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course, we strongly encourage instru

course, we strongly encourage instru

luding funny quotes, jokes, and cartoons, and in this section, we identify resources for locating pedagogical humor. When deciding which material to use for the online course, we strongly encourage instructors to c

we strongly encourage instructors to consider the guidelines for pedagogical humor mentioned in the previous section. First, does the humor promote an educational objective? Second, will the students understand and appreciate the humor? Third, is the target of the humor appropriate for the course? The Internet is the best resource for pedagogical humor, and although any search using a discipline and “humor” as descriptors will yield numerous web sites, we recommend more narrowly focused searches (i.e., “humor” and a specific discipline topic). Additional resources for pedagogical humor include supplemental instructional materials provided by book publishers and journals devoted to humorous research (e.g., Journal of Polymorphous Perversity, Annals of Improbable Research). When using humor from other sources, instructors need to adhere to copyright considerations. Visual humor is especially effective in online courses, and cartoons, illustrations, and photographs, can easily be integrated throughout the course. Although visual humor is usually self-contained (i.e., a caption or the illustration delivers the punch line), there are several ways that instructors can enhance visual humor for the online environment. Visuals, such as photographs or illustrations, can be used as a punch line for a joke. For example, when discussing the difficulty of course examinations, the setup would be “And this is how students often feel after an exam…” with a photograph or cartoon of frighten individuals delivering the punch line. For this type of humor to be effective,

we strongly encourage instructors to consider the guidelines for pedagogical humor mentioned in the previous section. First, does the humor promote an educational objective? Second, will the students understand and appreciate the humor? Third, is the target of the humor appropriate for the course? The Internet is the best resource for pedagogical humor, and although any search using a discipline and “humor” as descriptors will yield numerous web sites, we recommend more narrowly focused searches (i.e., “humor” and a specific discipline topic). Additional resources for pedagogical humor include supplemental instructional materials provided by book publishers and journals devoted to humorous research (e.g., Journal of Polymorphous Perversity, Annals of Improbable Research). When using humor from other sources, instructors need to adhere to copyright considerations. Visual humor is especially effective in online courses, and cartoons, illustrations, and photographs, can easily be integrated throughout the course. Although visual humor is usually self-contained (i.e., a caption or the illustration delivers the punch line), there are several ways that instructors can enhance visual humor for the online environment. Visuals, such as photographs or illustrations, can be used as a punch line for a joke. For example, when discussing the difficulty of course examinations, the setup would be “And this is how students often feel after an exam…” with a photograph or cartoon of frighten individuals delivering the punch line. For this type of humor to be effective,

we strongly encourage instructors to consider the guidelines for pedagogical humor mentioned in the previous section. First, does the humor promote an educational objective? Second, will the students understand and appreciate the humor? Third, is the target of the humor appropriate for the course? The Internet is the best resource for pedagogical humor, and although any search using a discipline and “humor” as descriptors will yield numerous web sites, we recommend more narrowly focused searches (i.e., “humor” and a specific discipline topic). Additional resources for pedagogical humor include supplemental instructional materials provided by book publishers and journals devoted to humorous research (e.g., Journal of Polymorphous Perversity, Annals of Improbable Research). When using humor from other sources, instructors need to adhere to copyright considerations. Visual humor is especially effective in online courses, and cartoons, illustrations, and photographs, can easily be integrated throughout the course. Although visual humor is usually self-contained (i.e., a caption or the illustration delivers the punch line), there are several ways that instructors can enhance visual humor for the online environment. Visuals, such as photographs or illustrations, can be used as a punch line for a joke. For example, when discussing the difficulty of course examinations, the setup would be “And this is how students often feel after an exam…” with a photograph or cartoon of frighten individuals delivering the punch line. For this type of humor to be effective,

ll the students unders

A wide range of hum

When asked about several emerging technologies for online education, 27 percent of respondents predicted that use of course management systems (CMSs) would increase most drastically in the next five years. Those surveyed also said that video streaming, online testing and exam tools, and learning object libraries would find significantly greater use on campus during this time. Between 5 and 10 percent of respondents expected to see increases in asynchronous discussion tools, videoconferencing, synchronous presentation tools, and online testing.

this study found that the most important skills for an online instructor during the next few years will be how to moderate or facilitate learning and how to develop or plan for high-quality online courses (see Table 2). Being a subject-matter expert was the next most important skill. In effect, the results indicate that planning and moderating skills are perhaps more important than actual "teaching" or lecturing skills in online courses. As Salmon pointed out, online instructors are moderators or facilitators of

), and educational opportunities.25Online Teaching Skills.

Instructors' abilities to teach online are critical to the quality of online education.

