Educational Uses of Mashups

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Educational Uses of Mashups
Home is at http//www.beyondutopia.com
The faithful corgis edublog http//elearnqueen.
blogspot.com

• Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.

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About Susan .

• Involved in the development and administration of
  online courses and programs since the early
  1990s, Susan Smith Nash has made a point to share
  her experience as well as her research through
  her websites, weblogs and podcasts. Her
  background is interdisciplinary, with a Ph.D. in
  English, M.A. in English, graduate courses in
  economics and instructional design, B.S. in
  Geology.
• The recipient of collaboration and innovation
  awards for her work in developing innovative and
  high-quality online and hybrid programs that take
  advantage of the latest technologies, Nash has
  been involved with organizations and educational
  institutions involved in online education and
  training. Ground-floor online program
  development for the University of Oklahoma and
  has developed curriculum and programs for
  elearning (including mobile learning) for Florida
  Community College Jacksonville, the Literature
  Institute, the American Association of Petroleum
  Geologists, Excelsior College.
• Over the last 15 years, Nash has developed
  instructional content for textbooks, audio books
  (educational mp3 downloads), simulations and
  serious games, video (downloadable educational
  video clips). Content includes Spanish and
  English language materials.
• Having held administrative positions at Excelsior
  College and the University of Oklahoma, Susan
  currently holds a leadership position in at
  Victoria Resources, a natural resources company.
  Her role involves research in innovative
  processes.
• She has published numerous articles in
  peer-reviewed journals and has made presentations
  at prominent national conferences. Susan is
  involved with research into the best ways to use
  new techniques and technologies (Web 2.0, etc),
  for effective e-learning (and training).
• Her latest book, Excellence in College Teaching
  and Learning Classroom and Online Instruction,
  was co-authored with George Henderson and
  published in 2007. Leadership and the e-Learning
  Organization, was published in 2006. Nash is
  managing editor of Texture Press, also an editor
  with JELLO - Journal of E-Learning and Learning
  Objects.
• Her edublog, e-Learning Queen (http//www.elearnin
  gqueen.com) has been nominated for several
  awards.

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What are the educational uses of mashups?

• a. enhance instructional content
• b. engage with the material on a deeper level
• c. explore and uncover previously unsuspected
  aspects of the data
• d. open up new worlds through new ways of seeing
  familiar things
• e. discuss, debate and share insights and
  sources of information
• f. develop analytical skills
• g. enhance computer skills

Home is at http//www.beyondutopia.com
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PollMy educational focus

• a. higher education
• b. K-12 education
• c. corporate training
• d. not-for-profit education
• e. infrastructure and/or software service
  provider
• f. textbooks and instructional materials

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How does a mashup enhance learning?

• a. Engages students in deeper learning.
• b. Asks students to classify and organize
  knowledge.
• c. Connects to real-world situations.
• d. Encourages collaboration.
• e. Creates ideal conditions for learning (engage
  learner, spark interest)
• f. Causes students to learn by doing

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POLLIn my educational experience, the hardest
thing to do is to get students to

• a. make the connection between the instructional
  content and the learning outcome
• b. overcome their fear of the technology and the
  unknown
• c. truly interact with each other in the
  discussion forums

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Where / how can mashups be used in education?

• step 1. define learning goal -- what do you want
  the data to tell you?
• step 2. identify sources of data
• step 3. determine if the data can be mined
• step 4. discuss what the relationships of the
  data fields can reveal
• step 5. identify pitfalls and problems with
  assumptions

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Mashups and Cognition

• a. classification of knowledge
• b. working memory
• c. connections
• d. experiential
• e. emotional

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Using Mashups to develop learning organizations

• Encourage self-directed exploration
• Decriminalize experimentation
• Learning as play a playful setting
• The organization sees itself as capable of
  changing along with the innovations
  (innovation-led change / adaptation / growth)

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Using Mashups to enhance learning processes
and to develop learning communities

• Efficient and effective collaborations
• Developing schemata
• Self-guided scaffolding
• Informal mentoring
• Distributed mentoring
• Communities of practice

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Cultural Considerations

• a. be aware of potential bias in the way that
  databases are combined
• b. be aware of the underlying assumptions used
  in selected databases
• c. gender cultural spin in articles pulled
  from news databases
• d. ways of sharing data and information can vary
  from culture to culture

Home is at http//www.beyondutopia.com
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Gamer-Boomer Ramp-Ups

• a. Digital natives have different comfort zones
  with technology
• b. Boomers have learned to learn by creating
  classification schemes
• b. Team learning -- problem-solving using each
  group's strengths

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POLL

• Question Have you created a feed on a service
  (del.icio.us, netvibes, myspace, facebook,
  technorati, etc.) that filters the results based
  on a tag that you have selected?
• Y/N

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What kinds of mashups work best?From simple to
complex....

