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Keith Hamon

The Wild World of Massively Open Online Courses « Unlimited Magazine - 1 views

  • “There’s this notion that technology is networked and social. It does alter the power relationship between the educator and the learner, a learner has more autonomy, they have more control. The expectation that you wait on the teacher to create everything for you and to tell you what to do is false.”
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is perhaps the practical heart of Connectivism: that the world is networked and that the learner is at the center of their own personal learning network.
  • “At the beginning, we had quite a number of students feeling quite overwhelmed because you would get 200 or 300 posts going into a discussion forum per day and that’s just about impossible to follow,” Siemens says.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      PLNs must have filters and aggregators to help us manage the massive flow of information in MOOCs.
  • Even if students in massively open online courses master the technology and overcome their virtual stage fright, a third problem remains: how to recognize the value of a learning experience that isn’t for credit.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Validation remains a very sticky issue for online learning and for PLNs. However, I'm not sure the resolution will be to find a method for online validation, redefinition of validation, or a mixture of both.
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  • It’s a question that proponents of online education continue to grapple with. Even if a student in an open course gains from their experience, there is no guarantee that the boss, or a potential employer, will recognize their learning without a certificate or other official, institution-approved record to prove it.
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    With advancing online tools innovative educators are examining new ways to break out of this one-to-many model of education, through a concept called massively open online courses. The idea is to use open-source learning tools to make courses transparent and open to all, harnessing the knowledge of anyone who is interested in a topic.
Keith Hamon

CK12.ORG - FlexBooks - 0 views

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    Open source textbooks for K12.
Keith Hamon

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology | Video on TED.com - 0 views

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    At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.
Thomas Clancy

With Open Source Lectures, Who Needs So Many Lecturers? | Kairosnews - 0 views

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    Anything mentioning Mark Taylor, even in a note, is worthwhile. I am 100% for letting more dynamic, not to mention knowledgeable and "professional" speakers, take that role from me, as well as from other college teachers, or supplement what I bring to my classes.
Keith Hamon

5 Tools for Building a Next-Generation 'Hybrid' Class Website - ProfHacker - The Chroni... - 0 views

  • To build the module, we used a rapid e-learning authoring tool called Adobe Captivate. Some other popular programs for this kind of rapid authoring are Articulate and Lectora. Captivate is great for building interactive self-guided simulations and branching scenarios.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      We should explore how to add external tools to ASU's Moodle so that we can gather info about our students.
  • We created our unit in PearlTrees by adding links to all the web-based readings, videos and articles for the course and then embedded it into our LMS.
  • We decided used Prezi to create a Case Study Library with six categories (Health, Education, etc.) to introduce our students to the tools organizations are using to address different elements of the peacebuilding and international development spectrum.
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  • Our LMS had a built-in functionality for users to submit links and tag them, but other options include setting up a class Diigo account with one class username and password. If the majority of participants are already on Facebook and Twitter, other options include creating a dedicated course Facebook group to share content, or setting up a class hashtag (ex. #AU1234) for Twitter to categorize and easily reference all class tweets. (Read further ProfHacker reflections on teaching with social media.)
  • This course was just the beginning of our attempt at TechChange to go beyond what industry leaders like Blackboard and others currently provide to find and implement the most effective technologies and platforms to support dynamic learning. The feedback from the participants was remarkably positive, and the model is something that can easily scale with the right tools and training.
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    The tools we discuss below can be embedded into any open source LMS and down the road we plan to revisit other platforms.
Keith Hamon

Learning or Management Systems? « Connectivism - 1 views

  • Two broad approaches exist for learning technology implementation: The adoption of a centralized learning management approach. This may include development of a central learning support lab where new courses are developed in a team-based approach—consisting of subject matter expert, graphic designers, instructional designer, and programmers. This model can be effective for creation of new courses and programs receiving large sources of funding. Most likely, however, enterprise-wide adoption (standardizing on a single LMS) requires individual departments and faculty members to move courses online by themselves. Support may be provided for learning how to use the LMS, but moving content online is largely the responsibility of faculty. This model works well for environments where faculty have a high degree of autonomy, though it does cause varying levels of quality in online courses. Personal learning environments (PLEs) are a recent trend addressing the limitations of an LMS. Instead of a centralized model of design and deployment, individual departments select from a collage of tools—each intending to serve a particular function in the learning process. Instead of limited functionality, with highly centralized control and sequential delivery of learning, a PLE provides a more contextually appropriate toolset. The greater adaptability to differing learning approaches and environments afforded by PLEs is offset by the challenge of reduced structure in management and implementation of learning. This can present a significant challenge when organizations value traditional lecture learning models.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      QEP as I envision it leans heavily toward the second of these two approaches.
    • Thomas Clancy
       