As a result, enhancing pedagogy is perhaps the most important factor in navigating the perfect e-storm. In the present study, respondents made predictions about the quality of online education in the near future and about how online courses would be taught and evaluated.

Our findings also indicated that, in general, respondents envisioned the Web in the next few years more as a tool for virtual teaming or collaboration, critical thinking, and enhanced student engagement than as an opportunity for student idea generation and expression of creativity.

What if institutions took the opposite stance and measured face-to-face courses based on whether they could accomplish all that online instruction can?

emphasized the need for instructors to validate all student perspectives, as well as acknowledge differing beliefs and biases, to create a safe and welcoming community that helps students become “more engaged and feel more interconnected”

who provide a structured and comfortable classroom environment that involves the participation of everyone in the learning activities

thoughtful care for instructors to help students become engaged in their learning and to design virtual classrooms that enhance a sense of community

carefully plan ways for students to interact, students can focus on achieving course learning goals

focus primarily on academic content and not as much on meaningful, interpersonal connections.

such as Facebook, twittering and blogging, might increase the social presence of all of the students as well as the teaching presence of the instructor.

collaborative decision-making related to communication protocols, and required and ongoing student postings in online discussions

instructors need to find ways to help students feel more strongly connected with each other and with the instructor and to facilitate activities that more actively involve students in their own learning.

This constant interaction with the subject matter greatly increases learning retention.

Students are more active and self-directed in their learning.

discussion is richer because it is recorded

class discussions easily cross week boundaries. It is very common for a discussion which began in the first week of the course to resurface in the fourth week when new learnings shine a fresh perspective on it. This type of dialogue feels much more natural than the fragmented discussions I experienced in the classroom.

My experience with teaching online is that it is a different thing. I encourage us all to experiment in both our face-to-face and virtual learning encounters and to share what seems to work and not work.

full-time online charter school like the Wisconsin Virtual Academy

opposition from some educators, who say elementary students may be too young for Internet learning, and from teachers, unions and school boards, partly because they divert state payments from the online student's home district.

Legally, they are considered public school students, not home-schoolers, because their online schools are taxpayer-financed and subject to federal testing requirements.

They are publicly financed, mostly elementary and middle schools.

''That's what I love most about this curriculum,'' Mrs. Weldie said. ''There's no reason for Isabel to practice counting if she can already add.''

udioBlogger (www.audioblogger.com) is a free service which permits users to create audio podcasts using their cell phone, which are directly saved to the Internet and “subscribable” via an automatically generated RSS feed. Just as AudioBlogger permits anyone with a cell phone and access to the Internet to create a free online account to become an international podcaster, services like YackPack and Vaestro are likely to continue maturing and offer increasingly powerful ways for people to interactively podcast. These tools are powerful and rich in their educational potential.

But at its heart, the university was born to provide a structure to govern the student-teacher relationship.

development of Wikiversity (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page), an initiative from the Wikimedia Foundation

materials are produced by Wikiversity participants, who are, like their counterparts in Wikipedia, motivated volunteers. In addition, the Wikiversity course materials, unlike those made available by MIT, are editable by users

. Instead, students are invited to work together, to engage in discussion, to solve problems, and to otherwise “construct their knowledge.”

Put another way, the role of the teacher in a constructivist setting is like being a “procedural author,” as defined by Janet Murray when discussing virtual reality spaces.9

transformed into a kind of platform where students were invited to explore/create/construct knowledge. Peer production is very much a part of the constructivist classroom setting.

are more theme-parks than sandboxes,” meaning that learning is made as uniform and as controlled as possible (under the name of “standardization” and “outcomes-based” assessments).

In contrast, a sandbox conjures up images of unstructured, unplanned, emergent play that is determined by the players. Imagine a university organized and managed like a sandbox, where teachers and students are invited to play and create in an unstructured environment—or, rather, in an environment structured by their own actions, choices, and decisions.

Concerns would surely be raised about the quality of these credentials, similar to the debates about the quality of the articles in Wikipedia

To what degree will such informal learning and “credentialing by reputation” be legitimated and accepted by society?

emerge from the decisions, the edits, the additions, and the deletions of a number of people, all bound by the rules and protocols of Wikipedia

The wiki-ized university will probably not displace the traditional university but will likely exist alongside it, albeit in direct competition.

Feeding students endless content to remember (that is, declarative sentences to remember) is akin to repeatedly stepping on the brakes in a vehicle that is, unfortunately, already at rest. Instead, students need questions to turn on their intellectual engines and they need to generate questions from our questions to get their thinking to go somewhere. Thinking is of no use unless it goes somewhere, and again, the questions we ask determine where our thinking goes.

It is possible to give students an examination on any subject by just asking them to list all of the questions that they have about a subject, including all questions generated by their first list of questions.