Group items tagged

By Aliya Holmes, Barbara Signer and Antoinette MacLeod, Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, vol 27 (2) , n.d. This paper looks at a 5-week distance learning course offered for K-12 in-service teachers.

by Jon Marcus on The Hechinger Report, December 26, 2011. Open University, a successful British online public university to be used as a model in the U.S. The goal is to help students who are intimidated by higher education adapt to and succeed in college. Next Generation Learning Challenges, a Gates funded initiative, will adapt two free Open University, at-your-own-pace online courses for use at about a dozen U.S. colleges and universities this academic year: one to help students be more comfortable with math so they do better on placement tests or move more quickly through remedial courses, and another to teach students skills to prepare them for college.

Gao, F. & Sun, Y. (2010). In C. Maddux et al. (Eds.) Research Highlights in Information Technology and Teacher Education. Article examines how to use VoiceThread to support online learning communities for professional development in teacher education

Blog and business site for Nancy White, a leader in "online group facilitation of distributed work, learning and community groups." The site includes both a blog that speaks to White's current work and interests, and also resources for online communities and related work.

White is a favorite of the KPI team.

Part of UD's Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education, this program offers workshops at the K-12 or post-secondary level for how instructors can integrate problem-based learning into their own classrooms. The PBL Clearinghouse, a "peer-reviewed online resource" collects PBL problems and articles. Additionally, the site offers resources including sample syllabi and projects.

The site of Janet Salmons; V2L is interested in "supporting creative ways to work, learn and research online." In addition to the information provided (free) on the site, Salmons also offers consulting services. The blog includes events and organizations of interest. The bookshelf is a "curated" group of books on related topics.

Stephen Downes is considered one of the leading authorities on online learning. In addition to this blog, he publishes widely and authors an email that is available daily or weekly, OLDaily.

"where most participants were involved with blended education, Ms. Joosten was shocked to learn that only about 20 percent had faculty development.)"

This course, offered by P2PU (Peer to Peer University) looks at Mozilla's upcoming release of an Open Badges framework and asks questions about how community/peer-rated online badges might stand in for more formal assessment/recognition of learning, particularly in new or non-traditional fields. This is formally a 4-week course which began August 13 2011.

Sharing both for the look & feel of this course and for the ideas around "badge" assessment.

Videos of the Learning Design Support Environment and the Online Pedagogical Pattern Data Collector on Vimeo

By Marybeth Green and Lauren Cifuentes in Journal of Interactive Learning Research, vol 22 (1), 2011. The major finding of this article seems to be that "online follow-up with peer interaction increased the likelihood of completion of the professional development task." Abstract only available on this page. For full article check with your library.

By Janet Macdonald and Anne Campbell in European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning [n.d.] Open University (UK) tutors work from home. This paper describes a case study of an OU initiative where the tutors received their professional development in online communities. To date, some 2000 tutors have been thus trained.

This special issue of the London Review of Education, 8 (1) 2010, looks at virtual learning. Co-editors are Gwyneth Hughes and Martin Oliver (affiliated with London Knowledge Lab). Full text articles are available for purchase from this page (publisher site). Check with your local library for full text articles.

Curt Bonk is an amazing instructional design professor at Indiana University. Here he has 27 videos (about 10 minutes long each) covering everything from discussion forums (I learned a lot!) to Blended Learning to wiki uses and applications. All free!

Thanks to Doris and Diana for sharing - like the idea of the databank of 10 min videos. Excellent subjects that are of interest to KPI! I liked the one on Online Collaboration. - Stephanie

Posted by Stephen Downes, 2001, this guide is written as a Wiki, with an invitation for users to participate, adding their own experiences. The chapters are roughly chronological, with each describing a MOOC, it's learning goals, and any innovations that it included. This guide can be helpful in understanding the concept of MOOCs, and also in planning a MOOC of one's own.

"An LMS for Elite MOOCs? March 7, 2012 - 3:00am By Steve Kolowich Google artificial-intelligence guru Sebastian Thrun made a splash last month when he left Stanford University to start a company based on an A.I. course he made freely available last fall to tens of thousands of students on the Web. Now, two of Thrun's former Stanford colleagues who conducted similar experiments have spun off their own free online courses into a for-profit venture."

By Leslie Harris O'Hanlon in Education Week; part of Technology Counts 2013: Building the Digital District, March 11 2013. O'Hanlon looks at ways that K-12 teachers are bringing technology into the classroom. While in some cases this is self-directed, there are districts and national initiatives to do as well. Online professional development is discussed.

Last paragraph is really important: "Teachers should find one thing that they would like to change or something they want to make better and look for ways to use a technology tool," [New Hampshire kindergarten teacher Maria Knee] says. And "teachers need to get outside of their school and see what is happening in other places. And be open to learning."

Wiki of the P2P (peer to peer) foundation that studies "the impact of Peer to Peer technology and thought on society." Topics include collaboration, "open" business models, "change institutions," etc.  Librarian's note: found this site while trying to learn more about cybertroc (online barter)

This wiki offers an evolving collection of technology tools for collaborative work and online education. It is maintained by Margaret Riel and faculty and others from the Masters of Arts in Learning Technologies, Graduate School of Education and Psychology from Pepperdine University. There are a variety of tools and other useful links here -- watch out for currency, though. When visiting the site on 4/1/10, the last update had been Dec 2009.

I am into my work because the following excerpt says so much to me..."goal state is initially only partially described" (every time!); the need to "scaffold the work of leaders" while "making a more improvisational style of collaboration possible". These phrases express truth and learning goals for me. "Her research on leadership in creative collaboration online explores how people can collaborate across distance on projects where the goal state is initially only partially described. Amy and her students are creating tools both to support existing creative collaborative practice by scaffolding the work of leaders, and also to try to transform that practice by making a more improvisational style of collaboration possible."