I am getting ready for the NetWorks free webinar Transferring Knowledge to the New Style of Learning: Extending the Classroom Beyond the Four Walls with Karl Kapp on this Friday, September 26. Karl is a great presenter and an expert on this topic. Karl is also a prolific blogger, check out his blog if you haven’t already. Here are a few more questions that Karl has answered:

What would you say to a faculty member who has no experience using these types of tools and doesn’t know where to begin?

The first movers on any new technology always seem to be the students. So, whenever I speak to faculty members, I encourage them to enlist their students in using the new technology. Ask the students to create podcasts related to the topic you are teaching. Ask students to create a video and place it on YouTube. Chances are your students are already placing material on the web as a method of socializing with their friends, make an assignment so they can also learn as they post the media. Also, note that not all students will be working with the web tools so encourage group work and collaboration. This will allow the students to learn from each other as they create the new media. As an added bonus, because the material is on the web, it will be available semester after semester for subsequent students. The only downside it that you will need to keep creating new assignments since they students will most certainly look up previously posted work.

The students love to teach the teacher something. When I did my first blog, it was because of some persistent students showing me how to do it, and how I could use it.

What is a good assignment for utilizing something like a wiki or a blog?

For a wiki, I think a great assignment is to create a collaborative paper. Each student can be assigned a section of the wiki and he or she can then add information that they’ve researched and written. Others can then comment and add other information, links and even videos to the originally entered content. The neat thing about a wiki assignment is that the students can watch the collaborative work grow over time. You can even carry the wiki from semester to semester. Each semester students will be building on the work of previous students.

For a blog, I suggest the instructor leaving comments after each class and then requiring the students to comment on the class. Or the instructor can pose specific questions about the content for the students to answer. The great thing about a blog is that the students will read the other student’s comments and comment on the comments from time-to-time. This carries the interactivity and engagement of the classroom beyond the designated class period. It extends the class.

These are great answers, and a taste of what Karl will present in the webinar. We have a lot of registrants but still seats available. Come join us and enjoy Karl Kapp’s presentation on how to expand beyone the four walls.

Mark Viquesney