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Connexions - Sharing Knowledge and Building Communities - 0 views
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On February 1, 2012, Connexions launched its groundbreaking initiative OpenStax College™. OpenStax College is a non-profit organization committed to improving student access to quality learning materials. Our free textbooks are developed and peer reviewed by educators to ensure they are readable, accurate, and meet the scope and sequence requirements of your course. Through our partnerships with companies and foundations committed to reducing costs for students, OpenStax College is working to improve access to higher education for all. OpenStax College is an initiative of Rice University and is made possible through the generous support of several philanthropic foundations.
Student created rubrics - 0 views
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Reflections on Online-Teaching and Learning - 0 views
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teaching online can make you a better f2f teacher
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you might be interested in this: online teaching as a catalyst for classroom based transformation https://urresearch.rochester.edu/retrieve/6493/Catalyst+for+Classroom+Transformation.pdf : }
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I have learned that interaction is essential to teaching and learnng. Learning is a social activity. I feel I have been brave enough to include a discussion forum in each module of my course. It was easy really to do. the questions I have posed are big questions-they are not lower level thinking questions. in order to elicit the rich content from my students in the discussion i need better instructions and to create that rubric-i will do.
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can’t believe how far I’ve come. So, I guess that’s the most suprising thing that i have learned. I can do this tech. stuff. well, another thing that strikes me as suprising is that this course has helped me to become a better f2f teacher. i can no longer hide behind my fear for interaction in the f2f class.
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Have you seen this article? ONLINE TEACHING AS A CATALYST FOR CLASSROOM-BASED TRANSFORMATION http://www.google.com/search?q=a+catalyst+for+classroom-based+transformation&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
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change the world!
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My experience in NY - 0 views
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the teacher only has to think creatively and give the students good instructions, he hasn’t have to give them lists of words and definitions that is the most boring part of constructing a course, and a lot of work.
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I love to think that the process of re-conceptualizing a curse to go online can change the way teachers teach this way, and as I learned too, this change is not only for online classes, in face to face too, because it opens their minds, it makes them think and evaluate their old classes, their old evaluations, and most teachers change the way they teach face to face too, because they realize that traditional teaching doesn’t work face to face either. And they don’t change because they have to change, they have an excuse for changing, so online teaching is a catalyst for transforming teachers.
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A lot of students never felt engaged and I have never understood that until now. The kind of activity I used to do was active and contextualized to the world, but not everybody has the same word or interests, so I think the only way to engage everybody is to ask them what they want to learn, or make them choose. Something I have never done is to empower my students to lead their own learning process. I have had problems trusting in them I have never give them freedom to be creative, lead a group, do research, look for something new, let them teach me something. I haven’t tried to get out the outlines, be more risky. I don’t know how it would be not to have the control of their learning process, but I would like to try. I learned a very interesting thing: they can find their own material, they can learn the things they like and are related with their own interests, they can lead a discussion about a topic they like and engage others in the discussion. They are able to do a lot of things and we have to take advantage of that as teachers because, if we do all the work, who is learning?
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So, as I learned form Alex, the question is not “what can I teach online?”, the question is “how can I teach online the thing that I want to teach?”,
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I don’t know if the question is “which students can be good online learners”, the question is “how can I engage most of them and help them to learn” however they are, because we can’t control that.
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That is why I think it is so important to have questions in order to construct our knowledge, so I really understand that to make people think you have to guide them to have questions , not answers. And how to do that? The best way to do that, according to what I read in The role of questioning teaching, thinking and learning, is making the students do things, if they are passive they are not going to have questions, and also, make them good questions that are provocative and makes them think about what they are interested in solve or understand or do, and other kinds of question that lead students to critical thinking.
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I think that in order to achieve a sense of community between your students you have to give them diverse and frequent opportunities for interaction between them and with you, it is not about knowing each other and working in groups in some activity, you have to interact a lot with all your classmates to build a community and feel that you belong to the class. So you have to design diverse activities and spaces for interaction, sharing and communication between students and with you. Also, you have to teach and guide the students in how to interact, how to contribute, how to add knowledge to the conversation, how to give their classmates feedback, how to reinforce their opinions, how to support them, how to answer their questions, how to evaluate them, how to question them, how to agree or refute them, how to make a comfortable climate for learning and a lot of other things related to create a sense of teaching presence and a sense of belonging to the group.
