Wordle Words

The focus of the EPCC Faculty Development  blog as determined by Wordle.net

As you may have figured out, I am a computer addict.  Each and every night, I am on the Internet.  I have some sites that I look at every day, such as Facebook and hobby sites, and others that I find through the use of Stumbleupon or blogs.  One interesting site that's popped up from time to time is Wordle.net.  Wordle takes written information and determines the most common words and presents them in a visual format.  It's been around for a couple of years, and is an interesting concept.  The image above was created from the this blog's posts since its beginning.

In addition to being an interesting visual, Wordle does have some applications for the classroom.  Although some of the ideas are for younger students, some can also be used for our college classrooms.  Jonathan Wylie in the article "Top 10 Ways to Use Wordle's Word Clouds for Classroom Lessons," gives examples of the uses of Wordle.  A few of the more useful ideas are summarized below.

Idea 1:  Students can examine historical speeches to see what words are most often used.  It would be interesting to see if there is a change in themes of presidential inaugural speeches from one era to another.  Text can be copied and pasted into Wordle, so there's no need to retype something you can find on the Internet. 

Idea 2:  At the beginning of the semester, many instructors require students to present a short speech about themselves.  If students write a few paragraphs about their interests and then paste it into Wordle, they can then bring their printed word cloud to show what's important in their lives.  By the way, you can save the Wordle word cloud by using the "Print screen" key, pasting it into Photoshop or other photo editing program and then saving it as a jpg.  It's not difficult, but does take a few steps.

Idea 3:  The final idea comes from the edublog article "Ways to Use Wordle."  The author, soulcradler, suggests having students use Wordle to edit their writing.  The student can copy his or her paper into Wordle and then analyze the word cloud to see if there are any overused words or phrases. Soulcradler says, "This might help them avoid cliches and search for new vocabulary to express their ideas."

Wordle is a fun idea, and could bring a change of pace to your classroom. 

See you next week!

Millennial Students-How Do They Want Us To Teach?

Last week, I wrote about five of the eight characteristics of Millennial students as identified by Alicia Moore.  In this blog post, I'll provide the rest of the characteristics and then raise questions about  how and if we can or need to accommodate this generation of students.

Characteristic 6:   Millennials are service oriented. According to Moore, this is true in two areas.  First, millennials volunteer more than previous generations.  They are involved in various aspects of their communities.  Second, millennials expect good customer service.  They want accurate information and know that they can go to different sources, if necessary, to get what they need.  This applies to colleges, as these students want information available to them 24/7.

Characteristic 7:  Millennials are time managers and are structured.  These individuals have been put on schedules their whole lives.  As children, they had music lessons, went to soccer and basketball practices, and played games on the weekends.  Because of their high involvement, they needed to learn time management.  They listened to their parents and those in authority about how their time should be spent.

Characteristic 8:  Millennials are protected.  As discussed last week, these students have their parents to watch over them.  Rules such as zero tolerance are a part of this generation, not allowing any negative experiences for the youths.

Like any generation, Millennials' characteristics can affect their college learning. Christy Price of Dalton State College surveyed her students and wrote about their ideal learning environment.  In her article "Why Don't My Students Think I'm Groovy?:  The New R's for Engaging Millennial Learners", Price says her students' most consistent theme when talking about learning is that they want a variety of teaching methods.  They don't necessarily dislike lectures, but want to participate in the classes.  They also want relevant examples and expect multimedia to be used.

Photo from http://whatitsayswhatitmeans.blogspot./
com/2009_04_01_archive.html

What are your opinions?  Should we change to become more "Millennial Friendly?"  What do you do to reach your Millennial students?  Your comments are welcomed!

Have a great week!

Today's Millennial Students

Today's student-how are they defined?  The focus of the Southwest Seminar's for Great Teaching focuses on that question.  How are students different than those of other years?  As you know, today's students have been defined as millennials-those students born between 1981 and 1999.  Today's college freshman who just graduated from high school was born in 1992.

As with any generation of students, millennials have characteristics that differ from other generations.  Today's blog post will focus on five of these characteristics,  and next week's post will add three more to the list.  A later post will focus on how we might want to change a few things to accomodate our students.

Alicia Moore in her article, "They've Never Taken a Swim and Thought about Jaws:  Understanding the Millennial Generation,"  goes into quite a bit of detail about the characteristics of the Millennial generation.  I'll summarize her points here and next week, but if you have time, you might want to read her article.

Characteristic 1:  Millennials are diverse.  This group is ethnically and racially diverse.  In addition, there are more females than males enrolled in higher education.  These student accept cultural differences more easily than previous generations, and have more support for gay and lesbian relationships. 

Photo from thehammockssouthside.com

Characteristic 2:  Millennials are pressured to perform.  From early on,  millennials have been told they need to do well to be successful.  Even playing hours of video games has taught them that a lot of hard work and hours will get them to the next level.

Characteristic 3:  Millennials are ambitious achievers.  This group of students has taken AP classes and many have plans for advanced degrees.  According to Moore, these students are also team players, since they received trophies for participation as well as winning in their young lives.

