EDUC251

I used Prezi to create a presentation this week...a simple one. Need to use tool more to get to the advanced features.

Susan, Thanks for posting this informative piece on sepsis - which kills an astounding 125,000 people per year! The quality of the video in full screen mode in Prezi looks great!

I was impressed with the quality of the video also. Prezi allows you to copy and paste code into blogs and other tools. In addition, you can download the entire Prezi presentation to present from your computer. As I understand the sepsis diagnosis...sepsis doesn't get recognized as the problem, many times until they cannot reverse the situation.

This posting on a new page in my Blog is to satisfy the Portfolio 8 activity. I noticed this as a possibility in the spreadsheet of portfolio ideas our class has been creating. I'm in the process of converting my "plain blog" to a professional looking one that will serve as my ePortfolio for the time-being.

Wow! What an impressive CV... It's good to know that science teaching is still alive and well.

"The Age of Connection now takes its place alongside these earlier epochs in humanity's story.  We are being retribalized, in the midst of rising urbanization.  The dynamic individuality of the city confronts the static conformity of the tribe.  This basic tension forms the fuel of 21st century culture, and will continue to generate both heat and light for at least the next generation.  Human behavior, human beliefs and human relations are all reorganizing themselves around connectivity.  It is here, therefore, that we must begin our analysis of the toolkit."  I haven't had time to read the entire piece, but I can see it makes some important points about human society and connectivity. It's pretty deep, so I want to read it when I've got time to let it sink in.

I too am a fan of McLuan's - presentation becomes part of the content being communicated. I thought this article gave a good description of the impact of the "toolkit" - hyper-everything, but didn't clearly see the point the author was trying to make.

http://www.economist.com/node/18114327 - yet another interesting article in the Economist about how technology is making us one world. In this case, it is how technology will be used to by us individually to define manufacturing and how things are made. " Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did."

I hope you enjoy the video. It took a whole lot of studio takes.

Joy, Your combination of Jing Pro with YouTube worked well for your final assignment. I was surprised how clear the YouTube video is, even in full screen format. Your course framework also seems to be a workable and inviting way to look at aging issues. One bullet point that stands out to me is: "Baby Boomer have gotten a bum rap." We're always compared to the our parent's generation, who weathered the Great Depression and WWII. I believe a lot of positive social change also took place under our watch - it's not all a bad picture!

Thanks Bruce. The boomers are fighters and leaders! As women,"... we have come a long way baby." There is not anything bad about the picture my friend. Once you start to really read the material and connect with the accomplishments of this group, I bet money you will be very proud!

This website is a repository for "policy research from leading think tanks worldwide." There are many articles posted in PDF format for your perusal. I looked at several, among them, one regarding blended (hybrid) learning classes in Colorado Public Schools and another about the impact of digital learning in the US and the world.

I read the article on What Determines the Return to Education. This was basically a study about how in 1973 Scotland raised the minimum time to leave school was based on a calendar event - the end of Easter and not just the age of the student. The result was that it added about a year to the student's staying in school and this resulted in more people getting more formal acadmic qualifications and helps them in the job market, but the impact of how much more they learned wasn't measured. A good website for the latest.

First part of the 10 Best Things, but because of posting limitations used a topic post to list all 10. 1. Judith's Boettcher's - The Online Teaching Survival Guide - is a good organization and explanation of eLearning. 2. Wiggins Model of Understanding - enduring understanding, important to know, worth being familiar with - is a good framework for helping properly focus the course. 3. The jing tool has become my new "snip" tool. Being able to capture and make a screen video is extremely useful. 4. Providing additional time in the first lesson - in this case 2 weeks, rather than 1 - to allow students a transition to the platform and tools is a best practice for me for on-line courses. 5. The weekly instructor availability during class hours is another best practice, as students know there is a time they can get information and questions answered in an interactive manner.

For your funny bone. It is true UFOs and alien life in the universe exists and give testimonials to online teaching. Okay so sue me...I watch Ancient Aliens! :)

I thought this was a very clever way to get points across, which could only be done with computerized tools. I also thought a couple of the specifics - such as online teaching helps students with different language skills, as many people find reading and writing a non-native language easier than speaking, so the student experience is more normalized for everyone. The aliens point about not having to be in class in-person and people not having to be "envious" of his looks, is certainly one I can relate to, as I am sitting here typing in my pajamas.

I loved your comments Ann and your gave me my laugh for the day! Lord, I know what sitting on the computer at 2 AM in my pj's looks like!! I have to admit if people I knew saw me they would think I looked alien. I loved it! I cannot go through a day without humor or I would have looked more deeply into the Japanese Hari Kari.

I goofed on this posting. This video is an example of a tech application called Flipshare which can be installed for FREE with your purchase of a Flip video. I have always wanted to create an authentic learning activitiy with middle school-age students about "self-identity" where they would write the story, script, acting, video editing, using the Flipshare tech application.

Flip is an amazingly easy product to use to capture video. A great idea to do stories with your class. This video made me want to get up and move, rather than sitting here at the computer.

This was shared by professor Alec Couros on Twitter this morning.  skim through the comments and see how many people are responding to help this person have a virtual world tour before they pass.  It's certainly interesting to observe. Of course, you never know if this is a truthful post, but it's interesting to see how it is handled by online society.