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By teaching to their classmates students can understand more deeply the content, develop other skills like being creative, they have to think deeper in how to explain a concept and create good examples, and learn from their classmates, from their questions and from the interaction between them.
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I like the idea of having a community blog
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I needed a Blog
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sometimes we think the only way of engaging students is entertaining them. That is not true,
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And even better, how Shoubang sounds so familiar and close to the students in the welcome document without anything fancy technology, only text, but it seems so easy to find him in there and so friendly.
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I think that this work is very creative, and as I remember in one of the first reading of this course (”10 ways online…”),
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I don’t know why but I love it! I can review it forever, and I always have new ideas, and I love that.
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some faculty’s opinions is that they feel younger because they feel the same feeling that they felt when they were teaching for the first time, and I think that they feel rewarded by their creation, their new product.
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Creating and implementing successful online learning environments: a practitioner persp... - 0 views
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Creating and implementing successful online learning environments: a practitioner perspective. This paper is about how we attempted to overcome barriers to the use of Computer Mediated Conferencing (CMC) for effective learning in Open University Business School (OUBS) courses and the implications for successful implementation. We begin with a brief overview of potential barriers and the ways in which we attempted to overcome them. We then expand on this in the remainder of the paper. This practitioner perspective is based on an action research study in the OUBS, involving 300 part time management tutors using CMC based on FirstClassTM software as part of their multi-media distance learning courses (Salmon & Giles 1999). The results reported in this paper are intended to be a guide to help practitioners to make the most of the pedagogic opportunities provided by CMC.
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creating an online course development process - 0 views
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Tacoma Community College has created an online course development process. The process is designed to support faculty by providing a clear timeline for course development, a discussion of what kind of training faculty will need to develop and teach online courses, the kind of support faculty will need, and online course development rubrics for quality assurance and peer review.
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Our Big Idea: Open Social Learning | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM - 0 views
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Access. In 1996, Sir John Daniel estimated we would need to create a major university every week to educate the 100 million students qualified to enter a university who have no place to go. Fifteen years later, universities have simply not kept pace with the staggering demand for college education
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2007 Silent Epidemic study funded by the Gates Foundation, I had what my students would call (pardon their French) a WTF moment. Eighty-eight percent of high school dropouts have passing grades. Huh? Nearly half say they are bored and classes are not interesting.
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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.
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What, then, engages this generation? Social media, for one. They spend 10-15 hours a week on Facebook
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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.
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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.
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It is a vibrant community of students and teachers, teenagers and adults, people from more than 150 countries engaged in a single activity: learning.
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Authentic On-line Learning - 3 views
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I suppose one of the assumptions that I have about my own on-line course is that if a certain percentage of my students are of the Generation Y population, they may very well know more about the technology than I do.
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20 to 22
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so I guess that will most likely be my audience.
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While I think the technology has to be embedded in instruction whenever possible, it can’t be left to teachers alone to solve this problem.
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I feel teachers need much more support from administrators as well as the Education Department. I know that SED is currently addressing the problem of making technology accessible in our classrooms, but even as they are planning it, the technology is increasing exponentially. It's going to take major educational reform -- Our new commissioner has been personally involved with the Technology task force.
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This is my struggle too. I am spending this weekend stopping in. I do like the post titles, it helps me to priortize what I want to read.
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I think a lot of my difficulty is that my only comparison for online learning are the 2 courses I've taken prior to this. One was okay, the other not so good. So, I'm only realizing now that the online environment and experience can be a lot more robust that I had thought.
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I had to question what the objectives were first, and then create an assessment that tied into the objectives.
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This is probably one area that still scares me. I think I'm going to have to come up with a rubric for the forum in my course, and I don't have any experience creating a rubric. I've Googled it and there are many rubrics out there, but I don't know if I can just "borrow" a rubric and tweak it or is this plagarism?
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what I need to do is think of these posts as mini research papers.
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exactly!!! i actually say "Every post you make in this course is an exam. " in the interaction course info document for the course!! : )
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Now that I realize this, I'm finding the workload a little easier. I had to adjust my schedule. I'm used to doing most of my online work on weekends, but that's not enough for this course, so I made changes. Now I come home from work and put aside about 2 hours each night specificallly for addressing posts.
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I don’t feel like I can get to it all.
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I’m doing my best.
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I decided to give it a try.
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1) Will it help you present content in a more effective or engaging manner, 2) will it facilitate collaboration or interaction between students in an more effective manner, and 3) will it help provide feedback or help assess students more effectively. I feel the blog will get students interacting in a more casual setting regarding the stories, and the Wiki will definitely facilitate collaboration.