Characteristic 4:  Millennials are confident and optimistic.  This is the generation that has seen tremendous growth in technology and inventions.  Being smart is not considered a weak point; being "geeky" may be seen as a favorable characteristic. 

Characteristic 5:  Millennials are team oriented and connected.  As mentioned in the third characteristic, millennials have been part of teams for most of their lives.  In addition to the team aspect, this group of students is close to their parents.  According to the College Board, the parents are dubbed "helicoper" parents because they "hover over their children, swooping in to fight their battles and make their decisions for them."  (The College Board article gives some good reasons for being a helicoper parent.)

As you read through the list of characteristics, think about your students.  Do they exhibit behaviors that reflect these characteristics?  Do you related well to their points of view? 

Next week, I'll provide the remaining characteristics and provide expert's suggestions on how to be the professor the millennials relate to.

Have a great week!

Cell Phones and Texting: A Retention Solution?

EPCC and other colleges are always concerned with student retention. Georgia Gwinnett College is no exception. The college is similar to EPCC in that they have noncompetitive admissions. In recent years, they found that their retention rate, like many noncompetitive admissions colleges, was not as high as they would have liked. So they implemented a solution that is, so far, unlike others. According to Inside Higher Education, August 19 edition, they gave each instructor, both full-time and adjunct, a cell phone. The college encourages faculty members to respond to texts and phone messages within 24 hours or one business day.

The college does not require office hours, but does have the faculty members leave their phones on during certain hours. According to associate professor Kristina Watkins Mormino from Georgia Gwinnett College, faculty set up parameters in their syllabi. She says “…a student calling will not reach me at 2:00 some Saturday night. That student can leave a message and can be sure to hear back from me by Monday afternoon.”

The cell phone availability, along with mentoring and smaller class sizes, has been successful. The retention rate for returning sophomores was 75 percent, almost double that of similar colleges in Georgia (Inside Higher Education, 2010).

So would this relatively new idea work here at EPCC?  Do you give your students your home phone number? Cell number? Do students bombard you with calls at all hours of the day and night? This semester, I decided to give this experiment a try. I went to Google Voice and obtained a free phone number that is different than my home and cell number. This is the number that my students receive, along with my office phone number. I can have the Google number ring to any phone-my cell, home, or office. I’ve chosen my cell, because I wanted to give them instant access. I told the students about my new experiment, and they were happy to try it out with me. I entered their cell phone numbers and then texted each student, welcoming them to class. I could text them by typing the message on a computer rather than on a phone (which is much faster than using my phone), and just had to cut and paste for each student. It didn’t take very long, although, admittedly, I am experimenting with a small class. I chose to text rather than call or e-mail, because research at Ball State University has shown that 97 percent of college students text and it is their favorite way to communicate.

Photo from injuryboard.com

Since the first week of classes, I’ve received messages from almost half of the students. A couple of students texted back right away, just affirming that the system worked and that they thought it was “cool.” Other students have texted about the correct edition of the book, letting me know they were ill, asking for clarification of assignments, and letting me know they would be late to class. One student texted that I was gorgeous-a message intended for his girlfriend-but it led to a great discussion about their futures and being careful with messages that are sent. The students have texted during the day and at night, but I haven't been bombarded or texted after 8 p.m.   Texting is the only way these students have communicated outside of class.  They have never called my office phone nor have they been to my office. I think it will be a great tool for my students to contact me and for me to contact them to remind them of upcoming exams and assignments.

By using Google Voice, I can set the incoming calls to go directly to voicemail if I’m in a location that doesn’t lend itself to the beeps that accompany my texts or if I am off-hours. The best part of using Google Voice is that all of the messages, both voice and text, are transcribed and kept in my Google Voice account. If a student and I discuss an issue, I have a record of it if I need it. (By the way, I’ll give a workshop on Google and its many components for the Spring Faculty Development Week.)

What are your beliefs about using texting and/or cell phones to communicate with students? Your comments are welcomed.

Using Prezi in Your Classroom

PowerPoint has been a staple in college classrooms for more than a decade.  The slide-by-slide bulleted lists are familiar to students everywhere.  PowerPoint can be effective, but it can also get a little stale.  If you want a change in your presentational repertoire, there's a fairly new free presentation program online that can be used to add a little more pizazz to your lectures.

Prezi is a zooming presentational tool that is great for both linear and nonlinear information. As Denna Jones in her guest column in Professionally Speaking stated, "Think of it [Prezi] as a dynamic canvas that can move in a multitude of directions, and not (as with PowerPoint) just forwards and backwards."  Prezi is a way to present information in a nonlinear way.  The following Prezi presentation by Adam Somlai-Fischer shows the dynamic capabilities of using this program.

Why should you move beyond slides? on Prezi

Moving back and forth from one idea to another is one of Prezi's strengths. Unfortunately, if you move too quickly, your audience could become seasick, so layers and smaller movements are recommended. It's easy to add media to your presentation, too.

If you're interested in trying something new this semester, take a look at Prezi. Their website has all the information you need, including presentations that others have created to share. Give it a try!