Enter someone like Gavin Grisamore. A senior in supply chain management and Information Sciences and Technology’s information technology integration option, Grisamore is a technology learning assistant (TLA). TLAs are students who help faculty members at University Park use technology in their classes. They spend a semester or more in one-on-one consultations to answer questions and advise faculty.

“The TLA program is basically a consulting platform for faculty to utilize,” Grisamore said. “It gets the reputation of being a kind of a technical support, help with ANGEL and so forth, but it also educates faculty on different mediums of teaching technology. This includes blogs, podcasts, Web site development, and so forth.

“We also teach them about Web 2.0 applications such as Twitter, how can they be utilized in the classroom, and how can it be used to supplement the educational experience.”

Grisamore became involved with the TLA program through a former roommate who worked with Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT), the unit that runs the TLA program. One day while browsing the TLT site, he found TLA program information and decided to apply. “Took the TLA class, and I loved it, so I stuck with it,” he said. “I figured since I was going to be here for a few more semesters, I’d try to get involved and try to make this better.”

Grisamore brings to the TLA table expertise in Web site development and utilization of Web 2.0 applications. As a TLA, he not only helps faculty with things like learning the Penn State’s course management system, ANGEL, but also teaches subjects closer to his personal expertise.

“Teachers come to us and say ‘hey, what about blogs, hey what about Twitter, how can I utilize this in my classes.’ Since my major is technology integration, I can help them with integrating that into the classroom experience,” Grisamore said.

Grisamore said a faculty member can get a lot of value out of the TLA program beyond just being a kind of technical and training support resource with things like setting up a grade book in ANGEL. “TLAs can also introduce them to new technology,” he said. “A lot of faculty are kind of closed off and set in their ways and really just don’t know what’s out there. Someone can show them, for example, that class surveys can be done online, live in front of students via Twitter and everyone can see their responses.”

The TLA program can also give professors some insight into how students feel about the use of certain technologies in the classroom, Grisamore said. “Some teachers don’t really want to ask the students about this, so when a consultant comes in they ask ’well how does the student feel about this?’ I may tell them ‘well, I don’t particularly like it as a student’,” he said.  “Sometimes replies like that can be a shock to them, so they kind of get student feedback along with the consultation.”

There are also many benefits for the students, Grisamore said. “Engaging with faculty like this is great. That’s kind of a unique layer to it,” he said.

“Also, TLAs get to interface with departments that they normally don’t get to interface with. A big department that I work with because I keep getting referrals for is the nursing department,” Grisamore said. “I probably wouldn’t be dealing with the nursing department in any other way with the majors and the interests that I have. So I think that’s a benefit for students.”

Grisamore also said that being on the cutting edge of educational technology evolution is another benefit. He noted that the classroom has gone from the blackboard to the projector to the digital projector, computer, and social media. Being able both see this revolution in learning and help move it along , he said, may have big implications for their career choice.

“They get to be on the cutting edge of how the classroom is evolving and they get to see that,” Grisamore said. “It may lead them to being educators someday. It may lead them to doing development for this. I think it maybe gives them career opportunities and career insight.”

For Grisamore himself, the TLA program has offered him experience that he believe will be valuable as he starts his career. He would like to work in the consulting world, and he said that he has received lessons such as the importance of being on time, building relationships, keeping appointments, etc.

“I think that’s something that you just can’t learn in the classroom, but something you have to physically do it,” he said. “How do you keep connections with people, how do you keep relationships with people, things like that.

“You have to keep that in mind, and I think that adds to the learning experience. How to deal with clients, managing people, and managing a task, it’s all part of my experience as a TLA. It’s a small task, and it’s a relatively small group of people that we are managing, but I still am learning a lot. While the client relationship management portion needs to be more robust, I think I have learned a great deal.”

Grisamore hopes that more faculty and students take advantage of the program and its benefits.  “I think that the TLA program needs to be advertised not just for technical support but for broadening the educational repertoire of our faculty,” he said. “Many faculty just don’t know that these technologies are out there, and that there is help available to learn them. Hopefully we can get some more students involved and get the word out about the program.”

For more information about the TLA program, go to http://tlt.its.psu.edu/tla.

Supercomputing is moving into the cloud. This article looks at what this means, including opening information to lots and lots of amateur scientists out there. Plus, this has huge implications for open education.

Allan Gyorke, ETS assistant director, talked about a recent demo of Cvent, an online event planning tool. Allan's assessment of it - definitely has a lot of potential for planning events at the University, but there are a few caveats. To find out more, go to his blog post on it. 

Erin Long, ETS instructional designer, posted to her blog about a great 12-step process for designing instructional multimedia. This is a good post to read given the importance of multimedia in the modern classroom. Having a step-by-step process to work with allows for smooth creation of timelines and deliverables while also making sure that learning objectives are met and presented in a positive teachable/learnable manner.

