Group items tagged

"draw different implications from [the facts] and engage in new trains of thought."

Building Classroom Community

Regarding holding chat sessions in an online class, "Feedback indicates that students appreciate that Hall takes the time to conduct them. 'My being there and being able to make contact seems to have more value than I would have guessed. Students feel like they get a sense of who I am in these chat rooms.'"

#IOLchat today on "creating a new online course" http://t.co/DzWyMrvP today at 12pET! #onlinelearing #edchat #lrnchat RT @Melissa_Venable: Are you creating your first online course? Have advice to share? Join me for an open discussion today: #IOLchat htt ...

Describes anchored discussion. Compares regular discussion with anchored discussion.

Anchored discussion is a form of collaborative literature processing. It "starts from the notion of collaborative discussion that is contextualized or anchored within a specific content" (van der Pol, Admiraal & Simons, 2006). In this course, the discussions we participate in are based on prompts that address ideas included in each of the required resources for each module. However, an anchored discussion is a discussion that is focused on one piece of literature. As students read and digest the material, discussions about the meaning of that material occur within a window where the material is present. It is like having an asynchronous chat window open next to a research article. (van der Pol et al., 2006) As I started learning about anchored discussions, I saw many connections to shared annotation such as what we use Diigo for. Van der Pol et al. (2006) state that "shared annotation might leave more room for individual processes, but is shown to have some limitations in supporting interactivity". Anchored discussions take shared annotation a step further in that it requires conversation (as opposed to individual notes) regarding a resource. The collaborative piece of anchored discussions really got my attention in that it provides greater opportunity for the development of teaching presence by both students and the instructor. The opportunity to facilitate a discussion within the context of a required reading is an exciting idea for me. The use of anchored discussion allows for all three facets of teaching presence: instructional design and organization, facilitating discourse, and direct instruction (Shea, Pickett, & Pelz, 2003). I am wondering if there is a way to use Diigo in creating anchored discussions.

Using synchronous learning can be effective when done right. On page 2 of this article, the author states ""Chat and instant messaging enable us to deepen the connection between student and instructor while promoting spontaneous learning experiences."

Chat comparing pedagogy, andragogy, heutagoty by Lindy McKeown.

How to be successful in online groups

The link to the virtual world Second Life