Group items tagged

I've been working with hundreds of virtual team members in over 9 different countries in the past 8 years. There have been times when I wanted to tear my hair out! Sometimes: - I had no idea what my team was doing. - Team members would "flake out".

This link includes a useful summary of virtual team technology tools. I like this list because it is categorized by the function/goals for the team and needs for collaboration. A way for us to consider guiding our exploration of team tools for educational groups.

Good communication from the facilitator to the group and between group members is essential in online learning in order for the group to bond and survive. Pauleen & Yoong (2001) studied how facilitators of virtual teams were able to build and maintain these relationships. They found that prompt communication was key stating "The facilitators in this study have clear expectations that e-mail, as well as other communication messages such as voice-mail, will be replied to in a prompt manner. They believe that a lack of timeliness can lead to poor communication, the creation of ill will, and an undermining of relationships" (p. 16).

This UCF website, prepared by Carissa Baker, explores the way in which many literature professors are "trying innovative technology strategies within the literature classroom to increase knowledge and engagement." With theoretical as well as practical sources, the site offers many ideas on student engagement and literature immersion; it also has a few videos with ideas for staging virtual worlds; and a starter bibliography with 10 articles on a range of topics, including virtual literature circles; native avatars, online hubs, and urban indian literature; victorian novels and technoRomanticism; using Tweeter in the Literature Classroom (hmm...); online teaching Old English; and hypertext use to enhance students reading experiences, among others.

Yes, yes, I know, the title suggests that this webtext is only relevant for a few people, perhaps only Jane and myself. However, if you browse this webtext - it is indeed not an article, but like all work published in Kairos, a multimedia artifact or well, a webtext - you will find a lot of important insights on student-professor-staff interactions in an online environment. The webtext highlights, for example, the importance of the lack of physical cues in an online class, a facet of online instruction that may necessitate a higher awareness of the effect our formulations, terms, and even typed characters can have in any written communication such as blog posts, emails, chats, and messages. We thus learn quite a bit about communicative techniques and etiquette in an online class (and in a virtual environment more generally). Another webtext in the same Kairos issue reflects upon teaching graduate students how to teach online: http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/20.1/praxis/bourelle-et-al/pedagogycourse.html. Leah, this webtext might be interesting for you - but it should be interesting for others as well because it also addresses questions about assignments and exercises in online classes. By the way, Kairos is an important open-access online journal that has existed since 1996. It publishes scholarship that "examines digital and multimodal composing practices, promoting work that enacts its scholarly argument through rhetorical and innovative uses of new media." ("The Kairos Style Guide", n.d.)

Discusses the difficulty of changing the educational paradigm to a servant professor instead of a professor led classroom--both virtual and real. How steep will be the learning curve to replace lecture-test evaluation with student driven and student centered needs.

Using the bookmark format to post the link

Cool, Kate!

Discussion about virtual universities and revenue. Who will really pay for the education.

This essay is a landmark in cultural criticism. Among other things, it asks what happens to a work of art when it can be so perfectly reproduced that there are no qualitative differences between the "original" and the copies - as with, say, film stock. The questions of what happens in the virtual reproduction of a classroom are different. But I think there are interesting analogies to be made. I wonder in particular about the loss of what Benjamin calls "aura" - of the ritual dimensions that are present in any really great class. Can those be reproduced? If not, what is lost? And - the question that makes Benjamin more interesting than some of his contemporaries - what might be gained?

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.

The article discusses the online virtual library, Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols, Ideas that provides unique historical perspective of culture and events over the last century in the U.S. As stated, high school students, teachers, and school librarians can access content which is taken from over 400 print reference titles published by the Greenwood Publishing Group. Reportedly, the content presents a comprehensive look at American entertainment through movies, TV shows, music, and awards.

This study focuses on the presence of the teacher in the virtual classroom and how the instructor interacts with the students. Can an instructor's behavior encourage more student activity? Certainly, but it has to be more than the occasional "well done," the authors say. Students want more teacher presence, specifically more frequent responses, more acknowledgement of individuals' contribution, and more suggestions and guidance related to a specific response. So the bottom line is try to respond to individual students rather than a group and customize your comments as much as possible. You will have more engaged students.

This article discusses "the importance of structuring activities for balancing electronic communication during e-collaboration (i.e., videoconference, email, chat session, distributed use of group support system) to bridge cultural and stereotypical gaps, to increase profitable role repartition between the participants, and to prevent and solve conflicts." This is especially useful as we work to design our courses for diverse learners

The title does very well in explaining this resource.

Interesting piece about the disadvantages of online learning for the visually impaired. Certainly makes me more aware of this dimension.