• a. Use igoogle to blend together applications on
  a single page
• google scholar and google earth Look at the
  current configuration of the Aral Sea (google
  earth) what has happened historically? (google
  scholar)

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What kinds of mashups work best?From simple to
complex....

• b. If you use Bebo to pull feeds tagged with
  "Westminster Kennel Club" along with "Beagle"
  with Flickr images tagged "Beagle" -- yield?
  stories about Uno, who won the Westminster Kennel
  Club "Best of Show" this year.

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Bebo is easy to useBuilt-in Spaces to Place
your Apps
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Bebo is a great place to experiment with apps
share
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Bebo is easy to useCustomize your Feeds, Add
Widgets
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Virtual Tourist Build a walking tourfor fellow
students

• Schmapplets http//www.schmap.com/published/beyo
  ndutopia/1267

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Schmapplet Oil and Gas ExplorationIn Oklahoma

• Schmapplets http//www.schmap.com/published/beyo
  ndutopia/1267

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Schmapplet Oil and Gas ExplorationIn Oklahoma

• Schmapplets http//www.schmap.com/published/beyo
  ndutopia/1267
• Learning objectives possibilities with
  Schmapplets
• Connect geography, culture, images, history
• Relate to personal experience
• Discuss current events and relate to contemporary
  issues

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Yahoo Pipes
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Yahoo Pipes examples and tutorials

• http//blog.pipes.yahoo.com/2007/05/02/example-pip
  es-that-use-the-new-geo-features/

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Popfly

• http//www.smetube.com/clipshare/view_video.php?vi
  ewkeyc9c67424d369f3414728 tutorial video

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Before you mashup ... remember there are
pitfalls --

• results only as good as the data
• data can be outdated, incomplete, inaccurate...
  need to test
• it is helpful to think of applying the
  scientific method developing multiple working
  hypotheses for a research question
• interrogate your research question... what do
  you really want it to tell you?
• will your methodology really yield what you want
  from your research question?

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Example for Social Inequality CourseRural
Poverty, Cultural Isolation

• It can be useful to probe the connection between
  rural poverty and cultural isolation in the U.S.
  (assuming that the socialization process occurs
  in a consumer society via consumption) --
  selecting low per capita income towns (census
  data), getting zip codes, then using yahoo (or
  google maps) to see how many WalMart, Target,
  McDonald's, and Burger King restaurants, as well
  as "big box" stores there might be.
• The idea that low income areas are typified by
  consumer-culture isolation was not supported in
  the way we expected. While low-income rural
  regions tended to not have the retail outlets
  mentioned above, there were "magnet communities"
  in the midst of low-income rural regions.
• College towns tended to have low average income
  figures, but tended to have numerous chain or
  "big box" stores.

Home is at http//www.beyondutopia.com
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Mashed together data for young people emphasis
on illegal and high-risk behaviors --

• The well-being of young people can be related to
  their behavior and social environments. Mashed
  together data from various U.S. governmental
  agencies, with an emphasis on illegal and
  high-risk behaviors. Followed research design and
  methodology recommended by the Federal
  Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics.
• Source National Institutes of Health / National
  Institute of Drug Abuse
• Stats Substance use regular cigarette smoking,
  alcohol use, and illicit drug use.
• Breakdown by grade and by reported ethnicity
• Source Centers for Disease Control and
  Prevention (CDC)
• Behaviors Sexual Intercourse
• Breakdown 12th grade 9th grade
• Source National Crime Victimization Survey
• Behaviors Reported crimes involving juvenile
  offenders
• Breakdown Ages 12-17

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Blended courses

• Mashups in a Blended Program?
• step one discuss research problems in class
• step two group and individual work outside
  class
• step three report results and discuss in class
• Step four post to discussion forum and make a
  lasting display

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100 Online Courses

• Mashups in 100 online
• a. require students to pull together data from
  different sources as a part of a research project
• b. encourage sharing of the mashups and/or the
  process in the discussion forum area
• c. include tutorials and links to popular mashup
  spaces and mashup techniques and uses

Home is at http//www.beyondutopia.com
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Mobile Learning

• Mashups and Mobile Learning
• a. mashup-type experiences can be had using
  yahoo Go Y! Go (has taggable Flickr, Yahoo Maps,
  News, etc.)
• b. use IM services to communicate / share
  results
• c. iTunes with iTouch, iPhone, iPod mashed with
  IM to share post

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Videos

• http//video.google.com/videoplay?docid4778353075
  275804171hlen
• http//video.google.com/videoplay?docid-838303844
  0830989640hlen
• http//video.google.com/videoplay?docid-791965016
  2799248639hlen

http//beyondutopia.net/podcasts/mashup-nmc-spring
-symposium-nash.mp3 Podcast for this Powerpoint
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Useful Articles

• List of useful references to be provided.

http//beyondutopia.net/podcasts/mashup-nmc-spring
-symposium-nash.mp3 Podcast for this Powerpoint