Group items tagged

This is one of several good articles on levels of engagement from instructors in online classes

Apparently there is no such thing as too much participation in online discussions. Participation in discussions (as measured by words posted) scales linearly with grade on test.

Sustained, high-quality student participation usually doesn't happen on its own in the online learning environment. The instructor needs to model participation, create assignments that encourage it, and foster an environment that supports it. Here are some ways that I promote student participation in my online courses.

The image used in this post is of a small group of students sitting in a room together, (seemingly) energetically talking about the issues at hand. This is an example of synchronous discussion-the students are in the same room, ostensibly discussing the same topic (the caption says they are "debating search engine liability," which sounds really interesting to me, at least).

This is a new favorite tool for gathering feedback from a group. Feedback is gathered as free-text and compiled into a word cloud. Since the survey can be left open for up to 1-2 weeks, this would work well as either a synchronous session tool or an asynchronous tool.

This blog entry provides us with very useful ideas of using Twitter in education.

I must admit that when I first heard about Twitter I thought it represented the apex of what concerns me about internet technology: solipsism and sound-bite communication. While I obviously spend a great deal of time online and thinking about the potential of these new networked digital communication structures, I also worry about the way that they too easily lead to increasingly short space and time for conversation, cutting off nuance and conversation, and what is often worse how these conversations often reduce to self-centered statements. When I first heard about Twitter I thought, this was the example par excellence of these fears, so for many months I did not investigate it at all.

This article describes ways to use twitter to enhance academic work. With twitter, the class goes on beyond the assigned class period because (i) the technology is appealing, (ii) students have much to say/ask, (iii) students can 'talk' without concern for "who's (physically) in class that might make fun of me", and (iv) students respond in their own time. Twitter has the dual benefits of quasi-synchronous and asynchronous communication.

Integrating slack, a synchronous or asynchronous chat tool, into the higher ed classroom

I thought this was great! This semester I actually have a baseball theme for all my modules. Game 7 of the CWS!!! :)