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Jennifer's email to us was a catalyst for this post to inquire about your digital prescence experience. I, like Jennifer, have aliases that I use on social networks. It is a challenge, though, to manage multiple presences and even when I do, often have a feeling of unease about the information. For example, in this course a suggestion was for us to update our profile. Although I don't feel secrative that I am taking a course at Bellevue College, the email/signature I use for this course is also the one I use for some other professional endeavors (such a technology consulting). I is not something that is a "need to know" by everyone. I chose, in this situation, not to update my general profile. When we are conscious of what/how we are posting and putting up, is one thing. Often though, I get on a mailing list, that I have no idea how I was included, as I probably forgot to check a "do not include me" box on something I have bought on line. This article was particularly interesting to me, as it talks about a survey that 23% of children get a digital presence even before they are born - having a lasting imprint.

Good article to bring things into perspective about 'online presence.' I found a similar article that compared statistics relating to age and online presence. 92% of children by age 2 have online presence thanks to parents and grandparents. As Jennifer mentioned in her discussion of facebook -- maybe we don't want the world to see what we did in our high school days...we were 15/16. Can we separate a personal online presence from a business profile...

I do separate my profiles by having different email aliases. There is overhead in having multiple ones, however, so not ideal.

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.

In today's Seattle Times, A3 section - interesting article which followed over 2,000 US students from 2005 to 2009. 45% made no significant improvements in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during first 2 years of study. After completing 4 years, 36 % showed no significant gains in "higher order" thinking skills. Article also states some contributing factors, many students work part-time, however, most students only spent 1/5 time on their studies and 51% on socializing & extra-curricular. I have a strong hunch the internet is a big contributor to the socializing factor. When I read such statistics, it makes me ponder if on-line learning can truly change this social/educational trend. I am enjoying many readings on the diigo, both from Jennifer and others, however, I'm not sure I would design an on-line class which designated a considerable amt. of time to short readings and discussions. Your thoughts on this?

I too found the article interesting - thanks! I do wonder about the types of classes students completed especially in their first two years. The might be a marked difference in skills acquisition if students were completing many required large class survey classes to meet initial requirements vs. small, more focused classes in their areas of interest.

I am still trying to get the picture of "slogging" through studies! Is that what I am doing when reading all this material in Diigo? I don't think so.

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award. For more information on Sir Ken's work visit: http://www.sirkenrobinson.com

Helen, I like Sir Ken Robinson's stuff, but I do take it with a grain of salt as well. Like Gladwell, he's a good storyteller and can inspire, but everything's got to be taken in context. I love that you ask your students to follow their train of thought. I do that with my kids, and find I often have to explain my own train of thought to others. I like the way you are in tune with the benefits and risks of reflective practice. It can get messy, and it isn't always the best thing for every student. It sounds like you take extra steps to make sure they understand the value of it.

Helen, thanks for underlining the Evoke game. I did find it - www.urgentevoke.com - and was impressed by what a great representative of eLearning this was. Organized, engaging, lots of information - but what I liked most was that it led to action - i.e., the gaming playing is not just on the computer - but actions you take or are encouraged to take to make a difference.

This is an overview of a guideline for how learning occurs and how as teachers we can focus our lessons to this guideline. It is relevant in on-line education, as the on-line environment allows us to have different modes to provide information to our students. We can utilize everything from video to chat rooms.

Ann, do you have any tools or taxonomies that have helped you develop those questioning skills? And have you got any experience using the SOLO taxonomy?

