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I have made some personal comments on obtaining the skills and not being able to get the job one trains for.

To elaborate on your: " My point is this, giving my student the skills to do the job they hope to do in the future is not the end of the learning process." School has the dual purpose of both enlightening us as people and preparing us for a profession. As this article points out, obtaining a degree or going to school does not guarantee of a job. It may not guarantee a job, but without you can't have the insight or credential to eventually get there.

What deeply saddens me is technical and community colleges may give you the skills; but then they may drop the ball by not helping beyond that point. Without internships and situations for obtaining experience...one cannot overcome the obstacle of needing experience in the field. Same goes for my hope to teach...which may just be a dream I am holding onto with no basis in reality. Then the feds paid for the courses, the college got the money and I am in fact the loser.

I started a thread in the student discussion area, but realize that this might be a more appropriate place to post. I agree with Downes that the on-line environment broadens the view of what a learner is, but it also brings up the issue of standardization and safety. Students working with a teacher on polar bears collaboratively is engaging and exciting, but how does this fit into education standards, for example.

I think part of the challenge is in overcoming ego, or our desire to confirm our own beliefs and stay in our comfort zones. Maybe we need to give students assignments to write about something completely off the wall, but find the sources to back it up. Then they can see how easy it is to confirm just about anything. I'll add some more resources on media literacy and see what everyone thinks.

I think confirming beliefs is wrong. If you start with a hypothsis and do not know what the answer will turn out to be, you can set aside your biases and research for an answer. Stats give you a way of looking at data. They are testable at the ratio level and the big T for truth never happens. Only the small t for the strength of the correlation between cause and effect.

I read the assignment about assessment and suddenly thought...this is really crap! I dislike the whole concept of grades. In fact, this video shows that if you really want to assess assessment...what you need to do is teach the most difficult class and find a way to help all students learn it. Learning is a process. I think you cannot learn as much without the help or couching of an instructor or professor. If they show you what concepts they want you to learn...every step along the way, through course design and asking questions to stimulate thought, learners will learn even the most difficult concepts and apply them.. Feedback is essential. Not just feedback; but feedback that helps the learner build on what they already know and move forward. Interactive learning with others continues the process and helps give the learner even more ways to continue the learning process.

One of the biggest sea-changes I've seen in my own teaching experience at Bellevue College since the 1990's is a greater shift towards student-centered learning. One of the major indicators to me of this change was the "Affirmation of Inclusion" initiative that states as an up front policy that Bellevue College is committed to treat all students with respect and support no matter of their ethnic background, age, disability, gender, etc. This policy is visibly posted in every classroom. The older standard educational model based on what Rick Stiggins calls "producing dependable rank order", ie.. consisting of winners and losers - is giving way to a educational approach with lifetime learning as a foundation. We are all on a continuous learning path during the entire arc of our lives, and can potentially all help each other wherever we are on the curve. Rather than specialized pidgeon holes, we are more aptly described by Buckminster Fuller's book title in the 1960's - I seem to be a verb...

I dislike being graded! Yet the grade factor has given me a reason to dig deeply into any studies I take. I wanted to be in charge of my learning and assess myself...unfortunately, I set standards far higher than any instructor would.

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help. He says students from around the world can tutor each other. This presentation was just given a few days ago.

Bruce, I have to say that this TED video posting you put up is the most interesting post I've looked at all quarter! Salman Khan talks about a very unique "backwards design" for education now and in the future with his suggestion that the "lectures--videos" be watched at home and the "homework" be done interactively with the teacher at school. In reality, this concept is the very one I was trained to do way back when I was getting my teaching credential for elementary school. In that model, teachers interact consistently all day long with small and large groups of students and individual students as well, helping them with what they need to understand until some sort of mastery comes. The only appreciable difference that I can see is the use of today's technology tools. A good teacher, no matter if face to face in a classroom or remotely in cyber space, will take the time with each individual student until he or she learns what is being taught. Self-paced learning such as what the TED video centered on was practiced years ago with SRA reading modules and similar modules for math. They fell out of fashion in many schools when districts began standardizing learning and "no child left behind" came along with its requirement that all students meet a particular standard in a particular way. Perhaps I'm over-simplifying things a bit, but I feel compelled to share this. Someone once said, "There are no new ideas under the sun, just new ways of implementing them." Anyway, thanks for this posting--I will eagerly look forward to how the Khan University develops!

Wow...thanks for sharing this link. I've watched the documentary "Waiting for Superman" and was blown away about how our education system is failing so badly. Here's an example of what person can do and change the way we learn.

"It's often said that services like Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter - you name it - are not the product, you are. Each and every bit of information you share and action you take is used to create a profile of user behavior, which is used then to either advertise directly to you or to people on a whole. But how can we ride the fine line? How can we have great, world-changing services at a price (read: free) everyone can afford without completely selling out the end user?"

