In which we all seize the stage and shout to each other “carpe pulpitum”
Posted By Kevin Gaugler on February 12, 2009
We’ve all heard the following phrase intended to help instructors remember to be more student-centered. “Be the guide on the side and not the sage on the stage”. “Carpe pulpitum,” I often declare to my students when they hesitate to participate. We’ve also heard of the promise of interactive technologies that allow for participatory learning by making it simple for anyone to give voice to larger discussions on any particular topic. As such, I thought I would briefly introduce the community to two tools designed to hand the microphone or camera over to all of you and your students and create multimedia threaded discussions.
The first tool we’ll look at is ChinSwing, which provides a platform for you to quickly record a question and have others add their responses to the question. The entire conversation can then be downloaded as a single mp3 file. Participants can also subscribe to the RSS feed to recieve updates on the conversation. One feature lacking from ChinSwing is the ability to embed the conversaiton into a website. So for now, here is a link to a conversation about how to best use ChinSwing to learn languages. It might be fun to exchange ideas while learning how to use this tool. I’ve also embedded a YouTube video of someone who created a tutorial of ChinSwing for those interested in using it for language learning. I’ve also included a tutorial in Spanish and an example of it’s use to teach French since ChinSwing seems to have a multilingual community.
ChinSwing Tutorial in English
Video of ChinSwing used in a French Class
Seesmic is the other tool I wanted to share with you. It’s similar to ChinSwing except that records both video and audio from a webcam. However the commuity aspect of Seesmic works much more like Twitter or YouTube than ChinSwing in so far as you have the abilty to follow people you find interesting. You can also embed the video on your own website, allowing instructors to integrate Seesmic into their course management system. One of my favorite features of Seemic is the way that the’ve incorporated the technolology of CoolIris into their system. Take any thread and click on the CoolIris icon next to the RSS icon. All the partcipants’ videos will float magically before your eyes á la Minority Report. Imagine assigning this as homework and then coming to class the next day with all your students’ videos floating on the big screen behind you. That could be a powerful tool.
Erin Strickland recently started a conversation on Seesmic about how to use it in foreign language education. Erin is a “graduate student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies interested in using different technologies to make language learning a fun, interactive process.” Here is the thread she started. I propose we all use Seesmic to help her out with her thesis.
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In which we all sieze the stage and shout to each other “carpe pulpitum” by Kevin Gaugler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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