Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw

Taking Class Disscussions and Assignments to the Next Level Using YouTube

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:42:27 PST

Students enjoy viewing and sharing visual content. Visual tools, such as videos, create interaction between the content and the student; thus, enhancing learning (McKenzie, 2008). YouTube provides many videos that are academic and professional in nature. When used properly, these videos can reinforce and engage students in classroom discussions (Cardine, 2008). YouTube also provides students with the opportunity to create and to post their own content for course assignments. Providing such opportunities helps students become digitally competent with media, which is important for students hoping to compete in a global marketplace. This presentation will provide educators with practical ideas and example for using YouTube to enhance class discussion and course assignments. How to use YouTube for providing tutorials and exam reviews, critiquing presentations, extending class discussions, creating digital stories, and enhancing writing assignments and text discussions will be discussed. How to use the Mashup feature for YouTube in Blackboard and how to have students record videos and post them to YouTube using mobile devices will also be demonstrated. Visual tools create interaction between content and students; thus, enhancing learning. This presentation will demonstrate how to use Your Tube as a visual tool to enhance class assignments and discussions.

Mobile Modeling: Using and Creating iPad and iPod Apps to Shape Students With Disabilities

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:35:48 PST

Modeling is a technique that is often used to teach new skills to students with disabilities. Modeling is effective for teaching communication, social, and functional living skills to students with emotional, behavioral, and cognitive disorders (Werts, Caldwell, & Wolery, 1996). Video modeling and audio prompts can be as effective as live modeling (Murzynski & Bourret, 2007; Rehfeldt, Dahman, Young, Cherry, & Davis, 2003). In fact, some researchers have suggested that video modeling results in more rapid acquisition of skills than live modeling and may even be more generalizable across environments (Charlop & Milstein ,1989). With the introduction of mobile devises, students can be provided with pictorial instructions , audio prompts, and video modeling at any time in any place. Research is beginning to demonstrate that the use of mobile devices for these purposes is effective (Furniss et al., 2011; Hammond, Whatley, Ayres, & Gast , 2010). Developers of iPad and ipod touch applications have developed a variety of tools with pictorial instructions , audio prompts, and video modeling for teaching students with disabilities. Apps like Story Kit, Puppet Pals, Strip Design, Model Me Kids, and Popplet are some of the many applications . Several of these applications have been effectively used in homes and the school system. This presentation will identify and demonstrate iPad and ipod touch applications (free and low cost) that both teachers and school counselors can use with students for individual interventions, guidance lessons, and skill training. Further, iPad applications that allow educators and teachers to create social stories and movies to teach social skills using their own pictures, videos, and voice will be demonstrated and opportunity for practice with these applications will be provided. A discussion about practical application and classroom integration will ensue.

Engaging Secondary and Higher Education Students in the Learning Process Using Twitter