I think it's going to have to be redefined. But I also think we're in the process of defining new commodities. We need to decide what we value.

I think this issue of privacy and use of personal information by online service companies is a very big deal. I'm also beginning to make use of some of these cloud-based applications (especially from Google) as part of my standard approach to teaching hybrid classes. Up until this past year, I've relied on the tried and true Vista/Blackboard to manage student projects and interactions, but I've found it to be sort of a dinosaur compared to the speed and ease of use of other Web2.0 apps. But if I'm working outside of Vista/Blackboard, I need to be especially careful of privacy policies and procedures of the companies behind these online apps. In the 'Sharing and Privacy' article, Mike Melanson makes some interesting points. He says: "...the companies themselves - the Googles and Facebooks and Twitters of the world - realize that correctly handling these issues of privacy are center to their continued success." and... ""All things equal, the company that's going to want to win in the next couple years will have the best privacy model." When I was doing my own investigation into this issue last winter, I asked myself, "What are the most conservative and and security conscious organizations using for social networking tools?" So I went up to the US Army website to find out. Certainly they have a heightened need to be careful what companies they choose for their social networking tools. I posted the results of this online research on my Web2.0 Chronicle blog. The results aren't surprising... Google, Facebook, Twiter, Wordpress, Flickr... among others. I see no need to rush into this area, and am willing to wait until the dust settles and user results come back from dependable sources. Jennifer's recommendation of Diigo is a good example of this. For myself, I've already left a significant "digital footprint" over the past 15 years - which is now out

This is the activity for Module 5. I really like this open learning system. If you go to my blog you will find that they ( Canvas) will work with you whether you buy their system or not. Please watch video #2 on my blog. (Note: I wrote the last two paragraphs on my blog here. Then I cut and pasted it to my blog because it took up too much space on Diigo.)

Free is never really free, but it's a good way to learn about how these systems work. I'm currently investigating it for a project, and should find out actually licensing costs soon. I've got some quotes on other systems and it just blows my mind how much we pay for this stuff.

Thanks for posting those two videos on your blog -- informative. I am in the process of looking at LMS to use at my workplace...thought Moodle looked good. I will now do a thorough review of Canvas. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I started this over the summer while taking the first course for this certificate. Please feel free to follow my postings on blogger as we continue in this course.

My end of class reflection is located on my blog.

Thought I had posted this...to keep my blog in order, I post dated this to 2/28/11.

The issue you proferred in you blog - being able to quickly address technology issues - is one I deal with personally and is both easier and harder in the professional environment. In the professional enviornment, there is staff who is responsible for the technology and has expertise and focus that I don't. Yet, it is often working through others, where their priority or objectives might be different (like not standardizing on a tool that I prefer) that makes the situation even more frustrating.

I thought you might like to review this, based on our topic this past week. I don't think this document gets as much attention as it should. I like that this is posted as a "right" - "Students shall be protected from academic evaluation which is arbitrary, prejudiced or capricious, but are responsible for meeting the standards of academic performance established by each of their instructors."

I send students to the Omsbud office quite often when they are in a dispute with grading and their instructor...just thought it was worth mentioning.

This is an online community for people dealing with colon cancer. It is part of my course framework to have my students participate in the community, as a way to have a personal experience with the disease, as well as obtaining additional infomration. This forum is moderated, for filtering of non-topic posts, such as posts that are really advertisement hooks. You can participate as a guest or by signing-in. As someone who participates/has participated in on-line and in-person support group, both are important for providing support and information at a peer level. One interesting difference, though, based on my observation only, is that anger venting seems more prevalent in the on-line groups. My belief is that this is because when people post they are by themselves and can be more reflective rather than reactive to what is immediately being communicated.

Great additions! I particularly like the introduction.

I tried to share it without the introduction and was questioned about what it was. I think I have a better understanding of collaborative documents, now. You have to have background on the document to invite others in, or it makes no sense :)

This is an interesting article giving the NSTA's position on the use of online education for science teachers. Oops! The title is actually: The Role of E-Learning in Science.

Its good to standards evolving. It implies a legitmacy to elearning.

Hybrid Class QM video. About an hour long.

This is a great example of student response to posting an hour long video. I've found most students don't want to take the time to watch something for an hour. If you are in instructor and would like students to watch a long video, how do you motivate them to do it? And how do you decide whether the long video is the best way to help them learn? Also, how do we balance the amount of resources we provide learners, with giving them time to find things on their own?

First of all, it is a video that you have to want to view. Students may or may not view it. It shoud be informative; but not mandatory. That way, those who are truly interested will watch and those that are not will not. The same can be said about those who have the time. There is a little nav tool under the video to Fast Forward as well. Hour long videos should be presented to those who want an official or gov reponse to a need or issue. Resources are optional or can be made optional. I would not want to limit the possibilities of my learners!