This blog designed and maintained by Prof. Steve Wheeler, offers some of the best insights on learning with and through technology, whilst combining research, theories and the practices of teaching and learning.
This blog has followed social gaming juggernaut Zynga's progress for a couple years now. One of its most popular gaming apps is FarmVille, which runs on Facebook and touts an estimated 70 million players, making it one of, if not the, most popular games ever. Testaments to the game's popularity abound.
I opted to post this here as we are debating the use of Web 2.0 tools in education. Farmville dominated Facebook games for a number of years, and educators made use of this trend to enhance their teaching. Though it has not been developed for educational purposes, I know even teachers of business studies who used it in their classes with students 13+ of age.
This example should encourage us to make use of what is trending and popular with our students to our advantage!
From this article:
Presence is the most important best practice for an online course (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010, p. 53) Research has shown that an important component in students 'performance in and satisfaction with their online course is the active participation of the instructor within their course (Picciano, 2002; Rovai, 2002; Swan & Shih, 2005).
***Because online presence is such a pivotal part of our role as facilitators, social media certainly assists us in actively participating in each course.
Reaching agreement on the convenience of online classes is easy, but arguing in favor of a synchronous learning experience in a virtual classroom is harder. Debunking the top 10 myths about synchronous online teaching helps refute the arguments against it, while the transformational nature of online teaching can convert skeptics into supporters.
Reaching agreement on the convenience of online classes is easy, but arguing in favor of a synchronous learning experience in a virtual classroom is harder. Debunking the top 10 myths about synchronous online teaching helps refute the arguments against it, while the transformational nature of online teaching can convert skeptics into supporters.
Do Popular Social Networking Applications Have A Place In The Classroom? A Growing Number Of Educators Say 'Yes'. The post, "100 Ways To Teach With Twitter", is one of the most consistently viewed article on this site. Similarly, "Facebook As An Instructional Technology Tool", resulted in the 2nd most trafficked day here in 2010.