These are my notes from Caleb Lack‘s “Lunch and Think Talk” at the 2013 Heartland eLearning Conference in Edmond, Oklahoma, at the University of Central Oklahoma. MY THOUGHTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Caleb’s YouTube channel is professorlack.
Typical college course writing process
1- student writes
2- teacher reads
3- no one cares
I wanted to create an assignment that could take writing out of this cycle, wanted to Creative Commons license this
– I decided to use WikiSpaces because of the low learning curve
– easy and free (for K-20)
– no ads
Came up with “Science, Pseudoscience, & Critical Thinking” project: pseudoscience.wikispaces.com
Darwikinism
– I make a contribution
– you improve it
– he improves your improvement
– she improves his improvement of the improvement
– they all improve the improvements…
over 3 years, 300 students
– 800 printed pages
– 90,0000 views last year
– 2 book contracts (some kids wanted physical books)
1- new cycle
– students collaborate
2- teacher guides and edits
3- everyone learns and benefits
YouTube has about 60 hours of video uploaded every minute
Pseudoscience in Oklahoma and Case Studies in Abnormal Psychology
– 58 students, 31 videos
– 40,000 views in 12 months
Case Studies in Abnormal Psychology
Rather than students creating work that no one wanted to read and see, we have thousands of students
Lessons learned
– I didn’t setup enough structure up front
– even if the student products aren’t very good and they don’t get a very good grade, students still report high levels of satisfaction