      Indeed, these two stood out for me, too! We are all about developing PLEs / PLNs for our QEP students.
  • Self-organised learning networks provide a base for the establishment of a form of education that goes beyond course and curriculum centric models, and envisions a learner-centred and learner controlled model of lifelong learning. In such learning contexts learners have the same possibilities to act that teachers and other staff members have in regular, less learner-centred educational approaches. In addition these networks are designed to operate without increasing the workload for learners or staff members.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is the QEP approach to online learning-in a nutshell, and explains why we prefer the suite of open Web 2.0 tools over central learning management systems such as Blackboard Vista.
  • Instead of learning housed in content management systems, learning is embedded in rich networks and conversational spaces. The onus, again, falls on the university to define its views of learning.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      One of the issues for QEP is to redefine the way ASU defines teaching/learning.
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  • Two key areas are gaining substantial attention: (a) social software, and (b) personal learning environments (PLEs). Social software and PLEs have recently gained attention as alternatives to the structured model of an LMS. PLEs are defined as: “systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning” (van Harmelen, 2006, ¶ 1). PLEs “are about articulating a conceptual shift that acknowledges the reality of distributed learning practices and the range of learner preference” (Fraser, 2006, ¶ 9). A variety of informal, socially-based tools comprise this space: (a) blogs, (b) wikis, (c) social bookmarking sites, (d) social networking sites (may be pure networking, or directed around an activity, 43 Things or flickr are examples), (e) content aggregation through RSS or Atom, (f) integrated tools, like elgg.net, (g) podcast and video cast tools, (h) search engines, (i) email, and (j) Voice over IP.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is the QEP approach, but QEP must still accommodate the demands of the institution, or work to change those demands.
  • For an individual used to Skyping, blogging, tagging, creating podcasts, or collaboratively writing an online document, the transition to a learning management system is a step back in time (by several years).
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Though too many ASU students are not sophisticated Net users, they increasingly will be and we want to enable them to become more sophisticated.
  • LMS may well continue to play an important role in education—but not as a critical centre. Diverse tools, serving different functionality, adhering to open guidelines, inline with tools learners currently use, may be the best option forward.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This strikes me as the proper orientation toward technology for QEP to assume.
  • As these learners enter higher education, they may not be content to sit and click through a series of online content pages with periodic contributions to a discussion forum.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Increasingly, these will be our students.
  • Involve all stakeholders (beyond simple surveys). Define the university’s view of learning. Critically evaluate the role of an LMS in relation to university views of learning and needs of all stakeholders. Promote an understanding that different learning needs and context require different approaches. Perform small-scale research projects utilizing alternative methods of learning. Foster communities where faculty can dialogue about personal experiences teaching with technology. Actively promote different learning technologies to faculty, so their unique needs—not technology—drives tools selected.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      These are good goals for QEP to stay mindful of.
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    The initial intent of an LMS was to enable administrators and educators to manage the learning process. This mindset is reflected in the features typically promoted by vendors: ability to track student progress, manage content, roster students, and such. The learning experience takes a back seat to the management functions.
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    The initial intent of an LMS was to enable administrators and educators to manage the learning process. This mindset is reflected in the features typically promoted by vendors: ability to track student progress, manage content, roster students, and such. The learning experience takes a back seat to the management functions.
Keith Hamon

450 Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free | Open Culture - 4 views

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    Download hundreds of free audio books, mostly classics, to your MP3 player or computer. Below, you'll find great works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
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    Keith, this is amazing, astounding, and literally science-fiction come to life for us oldsters -- throws the concept of "home schooling" into an entirely new light, not to mention expanding the conventional classroom. In just poking around a little at the site, I also found "gutenberg.org" and "librivox.org" mentioned as sources of more and more treasures. Thanks for this gift!
Keith Hamon

Half an Hour: Connectivism and Transculturality - 1 views

  • you need a mixture of materials, you need a collection of different perspectives, different points of view, in order to come to any new understanding.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Do teachers approach any class with the ambitions of gaining new understanding? Why not? What would change about a class if they did?
  • Communities have to be open, they have to have some source of new material coming in, whether its raw material, resources, ideas, etc., and then they have to have some place where they can send their creative product, the things that they make, the ideas that they have.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      How in QEP do we overcome the static curriculum closed to any new information?
  • A third criterion that distinguishes a community defines as a network from a community defined as a group is autonomy. And what that means is that each of the members of that community are working toward their own sense of values, their own sense of purpose, their own goals or endeavours.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      College classes too seldom incorporate the value of the student into the mix, ignoring the purposes, goals, and experiences of the student and delivering a plain vanilla product, one-size-fits-all.
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  • When I say 'interactivity' I say the knowledge in the community is created by the interaction of the members of the community rather than created in one person and then spread through the community.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is a key to connectivism: that learning emerges, either in our minds or in our communities, from the patterns and interactions of individual people or neurons.
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    Our knowledge, our intelligence, must be based on something emergent from the connective activity of many individual neurons, can't be based on the content of a neuron, has to be based on the pattern of connectivity of these neurons. We replicate that in connectivist teaching.
Stephanie Cooper

100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School | Online Colleges - 0 views

  • Google Specifically for Education From Google Scholar that returns only results from scholarly literature to learning more about computer science, these Google items will help you at school. Google Scholar. Use this specialized Google search to get results from scholarly literature such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, and academic publishers. Use Google Earth’s Sky feature. Take a look at the night sky straight from your computer when you use this feature. Open your browser with iGoogle. Set up an iGoogle page and make it your homepage to have ready access to news stories, your Google calendar, blogs you follow in Google Reader, and much more. Stay current with Google News. Like an electronic clearinghouse for news, Google News brings headlines from news sources around the world to help you stay current without much effort. Create a Google Custom Search Engine. On your own or in collaboration with other students, put together an awesome project like one of the examples provided that can be used by many. Collect research notes with Google Notebook. Use this simple note-taking tool to collect your research for a paper or project. Make a study group with Google Groups. Google Groups allows you to communicate and collaborate in groups, so take this option to set up a study group that doesn’t have to meet face-to-face. Google Code University. Visit this Google site to have access to Creative Commons-licensed content to help you learn more about computer science. Study the oceans with Google Earth 5. Google Earth 5 provides information on the ocean floor and surface with data from marine experts, including shipwrecks in 3D. Learn what experts have to say. Explore Knol to find out what experts have to say on a wide range of topics. If you are an expert, write your own Knol, too.
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    There's so much Google can do that most of us aren't even aware of! Some of these might come in handy for yourself as well as your students.
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