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:30:32 PST

Effectively engaging high school students in the learning process while ensuring strong pedagogically sound instruction ranks among one of the most critical issues facing secondary and higher education teachers today. Technology may be helpful in addressing this challenge. Technology when integrated into instruction in a pedagogically sound manner has been shown to enhance student engagement and productivity in the learning process (Means, Blando, Olson, Middleton, Morocco, Remz, & Zorfass, 1993). Further, Chen, Lambert, and Guidry (2010) demonstrated in their study that is a relationship between learning outcomes, student engagement, and students' use of Web-based learning technology exists. Among the numerous interactive and collaborative technologies available to educators today, social media is being increasingly recognized as an effective tool for engaging students with one another, with the instructor, and with content. Social media can be used to not only engage secondary students but also curb the traditionalist comprehension based model and encourage higher level thinking throughout the learning process. Twitter, a social media, is one technology that educators can use to engage students and encourage higher order thinking. Twitter is a free social media website that allows users to interact via "tweets" using Smartphones, laptops, or any device with internet access. The goal of this presentation will be to equip secondary and post-secondary educators with the skills and techniques necessary for effective integration of Twitter into curriculum and instruction. As such, this presentation will briefly discuss the importance of engagement and how technology can be used to support engagement. The primary focus of the session will then be how to set up a Twitter account for educational use; and how to use Twitter as a platform for discussion, polling, question and answer sessions, and other collaborative interactions in a secondary classroom. An example application discussion will be how to quiz and poll using Twitter. The advantage of using twitter over traditional class polling and quizzing will be highlighted. Traditionally, teachers have done informal student in class assessment in the classroom by asking students to raise their hand to answer a poll or quiz question. Although useful, often this method only engages a few students. Twitter can be used for instant quizzing and polling of all students in a class. Although Twitter does not have a native quizzing feature, educators can incorporate programs into Twitter such as Poll Everywhere (www.PollEverywhere.com) that allow educators to add quizzing and polling options within Twitter. Using this feature, educators can ask students a question and have them tweet answers the question. All students can answer and if the classroom has, a screen with a computer, answers can be projected via a screen for everyone to see. An alternative method suggested by Matteson (2010) is to assign a discussion topic to small groups and have one student from each group tweet a summary of their discussion. Outside of class applications of Twitter will also be reviewed. For example, how students can tweet throughout the course to review material, to complete homework, to find clarification on confusing or difficult subject matter, or to establish any number of other educational interactions will be reviewed. And, how to use Twitter features such as hashtags to organize these kinds of tweets will be demonstrated. Twitter defines a hashtag as, "The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way tocategorize messages" ("What Are Hashtags [â€˜#' Symbols]", n.d.). If, for example, students are discussing mobile education, keywords that could be used for hashtags could include #mobileEd, #software, and/or #mobileResources. These hashtags could be established during class to maintain consistency for topics, so when students want to do a quick search of student tweets for a specific topic such as mobile resources, they can search in Twitter using #mobileResources and find every tweet that included that hashtag. Twitter has great potential for making secondary educational experiences engaging for learners and to enhance the traditional approaches to teaching and learning can be enhanced by incorporating Twitter into the learning environment. The potential of Twitter's educational use to assit educators in meeting the challenge of engaging technologically savvy learners will be explored in this presentation.

Students' Perceptions of Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Enhance the Social and Cognitive Aspects of Learning: Audio and Video Enhanced Wiki Texts and Second Life Discussions in Teacher and Counselor Education

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:02:12 PDT

As a generation of technologically savvy learners enters institutions of higher education, expectations are increasing for multimedia integration is showing that multimedia rich learning materials increase learning effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to describe students' perceptions of creating a collaborative wiki text with multimedia integration such as podcasting and vodcasting and student’s perceptions of using the audio chat and text chat features of Second Life for supervision . Results support the adoption and use of web 2.0 technology and multimedia rich interactive environments in the teacher and counselor education classroom.

Discovering the Potential of e-books as Effective Learning Tools

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:41:33 PDT

Electronic books have been identified as a current trend in education and are being increasingly adopted by students as their textbook format of choice. This pilot study used a single class to compare the use of e-books and traditional books on undergraduate students’ learning. It answers the research question: Is there a difference in undergraduate students' learning, as measured by perceived learning and grades, when using a traditional textbook for classroom sessions as opposed to e-books for classroom sessions? Findings demonstrated that students using an e-book demonstrated higher psychomotor learning than those using traditional textbooks. No difference in actual learning was found between the two groups. It is hoped that the results of this study will provide evidence to guide faculty and students decisions about text book adoption.

Engaging Students in the Classroom Using YouTube

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:34:31 PDT

Microsoft Case Study for SharePoint Dissertation Portal

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:30:49 PDT

Leveraging collaborative workspaces to improve the online dissertation process.