Mary Janzen, ETS associate editor, posted this week to the ANGEL Community Hub an important reminder: ANGEL Import Wizard and Export Wizard tools to be turned off during finals week. If you are a faculty member who uses these tools, make sure you plan ahead for this. 

Finally, we visit the Technology Training Community this week, and find so many great tips we here at BuzzLion can't pick just one. So, we encourage you to go there, and better yet, bookmark that site! It is a fantastic resource, and if you are stuck on something software/computer related, do a search - you just might find what you are looking for, and you can also ask questions if you can't find it. An ITS Training Services pro will get you the answer. 

That's all for this week. There will be no BuzzLion next week, as we are planning on still being in a turkey haze from Thanksgiving. But, we will return the following week, so see you in December. Thanks for reading.

An article in the City Town Info blog about the mixed reactions to Twitter in the classroom. The article does note that Twitter is catching on and is seeing increased use as a discussion tool.

Students can use this technology to improve their golf swing and other key skills. “The underlying purpose of the GTRC is to help students improve their golf competencies,” Handley said.

Using this technology is important, Handley said, because golf management students are expected to be experts in both the business of golf and the game itself upon graduation. While he thinks the program does a very good job of producing these golf industry experts, he felt there was room for improvement as far as their understanding of the game.

“We want our students to understand the physical requirements and benefits of playing golf,” Handley said. “With recreation being such an important part of preventative medicine and overall well being, and the game of golf being a lifetime activity, we believe our students can benefit society through sharing the game of golf with men and women of all ages.

“With these technologies in one space, Penn State will be on the leading edge of higher education instruction and research specific to golf.”

The GTRC has just opened but has already garnered some favorable reactions.

“We have had a great deal of support from alumni of the program and their friends. I know our golf management students are very eager to use the space and gain more experience with the technologies in the center,” Handley said. “We have had professors within other departments at Penn State and golf professionals in the industry inquire about the space and what we are doing. There have even been a few individuals from the general public who have heard about the space, and have contacted us asking if the space would be available to them.”

The GTRC and its technology are currently not available to people outside the golf management program. However, Handley said, that will soon change. “Being that we just recently moved into the space, we will continue to use the next few months to get more familiar with the technologies and tools within the center. We will focus our efforts from now until May on the students in our Golf Management program,” he said. “As for the future, we are exploring opportunities to serve the local community and collaborate with external companies and golf professionals.”

While it is exciting to be able to offer this facility to people outside of Penn State, Handley said this technology ultimately is about teaching and learning at Penn State. “Through the Center, we intend to lead university instructional and scholarly initiatives related to the approximately 76 billon dollar golf industry,” he said.

To learn more about the GRTC, please go to http://www.hhdev.psu.edu/rptm/research/docs/PennState_GTRC.pdf. 

For those who create educational Web sites, color blind users have to be considered during the development process. This includes helping users know the difference between something that is good, and something that is bad - this is often color coded. Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, posts on the best colors to use in these instances, and why. 

Teacher training in Second Life? You bet. Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, posts information about a teacher technology training seminar being held in the virtual world. Brett brings up a good post - is this an indicator of sustainability of Second Life for education? 

Erin Cramer Long, ETS instructional designer, posted this week about instructional multimedia plans. These are important, Long says, because they "really makes you sit down and think out every piece of the assignment and determine exactly how long specific sections are going to take to create." To read more, go here. 

Finally, Alan Klein, ITS Training Services training specialist, posts on the Technology Training Community Five Reasons Film Cameras are Still Better Than Digital. It is an interesting look at the advantages film still has over digital. And as an FYI, Alan is a pretty good photographer, so he knows his stuff.

That's all for this week's BuzzLion. Thanks for reading!

Today's CoffeeRead focuses on teaching programming. Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and major Google fan, ponders whether Google's Go programming language can be used as a tool to teach programming to budding young developers.

The goal of the game is to help students recognize these errors and improve the quality of their writing and public speaking skills. As Angst points out, it is important to have strong communications skills so people will take ideas seriously. In addition, students knowing these skills help faculty as well, because a lot of instructors of non-writing classes become frustrated when they have to teach editing skills instead of the actual subject of the course. 

Early testing of the game with students has been positive, Angst said. She did note that many students prefer to know how many errors there are in each portion of text. However, this would defeat the game’s purpose of teaching proofreading because you do not know how many errors there are in a regular document. 

Angst said she is working mainly with Jason Wolfe, programmer/developer with the Educational Gaming Commons, on developing the game. In fact, Wolfe came up the concept for the game and approached her with the idea. Along with coming up the idea and coding the game, he is also assisting Angst with understanding gaming culture and how gamers view the games they play. 

To learn more about the game and EGC’s role in it, EGC Works went on the road and headed to Penn State Schuylkill to talk with Bim about this innovative, and fun, new game. 

To listen to the podcast, click here.

If you are involved in e-portfolios, this is an interesting and provocative read.

More about the author and his level of expertise on the subject.

