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Building a Learning Community Palloff and Pratt recommend seven basic steps for building a successful learning community. These include: clearly defining the purpose of the community, creating a distinctive gathering place for the group, promoting effective leadership from within, defining norms and a clear code of conduct, allowing for a range of member roles, allowing for and facilitating of subgroups, and allowing members to resolve their own disputes. The authors caution that it is possible to develop a community that has strong social connections between the students, but where very little learning actually takes place. Thus, it is important that the instructor be actively engaged in the process and encourages students who stray from the learning goals of the course. Specifically, the authors recommend: (1) engaging students with subject matter, (2) accounting for attendance and participation, (3) working with students who do not participate, (4) understanding the signs of when a student is in trouble, and (5) building online communities that accommodate personal interaction. Indicators of a Successful Learning Community You can tell if the learning community is working when you see: active interaction, sharing of resources among students, collaborative learning evidenced by comments directed primarily student to student rather than student to instructor, socially constructed meaning evidenced by agreement or questioning, with the intent to achieve agreement on issues of meaning, and expressions of support and encouragement exchanged between students, as well as willingness to critically evaluate the work of others. Finally, they suggest that the keys to successful learning communities are honesty, responsiveness, relevance, respect, openness, and empowerment. Palloff, R.M. & Pratt, K. (1999). Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

The study found that students who took all or part of their instruction online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through face-to-face instruction

hose who took "blended" courses -- those that combine elements of online learning and face-to-face instruction -- appeared to do best of all

But the positive results appeared consistent (and statistically significant) for all types of higher education, undergraduate and graduate,

Disaboom.com was founded by Dr. J. Glen House, a physician specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation who is also a quadriplegic. His firsthand knowledge of the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities and those whose lives they touch has driven the Disaboom.com mission: to create the first comprehensive, evolving source of information, insight, and personal engagement for the disability community.

the play, analysis, and creation of games, as a foundation for learning, innovation, and change in the 21st century. Through a variety of programs centered on game design, the Institute engages audiences of all ages, exploring new ways to think, act, and speak through gaming in a social world.

This presentation aims to address some of the challenges associated with assessment and evaluation in Web 2.0 classrooms. Specifically, it will address how to develop strategies and tools that engage students in the assessment and evaluation process, and help them stay in control of their learning and their progress. Consequently, a strong emphasis will be placed on developing assessment and evaluation procedures and habits that not only complement but also foster the interactive and learner-centric environments afforded by the interactive tools of the read/write web. The presenter will share strategies to assess and evaluate student work on blogs, wikis, and discussion forums.

By ICT Mindtools I refer to ICT tools that necessarily engage users in higher order thinking.  Students cannot use Mindtools without thinking deeply about the task at hand.  Mindtools require students to be creative and to think and make connections for themselves.

Will a virtual bank for teachers to share ideas revolutionise lesson planning or stifle creativity?

At present, most teachers wince at the very mention of virtual learning platforms. Most VLPs are a horrific combination of required - the government has declared that all schools must have one - and useless. Unconnected and underdeveloped, many VLPs are devoid of content: empty cathedrals, monuments to technological failure.

"The students we teach come from a media age; they are visually bombarded from every angle. As teachers we have to compete against their entertainment. A worksheet is not enough to engage them any more."

Digital natives and technologies of cooperation are combining to create a generation of amplified individuals. These organizational “superheroes” will remake organizational models through their highly social, collective, improvisational practices and their augmented human capacities. These new models will thrive in a world of social networks; information proliferation, transparency, and saturation; and rapid change. As digital natives enter learning professions, and as existing educators and students become amplified, their extended human capacities will challenge traditional ways of organizing learning and will amplify schools, districts, and other learning organizations. 

 These individuals are highly social, collective, improvisational and augmented. 

Together, these attributes enable several amplified organizational practices - open leadership and sociability, beta building, collective sensemaking, and transliteracy - that support more flexible responses to change and stimulate innovation

Likewise ICT use in education influences the private life of all educational actors in the sense that these are engaged in innovative practices which require new methodologies, techniques and attitudes

In search for the Sustainable Knowledge Base: Multi-channel and Multi-method?