to NDSU faculty in a pilot cohort in Spring 2008; availability to all faculty is expected for Fall 2008.
  • Participants in this session will have the opportunity to see a live demonstration of the Wimba Classroom features - which include chat, live voice and video. Additionally, potential uses and pedagogical implications related to the integration of this type of technology into distance education will be discussed.

The Posthuman, Cyborgs, and Implications for Social Media

  • Andrew Mara
  • Much of the conversation about Social Media and Web2.0 maintains a differentiation between hardware, software, and participants (what many posthumanists call "wetware"). The traditional lines between human and technology become ever more indistinct with the advent of media that quickly facilitates representation of affinities and enables activity based affection, attraction, and repulsion.

Social Media: A Graduate Student Roundtable

  • Kathryn Dunlap, Online Comics;
    Paula Comeau, "The Revolution Will Be Televised";
    Brandon Gustafson and Stephen Porter, "The Hypersurreal World";
    Katie Gunter, "Poetry in New Media";
    Jennie Enger, "The Remediated Prairie"
  • This roundtable will have six NDSU students describe their projects in a Rhetorics and Poetics of New Media. In this session, presenters will discuss some of the historical precedents, overlaps, and disconnections with Social Media.

On-A-Slant

  • Jeffrey Clark,
    Richard Frovarp
  • With support from the Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation, the North Dakota State University Archeology Technologies Laboratory (ATL) has reconstructed the On-A-Slant Mandan Village using Virtual Reality technology. The remains of On-A-Slant village are located near Mandan, ND on the grounds of the Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park.
  • The On-A-Slant Virtual Village was modeled based on scholarly research of the site, the Native population, and the era. The Virtual Village is as historically accurate as the documentation allows. The slice of time presented to viewers is ca. 1776, five years before the village's abandonment in 1781.

The Virtual Classroom: Bringing Irish to North Dakota

  • Andrew Mara,
    Jessica Wagner
  • An bhfuil Gaeilge agat? Is there Irish at you? The Fargo-Moorhead Irish Language Association (FMILA) has been making use of internet social media sites (such as Facebook and YouTube?) since its first days to gather interested students, facilitate member contact, and connect with other learners, instructors, and resources from across the globe. From "sitting in" on an Irish classroom in San Diego to "meeting" native speakers in Galway, this presentation will show how the virtual classroom created by these media sites can be an educational asset to anyone with curiosity and an internet connection.

Podcasting

  • Nem Schlecht
  • Podcasting is one of the newest content delivery methods available today. Ever watched a talk show and thought to yourself, "I can do that!"? Ever thought about recording your lectures and creating an online course with them? Podcasting involves several media types, although the focus is usually on audio, that can be easily subscribed to and automatically updated. Join us and find out how to find podcasts that you are interested in and how to go about starting up your very own podcast.

Social Bookmarking

  • Jeremy Brown
  • Social Bookmark services like del.icio.us, Digg, and others have become wildly popular. Have you needed to collaboratively manage a collection of bookmarks? Do you find your in-browser bookmarks unwieldy? This presentation will talk about the ins and outs of social bookmarking, and how it compares with traditional browser bookmarks.

Wikis for Department and Course Use - Architecture and Landscape Architecture Case Study

  • Mark Lindquist,
    Ben Bernard,
    Cindy Urness
  • Starting with a wiki-savvy faculty member, a technology-fluid department IT specialist, another faculty member interested in disseminating basic information to a large group of freshman advisees, and a supportive NDSU Library IT environment, one NDSU department has been able to quickly use wiki technology to meet a wide variety of departmental functions and goals. See how students, faculty, and staff are moving to an on-line collaborative environment for research, presentation, group projects, student awareness, and general information sharing.