I have not had experience with SOLO - Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes - but from the bit of investigation I have done, it is similiar to Bloom's in that it is based upon the notion that a studen'ts ability to grasp more abstract concepts, is based on more fundamental understandings and that you need to make sure you are not too advanced for where the student is. It reminds me of Piaget's concept that you can only learn something that is slightly more advanced than where you are (my paraphrase). As for my experience with help in developing questioning skills, which I feel is an excellent example of elearning, is that my company had us first take an interactive tutorial on Bloom's taxonomy. The "final" was taking a math problem and providing questions for each level of the taxonomy. We posted this on a dedicated discussion, with the teacher providing her response for everyone to see and learn from. We have since started another topic where teacher can post specific questions they are using and have tried and this will eventually be collected into a reference document. For example, one idea that was shared was that you after you have tested your student on a fundamental, you can ask them to give you a problem. My experience is that I often get back something I didn't expect. Like if adding decimels, they will return with a problem that might be in the millionths rather than the tenths. What I found most useful was not these specifics or having a question for each level, as much as the consciousness raising it did for me to think more creatively in helping the students. I have found that an elearning platform is very helpful in this regard. For example, they might take a lesson on adding or subtracting fractions and another on adding or subtracting decimels. I will then give them a problem in adding both - example - 1/2 + .25 = . By having an interactive whiteboard I can see how they convert the fraction to a decimal to add them and offer guidan

This week the focus is on assessment and evidence of understanding. The emphasis is, of course, on how we assess our students. However, eteachers can be more easily observed, so I thought the community might find it interesting as to how I, as an eteacher, am assessed. (The students do an automated self-paced lesson and then take a practice quiz. If they have questions during the lesson or in order to go the next one, we interact. Based on the quiz and other questions/discussions we have, I pass them to the next lesson. I have up to 4 students in one session.) Once a month, my supervisor listens to one of the recorded sessions and writes up an assessment. What I find interesting that is unique to elearning, is that my use of the technology environment goes into my assessment. I need to be logged in on time, I need to effectively switch among my students, etc. Also, if an area is weak, a request by my supervisor to re-take an automated class I have taken before - such as effective questioning - might be assigned.

The online environment provides for easy capture of the session. The requirement for teaching include having a degree and a background check, but not a teaching certificate. I feel the monitoring is an extra check and balance on both how we are teaching and our online presence. We go through training and have guidelines on what we can and cannot discuss with the students - such as sharing emails, contacts outside of class, etc. Recently this has come into focus, as the regular school teachers at the school I am tutoring with (we are a scheduled once a week class during the school year) encouraged the students to ask where we live, etc., to feel more connected. On our teacher platform, the teachers and our supervisor were able to post and share with each other on how they were and should be handling this. It is a balance - just as in a regular classroom - to be connected, yet have privacy. I do not find what information I should and should share or ask to be a problem for me, but the time focus is. The students are used to texting all the time and feel comofrtable with using the time that way. I have now developed my own transitions - from the explicit: "we've chatted enough for right now, please go on with your lesson" to a softer transition by using the information in our dialog to set-up a problem: You got so much snow! So if you had eight snowballs and split them evenly....".

This is fascinating! I've honestly never seen an instrument for a supervisor to evaluate an online teaching session. (Or maybe I just don't remember.) For distance education at BC, instructors/divisions can opt in to the online student evaluations. I don't know if Norma signed up to have this course included in the evals. If so, you may have received access to that today. As far as I know, that's the primary way teachers are evaluated here. It compares to how they are evaluated in f2f classes. For me, I like to get constant feedback from students, and that's why you see me poking around a lot, sending lots of email, and including self-checks. It's always an awful feeling to get to the end of a course and discover you could have made changes early on that would have made a big difference in learning. (But I always expect to discover some of that at the end, as well!) Thanks for sharing this!

In the Summer of 2010, I taught an online class called the Fundamentals of Interactive Entertainment for the University of Tasmania, via the Human Interface Technology Lab under the sponsorship of Dr. Thomas Furness of the University of Washington. This course provides an overview of interactive media - video games and real-time interactive simulations. It includes information concerning the history, theory, technology, design, and social impact of these emerging communications media. The course consists of thirteen modules, and in the Summer of 2010, was made up of two weekly events: 1) A lab session which met every Tuesday to provide discussions, team planning meetings, and hands-exercises and 2) a live classroom session which was videocast directly from Seattle to a University of Tasmania classroom in Launceston, Australia. I posted more information regarding this project on my Web2.0 Chronicle blog. PLEASE NOTE: This narrated screencast runs two minutes past the 5 minute recommendation given by Jennifer.

