Educational Technology at MIT Katie L Vale November

Educational Technology at MIT Katie L. Vale November 29, 2006 Katie Vale - MIT

In this talk… • Overview of Ed Tech at MIT • Spotlight on the Curriculum Technologies group • Social Computing tools freshman seminar • Research in MMORPGs Katie Vale - MIT

20, 000 ft view of MIT Educational Technology • Academic Computing/Office of Educational Innovation and Technology • IS&T • Libraries • Open Course. Ware • Center for Educational Computing Initiatives • i. Campus Katie Vale - MIT

AC/OEIT • Academic Computing/OEIT promotes and enables technology-based education at MIT. In conjunction with other MIT units, it provides a range of services to support the planning, adoption, integration and implementation of educational media and IT to meet the needs of academic programs, faculty and students. Katie Vale - MIT

OEIT: Curriculum Technologies Group We assist in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of: • Mathematics and Engineering software (MATLAB, Mathematica, Visualization) • Web-based technologies (blogs, wikis, course management systems) • Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Data • Instrumentation and mobile devices (Lab. View, PDA/cell phones) …and also with Instructional Design and assessment Katie Vale - MIT

Mathematics, Engineering & Symbolic Representation • • MATLAB Mathematica Math. ML VRML Katie Vale - MIT

Web-based technologies • • • Blogs and Wikis Animations Visualization and Simulation Digital Video Web applications Katie Vale - MIT

GIS Katie Vale - MIT

Instrumentation and Mobile Devices • • • PRS systems Cell phone/PDA technologies Podcasting Lab. View Haptic devices (Seeing Machine) Robotics Katie Vale - MIT

Matching Pedagogies to Technologies Generate ideas and Gather background research Design and Plan Build, Test Collect, Analyze Data Communicate and Share Concept Mapping: Devon. Think, Mind. Manager, VUE Communication Tools: Email, IM (Jabber), Discussion boards, Skype/i. Chat audio/video, Team. Spot Literature search: Vera, Virtual Reference Coll. Auto. CAD, 3 DS, Maya, Form. Z, Sketch. Up, Solid. Works, Adobe Creative Suite, PREP (tablet PCs), Visio, Shake, Basecamp, Second. Life Mat. Lab, Mathematica, Pro. Engineer, Simulink, R, Arc. GIS/ESRI, SPSS, SAS, SQLserver, Lab. View, Hyper. Research Web (XML, VRML, Math. ML), Wikis, Blogs, Stellar, Social bookmarking, Image galleries, Multimedia (Final Cut Pro, Flash, Director), Podcasting (audio/video), Video conf. , Portfolios Katie Vale - MIT

Undergraduate instruction by members of OEIT • • • Social computing tools Simulations for science and engineering Documentary filmmaking GIS and cartography Problem- and Project-based learning seminars Katie Vale - MIT

Social Computing Tools seminar • Taught a freshman seminar on blogging, Fall 05 (and Fall 06) • Nearly all freshmen already had blogs (My. Space, Facebook, Xanga, etc. ) • Also set up private, class-only blogs via IS&T Blog Service (as per MIT student privacy policy) Katie Vale - MIT

Seminar topics: Personal reflection • MIT Admissions blogs - What MIT is really like for students • Dooce. com - irreverent diary of a woman coping with unemployment, post-partum depression, parenting, and religion • Drivetime - video blog of commute from JP Allston/Cambridge (Ravi Jain guest lectured) Katie Vale - MIT

Seminar topics: Citizen Journalism • Iraq war - soldier, civilian and journalist blogs • Israel/Lebanon conflict • Katrina/Rita witnesses and journalists • London bombing survivors • Gush Katif and Gaza settlers Katie Vale - MIT

Seminar topics: Project blogs • Numb 3 rs blog from Northeastern • The Blue Blog for knitting (Alison Hansel guest lectured too) • The Julie/Julia Project • Kottke. org Katie Vale - MIT

Seminar topics: Social Computing, Productivity sites • • • Frappr Del. icio. us Technorati Reddit. com Digg. com Bloglines • • 43 folders Ask. metafilter. com Parent Hacks Flylady Katie Vale - MIT

Seminar topics: Security • Risk avoidance • Perceived anonymity • Your permanent record Katie Vale - MIT

Student assignments • Students kept blogs • Each week blogged about an assigned topic plus anything they chose • Had to comment on other students’ blogs Katie Vale - MIT

Wiki use in MIT education • Method for obtaining feedback about contents of a proposed new subject • Cooperative final project by student team • Common project space for notes, comments • For geographically distributed population, can be a community of practice or support group (eg. i. Lab, study abroad) Katie Vale - MIT

Impact of MMORPGs and virtual environments • 7 million worldwide play World of Warcraft; Wo. W has 50% of market. • Wo. W players obtain significant experience in online teamwork, leadership and microeconomics via gaming • Players extremely comfortable with instant messaging (class help), Vo. IP (homework submission), etc. • Players used to spending multiple hours on a complex coordinated task. Katie Vale - MIT

Gender and communication in MMORPGs • Majority of respondents self-reported to be heterosexual males who are in relationships. • About 75% of players have characters of opposite gender to their own, either for appearance, roles, diversity or a perceived advantage. • Over two-thirds of respondents believe female characters are treated differently - helped more, gifted items, or hit on, even though about half of players also believe that other players lie about their true gender. • Mix of “traditional” gender ideas (“I should help the ladies”) and “progressive” (“It’s an RPG, gender issues are unimportant”)Vale - MIT Katie

MMORPGs at MIT • Currently evaluating Second. Life - legal issues • Have planned a virtual campus to help first year students learn about the different dorms, fraternities, sororities and living groups • Beginning a center for research on gaming in Comparative Media Studies Katie Vale - MIT

Questions? • Thanks for being here today • Feel free to contact me: Katie. L@mit. edu Katie Vale - MIT