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Alyn Minnerly

Educational Frontiers: Learning in a Virtual World (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE.edu - 0 views

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    In response to Denise's reply to my Second Life post, I found this to give further illustrations on using virtual learning.
Alyn Minnerly

Virtual Classroom Software for Online Teaching and Web Conferencing. Online Training So... - 1 views

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    This is a nice alternative to WebEx. It gives you a virtual classroom to work in where you can store documents of most types, present them in class, do all the things Web Ex does like web conferencing, whiteboard, etc. I am posting this in their virtual classroom where you can access the web collectively. I found this to explore Web 2.0 tools used for learning.
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    Alyn, Thank you for sharing all this valuable information. I'm taking notes. In my "free" time, I'm going to be figuring how to implement all these new technologies into my classroom. I'm feeling submerged by technology at this point, but like it!!!
Alyn Minnerly

Second Life idea great for Produsage? Game-Based Learning? - 1 views

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    I don't know much about Second Life, and while it might have some elements that I could do without, I was thinking that this could tie nicely into a formal or informal Web 2.0 learning platform, game based learning, and Produsage. What do you think?
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    I took a multimedia class last semester with Dr. Ke and got to explore Second Life and Opensim. It's a great example of Produsage as the members are constantly producing (sharing)and using (making use of what's shared) in their communities. You'd be surprised at the research currently being done with Second Life/Opensim and learning disabilities here at FSU's Instructional Systems. My daughter is part of that research and loves the interaction that's involved in second life. You'll find that it's difficult to take a back seat in this virtual community as things are constantly and dynamically changing. BUT I got" creeped" out as the environment resembled too close to real life. I can see how people can really be sucked in to this environment and "live" a second life.
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    I remember writing a couple of paper's on Second Life in some of my ISD courses. Along with informal instruction, professor's are developing courses within Second Life's virtual platform. They are holding class meetings Second Life's synchronous communication tools. Second Life's features are interesting because they can easily blend formal and informal learning.
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    Second Life creeps me out too. I've tried exploring what it is, but I think it just boils down to me thinking that I would have to be dissatisfied with my first life to indulge in a second one. There was a season of The Office devoted to this, I think. It also doesn't help that the only Second Life example I have ever seen was the one that shares the thoughts and visuals of a schizophrenic and that the graphics look like the Grand Theft Auto video game (one that my little brother played WAY too much). I know all of what I just typed is silly (although true for me) because some really great things are coming out of Second Life. I have a friend who is working on her doctorate in ISD at the University of Southern Alabama, and she put a lot of work into a research on using Second Life to rehabilitate long-term prison inmates, prior to their release. She ultimately chose another topic for her thesis, but her work showed astounding results. Before learning about her work, I assumed Second Life was nothing more than a glorified Sims game.
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    To some degree, I agree Denise that its a little creepy. Especially since there are a lot of undesireable elements (at least to me) that seem to permeate the S.L. landscape. However, I am fascinated with using a virtual world setting to encourage learning because people tend to "get in to it" better when its in an environment that they can relate too.
alwaysaddglitter

The space for social media in structured online learning | Salmon | Research in Learnin... - 3 views

