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Technology doesn't help either. They find video lectures and Powerpoints boring, and they read less with e-textbooks than with traditional textbooks. These kids aren't failing out of school; they are simply disengaging.

What, then, engages this generation? Social media, for one. They spend 10-15 hours a week on Facebook

Open Social Learning. Imagine a Facebook where the point is to study together, not trade pictures and jokes. Imagine a World of Warcraft where students earn levels and points by helping each other learn. Not a video game that teaches physics; instead, let's create an educational experience that is social and game-like.

we built a site called OpenStudy , the first large-scale social network that enables students to connect, get help, study together, and earn social capital through game-like rewards.

It is a vibrant community of students and teachers, teenagers and adults, people from more than 150 countries engaged in a single activity: learning.

OpenStudy is built on three core ideas: open, peer-to-peer, and community of learning.

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After reading that statement, I felt as though many things clicked for me. The course design and teaching practices are closely linked. The social, cognitive, and teaching presence are related and depend on each other. What does this mean for my course? For me it translates to making sure my course design contains a careful balance to establish the community of inquiry, and that my teaching practices are supported by my course design.

First that instructors must give control over the learning to the students, and second that instructors must be skilled at guiding discussions in order to help students learn what is necessary through interactions with others. I especially liked an analogy that Luke used in one of his discussion posts, “Yoda (the teacher) guided Luke (the student) in the ways of the Force, he pointed him where he needed to go but had Luke do the work.” I think this is very relatable for those of us who are star wars fans. Yoda is this incredibly wise mentor, who says very little. The statements he makes are brief but have a lot of meaning. I do see how this relates to effective teaching online. I had to help facilitate a discussion in a past online class, and always felt hesitant to jump in. My sense was that you only want to add something when the thinking stops. You only want to ask enough questions, or statements to get the thinking going again.

I really appreciated that the course was able to allow me to reach these conclusions in my own way, rather than just telling me “the line between direct instruction and facilitation of discourse can be blurred”. 

I have been able to make the big connections, and form ideas in a way that previously has been difficult for me. 

I feel as though the reflection assignments have provided the context for my brain to think in a different way.  This not only gives me confidence for the future, but it also helps me to discover the connections I have made unconsciously!  It seems kind of strange to say that, but it is true!  I am hoping to continue to use blogging as a tool to document my insights and learning after the course ends.

I definitely was struggling with motivation when I felt the connection to my classmates and the instructor fading.

Through ETAP640, I have really learned how important reflection is for deep learning. It is through my blog posts that I have been able to tie all the ideas together in my head and makes sense out of the information. The course manual suggests that you ask your students why they are taking the course within the ice breaker.

Maree (4)

A threaded conversation is one where messages are grouped hierarchically according to topic.

I realized that the online environment is actually a type of classroom; is that why course language includes such terms as “area”, and “room”?

The resulting ah ha moments became the core of my entry …

One activity that I am especially excited to observe is the students tweeting from their placements when they make a course- to- practice connection.

How am I simultaneously learning how to be an online student and instructor?

Something that has been proven to work is frequent, immediate instructor feedback.

Aug 04 2012

Reflecting on the online course design process, I realize I have made a tremendous transition from first-time student to instructor in the space of one semester. What I have learned about myself is that I have an affinity for designing in the online environment. 

I am technology-proficient.

While I am not yet a full technophile, I am surely no longer a technophobe!

  I so deeply enjoyed the reading and studying portion of this course … it opened a new world of theory to me, made more exciting by the historic proximity of the leading researchers in the field. 

I kept telling myself, “You need the experience if you want to be an instructional designer!”

So, reflection has proven its worth yet again:  reflecting on my work in designing EED406 thus far is proof that research-based best practice works.

discussion is the heart of online learning. 

students’ learning is demonstrated through the vehicle of discussion.  

blog posts are personalized records of learning, thinking, and being. 

It is not about what the instructor wants to hear, it is about hearing the student’s articulation of what is being learned that is essential to evaluating the content of a blog post.

Through trying to be “fearless” about using technology, as Alex advises, I have come to learn that confidence is something that one must exercise in all spheres of the online environment.

we can not help but to teach when we learn and to learn when we teach.

“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” This is certainly true of discussion forum.  We learn with and for each other: as  you learn, I learn. 

I have spent my academic life I believing that I have to ‘go it alone’, since I walked home from school alone the first day of first grade.  Strangely, this course, in which I spend so much time alone, is teaching me that I don’t. 

It causes me to reflect on the similarities between online and physical communities, something I had not thought of before.  Could it be that we really are, slowly and steadily, growing into a genuine community?

Teaching presence also involves anticipating students’ needs based on monitoring progress and being ready to find that perfect something to support the student’s learning.

(Think Twitter, Irene!)