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Senin, 11 Desember 2006

Tourism and Social Software Class at NAU

I have added Social Media to my Spring 2007 class, "Planning for Sustainable Tourism". The class is taught 100% online. Hopefully I will not overwhelm the more technologically challenged students in the class! Click on the title above to go to the current version of the class overview. Registration information can be NAU Distance Learning.

OVERVIEW of PL 376 for Spring 2007
- January 16 - May 11, 2007

Click here for Syllabus

Topic Groups: Each student will be assigned to one of the following three groups at the start of the semester. Students will be given the opportunity to switch groups later in the semester. The Final Project will be related to the topic of the group. A couple of sample topics for each group is shown below.

  1. Sustainable Tourism and Money
    • Promoting Destinations and Sustainability Online
    • Monetizing Sustainable Travel and Tourism Websites, Blogs and Podcasts
  2. Sustainable Tourism and the Environment
    • Social Networking for the Environment
    • Online Environmental Education
  3. Sustainable Tourism and Community (Physical and Digital)
    • Online Citizen Participation / Political Activism
    • Virtual Communities and Real Communities

CLASS SCHEDULE - Please See the LEARNING MODULES and CALENDAR for Actual Assignments and Due Dates

This Schedule is Under Construction, though it will probably not change much.

Week
Points
Module 1 - Intro to Class, Sustainability, and Social Media
1-2
Class Intro Assignment: Tourism Development Issues
75
3
Sustainable Development and Tourism
75
4
Social Media and Tourism
75
5
Planners and Planning for Tourism
75
6
Sustainable Tourism, Planning and Social Media
75
7
Midterm Exam #1
100
Module 2 - Tourism Impacts (using collaborative blogs)
8
Economic Impacts of Tourism
75
9
Social Impacts of Tourism
75
10
Environmental Impacts of (and on) Tourism
75
11
Topic Group Wiki Projects: Resources for Manging Tourism Impacts, Greening the Tourism Economy, or Tourism Planning for People
75
12
75
13
Midterm Exam #2
100
Module 3 - Social Media and Destination Marketing
14
Final Project: Place Promotion with Social Media (website creation, podcasting, and other Web 2.0 Travel Tools; there is no final exam)
75
15
75
16
100

Total Points (subject to change)
1200

Definitions: Social Media - Social Software - New Media

Social Software Tools that will be used in this class, include:

  • Message/Discussion Boards (we will use this in Blackboard-Vista)
  • Websites (this will be part of the final project, most student will use the simple online web creator at Weebly.com, or the free domain service from Microsoft Live)
  • Wikis (at a minimum, there will be one wiki for each of the Topic Groups above)
  • Social Bookmarking (e.g., Del.icio.us - optional)
  • Blogs (potentially including video and photo blogging; at a minimum there will be one collaborative group blog for each of the three Topic Groups above)
  • Podcasts ( this will be part of Final Project, and if it is good enough I will put it out on my Geography for Travelers podcast - with your permission, of course; this will also be shared with student at the University of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia)
  • Virtual Reality (optional; can you promote a destination through Second Life? want to try?)
  • Social Networks (all students will be required to join and report on a travel-related social network)

NEW: FYI - I presented a summary of this class, along with a small survey of the students, at my university's eLearning Institute in May. Here is the prsentation (audio and slides):


Senin, 04 Desember 2006

WikiMatrix - Wiki Comparison Tool


WikiMatrix.org is a website that allows you to compare different wiki tools available on the web. It is amazing how many wikis are out there -- currently 77 on the WikiMatrix site. Click on "Choice Wizard" to get started. Comparisons cover an incredible amount of items, including cost/fee options, storage and bandwidth quotas, intended audience, security and spam controls, editing and history features, formatting, media, and statistics. The wikis with the floppy disk icon next to them require server installation, while those with a hand icon are web-based. There is also a Discussion Forum on the topic of wikis.

I have used Wikis to some degree in my classes, and plan to do more. And I have had a few previous entries on this blog related to wikis that I have encountered:
Other interesting links that can be found at the very top of the WikiMatrix page are:

PodcatcherMatrix.org - Did you know that there are 20 different Podcatchers out there! (A podcatcher is a program for subscribing to and downloading podcasts -- iTunes added a podcatcher capability in summer 2005.) The WikiMatrix people also have PodcastMatrix.org -- which looks just like WikiMatrix, but compares podcatchers.

ForumMatrix.org - Compares 20 different Bulletin Board Systems to run your own discussion forums.