The Holiday Gift Guide

Just in case...here are some tech ideas - some of them actually useful for teaching and learning:

• How about an adapter that connects your Mac to whatever TV, monitor, or projector?
• Or maybe the perfect stylus for your tablet or a good charger for all your mobile devices?
• The Kano Computer Kit is a nicely-packaged Raspberry Pi kit with all the accessories you need to get started.
• Maybe a Photojojo lens to clip on your smart phone?
• The Narrative Clip is a tiny automatic camera that you can clip anywhere.
• A bit larger, the Polaroid Cube is a tiny 1080p HD video camera.
• Even cooler: how about the Panono Panoramic Ball Camera? 
• Or maybe just a Ladybug 2 Quadcopter?

Finally, how about adopting a glacier from the National Snow and Ice Data Center? Qori Kalis Glacier (see below) is available!

Faculty and Librarian Technology Survey (Spring 2014)

The results of the Spring 2014 Faculty and Librarian Technology Survey are available online. You have the choice between:

1. Reading the comprehensive report and analysis in a variety of formats.
2. Exploring and analyzing the data yourself.
3. Browsing the Top-10 results as an interactive Story Journal.

Your Digital Stuff

You create a lot of digital stuff as a teacher: lesson plans, lectures, screencasts, activities, handouts, tutorials, videos, and more. How do you a) store all of this and b) how do you share it (if you want to) with the rest of the world?

Many of us hide our digital stuff on PLATO or myWestfield behind a user name and password. But what happens if you leave or get fired? Or if you apply for another job and want to show-off your work?  Consider your web presence as a tool for academic networking, self-promotion, and a way to remain active in your discipline (cf. Wilson and Starkweather, 2014).

Students are faced with similar issues: their digital work is scattered across USB drives, hidden in dozens of PLATO course shells, and now inside a proprietary e Portfolio assessment system.

Here are some alternatives:

1. Upload everything to www.westfield.ma.edu.
2. Upload everything to free commercial websites (example).
3. Upload everything to an Open Education Resource (OER) (example).
4. Upload everything to your own website (example) using, for example, Reclaim Hosting and then use DWNLD to convert the website into a smartphone app (for $15 per month).

Or, maybe Westfield State can provide a solution?

Consider the A Domain of One's Own project at the University of Mary Washington or Internet2 approach of creating collaborative clouds.

Tech Tools Students Need!

This from Wired Campus: Tech Tools Students Say They Can't Live Without



The obvious caveats apply: these are selected graduate students from an expensive private school and this video is heavily edited. Nevertheless, here are a few things I noticed:

• I heard the words tablet and app a lot.
• MacBooks are clearly the laptop of choice.
• Paper and pen are still widely used 'tech' tools.

That being said - students in a recent study at Ball State University viewed tablets mainly as entertainment devices, i.e. large and expensive smartphones.

At Westfield State, only about 22 percent of respondents to the Fall 2013 Student Technology Survey reported owing a tablet computer. On the other hand, 97 percent (!) reported owing a laptop computer - a percentage that seems unreasonably high and suggests a sampling bias. That being said, the ECAR (2014) nationwide survey found student laptop ownership at 90 percent and tablet ownership at 47 percent.