EDUC251

Important message for anyone who creates and delivers presentations.

Promise you won't laugh at me! It was a slide; I thought it was a video. Dah...it works perfectly!

I won't laugh at you. It's an important lesson! I shouldn't have assumed anyone would know what the heck it was.

What do you think about this?

A novel way to address shrinking school budgets that mandate class size. Usually elearning means there is a price tag for setting and maintaining the computers, programs, and internet. Maybe there was a different part of the budget that paid for the environment. I agree with the comments at the end of the article - primarily because of my own experience and just common sense in thinking about it - that a blended environment is probably the most effective.

A study by the US Government has concluded hybrid classes are the most productive learning environments for elearners. Florida's virtual studies are counter to logic. I for one would not want to be a student in that classroom. I would revolt!! Ahhh...not to be confused with starting a revolution ( which just might be needed).

Thanks for sharing this!

I liked that the platform is integrated in social networks that many students would be using. Also, Ruby on Rails - the underlying technology indicated in the article - is very powerful, but it is an open source product and would want to be sure about technology support works. That being said, this highlighted to me how complex and difficult chosing a LMS is.

They release the code open source, but this is a hosted, supported product with fees for service. I'm definitely going to spend more time checking it out.

My advice to my classmates is not to do what I did in this blog, unless you are contemplating an F. Sorry Jen, I meant no real offence. I loved your class! You did say you would help me with Jing. I did feel I needed more help; but it was me speaking mostly from my frustration!

Nothing wrong with sharing your feelings. I'll have to go back through email and find out where I dropped the ball. I'm sorry for letting you down.

Jen...you absolutely did not let me down. You did what you were suppose to do...Let me find my way through Jing or ask others or go to search sites on how to!!! I want to be a bit more present for my learners; but if you do that you walk a fine line between causing dependency and allowing them the freedom to find their own way. You will not always be available when I struggle with a new program. You have taught us to find out about these things on our own. I simply did not know where or what I did not know. I found out and now I really feel I have accomplished something and am not afraid to try new things.

This list is very thorough. I think it will be helpful when setting up the first online course.

I wanted to say goodbye and have a close for this class. I ran across this voice thread and thought...no one could have said it better! So to you all...see above link.

An interesting blog post about a change in how we manage online courses and research at an institution.

I like the way he reasoned that you have to change the assessment of these classes and this in turn changes the classes and the time frame as well.

I must admit that I don't really have a good definition of what LMS means to the author. He refers to learning environments and gives the "follow the teacher" example, so I'll assume he means personalized elearning, but I would have preferred that he provided a definition. Anyway, I agree to have to change the assessment, as well as the expectations for the teacher. It would be a challenge for the teacher to keep up with many students, but probably also provide him or her some additional insights to his/her work.

This is an organization for eLearning, mostly geared toward corporate training vs. academic. There is some very good information through this web site to include many good articles. They have different levels of membership, one of which is at no cost.

This is a great site! One of the posts was about mLearning (mobile device learning as opposed to eLearning -online). It made me consider how electronic learning could be more encompassing.

Challenges I found when developing this blog included: 1. Organization. Deciding on the organization of the blog is the most challenging, as is often the situation when organizing a new project. One isn't quite sure what "envelopes" (in this case pages) you want. 2. Privacy. The issue of privacy is very much an issue for me, as I am not sure what I want to have public and/or permanent (as even though you delete something, it still remains somewhere.) 3. Spelling/editting. Proper spelling and grammar I feel is a reflection of who I am and needs to be accurate. Spell checking allows you to find misspellings, but not the use of miswords.

I love that you're seeing the challenges and posting them openly. 1. Organization - I use post-it notes. Seriously. Put everything you want to put on the blog on a post it note, then try to arrange them in similar groups, then try to label those groups. It will help with the structure. (It's a common practice in Information Architecture. I'm not just wacky.) 2. Privacy. There's really no such thing any more. Anyone who can see your stuff on a screen can copy it and put it someplace for others to see. We're under false illusions of privacy, and I just assume anything I put into a computer is going to be seen. 3. This is a great point, especially if you begin to enjoy blogging. Once you begin gathering an audience, it's easy to want to write for them. Pretty soon, you want to publish as quickly as possible. Sometimes it helps to leave the work in draft, and come back to it, just like with a paper document.

1. I will try the post-its. I'm thinking it is an especially good way to keep thoughts/ideas, which I can return to and then see if they really "stick" and I want to explore/use them. 2. Privacy. The interesting thing is that there is so much information out there, the volume almost acts as a gate. I agree with you about not real privacy.

I saw Jennifer's link to the Screen-o-matic web site, and decided to try it out for the Module 9 activity. I think this is quite an amazing tool, much like Jing, except everything is transacted on the cloud, whereas Jing requires part of the application be installed on your local computer. Also, like Jing, the price is right (free!), although you can opt for a more developed version of the program for $9 per year, which isn't bad. I'm also a big fan of Photoshop Express, another free online tool that lets you edit images on the Web - which is why I did a short tutorial about a couple of its features. My biggest complaint about Screen-o-matic is that the audio is somewhat muddy - although this seems to be a petty complaint, considering how powerful and easy to use this tool is. Screen-o-Matic lets you save to their server, to YouTube, or as a video file to your local hard drive. You can find another account of this Screen-o-Matic trial run on my Web20Chronicle blog.

I just tried the Screen-o-matic and I also liked that there isn't the need to save in screencast, as it is saved on YouTube or in video format you can save.

This is a simple Survey Monkey feedback form I created for my Galapagos Course Framework. It is designed to be inserted into Module 1 of the Course as one way of meeting Boettcher's BP 6--Ask for informal feedback early in the course. This is also my Portfolio9 activity.

I like your informal feedback early in the course! I am also thinking of making survey for the students if they have any trouble while taking the course. Your work helped me to think about my informal feedback survey! :)

Thanks for using a new survey tool and sharing it with the class. I haven't used survey monkey in a while, but it's probably the survey tool I see used most often at work.

"Free Resources and Lesson Plans for Teaching with Technology" You might find some useful activities and tools on this site.

I've been asked to join the conversation on this podcast on Friday. It's unscripted and I have no idea what they'll be asking me, but thought I'd share the link for anyone interested.

"SCoPE brings together individuals who share an interest in educational research and practice"

Joined Twitter today! Since I really don't know how to use this, I have emailed Jen to see what her Twitter name is. In case anyone wants to connect mine is : eLearningJoy

I just added you and you've already got some great people talking to you. You can click on them to follow them and reply.

Wonderful! I guess Omar G. isn't one I'll be following!

This link doesn't work for me.

I shared Ann's Google Doc (without asking first, shame on me!) with others, and some folks from the VLC research lab thought it was cool and asked if they could share it with the team. They're looking for the same kind of info Ann's seeking in her document.

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!

This is just brilliant!

I don't think people get up in the morning and say I am going to do a bad job today. I think teachers have so many other things they deal with that have nothing to do with direct education that their job becomes very demanding. I think this 'grade-in' was a kind way to make the point.

What a cool idea!