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Common Question I: Aligned Connectivism Principles Please discuss three most important strategies of NLE/PLE in your unit, identify what aligned Connectivism principle(s) are, and discuss the assessments you integrate. Remember NLE/PLE strategies are not your contents or "technologies," such as wiki, discussion board etc. It is the integrated soft technologies. If you don't remember Connectivism principles, please review our Lesson 1 readings. Hint: be sure to include four components of technology integrations: Content; Technology; Instructional Strategies; Assessment.

* Knowing where to find information; the links provided to learners to engage in unit content were informative and facilitated learning. * Diversity of opinions: Group collaboration within the unit lesson plans supported social networking and enabled learners to share ideas and personal knowledge. * A variety of learning tools; Web 2.0 tools provided allowed learners to collaborate in different forms. Having different approaches to communicate and share information facilitates learning since we all have different learning styles.

Common Question II: Weaknesses Please discuss three weaknesses of your unit. Please specific. Hint: focus on technology, instructional strategies, and assessments.

* More than four components of technology integration; may be overwhelming to those learners who are not technology savvy. * Rubric for essay assignment should have included more content; more specific on expectations of assignment. * Video embedded for instructional strategies instead of links to video.

Adrianna, It was a distinct pleasure reviewing your unit. Overall you unit is well organized, easy to follow, contains great instructions and graphics. I do not know anything about dentistry, but I think if I participated in your unit I would learn a great deal. I will comment in individual sticky notes by the 4 categories suggested for giving feedback. Excellent job!!

Common Question I: Aligned Connectivism Principles Please discuss three most important strategies of NLE/PLE in your unit, identify what aligned Connectivism principle(s) are, and discuss the assessments you integrate. Remember NLE/PLE strategies are not your contents or "technologies," such as wiki, discussion board etc. It is the integrated soft technologies. If you don't remember Connectivism principles, please review our Lesson 1 readings. Hint: be sure to include four components of technology integrations: Content; Technology; Instructional Strategies; Assessment.

My unit just barely made it in my opinion with Connectivism if I understand the theory correctly. One thing that I did fail to integrate in this unit is group activities that led to continued prospectives for learning. One of the things that I did incorporate, however, were peer reviews and response questions on specific assignments. Although mediocre compared to some other tools, the peer review documents I used as assessment in this unit come in two formats. One was reviewing the various information in papers on the various learning theories,which exposes the adult learners to multiple perspectives on similar topics which may increase their learning and approaches to a specific topic/subject. The other document was used to determine if learning had occurred based on student samples. This is quite distinctive because it allows for the adult learner to learn information and perspectives from the students and not fellow colleagues. I have also requested that the adult learners peer review various projects in the module. Not only does this expose the adult learners to the various individual interpretations of the assignments, it also exposes them to the various usages of certain tools. I have also required that the adult learners use Twitter,blogs, wikis,etc to find useful information for papers. Although these are not professional sources, it again exposes the adult learners to the various interpretations of topics, concepts, etc from various individuals in society, not just colleagues. Examples in the Unit *Philosophy of Education Peer Review *Learning Theory Paper utilizing various social networks, blogs, wikis, forums, Delicious, Wikipedia,etc - access to information through various nodes, opinions, examples, interpretations,etc - peer review *Creation of a Social Network using Ning -allows for the adult learners to create an environment where the students can collectively learn from each other -using Twitter t

At first I thought the video of this old guy was kind of different. Then it was interesting in the fact that here was this old guy embracing technology in a way that education has yet to do. It made a powerful point.

Hi, Thanks Mr. Gilbert. I too found this video quite powerful because I know his age cohort probably had no idea that such tools would even exist. Although some of the baby boomers,etc may resist technology, I guess it still doesnt change that we live in a society that is built around a common factor, technology. In my opinion, its no longer an option to know and effectively understand technology, it is a necessity. Thanks. Mary

Common Question II: Weaknesses Please discuss three weaknesses of your unit. Please specific. Hint: focus on technology, instructional strategies, and assessments.

Although my unit is focused on Higher Education professionals, I feel that I failed to provide a strong foundation for the unit. Even though some Higher Education professionals have PhDs,EdDs,etc, when it comes to effectively utilizing technology, you must provide the basics as if the professionals were a "blank slate." Although I expected the professionals to have a high level of computer literacy, there may be some professionals who don't have a high literacy for computers, but may still like to use web-based tools. Access to numerous tutorials for the various accounts I required to be created would have been reasonable since the adult learners would have to effectively use these tools to create the various products in the module. If you can't effectively use the tools, I shouldnt expect for effective products to be created either. Another weakness was the time to complete the assignments. If it takes us students two weeks to complete certain assignments that we have a reasonable background in, for individuals just beginning, two weeks wouldn't be enough to complete all the assignments adequately in each module. The assignments could be rushed, and the assessments may not reflect the true potential of the adult learner. Finally, I feel that I asked the adult learners to utilize too many potentially difficult technology and web-based tools during their stages of learning that could produce many moments of frustration and confusion.

