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some thought to how you will

Interaction alone, however, is insufficient to create a positive social dynamic in the online classroom.

Research demonstrates that the integration of verbal and non-verbal immediacy communication behaviors lets instructors move from mere interaction to authentic intimacy and interpersonal closeness.

an instructor’s understanding of interaction and immediacy dynamics will affect the nature and quality of communication in the online learning environment.

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There are still so many tools and technologies to learn!

how the Internet has altered his mental habits. “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,” he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace  anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”

Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,” he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace  anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”

Someone please explain to me the whole “hashtag” thing. PLEASE!  I feel so out of the loop!

The first course carrying the name MOOC was offered in 2008, so this is new phenomenon. Second, the pedagogical style of the early courses, which we shall call cMOOCs, was based on a philosophy of connectivism and networking. This is quite distinct from the xMOOCs now being developed by elite US institutions that follow a more behaviourist approach. Third, the few academic studies of MOOCs are about the earlier offerings because there has been no time for systematic research on the crop of 2012 xMOOCs. Analysis of the latter has to be based on a large volume of press articles and blogs. Fourth, commentary on MOOCs includes thinly disguised promotional material by commercial interests (e.g. Koller, 2012) and articles by practitioners whose perspective is their own MOOC courses.

The term MOOC originated in Canada. Dave Cormier and Bryan Alexander coined the acronym to describe an open online course at the University of Manitoba designed by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. The course, Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, was presented to 25 fee-paying students on campus and 2,300 other students from the general public who took the online class free of charge (Wikipedia, 2012a).

Can xMOOCs make money?

Access to education should not mean merely access to content

instructor skill in creating and managing interaction in online courses

rather, it should mean access to a rich learning environment that provides opportunity for interaction and connectedness

A person can teach in one of Milwaukee's 125 publicly funded private schools without even a high school diploma.

"teacher proof"

Such approaches ignore fundamental issues of resources, teacher leadership, teaching and learning conditions, and the need for much more time for teachers to collaborate, assess student progress, and improve their teaching skills.

Here are strategies for providing feedback in the Virtual Classroom

Clearly communicate exactly how participants will be graded.

Set evening hours if most of your students work during the day.