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:29:27 PDT

The Influence of Computer-Mediated Communication Systems on Community

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:27:27 PDT

Engaging Higher Education Students Through Tweeting

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 08:39:28 PDT

Social media such as Twitter helps engage learners and promotes interaction with course content. Twitter allows learners and educators to interact via “tweets” via Smartphones, laptops, or any device with Internet access. This presentation will demonstrate how to use Twitter as a platform for discussion, polling, question and answer sessions, and other collaborative interactions in a higher education classroom. It will step educators through the process of setting up a Twitter account and the process of planning a lesson with Twitter applications.

Improving Doctoral Candidates’ Persistence in the Online Dissertation Process

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 08:39:27 PDT

Variables associated with doctoral attrition and distance education attrition are academic, social, and emotional. Thus, methods chosen to support doctoral students in the doctoral journey, and more specifically, the dissertation process, should take into account doctoral students needs on both an academic and social/ emotional level. This article examines the use of a collaborative technology, Microsoft Office SharePoint, and its ability to support distance doctoral candidates both socially and academically in the dissertation process in comparison with traditional dissertation facilitation methods.

Motivating Students to Learn: Is There a Difference between Traditional Books and e-Books?

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 08:39:25 PDT

Electronic books have been identified as a current trend in education and are being increasingly adopted by students as their textbook format of choice. However, limited studies on electronic books as a learning tool exist. Thus, this pilot study compares the use of e-books and traditional books as a learning tool in an undergraduate classroom on undergraduate students’ motivation.

Using Open Source Technologies to Increase Teacher Immediacy and Presence

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 11:04:39 PDT

Attrition rates in distance education teacher education programs is a concern for university administrators and educators. Thus, there is a need to identify strategies to increase retention rates. This presentation focuses on practices and the use of open source technologies to increase teacher’s presence and immediacy, thus decreasing attrition rates.

Enhancing Classroom Communication and Collaboration via Web-based Technologies

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:42:31 PST

Leadership Lessons from Salvador Minuchin

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:10:03 PST

As cultures become more integrated through the of global networking of communication, transportation, and trade, it is a propitious time for therapists to consider changes that may need to be made for a conceptual shift toward globalization in both theory and practice. During this time, it would be advantageous to considering therapist in the field who successfully perpetuated change. Salvador Minuchin was a great leader and effective change agent in the field of psychotherapy. He set the pace for perspectives to shift from individual to broader scopes. The purposes of this article are to analyze Minuchin’s leadership using leadership theory and to determine the key attributes of his leadership so marriage and family therapists can learn from them and emulate them. The transformational and servant leadership models serve to theoretically ground the discussion of Minuchin’s leadership styles.

Enhancing Counselor’s Emotional Intelligence through Skills Training

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:02:38 PST

Improving Interaction with Doctoral Candidates’ During the Dissertation Process.

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:56:40 PST

Prezi: Trading Linear Presentations for Conceptual Learning Experiences in Counselor Education

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:54:27 PST

The Achievement Gap in the Asynchronous Online Classroom

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:50:53 PST

Higher Education administrators and educators seek to understand how to design and to facilitate online courses to ensure quality, culturally responsive online education for minority students for the purpose of closing the academic achievement gap. To determine if students’ social presence, cognitive presence, teacher presence, and perceived learning differ based upon ethnicity in the asynchronous learning environment, a one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted. Results suggest that Latinos students have a higher sense of teaching presence than Caucasian students and no significant difference exist in students’ social presence, cognitive presence, teacher presence, and perceived learning based on ethnicity

Audio-visual Student Created Wiki Textbooks

Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:48:06 PST

This tech-savvy generation of students, known as digital natives, desires to learn and to interact utilizing the collaborative technologies that have always been a part of their lives. In the era of Web 2.0, collaborative workspaces have emerged; thus, providing instructors with tools to engage these learners. Wikis are an example of one of these collaborative workspaces.Moving beyond the traditional text-based use of a wiki for collaborative student projects, multimedia can be integrated into the wiki to create an audio-visual text. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how a wiki can be used by students and the instructor to create a audio- visually rich collaborative text.