Bruce, applying the Boettcher/Conrad 10 Best Practices to a course you have already taught, was brilliant! It is always a source of learning when we can go back and critique our own work, finding needed areas of improvement or simply discovering how "right on" we were from the get-go! I enjoyed seeing this piece of your creativity!

I found your presentation very smooth and professional.

"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

"The current and future health of America's 21st Century Economy depends directly on how broadly and deeply Americans reach a new level of literacy--'21st Century Literacy'--that includes strong academic skills, thinking, reasoning, teamwork skills, and proficiency in using technology.", says the 21st Century Workforce Commission National Alliance of Business

Another great read and thanks, Ann. Something this article doesn't address is the growing concern about the "digital divide." Not all segments of our society has equal access to the internet. I recently heard a lecture at NSCC addressing this problem. Many outlining districts in urban areas(and rural areas) do not have the infrastructure to receive Wi-Fi. Students is poor neighborhoods (many who don't have computers at home) must go to their local public library to get internet access. Yes, our public school system needs to incorporate more technology "know-how" into their curriculum and instruction, but equally as important, our society needs to take a closer look at what segments of society are presently at a big disadvantage in terms of equal access to technology, both in and out of school. As technology redefines what it means to be "literate," then we also must address equity and accessibility to resources.

Helen, I like your astute comments and observations. The poor in this country may have access to computers in the library and at school, but many of them are homeless and living in cars. Anywhere from 2000-5000 people are homeless in King County and 80% of these people are women with children and suffering from DV incidents. If we go further, I have a friend working in Chimbote, Peru. Most of the people living in the barrios do not even have running water, much less the ability to buy or use computers. I suspect worldwide, you would see extremely large percentages of children without food much less computer access or skills.

This is my favorite site to learn about powerful presentation techniques.

I think it is than...

I'm a little slow on the uptake, but the potato salad discussion was great!! I like bacon and sour cream in mine--but on the serious side--life, education, teaching, learning, ad infinitum, are rarely black and white; you are so correct, Jennifer, in the longer comment you addressed to Ann and me about the challenge centering around these things not having to be one way or the other because there are so many other factors involved.

This is a nice collection of papers debunking the myth of the Digital Native. My personal belief is that this myth has been extremely harmful. If you have a chance to read Selwyn's article, I highly recommend it.

Hmmm...after reading that Wiki explanation, I feel a bit of frustration and anger. White middle class youth are probably digital natives if one wants to put a label on it. But, after reading articles on the subject, many lower income families with high school and college age students do not have the funds for technological devices & services: computers; IPADs; laptops; Kindles and the list goes on. I am even more certain youth in other countries do not have access nor would they have high speed internet access on as broad a scale as we have in the US. I suspect they could not afford it either. So this label probably only applies to a small percentage of millennials or digital learners.

Or I should have stated, for those labelled as digital learners...they are only a small percentage of the worlds's millennials and even GenX. Ithink sociological studies would support this conclusion. I prefer using statistics to test hypothesis. Then one can thread these into a theory and test it statistically.

In her important, controversial new book, Sherry Turkle reads our leap into digital technology not as the unfettering of a deep, human urge to connect, but as a dire symptom to be understood within an older framework: psychoanalysis. Whether you find this book's analysis convincing depends on how you read the Rorschach test that is the Internet.

Bruce, CaringBridge has been a great support for so many people. I originally discovered the site while I was following the story of Baby Allie http://www.scotthousehold.com/allie.htm whose mom documented her short life battling with AML. A huge community grew around her little life, and I discovered many CaringBridge sites. Jenny went on to start the Heroes for Children foundation, raising more than $3 million for families in TX with children undergoing treatment. My own early blogging experiences were around my own grief and loss http://momrealityblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/it-began-with-tragic-ending.html I had previously been involved in several online parenting communities. They were a huge support to me during that time. We have the potential to do a lot of good online and off. I think we just need to be cognizant of how our messages are amplified, and how we amplify the messages of others.

