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In this article, Justin Reich, a Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Technology, Innovation, and Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, argues that LMS are "homogenized, transient and disempowering" and that they serve "the needs of institutions, not individual students." The author describes teaching a course in a large-scale environment where "the specific goal is for students to learn to build networks of learning resources- people, readings, websites and communities- that can help them continue learning in a domain long after a course ends." His course, built on Connectivist principles, asks students to move beyond the course LMS and "curate links and connections and share their evolving ideas." Students used websites, blogs, Twitter and other Web spaces to share and store their ideas. The author discusses several advantages of moving beyond the LMS. Justin, R. (2015, February 13). Techniques for Unleashing Student Work from Learning Management Systems. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/techniques-for-unleashing-student-work-from-learning-management-systems/

A course using Canvas to disseminate content and assignments around open learning.

Jean K brought this to my attention.

This paper argues that first time eLearners often experience cognitive overload, (as described in Cognitive Load Theory), in the early stages of an online course and it is suggested that this is a likely contributor to high drop out rates, particularly in terms of those withdrawing within the first few weeks of the course start

Re: "Online learning shaking up the world of education," Jan. 30. Monday I started a MOOC (massive open online course) at the University of Edinburgh, "An Introduction to Philosophy." Eighty thousand students are enrolled. My email inbox is crammed with hundreds of introductory personal statements covering what meals students just ate, major obsessions, relationships, etc.

Reference: Freeman, W. & Tremblay, T. (2013). Design Considerations for Supporting the Reluctant Adoption of Blended Learning. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(1), 80-88. This paper presents a case study where an online course was redesigned as a blended course without involving instructor participation. It examines how the instructors struggled with this new format and offers suggestions to course designers on how to successfully design and implement blended programs.

From website: Social networks as learning management systems...applications can turn existing social networks such as Facebook. Into a Learning Management System, (LMS, LCMS) and retain all the rich communication and scheduling tools that these applications offer. UdutuTeach allows you to import courses from myUdutu, manage which people can take your courses, and track the learners' progress.

a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:

OpenLearn aims to break the barriers to education by reaching millions of learners around the world, providing free educational resources and inviting all to sample courses that our registered students take - for free!

The OpenLearn website gives free access to learning materials from higher education courses. OpenLearn's LabSpace makes many different open educational resources (OER) available to you from a wider OER community associated with The Open University.

Another part of the equation --retention! Some interesting comments,too,about requisite skills

Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe. "What is Backward Design?," in Understanding by Design. 1st edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2001, pp. 7-19. Copyright: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 1998 Backward design, or designing with the end in mind, is explored in this first chapter of the book "Understanding by Design". It outlines how we as instructors can rethink how we deliver instruction, by first identifying what the desired results are, determining what evidence we will accept that illustrates these results and then plan learning experiences and instruction to achieve those results. This design process may help filter which features you may choose to use in a LMS or non-LMS.

The study concluded that for online classes that range from 16 to 40 students, increasing class size as much as 25 percent does not significantly affect student grades, credits earned in the next session, or enrollment in the next session. The preliminary paper discussed the implications for the results, suggesting impact on cost savings for institutions with an online program with large numbers of students and classes. For instance, establishing class size limits of 40 students as opposed to 30 students could have positive financial implications through instructor compensation.  The researchers acknowledged limitations of the study, which was the sample of relatively small online classes.

"This course provides teachers with the foundation for understanding the movement towards virtual instruction. It introduces fundamental knowledge needed by teachers to succeed in a technology-dependent, instructional environment."

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I'm reposting this from VIU Faculty of Education's Facebook page. It contains very useful information about deciding whether you can use materials in your practicum, classroom lessons, presentations, etc. from VIU Professor Julia Hengstler. Evidently, BC Teachers must be aware of the intellectual property clauses in their contracts.

Digital literacy blog about using google advanced search as a way to teach kids to use the basic google search tool. A valuable brief for anyone who uses the internet.

For our Principles of Education course, we were given a reading on digital literacy by Alan November. In it, this blog is referenced. The reading and this blog really opened my eyes to the way that search engines work. I realized that in order to teach students to be digitally literate, I need to become much more digitally literate myself. A very insightful read.

An article by Rick Wormeli at the University of Victoria that speaks to how to effectively manage rewrites and redos in the classroom. An interesting read.

I first saw this article a few years? ago and we used it to create a redo policy/guideline for our high school. It is a good article to share and really got me thinking about redos and re-writes. It got me promoting this allot more as a result reading this. The whole idea is to get students to learn and if redoing helps, well why not. the flip side is it has created more work for me by having to create another test if that is involved because I do not give the same one. Of course I have to re-mark it. All good as long as the student is putting more time into learning.