Crosstalk Seminar - Jackalopes, Ocotillos, Learning eXchanges, RSS, and Other Arizona Learning Technology Curiosities

Alan Levine from the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI) will discuss how the Center uses cutting edge technologies to support teaching and learning.

(If you missed this Crosstalk event you can view it online.)

Abstract
The Arizona desert is a land of extremes and curious creatures that have adapted to these conditions. No, this is not an ecology lecture, but an overview of some of the research and development in learning technologies from the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI). The MCLI supports the 10 colleges of the Mariposa Community Colleges, which provides education for more than 240,000 people per year in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Some of the curiosities covered include:

• Ocotillo - The desert plant metaphor has been part of the landscape at Maricopa since 1987. A precursor of the Teaching, Learning, Technology Roundtable concept, Ocotillo acts as a faculty lead initiative to investigate and promote new instructional technologies. This year, we have 4 working groups covering the areas of Learning Objects, Hybrid Courses, Electronic Portfolios, and Emerging Technologies. Our work is supported by a collection of "Small technologies Loosely Joined", the online components of our work facilitated by a connected set of weblogs, wikis, and discussion boards, tied together with RSS.
• Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX)- Our online "warehouse" of anything created at Maricopa that supports learning (broader than just "learning objects") with a designed metaphor of "packages" and "packing slips" that represent underlying technical concepts of metadata. The MLX was one of the first sites of its kind to apply RSS syndication of its content that allows it to be re-deployed in multiple settings as well as weblog "trackbacks" that theoretically can "track" external uses of MLX items "back" to the source.
• Feed2JS - An experimental service that has exploded. It allows mere mortal faculty to insert a dynamic feed provided by XML to any web page by insertion of s single line of cut and paste JavaScript. It enables the concept we call "Rip. Mix. Feed." that drastically changes the way we look at web-based information-- not as a cohesive whole, but bits we can pick and choose, and then create new content in unexpected ways.

As far as the "jackalope" you will have to show up to see that creature.

About the Presenter

Since 1992, Alan Levine has been an Instructional Technologist in the Maricopa Center for Learning & Instruction, located at the district office for the Maricopa Community Colleges in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. With degrees in Geology (none in computers!), he is completely a self-taught techie and has managed to teach computer animation classes as well.

He coordinates system wide technology task forces, such as "Ocotillo", consults with faculty on integrating technology, and develops special projects in multimedia and web technologies. His projects include on-line tutorials such as "Writing HTML", "How to be a Webhound", "What a Site!"; Learning English Electronically CD-ROM; online application/review systems for internal faculty grants and faculty professional growth programs, web resources such as "Community College Web", "Multimedia Authoring Web", and "Director Web"; and innovative projects such as the "Hero's Journey" storytelling web site.

A more recent project is the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX), online virtual warehouse of innovation at Maricopa as well as recent experimentation with weblogs, wikis, RSS, digital storytelling, and "social" technologies.

Although he tends to say "ummm" a lot and never uses a script, Alan has presented at the League of Innovation, EDUCAUSE, and Syllabus conferences, as well as invited presentations for institutions in Oklahoma, Florida, Oregon, Ohio, British Columbia, Iceland, New Zealand, and Australia.

In his spare time, Alan enjoys backpacking, bicycling, photography, and escaping to a cabin in Strawberry, Arizona. In 2000, he spent a 6-month sabbatical working and visiting colleagues in northern Arizona, New Zealand, and Australia and was invited back November 2004 for a visit to colleges in the Auckland area.

Upcoming Crosstalk Events

Alan Levine from the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI) will discuss how the Center uses cutting edge technologies to support teaching and learning.

(If you missed this Crosstalk event you can view it online.)