Villanova panel on RSS in education

Update: here is the conference info page with several other recordings.

Yesterday, I led a panel discussion on the use of RSS technologies like blogging and podcasting, wikis and games in education at a WebCT users meeting held at Villanova.

On the panel: Scott Warnock (English faculty at Drexel), Michelle Francl (Chemistry at Bryn Mawr) and Laura Blankenship (IT at Bryn Mawr).

Scott talked about his use of screencasting to grade student essays and comment on them verbally. Michelle updated us on her podcast quantum chemistry class and the wonderful reception it has received on iTunes. Laura discussed her blogging class, involving a lot of student blogging. I summarized my use of podcasting, screencasting and wikis in teaching chemistry. One of the important points I wanted to make is that having an archive of recorded screencast lectures can afford time for more individualized interaction between teacher and student.

There were plenty of questions and based on talks afterwards I think a few people will push forward with experimenting with the technologies. A few people were enthusiastic about using Unreal Tournament in their teaching and I will report what happens on the Edufrag blog.

Here is the screencast mp3 podcast and
Bradley Powerpoint.
Blankenship Powerpoint.
Francl Powerpoint.

The session was also videotaped - here is the webcast.