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Your assessment of the first 4 weeks is so correct, (in my opinion). I am into the end of the 4th week in an online course I am teaching now and my students are finally soaring, It is soooooo exciting for me to see the growth. The only problem is that my class is only 6 weeks summer....The course I am planning is a 4 week winter term course, so now how to I get my students to soar within one week? My dilemma.
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Wow, 4 weeks is not very long. What kind of class will you be teaching in the winter session? I'm not sure you can push the timeframe of when they begin to soar...that happens when it happens. I guess if you can somehow get them interacting with each other right away, that might help promote discussions that lead to those 'aha' moments.a little quicker.
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I decided not to do winter term...I will no less than 8 week courses...which as an adjunct is a $$$ decision that will hurt. However, I do not believe that 16 courses squeezed into 4 weeks is ethical.
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My Avatar
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off. Luckily, the course unfolded slowly and in a very specific order, and I had time to reflect, prepare, and digest the information coming at me. I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete
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flect, prepare, and digest the information coming at me. I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete it. This was a BIG deal for me and it’s given me a sense of empowerment. It’s also come at a good time, because I’ll be taking my last course in September in order to finish up my degr
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flect, prepare, and digest the information coming at me. I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete it. This was a BIG deal for me and it’s given me a sense of empowerment. It’s also come at a good time, because I’ll be taking my last course in September in order to finish up my degr
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prepare, and digest the information coming at me. I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete it. This was a BIG deal for me and it’s given me a sense of empowerment. It’s also come at a g
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Never in a million years did I ever think that I would go on to graduate school, but here I am on the cusp of that achievement. I am the first out of 6 siblings to earn a master’s degree.
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I didn’t realize that I was in charge of my own learning.
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any kind of learning... online or f2f is ONLY student-centered if that is how it is designed and if that is how the instructor facilitates it... now that you know that you are in charge of your own learning, i need your help : ) You can help me change the world by sharing that insight with anyone you have the opportunity to teach in the future. I have very high expectations of you Donna!!! : )
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I came to realize that I didn’t have to give them all my knowledge — that in fact, I had to let them learn some of these things on their own.
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I think it’s a situation where I don’t know what I need until somebody tells me that I need it. I’m certainly open to suggestions, but at this point I feel like I’ve done what I was supposed to do; however, I realize that this is VERY new to me and that I have probably made some mistakes that will be pointed out to me. That’s fine, and as I said, I welcome comments and suggestions.
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Ian August etap 640 SuMmEr 2011 - 1 views
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Student centered learning
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why do I need to pay for this if I am on my own.
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well... if this were true, you could walk into a library and "BAM" - you would know it all! digg into your assumptions here... it is about role and expectations and where the focus is. Is it on the student or on the teacher? see my blog post "if i do all the work, who does all the learning?" : )
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I wish I could walk into a library and know it all! I sometimes (jokingly) tell my students to put their textbooks under their pillow at night in hopes that learning-by-diffusion may come true!
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leaders.
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could not locate a link for diigo but I contacted Mimi for more info
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But the last article I read after the, yawn, diffusion one, yawn, was about digital natives. WOW .
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I am glad that Prensky "engaged" you, but in the long run the other article would help you to better understand and serve the fauclty you work with. Theories help us frame and understand probelms systematically. I need you to think about this and to think about what "engages" you and why. So here is something to engage you. Prensky is WRONG!!! I was hoping you would find find this on your own: http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/05/natives-are-revolting.html - Steve is a friend of mine and a well-known and respected blogger. Digg into this controversy! And then come back and tell me what you think!
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I so agree. I use the polling option in my online course and was told I was the first to ever try. I believe that part of the problem is that online learning is coming from the top down, with little support.
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how do you use the polling option diane, for what type of assignments? Prof. Pickett has been telling me to let the student decide on many things, like Bill Pelz course, where the students approve each others final essays. when you say top down do you mean the teacher ruling the classing room? Because that seems to be the norm, how f2f classes run as well.
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I am a visual person and find that I don't still have a mental map of this class. I wander around quite a bit. I have developed a few shortcuts, but it is definitely a work in progress.
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The map of the class has definitley gotten better since the start, I dont know if you used angel, but we use it at our college, I dont think I can send pics through here but I will send them to you another way.
