A VIU: Learning Community

This site has lots of resources for education, with a specific BC curriculum focus. There is also a nice focus on First Nations topics across a number of subject areas. It could be a good idea to take a closer look for things like lessons plans or lesson ideas if you're running low on creativity.

This site has some great resources to help organize your digital workflow. The resources have been nicely organized and categorized into the following areas: Within a Learning Management System; On a Webpage, Wiki or Blog; Using a Web Tool both Teachers and Students can curate content; Using Open Educational Resources; Using Primary Source Material ... and more.

Photosforclass.com includes built-in #creativecommons search engine. Great search engine for free images that include image citations. Safe G Rated images.

By Rob McTaggart. "We all have a digital tattoo, and if we do not choose how to ink it, somebody else will. Rob McTaggart discusses how we might move the fear-based cybersafety agenda forward toward a conversation about digital empowerment and supporting our students' growth in an online world."

For those looking for a quiz/test tool, classmarker might be one that you could try out. I've used classmarker for about 5 years now, and I really like the many options it has. The ability to make question banks quite easily, and re-use quizzes/tests over and over again for different groups makes it really nice if you are teaching the same classes again and again. It can be a bit complex with all the different settings/tools/options/etc. but I think you will find it useful and easy to use if you are looking for a powerful quizzing/testing tool.

Bulletin of the IDEA Education Research Network, "New Communication and Information Technologies and Education: hegemony and resistance."

I have found this site very helpful. It provides many clear instructions for creating the most useful activities in Moodle.

Posted in June of 2014, but very useful. Some tricks and ideas that are eminently usable (e.g., the notion of using hangouts as an invitation to office hours)

A simple tool for saving web pages to read later on your iPhone, iPad, Android, computer, or Kindle. The great part is it copies just the article without advertising and side menus, so no distractions. It also keeps a link to the original website for a quick and easy return.

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/

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.

Remind is a tool used to sent students or parents quick updates or reminders to their cell-phones via text (or to email). It allows teachers/facilitators to organize their classes into groups, and send messages without either party ever having to share their phone numbers with the other, therefore limiting privacy concerns. Instructors are able to have different classes or groups, which allows specific communication with individual groups, or even parent groups. Facilitators can also schedule reminders/messages to send on a future date and time, which allows seamless flexibility in when you want to send your reminders. It's a tool use regularly with my f2f classes, and the feedback is extreamly positive.

Primary Teacher / Tech Leader

The Community of Inquiry Framework is a powerful tool for helping to design and organize online learning environments. The Webinar series are great learning activities for professionals engaged in online education.

Although more than 15 years old, some things are timeless and this applies! I think every teacher should have a short version of this tattoed to their arm... So relevant and so easily forgotten.

This is a good review of the chapters that we read from Karen Kear in 503. The article talks about the various tools used to communicate with students and their effects on both the asynchronous and synchronous learner.

This is a great site with tons of resources. It was the resource package used for the "Foundations of Virtual Education" MOOC offered by Coursera. It well organized and provides a good overview.

Edutopia offers a wealth of resources to help you facilitate blended learning.

"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."

"How can we use digital media so that they help us become empowered participants rather than passive consumers? In his book Net Smart, Howard Rheingold shows how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and, above all, mindfully."