Cole Camplese, ETS Director, has launched a bit of a conversation about Google Wave that was inspired in part by a blog post by Alan Levine of the New Media Consortium. What does Google Wave offer education? Is it too early to say exactly whether Wave is great or a failure? By all means, click on the link above and offer your thoughts.

Mark Heckel, training specialist with ITS Training Services, looks at the pros and cons of using Twitter in the classroom. He makes some great points - for example, Twitter isn't for every subject. BuzzLion agrees, it is hard to imagine it being used in math courses. But for others, sure.

Jamie Oberdick, associate publications editor with ETS, found a video on The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette site about an awesome new game created by Carnegie-Mellon University students. A game that allows you to join in a snowball fight from the comfort of the great indoors, it shows a lot of creativity. 

Jeff Swain, innovation consultant with ETS and head of the ANGEL documentation team, just posted on his excellent blog five-4-six a quick look at some of the new things to be offered in ANGEL 7.4. He includes a video that takes a look at the new Rubrics Tool in ANGEL 7.4.

Finally, Elizabeth Pyatt, instructional designer with ETS, posted a reminder - the call for proposals for the 2010 Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology has been extended to Nov. 13. So, if you had a proposal to present in mind about that great way you are using in your classes but didn't have time, you have a reprieve. So get it in!

That's all for this week's BuzzLion. Thanks for reading.

The winners of the international contest get a check for $1,000, while the runner-up and “People’s Choice” winner each receive $500. Locally, the best entries at Penn State receive:

•    A special showing at a catered event at University Park in spring 2010

•    Special prizes such as gift certificates to the Computer Store

•    Being featured on WPSU's On-Demand channel, which can be viewed via Comcast Cable's On-Demand service across a five-state region

•    A chance to be featured at the Penn State Student Film Festival

Inzko said that along with the prizes, the Sparky Awards can help students get started with their careers. “This is an international video competition. Besides being very cool if you won, it would be a great resume builder, even for just entering,” she said.

To help students get started, Inzko said, the Digital Commons is offering help. Along with a special Sparky Awards Video Contest workshop November 6, the Digital Commons offers a series of workshops on creating digital media. The Digital Commons also offers access to equipment and personal assistance at all of their campus locations.

“Media Tech Services at University Park will let you borrow video cameras,” Inzko said.  “You can also borrow a Flip Mino HD video camera from the Digital Commons at most Commonwealth campuses. It’s a good idea to call ahead, so you can confirm availability.”

The Sparky Awards at Penn State is a collaboration between Digital Commons (a service of Information Technology Services), the University Libraries, the College of Communications, and Penn State Public Broadcasting (WPSU). Deadline for entries to the Sparky Awards is Dec. 9. To learn more and to enter, go to http://digitalcommons.psu.edu/sparkyawards.

Boston University's student newspaper takes a look at the growing trend of higher education institutions sharing educational content for free online. Included are examples of what Harvard and MIT are doing.

Swain said that the use of e-portfolios is growing. They are becoming standard practice for students, academics, and professionals, and typically include examples of work, skills, and achievements. They often include a reflective blog element, making them a great way to communicate with others in your field. 

“For faculty and staff, e-portfolios are a place to showcase your work but, even more importantly, they are a place to establish yourself as a leading thinker in your field,” Swain said. “This is where the reflective blog element comes into play. 

“A reflective blog is a place to think out loud and invite others into the conversation, building up to and then upon more formal professional things such as publications ad presentations.”

Students also reap many benefits from e-portfolios. The students, Swain said, can synthesize their entire academic experience in their e-portfolio and show themselves and others how they have grown and progressed during their time at Penn State. 

“Students can use their e-portfolio space to showcase this growth to potential employers or graduate schools,” Swain said. “Business leaders are looking for graduates who are able to think critically and out in the open. Having an e-portfolio covering your academic career does just that.”

The e-Portfolios at Penn State site makes the creation of e-portfolios much easier by offering users a complete tool set. Among the features include:
•    Featured spaces with clickable thumbnail images, providing examples
•    Video tutorials
•    Links to external resources
•    News, events, and community tabs containing information related to portfolios

E-portfolio workshops have been held and more are planned for the future, Swain said. “The open workshop in November is full but you can get on the waiting list. Also we will be offering the workshop during Winterfest in January. You can check out the ITS Training Services home page for more information,” he said. 

Faculty or staff can request a session on e-portfolios for their department or class. A request form for this can be found under the Contact tab of the e-Portfolio at Penn State site. 

As for what is next for e-portfolios at Penn State, Swain said that he foresees them becoming part of actual courses. “We are exploring ways to tie e-portfolios into the academic fabric so they can be used not just as a showcase but also as a viable means of doing class work and assessment,” he said.

For more information on e-portfolios and for help getting started, go to http://portfolio.psu.edu.

A question: if more and more K-12 students are learning online, how does that affect how we teach in higher education?