And an interesting response to it all. https://img.skitch.com/20110306-njsrk6k5wk8kjesmsf87hc8s6.jpg

Hmmm..rather disturbing. I think committing suicide is a violation of everything I value about humanity and life. Yet, I can only imagine some of the horrors this person has gone through and must go through to die. My son made his decision and I can never know if he regretted it at the tender age of 19. I am not certain why some of us have to suffer as this person is. I can not say what my choice would be, if it were me and it easily could be. But I do believ,e if there is a God, somehow there would or should be a purpose to the suffering.

I just discovered this. It might be an interesting community to join. "Welcome to the reborn home of the former DigitalDivide@ listserv - the new Digital Inclusion Network. Join over 350 members from dozens of countries exchanging knowledge on digital inclusion and strategies to close the many digital divides. This network is hosted as part of E-Democracy.org's Ford Foundation-funded "Participation 3.0" and will be used to gather input for our Inclusive Social Media initiative. This is a hybrid e-mail list and web forum with access via Facebook and Twitter. "

Since Minnesota is my home state, I decided to join this community. http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/joyannlajeret

An interesting, direct way to build political and social awareness through the internet. We really are a global community. Also, it allows - as Joy points out - to remain close to our roots, if we want.

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.

I think I may have shared this before, but it came up during virtual office hours last night, so I posted it here just in case.

As an adjunct to disccusion Jennifer began in the post on Getting our Values Around Copyright, this article was from the the first course in our eLearning class - 281. I think it is a good, concise overreview of the U.S. copyright system.

This was part of the first class on Intro to eLearning. I learned a lot about Copyright Law. I have a blog about this, actually two blogs: joystechtool.blogspot.com, which states my thoughts on that subject!

This one's for Helen. I thought you might like to see what they're doing for online art courses.

I thought it was interesting that most of the classes were sold-out, indicating the need and interest for the information. Since these courses are not part of a curriculum, the participants will be motivated.

Thanks for sharing this. Yes, many are SOLD-OUT and it makes perfectly good sense to take these courses on-line where you can view videos, artwork and read a wealth of information from the museum archives & library. I took a class from Lincoln Center Institute about 3 summers ago where we even did some hands-on creative work, scanned our creations (to share on-line) and then collectively reflected specifically about the "process of creating." It worked quite well and I definately plan to incorporate that type of activity into my on-line course.

"Charting the Course of Teaching and Learning in a Networked World" I don't know anything about this community, but I saw it today and thought it might be interesting. Tonight they have a session - "John Seely Brown on The New Culture of Learning."

Jonah Lehrer provides another perspective on the Terkle book. It's a brief review and seems truncated, but his main point is at the very end. "We are so eager to take sides on technology, to describe the Web in utopian or dystopian terms, but maybe that's the problem. In the end, it's just another tool, an accessory that allows us to do what we've always done: interact with one other. The form of these interactions is always changing. But the conversation remains. "

I tend to think there is an element of "object making" going on in Facebook and other social medias. My granddaughters and son have hundreds of friends listed and I know they do not communicate with all these people on a daily basis. Does anyone remember the story of the "Stepford Wives?" And finally, there might be an element of addiction in our gadgets. What is going to happen when the sun bursts predicted shut down our electronics for 6 months at a time, should this happen?

http://www.theheartlinknetwork.com/blog/?p=984 This article begins to address the possible addictions to electronics and social media.

I have researched this LMS and think it is worth a second look!

I'm glad you had a chance to take a look. I've really enjoyed playing around with it.

For this week's module, I started exploring the link, http://groups.diigo.com/group/diigoineducation, which is exactly what our group is developing on diigo - site for the sharing of relevant articles, thoughts, research on education (teaching and learning). Check it out and thank you, Jennifer. On this site, a recent article in the NY Times (title above) caught several people's attention. A study was conducted with 200 students to see which practice best promoted learning when given a passage to read about human digestion (metaphor here?). Against our better assumptions, students who were tested soon after reading a passage retained the information better than students who were given the opportunity to apply certain study skills (such as bubble-mapping) before being tested. Conclusion - people learn information better when they are asked to engage in the "practice of retrieval" of information. Applying study skills before testing did not produce better results. The mental process of "retrival" sets the synapses in the brain, better than simply applying study skills. Also, this site connected me to a really rich website by the University of Memphis' Dept. of Psychology which lists numerous resources regarding the principles of learning that are grounded in science - check it out! http://www.psyc.memphis.edu/learning/principles/lp3.shtml So, going back to this "testing thing," what might be some implications when developing an online course? Should probing questions be presented, interspersed at certain intervals, before other on-line activities are introduced? This takes us back to an earlier topic regarding the kinds of questions/exercises we need to design to make online learning both meaningful and effective.

Do you think the type of knowledge makes a difference? Would this same practice work equally well for heart surgery, eastern philosophy, diesel mechanics, and poetry?

I prefer hands on to learn most things that would include brain surgery (I have not found anyone who would offer to be my patient to practice on); diesel mechanics; and while I do not write poetry, I sing it! Eastern Philosphy now there's a challenge. Do the martial arts count; if so, I want hands on!!!

ePortfolio tool that works with Google (For Personal, K-12 and Higher Ed.)

This is a continuation of a blog started last summer with the first course.

Oops - should have said Online Class Blog. Can't locate a tool to change it...