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reasons to use diigo - personal learning system - collect, highlight and remember

It seems to me that instructional design and course design models presume that every student in the class has to pursue the same objectives and should be taught in the same fashion; yet, as universal design ideas suggest, we may need to occasionally use different assignments and allow different learning approaches. And maybe, to take this idea a step further, learning in general should be personalized and course designs become more flexible. At least that's what some educational pioneers from Silicon Valley have declared. What follows is the introductory passage of a very recent New Yorker article, an article which is ultimately quite skeptical of the new models and of the role of technology in the classroom: "Seen from the outside, AltSchool Brooklyn, a private school that opened in Brooklyn Heights last fall, does not look like a traditional educational establishment. There is no playground attached, no crossing guard at the street corner, and no crowd of children blocking the sidewalk in the morning."

As the article goes on to highlight, the founders of the company AltSchool intend to break with traditional educational models. In the older model, the founder Max Ventilla asserts, the teacher is "an artisanal lesson planner on the one hand and disciplinary babysitter on the other hand." Not just that, the teacher also creates, following Common Core for example, standards and objectives for his or her class; one teacher quoted in the article claims that "by looking for standards to pull everyone up we are forgetting to address what the individual needs." This is where the AltSchool idea intervenes. This new school's approach "acknowledges and adapts to the differences among students: their abilities, their interests, their cultural backgrounds." How so? By monitoring students and collecting as much data about each student as possible, thus personalizing plans and projects for students (sound familiar? Ventilla worked for Google before founding AltSchool). While I think the idea of personalized learning is compelling, I also read with interest about the mixed results of AltSchool and other similar institutions - plus, the schools seem to be very utilitarian, focusing on what the student purportedly needs to succeed in the workplace (languages are supposedly rather useless, for example, because everyone will carry an electronic, speaking dictionary in 20 years from now). On a slightly different - and final - note, I was also intrigued by a quote from Daniel Willingham, education scholar at UV: "The most common thing I hear is that when you adopt technology you have to write twice the lesson plans. You have the one you use with the technology, and you have the backup one you use when the technology doesn't work that day." Congratulations! If you read this sentence, you have survived the challenge of reading this epic post.

The author discusses the theory behind online discussions, as well as the potential value of - and problems associated with - online discussions. Some excerpts: "The argument I offer here is that saying an online discussion is a worse version of an IRL discussion is like saying an apple is a worse version of an orange. Disappointment with online discussions because they are not like IRL discussion is like being disappointed with an apple because it is a bad orange." ... "In an IRL discussion, students look, speak, and listen with multiple objects. In online discussion, like during a lecture, students sit and stare at a single object as well: but it is a computer rather than a person speaking. The lecturer is the computer. This lecturer is a screen with a keyboard and includes a complex series of frames within which the student types sentences in varying sequences. By this I am not only talking about video lectures which students watch, but rather more perceptually. In a lecture, the lecturer is the sole object of attention. There is only one object of attention: bracketing the complex material engaged with in the screen, it remains true that students exclusively engage with the screen when learning online. Students in online courses stare at a computer when learning online the same way they would stare at a lecturer speaking, focusing their attention on a single object. At a lecture, it's a person. Online, it's the computer."... "In any case, online discussions are still discussions. It would be a mistake to say all we do during online discussion is stare intensely at a computer. Most of the discussions in my online courses occur asynchronously on discussion boards. On these written discussion boards, for example, we read and write responsively. The whole situation of online discussion is therefore more akin, in this respect, to written correspondence."

From the conclusion: "Participating well in online discussions might be more like writing a good letter or having a good phone conversation, as opposed to a good spoken kind comment in an IRL discussion. We should not expect online discussions to be anything at all like IRL discussions. They are categorically different. In other words, being disappointed with online discussions because they are not like IRL discussions is like being disappointed with apples because they are not oranges." "In planning online courses, generating online assignments, and creating materials for online teaching, it is important to remember that online discussions require students to focus intense attention on a machine, and therefore compels them to cathect and introject that machine. Independently of the fluidity of your module and software, students transfer meanings onto their machines during the learning process rather than a person. While the introjection of machines is an interesting opportunity for further educational research, as an instructor, plan for student participation with this in mind: they are interacting with a machine and not people. An online discussion is more like a computer's lecture than an IRL discussion, no matter how interactive."

This guide to syllabus construction from Vanderbilt reiterates many points from our readings and is not specifically concerned with online teaching. However, one thing I had not yet seen in other readings that concerns us here is the importance of choosing the right tone for introducing the class to students. I am not sure that the warm and friendly approach recommended here is always the right one but it makes sense for us given the difficulty we will have in any case making personal connections with students in the online environment.

I think this is an important point. I had to revise some of my syllabi for exactly this reason. I guess when I first started teaching, I wanted to sound official and proper, but then a few years later discovered that I did not even recognize the person behind the formal, detached voice of the syllabi, and perhaps along the way, that a good instructor did not need to sound official or proper! Good reminder for me this time around, so thanks for posting this!

Thanks, Yu, I am just seeing this now. I think my draft syllabus was too formal and scary, but on the other hand I want to be super clear up front about expectations. I will need to tweak this,

Learning Contract Study and Undergraduate Students Policy Empire State College is committed to the principles that: effective learning derives from purposes and needs important to the individual learning occurs in varied ways and places styles of learning may differ significantly from person to person and from one setting to another.