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These ideas are the modern theories in action, of the students new role in the classroom, whether online or f2f. Professor's have said in the past "this is our class", but these ideas I have mentioned are really creating an "our class" type of atmosphere where the teacher and students are more equal participants in the learning process than the traditional model of the teacher being the boss, and the student being the subordinate.
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Randy Pausch
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wikis's
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This also shows the teacher asking the student to be an active participant in their own learning,
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Every one of the teachers in Exempler courses for observation talked about they way analzye their course, sometimes when its over sometimes during, to see what worked and what did not work
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That was the role of student.
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The Angel LMS that I am familiar with even gives he teacher the option to shut off news posts in a discussion forum so the student has only one option and that is to reply to a previous post.
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build a wiki together
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I was going to have my students do the same, however, I just noticed that the course shell has an option for a Wiki...did anybody else see that? Anybody know how it works? I have since decided to give my students a choice other than to "write" a short story in small groups within a Wikispace. I'm going to allow them to recreate or interpret a short story in a multi-media fashion. Howard Gardner influenced. :-)
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leave it up to the student to choose,
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I guess I can guide, so when the students get off course I can say hey you should check this guy out, or this writer out.
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I had an instructor last semester (Jason Vickers, if you get a chance to take a class with him, he's great! Also, he's a PhD student) who would do this exactly. He would scarcely add to our discussions as he said that oftentimes that can shut them down, but when he did it usually was to suggest that we check certain authors/theories/articles out that might help put us back on the right track.
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I remember Alex suggesting something to me during the first week or two when I was a little lost. She pointed me in the right direction and that was good because I was able to focus my energies.
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Case Study
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Hopefully they will read the author I provide them with and than on their own they will read more articles by that author because they like him.
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Another issue I am having is questioning if I have too much for the student to do. I really wanted them to do a group project but it seems like too much work.
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letting the student do the heavy lifitng. Professor Pickett told me that it is a hard concept to implement as a teacher and I am seeing that.
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letting go of control of someone else's learning is a constant struggle. just keep telling yourself that it is NOT about you and what you know. It is about your students and catalyzing the passion for the topic of your course in them... they are the only ones that can do that... remember... if you do all the work, who does the learning? you have to let go and trust them to learn. That does NOT mean you are not there or that you have chaos.... you have to design it and facilitate it so that it works that way. It is a LOT of work : )
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I am so glad I took this class. I learned so much, I feel so much more confident in my job as an instructional designer, and I feel more confident to take my skills to a new job envirnment. ANYONE HIRING OUT THERE?
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I learned about some really important concepts for teaching online, like; -supply the students with a lot of information, module overviews, due dates, contact info, detailed explanation of how to complete assignments, rubric describing what type of work constitutes a Grade of A, B, C etc, -show your teacher presence in the course, by answering questions fairly quickly, posting in the discussion to guide, engage, provoke the student to do more research, asking for student input and using it, -Let the students do as much as possible instead of giving them everything ona silver platter. -Let students play the role of teacher in some of their assignments
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After the first two weeks of this course, the first module, I learned so much, and grew so much more confident in my ability to work with faculty developing online courses.
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Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: A New Culture of Learning: An Interview with John ... - 0 views
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. In fact we encourage that kind of exploration. It is how children explore and gain information about the world around them.
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What we are essentially doing when we move to student-directed learning is undermining our own relatively stable (though I would argue obsolete) notions of expertise and replacing them something new and different.
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One of the key arguments we are making is that the role of educators needs to shift away from being expert in a particular area of knowledge, to becoming expert in the ability to create and shape new learning environments. In
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known that at that age, play and learning are indistinguishable. The premise of A New Culture of Learning is grounded in the idea that we are now living in a world of constant change and flux, which means that more often than not, we are faced with the same problem that vexes children. How do I make sense of this strange, changing, amazing world? By returning to play as a modality of learning, we can see how a world in constant flux is no longer a challenge or hurdle to overcome; it becomes a limitless resource to engage, stimulate, and cultivate the imagination. Our argument brings to the fore the old aphorism "imagination is more important than knowledge." In a networked world, information is always available and getting easier and easier to access. Imagination, what you actually do with that information, is the new challenge
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shared by Diane Gusa on 16 Jun 11
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Using Color to Evoke Reactions and Emotions - 0 views
www.sliderocket.com/...o-evoke-reactions-and-emotions
presentation color emotions Online course building
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Studies show that certain colors will generate different reactions from audience members. For example, black promotes authority and strength, while blue conveys reliability and trustworthiness (which is why so many companies use it in their corporate logos). Red excites people, prompting them to be more innovative and take more risks. Orange demonstrates a combination of confidence and playfulness. So, you’ll want to select colors carefully, based on the emotions you are seeking to evoke, or the perceptions you are trying to create.