Joy, I am so sorry for your loss. I think grief is different for everyone, and the internet is a place we can find other people who share similar methods of grieving, so we don't feel so alone. In our own families, it's hard to support each other through periods of loss. I've discovered a lot of online communities, some healthy, and some not, where people feel comfortable expressing their feelings about loss. I think the most important thing I learned online during that time, was "be gentle with yourself."

This is my portfolio post for week 5

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_17396167?nclick_check=1 - This is an OpEd piece by David Brooks of the New York Times, which came out this week. "It could be that the nature of technlogical changes is (causing) a shift in values". This is not an opinion about education, but goes to the point about preparing students for the future/present even that assumes technology. Maybe our values are and how we assess things has to evolve, as well.

I truly thought that blog was thought provoking! I absolutely agree about changing values. But, I think that change must come from this generation and what they want for themselves, for their community and for their country. Hopefully they can think that broadly about themselves and the world. I believe they can and do!

I am sharing a video I made for the class project. I welcome any critiques or information on how to make this a better video. I do not know if I have addressed all the elements Jen has asked for. I tried to address as many as I could...except those I will learn about in Module 8. This was my first attempt in making a eLearning video on You Tube, with the help of Jing and Screencast. I found a few frustrations along the way; but it was fairly easy to use. I have the following probs: 1.) I could not fit the screen to the screen used in You Tube; 2.) I had problems setting the volume controls on my recording; 3.) I found myself unable to think as fast as the video was going and 4.) the overall quality of the screen when used" full screen" was not as good as I would have liked it to be. Finally, I have never ( well maybe not NEVER) had so darn much fun doing something so darn frustrating at times.

Using a headset doesn't get the kind of result I want. However, I will try to do that the next time around. I have found this to be a problem when I made the elluminate recording, too. I could think you must be a fan Mary Ann! I really don't know what I am doing when I start these projects...they just sort of do themselves. My husband just shakes his head and ignores me. His computer is in our office. It is L shaped and I am on one side and he is on the other on the inside side of the L.That way we can't see each other...it keeps me from being tempted to do things to him, I might not want others to know about ( I am saying this while I untangle my fingers from his neck...at the moment.)

Thanks for posting your work. It gives us all good yardstick for our own assignment.

Teaching on-line or in a classroom requires the ability to ask good questions. I found this article to be useful--I hope you will too.

I'm not opposed to a final project that involves students re-developing this course. It could even be a group project. (But I'd probably want to write about you and brag about you all to my friends!)

I posted Bloom's Taxonomy, which is a guideline for how people learn and how education should be targetted to that model. It is similiar to the types of questioning one does to reflect where we are in the learning process. I think the same is true of our course. We all seem to have through experience and past coursework some basic knowledge of on-line teaching and learning. My preference, I think, would be to have answers/discussion to some of the questions that are coming up, not just a list.

The emphasis of this article, is that we can get in information overload, which impacts the verasity of the data we get. He discusses deliberate biases in websites and the need for us to use filters in the information we receive. To me, it is not just the information we receive, but how we ask the question. Using a different search engine or how a question is phrased can often provide a different answer. When I am trying to research something, I often will not only read the first couple of references, but randomly go to a later page and some of the references there.

Library science has definitely evolved from the time of index cards and Dewey decimel system, as the only real tools we had to find information and books required physical interaction with the printed page. It is great to have access to more data, but makes filtering more challenging. I personally, still like reading words from the printed page, but find that I do much of my reading/getting information via the web or in some type of visual form. I think the ebook products are just the start. I do look forward (and I know it is beginning) when text books for our students will be primarily electronic and they don't have carry around such heavy bookbags. Also, as a new BC student, thanks for letting me about Books 24/7 and Bruce, your comment, about how the librarians are starting to use electonic means for "crap detection" in electronic media is good.

Just saw this posted by the Cybrarian who supports our MEDIT students. http://library2.norwich.edu/library/findingonlinebooks