In brief, the study shows that yes online teaching is time consuming but NOT because of the technology involved but because it is a great time investment to interact with all students. Again brings me back to my point that YES online teaching helps to 'individualize/personalize' the student learning process. Therefore, requires greater inputs and personalize mentoring than a traditional classroom engagement.

The survey sought to dig deeper on the quality question, asking respondents which aspects of credit-bearing online courses they think can be better than, or at least equal to, those of in-person courses. Faculty members say they think online courses are the same quality as or better than face-to-face classes in terms of grading and communicating about grading, and in communicating with the college about logistical and other issues. And professors were split 50/50 (the same or better vs. lower quality) on online courses' "ability to deliver the necessary content to meet learning objectives."

"Much of the faculty consternation in the last year about how institutions (and, increasingly, state legislators) want to use online education has revolved around the perceived quality of online offerings (although there are undoubtedly undercurrents of concern about whether colleges and universities will use technology to diminish the role of, and ultimately the need for, instructors)." Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/survey-faculty-attitudes-technology#ixzz38WwyClaW Inside Higher Ed I think it's interesting that indicators of 'quality' that were considered important (by faculty) included whether or not the online course was offered for credit. But, there are plenty of for-credit courses offered at accredited colleges in a traditional format that are pretty....bad. And I think that the EFOT course has given us the clear indication that online courses almost need instructors MORE than traditional f2f courses.

With the number of students taking online classes increasing, the need for instructors to be versed in the world of online teaching also increases. What are some best practices of online teaching? Do MOOCs have a place in the higher education learning market? How will the virtual classroom evolve?

I appreciated this article's insistence that our focus needs to be on learning outcomes rather than technology. Recently, I taught an in-person class that was designed with a strong audio-visual component. This was for an adult education program outside Emory. But after the first class I realized that the audiovisual material was distracting me and not contributing that much, so I ditched it. What worries me about being an online instructor is not being able to make quick changes to the audiovisual regime during the semester.

I've been concerned with translating of a sense of teacher's personal presence into online course design; while this article is brief (and maybe over-dependent on a graphic), it nevertheless invites specific choices of format, teaching strategies, instructor roles, and type of technology, all to the end of suggesting an active and engaging professorial presence.

The following list contains brief use cases of faculty and instructors throughout Penn State using VoiceThread in unique ways for teaching and learning. These use cases describe the basic designs utilized by the instructor, reported outcomes as well as possible future uses for VoiceThread.

Among the many case studies included here I found the article by Matt Meyer "Using VoiceThread for Weekly Peer Topic Discussions" the most helpful. The article details how small 'discussion groups' of 6-7 students per group were provided with an initial prompt and some framing statements. Individuals were required to respond to the prompt according to specific requirements, such as "include one personal story," "include 2 questions to the other group members to respond to," and "must comment in that particular VoiceThread discussion 3 different times during the assignment for the week. This is very similar to what I envision doing in my course.

by Mike Acedo Over the years, many of us have personally experienced the growth of technology in today's classrooms. Instead of taking notes, students are now occupied by surfing the Internet, scrolling through Facebook, and messaging their friends on their smart phones, tablets, and laptops.

Introduction It is generally agreed that learning involves interaction and that it is a communal activity (McMillan & Chavis, 1986; Sarason, 1974). The traditional setting where communal learning activity occurs has been the in-person classroom; however, with the advent of technology that is no longer the case.

The National Education Technology Plan, Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology, calls for applying the advanced technologies used in our daily personal and professional lives to our entire education system to improve student learning, accelerate and scale up the adoption of effective practices, and use data and information for continuous improvement.

This is an unpublished research article on a model for group work in an online or blended course environment. The two salient points in this article are that the students must have unique skills for the online classroom. First they must be taught how to use the necessary technologies for collaboration and the second is that they must be taught social skills for online collaboration. The first point seems obvious, but I think the second point is often overlooked. We assume that students know how to interact with others, however interacting online is quite different than in person. Therefore these skills must be included in our curriculum.

MERLOT is a CoI revolving around technology and learning objects. It is a repository of learning objects that can be accessed and used. The objects are grouped according to subject / content, and they are peer-reviewed. This is an excellent resource with something for everyone. (My personal favorite object - the "eye simulator," which demonstrates the actions of the 6 extrinsic muscles of the eye and lets you "paralyze" muscles specifically to examine the effect on eye movement - completely cool!) There is also a wealth of other information on their site (sorry - within their community :) Best of all - all the resources at MERLOT are free.

Brief article by online instructor sharing tips on managing online courses. Two tips I think would be especially useful include: 1) using a "What's New" section for adding content so students can find it easily and 2) for large classes to keep personalized grading assignments and high tech features to a minimum.

Kristy, thanks for this good resource, I think that author has several good points. There are ways to think about the "What's New" area. There is a module page within the site that can be used, I've added one in our class, just so you can see. Learners can also use the Global Navigation at the top right of the Bb site to see all (or to filter specific courses) of all new and up-to-date happenings. There are definitely strategies of workload management including team and peer-review assignments. You can also have student-led discussions. Large online classes are there own beast - and I think SON is facing it. I believe that we can come up with some solid solutions that still meet the instructional goals without burning out the faculty.