  • digital social tools and environments located outside of the provision of a formal university-provided Learning Management System.
  • We identified that, although some participants benefitted from social media by crediting it, for example, with networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities, others objected or refused to engage with social media, perceiving it as a waste of their time.
  • Social media sites are increasingly being used for educational purposes and a range of benefits and drawbacks have been documented in the research. We examine how the usage of social media in the MOOC enhanced participants’ overall learning experience and how it led to increased networking and knowledge sharing with peers.
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  • When deployed for learning, social media can facilitate the development of online communities, allowing for collaborative and participatory engagement by placing emphasis on collective knowledge and social interaction
  • Social media can help strengthen the social relationships among students, heighten students’ self-esteem, and boost their learning performance
  • social media platforms tend to be more popular with students for peer-to-peer interactions (Davies et al. 2010; Veletsianos and Navarrete 2012) due to their familiarity and flexibility.
  • In MOOCs, where engagement and motivation tend to be low (de Freitas, Morgan, and Gibson 2015; Yang et al. 2013), social media may be beneficial in fostering online learning communities, which, in the context of a MOOC, are necessarily located online, enabled by an LMS (also referred to as Virtual Learning Environment) or social networking site.
  • The participants have a shared goal, support one another, produce material collaboratively, show a sense of belonging to the community, and are interested in the welfare of its members.
  • Online learning communities have been found to engage students in collaborative learning and reflective practice (Oliver et al. 2007).
  • Other studies show that students feel that social media reduces student collaboration because students work separately on different parts of a project, which minimises opportunities for collaborative learning
  • Students may feel that using social media in education distorts the boundaries between their online social and educational worlds, between social and informal and formal spaces, and between public and private spaces
  • Both students and academics may feel that social media for educational purposes interferes with their private lives, which raises concerns about representing identities in the online enviro
  • How and to what extent does social media enhance or complement participants’ overall learning processes and outcomes?’ is the key question that drives us to be particularly interested in investigating two outcomes
  • In addition to the structured LMS, more informal social media elements were offered. The CD MOOC designers selected Facebook and Twitter as social media platforms for participants to use, based on the studies that social media contributes to collaborative learning experiences
  • The Facebook group and the Twitter hashtag (#CDMOOC) were created in February 2014 to coincide with the beginning of the CD MOOC.
    • alwaysaddglitter
       
      The use of hashtags to organize thoughts and connect virtual users seems to be a best practice with online instruction related to social media.
  • On the Facebook group, moderators guided participants to ask questions about the CD MOOC, seek practical help, communicate and discuss issues around work tasks, and share links to online group work and resources. Twitter was used by both the CD MOOC team and participants to share practical information and resources, while also encouraging participants to share their thoughts and experiences.
    • alwaysaddglitter
       
      #EME6414 is structured relatively the same way minus the Facebook group but rather numerous other groups on various Web 2.0 tools
  • The social media postings data revealed that Facebook was most frequently used by the CD MOOC participants, compared to the microblogging site Twitter.
  • with some participants ‘signing off’ by displaying their certificate of completion.
  • The Twitter hashtag attracted 664 tweets over a 9-month period. Initially, Twitter was used by participants to announce their intention to participate in the CD MOOC, and then during the MOOC to gather, provide and exchange resources and information.
  • approximately half of all interviewees used at least one of the social media platforms in the CD MOOC. The most used form of social media was Facebook (used by 31%), a small minority (3%) used Twitter only, while 14% of interviewees utilised both Facebook and Twitter.
  • The Facebook group was used for discussions, while Twitter was used for gathering and providing information.
  • The first theme revealed that the online collaboration through social media assisted participants by enhancing their learning. The second theme showcased that many participants enjoyed and benefitted from using social media to engage with a diverse range of people with whom to network and exchange knowledge.
  • the third theme illuminated the reasons behind participants’ objections or reluctance to use social media within their structured online learning experience.
  • These participants reported various positive social aspects of their learning process enhanced by using Facebook, confirming other studies
  • Participants who used the CD MOOC Facebook group, but did not use Twitter, thought that social media was useful for posting and gathering information, and that Facebook improved their learning outcomes by facilitating discussion with peers and moderators. Facebook was also seen as an easy aid to increase learning and encourage discussions with peers as it facilitated the sharing of videos and images, and hence allowed participants to directly see others’ work. Facebook also served as a spark for a discussion, which could then be built upon within the more structured MOOC environment.
  • Both survey and interview participants spoke of the benefits of networking with people from different backgrounds, locations and professional affiliations when using social media platforms to connect and further their learning outcomes in the CD MOOC.
  • ‘collaborating with participants worldwide made it a great cultural experience, particularly in seeing how social media is taking on the world’.
  • The main objections to using social media can be divided into three categories: a belief that social media might be a waste of time; the perception of social media platforms as confusing or intimidating; and concerns about blurring social and professional identities.
  • these participants believed that social media would ‘take time away’ from what could otherwise have been spent on the structured parts of the CD MOOC,
  • Meanwhile, a number of participants wanted to use the social media with which they were familiar and comfortable. Some of these participants were notably less enthusiastic about the use of CourseSites LMS of the CD MOOC, instead preferring to spend time on social media.
  • learners often prefer to use the social media to which they are already accustomed
  • Another objection by participants related to their lack of knowledge about social media platforms and their resulting confusion.
  • A third key objection of participants to engaging with the social media elements of the CD MOOC dealt with reluctance about what was perceived as a potential merging of professional and social identities
  • The reluctance to blur social and professional identities is a common theme emerging from the literature on online learners and MOOC participants
  • Based on their findings, Jones et al. (2010) recommend that learning design address individual student preferences to either combine or separate their online identities.
  • The benefits included enhancing learning through the social and informal interaction with their peers, and from the online communities that formed around the CD MOOC. Connecting with peers using social media also strengthened participants’ sense of belonging to the CD MOOC cohort.
  • The challenges of online learning include becoming skillful in and comfortable with new technology, developing ways to relate to and communicate with other learners online, and becoming comfortable about having an online presence and digital identity.
  • The space for social media in structured online learning
    • alwaysaddglitter
       