Common Question I: Aligned Connectivism Principles Please discuss three most important strategies of NLE/PLE in your unit, identify what aligned Connectivism principle(s) are, and discuss the assessments you integrate. Remember NLE/PLE strategies are not your contents or "technologies," such as wiki, discussion board etc. It is the integrated soft technologies. If you don't remember Connectivism principles, please review our Lesson 1 readings. Hint: be sure to include four components of technology integrations: Content; Technology; Instructional Strategies; Assessment.

Some of the important strategies for my unit were making sure that the students were able to learn the concepts through researching information on a certain topic, and then posting what has been learned. These kinds of exercises allow students to interact with each other, forming new connections and new information. Students can learn alot from others and especially when allowed to interact in small groups, they can analyze other's opinions and come up with new and interesting ideas. As an example of this, I used the Twitter activity to get them to research, discuss among peers and post their feedback for others to learn from.For the last lesson I should have incorporated a peer review of the research paper and a reflection since only one rubric was used.

Common Question II: Weaknesses Please discuss three weaknesses of your unit. Please specific. Hint: focus on technology, instructional strategies, and assessments.

Looking back on my unit, I think I should have taken a different angle in order to really cover connectivism theory and the instructional strategies for a network learning environment. I could have possibly made it a course for teaching instructors how to teach and create an NLE. I also should have added peer reviews, a few more web 2.0 or social networking tools, and more rubrics for evaluation.

Common Question I: Aligned Connectivism Principles Please discuss three most important strategies of NLE/PLE in your unit, identify what aligned Connectivism principle(s) are, and discuss the assessments you integrate. Remember NLE/PLE strategies are not your contents or "technologies," such as wiki, discussion board etc. It is the integrated soft technologies. If you don't remember Connectivism principles, please review our Lesson 1 readings. Hint: be sure to include four components of technology integrations: Content; Technology; Instructional Strategies; Assessment.

Common Question I: Aligned Connectivism Principles. The principles I integrated into my unit are: - Learning and knowledge emerges from diverse opinions: The community who is the target audience of my unit are recent graduates of our year-long supervisory core series. The focus of the community will be to identify their diverse needs for lifelong learning (continued learning beyond recent graduation), and finding common ground to explore together. Because they represent a wide range of occupations in the organization, their diverse perspectives in building solutions to supervisory challenges will be harnessed, their ideas improved by one another, and captured for others to refer to. This will be accomplished by exploration of articles through Google Reader, sharing of perspectives in relation to specific needs with the group through Blogger and Go-To-Meeting and bookmarking common interests. - Learning resides in and is accessed in non-human appliances: This target audience for my unit is well-exercised in sharing knowledge, and creating new solutions in a F2F environment (situated learning using constructivist strategies). With the creation of the network learning environment, using Google Reader, Delicious, Blogger and Go-To-Meeting to begin will lead them to discover knowledge in the digital environment, and mash it up with their own knowledge/experience to create a broader, more sophisticated, workable skill set for meeting the challenges of our workplace. - Nurturing connections to facilitate learning: As mentioned the community for whom my unit is designed are a bonded group. However, they have now graduated from their year-long program, and will not interact with one another as frequently as they did while in the program. The network community of graduates in my unit will have the opportunity to continue to expand their personal/professional relationships and continue to meet and learn together. As others graduate from the Supervisory Core Series, they will

Common Question II: Weaknesses Please discuss three weaknesses of your unit. Please specific. Hint: focus on technology, instructional strategies, and assessments.

Common Question II: Weaknesses. 1. The primary weaknesses of my unit is that it is perhaps more structured than true network learning. This weakness is also a strength. I am using the structure to transition a community formed in the classroom to a community outside the classroom (group graduated from year-long supervisory training program at the end of November). My unit creates a network community by introducing the learners to tools for continued learning and networking. Structure was needed to catalyze the transition. 2. There is not forum for a more personalized level of social networking. I feel this is a real weakness, however, it is a planned weakness. In order to transition the community from F2F learning in the workplace environment to network learning, it is important to step them up to network learning (scaffold) gradually. To introduce Facebook or Diigo gadgets in the unit/site in the intial lessons would be distract them from the purpose of network LEARNING and lead them to think it is just SOCIAL networking. As they begin to use the unit/site to learn, I will introduce Diigo, Facebook and Twitter to create a more 'connected' group. The idea is that they will then be ready to use these tools for learning, and not abuse them in a way not allowed by our network policy (i.e., killing time aimlessly surfing and not learning/working). 3. The gadgets are not as robust as similar gadgets on iGoogle. This is a design flaw on my part. I assumed the gadgets available would be the same, and they are not. For instance, the Blogger gadget, doesn't allow one to make a blog post right from the window as the iGoogle Blogger gadget does. Similarly, there was no gadget available for Google Reader; I need to use an RSS Reader gadget built for news and adapt it for the feeds I wanted to include. By contrast the iGoogle gadet for Google Reader is very robust allowing users to go to Google Reader and update, edit, track, and bookmark feeds. Betsy