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While colors like red or purple can be rather effective in certain scenarios, when used too liberally, the presenter – and his or her delivery – can be viewed as overly aggressive. The opposite is true for colors like white, gray, or pastels, which create a perception of passivity or weakness. These colors should be used as highlight or accent colors only – as opposed to key colors within the presentation’s design.
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Experiential Learning - 0 views
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Students and employers in recent years have embraced development that will allow the learner to attain the practical skills that are necessary to perform in the workplace. Students wish to take on tasks featuring significant experiences with real outcomes that create concrete learning achievements through participation and reflection. This is what experiential learning is all about.
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shared by Diane Gusa on 16 Jun 11
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The Ed Techie: Using learning environments as a metaphor for educational change - 0 views
nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/...or-for-educational-change.html
module 2 21stcenturylearning e-learning WEB2.0 education learning_environments
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It has often been noted that when a new technology arrives we tend to use it in old ways (eg Twigg 2001), before we begin to understand what it really offers
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t has often been noted that when a new technology arrives we tend to use it in old ways (eg Twigg 2001), before we begin to understand what it really offers
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t has often been noted that when a new technology arrives we tend to use it in old ways (eg Twigg 2001), before we begin to understand what it really offers
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It has often been noted that when a new technology arrives we tend to use it in old ways (eg Twigg 2001), before we begin to understand what it really offers. So, for example the television was initially treated as ‘radio with pictures’
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In an attempt to move towards the possibilities offered by a completely digital, online world, they have started with the education model we are familiar with. They are, in effect, a virtual classroom, or course, with content (which map onto lectures) laid out in a linear sequence with discussion forums linked to this (mapping onto tutorials). In one LMS (the open source Bodington system, http://bodington.org) they even went as far as to make this mapping explicit by making the interface a building which you had to navigate to your lecture room.
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Heppell (2001) argues that “we continually make the error of subjugating technology to our present practice rather than allowing it to free us from the tyranny of past mistakes.
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Daniel (1996) has argued that elearning is the only way to cope with expanding global demand for higher education, claiming that “a major university needs to be created each week” to meet the proposed demand.
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f we view our online learning environments not as analogies of how we currently teach, but rather as a metaphor for how we engage with changes required for a digital society, then this provides us with some insight in to how to tackle the issues above (and others).
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Siemens (2008) argues that “Learning theories, such as constructivism, social constructivism, and more recently, connectivism, form the theoretical shift from instructor or institution controlled teaching to one of greater control by the learner.”
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To learn is to acquire information Information is scare and hard to find Trust authority for good information Authorized information is beyond discussion Obey the authority Follow along
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Why would we seek to recreate the sort of learning affordances Wesch highlights in a virtual environment, when we are free to construct it however we wish?
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Arguably then there has never been a better alignment of current thinking in terms of good pedagogy – i.e. emphasising the social and situated nature of learning, rather than a focus on knowledge recall with current practices in the use of technologies – i.e. user-generated content, user-added value and aggregated network effects. Despite this, the impact of Web 2.0 on education has been less dramatic than its impact on other spheres of society – use for social purposes, supporting niche communities, collective political action, amateur journalism and social commentary.”
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"Tools such as blogs, wikis, social networks, tagging systems, mashups, and content-sharing sites are examples of a new user-centric information infrastructure that emphasizes participation (e.g., creating, re-mixing) over presentation, that encourages focused conversation and short briefs
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connectivism (Siemens 2005) places decentralisation at the heart of learning:"Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing"
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Wikipedia succeeds by decentralising the authoring process, YouTube succeeds by both decentralising the broadcasting production process, but also by allowing embeds within blogs and other sites, thus decentralising the distribution process
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Knowing how to link to and locate resources in databases and search engines is a skill for a decentralised information world. The result is that online references are forced into an existing scheme, which has an inherent preference for physical resources. The traditional reference is often provided in papers, when it is the online one that has actually been used because the referencing system is biased towards the paper version.
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‘eduglu’
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SocialLearn has been conceived as a deliberate attempt to discover how learners behave in this sphere, how to develop the appropriate technology and support structures, what pedagogies are required and what are the business models for education in a disaggregated educational market.