      In this article, researchers created a MOOC focused on assisting professors understand and apply the Carpe Deim design method to designing their own courses. In addition to using the LMS Blackboard as the vehicle for MOOC publishing, facilitators were interested in studying the effects social media had on MOOC participants. MOOC facilitators used Facebook and Twitter as the two main social media platforms. Facebook was used to ask questions, seek help and discuss issues. Twitter was used to share information and resources and participants were encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences using #CDMOOC. Upon completion of the MOOC, Facebook was the most used site compared to Twitter. Out of 1000 MOOC participants who were surveyed at completion, 29 agreed to be further interviewed about their social media engagement; half used at least one of the social media platform revealing "the most used form of social media was Facebook (used by 31%), a small minority (3%) used Twitter only, while 14% of interviewees utilized both Facebook and Twitter". Three themes that emerged from the study related to MOOC and social engagement revealed three themes. One, social media did enhance online collaborative learning for participants. Two, the ability to engage with diverse knowledgeable professionals was enjoyed by many participants. Three, main objections why participants did not engage with social media include a belief it may be a waste of time, unfamiliarity with platforms and identity concerns.
    • alwaysaddglitter
       
      In this article, researchers created a MOOC focused on assisting professors understand and apply the Carpe Deim design method to designing their own courses. In addition to using the LMS Blackboard as the vehicle for MOOC publishing, facilitators were interested in studying the effects social media had on MOOC participants. MOOC facilitators used Facebook and Twitter as the two main social media platforms. Facebook was used to ask questions, seek help and discuss issues. Twitter was used to share information and resources and participants were encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences using #CDMOOC. Upon completion of the MOOC, Facebook was the most used site compared to Twitter. Out of 1000 MOOC participants who were surveyed at completion, 29 agreed to be further interviewed about their social media engagement; half used at least one of the social media platform revealing "the most used form of social media was Facebook (used by 31%), a small minority (3%) used Twitter only, while 14% of interviewees utilized both Facebook and Twitter". Three themes that emerged from the study related to MOOC and social engagement revealed three themes. One, social media did enhance online collaborative learning for participants. Two, the ability to engage with diverse knowledgeable professionals was enjoyed by many participants. Three, main objections why participants did not engage with social media include a belief it may be a waste of time, unfamiliarity with platforms and identity concerns.
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    In this article, researchers created a MOOC focused on assisting professors understand and apply the Carpe Deim design method to designing their own courses. In addition to using the LMS Blackboard as the vehicle for MOOC publishing, facilitators were interested in studying the effects social media had on MOOC participants. MOOC facilitators used Facebook and Twitter as the two main social media platforms. Facebook was used to ask questions, seek help and discuss issues. Twitter was used to share information and resources and participants were encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences using #CDMOOC. Upon completion of the MOOC, Facebook was the most used site compared to Twitter. Out of 1000 MOOC participants who were surveyed at completion, 29 agreed to be further interviewed about their social media engagement; half used at least one of the social media platform revealing "the most used form of social media was Facebook (used by 31%), a small minority (3%) used Twitter only, while 14% of interviewees utilized both Facebook and Twitter". Three themes that emerged from the study related to MOOC and social engagement revealed three themes. One, social media did enhance online collaborative learning for participants. Two, the ability to engage with diverse knowledgeable professionals was enjoyed by many participants. Three, main objections why participants did not engage with social media include a belief it may be a waste of time, unfamiliarity with platforms and identity concerns.
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    Were you able to share your annotations because it was a web version of the article rather than the .PDF? I tried to do that with mine but couldn't get it to work.
Michele Gardner Hale

Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong | Video on TED.com - 0 views

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    a beautiful example of collaboration...
Dana Bauries

Video Slideshow Maker with Music - 1 views

shared by Dana Bauries on 16 Jul 12 - Cached
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    Animoto turns your photos and video clips into professional video slideshows in minutes. Fast, free and shockingly simple - we make awesome easy.
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    This is awesome. I am going to remember this for future use. Its a fun and easy way to get creative. Thanks!
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    I looked into this when I was putting my end of year slideshow together last May. The thing you need to realize is that it is only free if the video is 30 seconds long. After that, there is a fee. But if you only need a short video, its perfect.
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    I actually use it as a short welcome tool within my virtual classes. The html code is easy to embed.
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    Sounds really cool. I'll have to play with this one. Thanks for sharing.
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    I used it for a goodbye message to a friend of mine and it's pretty cool. However, the free 30" are not enough for any project. I think that, if you have a big presentation, it's worth the small fee.
vdiwanji

The role of social media in higher education classes (real and virtual) - A literature ... - 3 views

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    Tess (2013) provides a great review of the literature on the role of social media in the higher education context. Tess (2013) suggests that as instructors look for ways to incorporate technology to mediate and enhance their instructions as well as promote active learning among students, they increasingly turn to different social media tools. The author argues that the current literature on the integration of social media in higher education are limited to self-reported data and content analyses. Therefore, he provides a summary of literature on the role of social media in the higher education classroom as well as discusses their limitations. Various studies (cited below) explored the role of social media and SNSs in different contexts of education -teaching learning process. These studies have demonstrated interesting and useful results. Tess (2013), in addition to keyword-specific searches, used a "snowball" method for finding the articles from the relevant articles cited in the literature reviewed. To narrow the range of the review, he chooses articles on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blog and LinkedIn. Tess (2013) provides a brief definition of each of these five SNSs. He also looks at the social impact of these popular SNS tools. The author looks at the factors motivating the educators to use social media in higher education classrooms, such as: the changing nature of the student, the changing knowledge consumption relationship, and the de-emphasis of institutionally provided learning and emergence of "user-driven" education (Selwyn, 2010). The author provides platform-specific affordances and drawbacks in terms of their application in the higher education space. Tess (2013) argues that although the infrastructure to support social media's presence exists in most universities today, instructors have been slow in adopting the tool as an educational one. Those who are adopting are still likely in the experimental stage. He admits that his literature rev
nutraware79

The "online brain": how the Internet may be changing our cognition - 0 views

    • nutraware79
       
      Internet and cognition
  • an example, even simple interactions with the Internet through the smartphone's touchscreen interface have been demonstrated to bring about sustained neurocognitive alterations due to neural changes in cortical regions associated with sensory and motor processing of the hand and thumb8. Beyond this, the Internet also presents a novel platform for almost‐endless learning of new information and complex processes, relevant to both the online and offline world9.Along with neuroplastic mechanisms, other environmental and biological factors can also cause changes in the brain's structure and function, resulting in cognitive decline10. In aging samples, for instance, there is evidence to indicate that age‐related cognitive decline may be partly driven by a process of atrophy. Some studies have shown that adopting a less engaging lifestyle across the lifespan may accelerate loss of cognitive function11, due to lower “cognitive reserve” (the ability of the brain to withstand insult from age and/or pathology)12. Some emerging evidence indicates that disengaging from the “real world” in favor of virtual settings may similarly induce adverse neurocognitive changes.
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    Cognition decline and internet
yidke6463

Social capital for students - 10 views

Social Capital in Virtual Learning Communities and Distributed Communities of Practice http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=https://www.learntechlib.org/p/43189/article_43189.pdf&hl=en&amp...

social_capital CoP teachers college_students

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