>
Tbers,

The posting below looks at "Teaching in the Era of YouTube,"and  
points to some interesting new technologies for stimulating student  
thinking. The article is by Kendall Madden a science-writing intern  
with the Stanford News Service, on a presentation by Professor Tom  
Byers of Stanford University as pat of the "Award-Winning Teachers on  
Teaching" series sponsored by the Stanford Center for Teaching and  
Learning. The article is from the Stanford Report, March 7, 2007,  
Volume XXXIX, No. 19, http://news.stanford.edu © Stanford University.  
All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission.


>                                         'The Brave New World' of  
> Classroom Technology
>
> Tom Byers, faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures  
> Program, gave a talk as part of the "Award-Winning Teachers on  
> Teaching" series.
>
> Teaching in the technology age can be daunting, even for Tom Byers,  
> a seasoned professor (teaching) of management science and  
> engineering. "It's a brave new world of technology out there, and I  
> am just a professor of entrepreneurship in the School of  
> Engineering trying to make my way," Byers said Feb. 22 during his  
> "Award-Winning Teachers on Teaching" lecture, hosted by the Center  
> for Teaching and Learning.
>
> Despite his humble protestations, Byers, the founder and faculty  
> director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, is an  
> international leader in technology entrepreneurship education. The  
> McCoy University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, he has received  
> Stanford's Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching, the  
> School of Engineering's Tau Beta Pi Award for excellence in  
> undergraduate teaching and three recent national teaching awards.
>
> "Today there will be no death by PowerPoint," Byers announced to  
> the group of about 40 students and educators gathered in the  
> Hartley Conference Center to hear his lecture, titled "Teaching in  
> the Era of YouTube." "We are just going to use everything else. I  
> am going to show you some of the tools I use when I teach."
>
> Byers then took his audience on a tour through Educators Corner  
> (http://edcorner.stanford.edu/), a website dense with multimedia  
> teaching resources, such as video clips and audio podcasts of  
> various professionals speaking about their experience and thoughts  
> on entrepreneurship. He showed the audience two thought-provoking  
> video clips featuring Kavita Ramdas, chief executive officer of the  
> Global Fund for Women, and Guy Kawasaki, managing director of  
> Garage Technology Ventures.
>
> "Why might I use these in a class setting?" Byers queried the  
> crowd. Some audience members said clips give students exposure to a  
> diversity of voices in a lecture, whereas others pointed out they  
> help with pacing. Byers said the clips also allow the professor to  
> jumpstart conversations, as for example, in Kawasaki's video, where  
> he says the point of entrepreneurship is making meaning above  
> making money.
>
> Audio podcasts have many of the same advantages as video clips. But  
> Byers said he has found the visual component more engaging for  
> students in a class setting. Podcasts could be used for class  
> assignments, he recommended.
>
> Teachers can use a host of other technologies to enhance their  
> courses and students' learning experiences, Byers said. These  
> include course-specific websites with available resources and  
> links, wikis, animations, simulations and course discussion boards.
>
> But simply having technology at hand is not enough, Byers said.  
> Instructors must stimulate their students to want to use it.  
> "Unless I show that I am excited about this technology and care  
> about it, the students will not care about it." Byers gave an  
> example of his experience running the Mayfield Fellowship course, a  
> work/study program designed to teach students about  
> entrepreneurship strategies while providing them with a hands-on  
> internship experience with a local start-up. "When I stopped  
> posting on our course discussion board, the students also stopped  
> posting as often," he said.
>
> Byers acknowledged that the use of technology has a few caveats.  
> For example, technology tools are not substitutes for good teachers  
> and good teaching. Some things may still need to be taught the old- 
> fashioned way, with chalk and chalkboard, Byers said.
>
> Incorporating technology into a class session also can greatly  
> increase the amount of prep time involved. For a two-hour class,  
> Byers said it takes him eight hours to prepare. And the creation of  
> a website like the Educators Corner requires a great deal of  
> technical expertise as well as funding. Byers gave significant  
> credit to the technicians who, according to him, had done much of  
> the heavy lifting in the creation of the website. Robyn Dunbar,  
> senior associate director of the Center for Teaching and Learning,  
> added that departments and disciplines are increasingly encouraging  
> the use of these types of tools and investing in them.
>
> "The possibilities are very exciting," Byers said. "Ten years from  
> now I'll be saying, 'Remember when I gave that lecture on classroom  
> technologies? Look what's happened since.'"
>
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> (650) 723-2300.