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Stephanie Cooper

JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching - 1 views

jolt.merlot.org/...frydenberg.htm

blogging teaching

shared by Stephanie Cooper on 12 Nov 10 - Cached
  • The use of web logs (“blogs”) has become a popular addition to many college courses as faculty try to find new ways to integrate this popular technology into the classroom. (Beeson, 2005; Quible, 2005; Ducate, 2005, Glogoff, 2005).   By the end of 2004, 32 million Americans said they had read a blog, eight million Americans had created blogs, and almost half were created by people under age 30 (Reine, 2005).   In fact, Huffaker (2005) cites several studies that reveal that a significant number of blog authors are younger than 20.  Lenhart (2006) notes that by 2006, these numbers had increased to 12 million American adults who keep a blog, and 57 million American adults who say they read them. Thus, students come to the classroom with a facility for maintaining and communicating through blogs.  Beeson (2005) argues that it is an approach that is more in keeping with their way of thinking (29).  With the increased popularity of blogs, faculty members have been integrating them into their courses to enhance class discussion.  Past research has summarized findings from case studies involving the use of blogs in a single course (Glogoff, 2003; Quible, 2005; Ducate, 2005).  The authors of this study, conducted at a business university, assigned a similar blogging exercise in three different courses—expository writing, e-commerce, and government--in order to introduce students to the use of blogs in their respective disciplines and to help students prepare for meaningful classroom discussion. This study finds that by completing the required readings and then posting discussion questions and reflections on topics of interest to which their classmates can respond--essentially beginning the conversation prior to the class session--students become more engaged in the course material. This exercise requires students not only to read the required course materials but to engage with them critically in order to move beyond a superficial understanding of the materials.  By using the same assignment and assessment tool, the authors found that blogs can be effective in enhancing class discussion in a range of disciplines and in integrating liberal learning into professional programs.            Blogging in the Classroom
  • Like online threaded discussion groups, blogs are an easy way to engage in dialogue on the web outside the classroom. The availability of several blog providers such as Google’s blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, and WordPress.com make it free and easy to set up, manage, and update blogs frequently and without additional support.   By using blogs “students become familiar with blogging, a tool now used by an ever-increasing number of employers to support routine operating functions” (Quible, 2005, p. 76).
  • Since blogs are a fairly recent pedagogical tool, new scholarship has emerged that points to its benefits in the classroom.  The ability of students and faculty to easily update an online journal promotes blogging as a new form of communication to enhance class discussion and to create a community outside the classroom.  Flatley (2005) argues that the technological medium provides a space where students can interact with one another, and it can open up the classroom space "where discussions are continued and where every student gets an equal voice" (p. 77).  In addition, blogs can promote collaboration (Flatley, 2005; Williams & Jacobs, 2004; Oravec, 2002).
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • In contrast to more traditional forums for online discussion, blogs are open to the world to see. This provides visibility for students to share their ideas with the larger world. Quible (2005) says that blogs are “a natural in business communications courses” (p. 73) because they enable students to share their writing with a larger audience.  Glogoff (2003) notes that students “used the [class] blog for a purpose other than from what it was initially intended,” (p. 2162) causing them to create a new blog for a more general audience.  Huffaker (2005) argues that bloggers can get feedback on their writing from a wide range of other bloggers, and "they can link to fellow bloggers, creating an interwoven, dynamic organization" (p. 94).  In addition, "students can have a personal space to lty member not want student writing made public, blogs can be maintained so that only the students in the are allowed to access it and post to it.
Thomas Clancy

What Good Writing Indicates, and Doesn't - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...d-writing-indicates-and-doesnt

writing grammar

shared by Thomas Clancy on 19 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Thomas Clancy on 19 Aug 12
     
    "Students and teachers need the terminology of grammar so they can discuss sentences easily, so they can talk about the parts that don't fit together and the parts that should be moved around. And it is such discussions about sentences, along with lots of reading and writing, that help students write correctly and well - and maybe land a job." -- Let's consider putting this quote up in a prominent spot in our writing labs!!
Keith Hamon

Can We Teach Creative and Critical Thinking? - Education - GOOD - 1 views

www.good.is/...creative-and-critical-thinking

Zoe Burgess critical thinking writing

shared by Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Critical thinking is, among many things, the ability to understand and apply the abstract, the ability to infer and to meaningfully investigate. It’s the skills needed to see parallels, comprehend intersections, identify problems, and develop sustainable solutions.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      We have not adequately accounted for abstraction in our discussions of CT or investigation. I wonder if CT is such a large, amorphous category as to be almost meaningless? Perhaps not, but it is clear to me that almost every discussion of CT must begin with a clear delineation of just what we mean when we say critical thinking.
  • sound critical thinking is imperative to social progress.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      This social imperative is somewhat troubling to me. Is not good critical thinking its own reward?
  • Cultivating critical thinking may be accomplished with modeling
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      Modeling is a promising technique, but how often do teachers expose their own thinking processes to students? Don't we usually let them see only the polished final product of our thought, and not the messy critical thinking we went through prior to our polished position?
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • School trips, service learning requirements, and various other kinds of hands-on situations allow students to make connections at their own pace
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      Nice methods that change the complexion of the typical classroom from one of content-delivery to content application.
  • teachers suggest, and insist, that students investigate further, making—but more importantly, justifying—inferences and conclusions.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      Is it not obvious how the focus on the "right answer" undermines this willingness to explore? Why would most students expend any energy on an issue when they already have the answer that will be on the test, the "correct answer"?
  • It’s hard to design test questions that effectively measure a child’s ability think creatively.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      Note the writer's confusion of critical thinking and creative thinking. Are they usually confused? Should they be? Is there any advantage to distinguishing between them?
  • At the heart of teaching critical and creative thought is the ability to ask the right questions to students. In turn, they need to be able answer in a way that demonstrates their ability to see the parallels and intersections;
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
       
      This kind of open-ended discussion and work in class is key to the QEP classroom.
  • Keith Hamon on 05 Oct 10
     
    But how is creative or critical thought defined and taught? And by what assessment can we measure it, if at all?
Keith Hamon

Networked learning, CoPs and connectivism « Jenny Connected - 1 views

jennymackness.wordpress.com/...learning-cops-and-connectivism

Jenny Mackness connectivism PLN social networking Web 2.0 Education 2.0

shared by Keith Hamon on 20 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Keith Hamon on 20 Oct 11
     
    "The first Networked Learning Conference Hotseat with Peter Goodyear has attracted a lot of interesting discussion. Most of the discussion has centred on what is meant by networked learning and there seem to be as many definitions as there are people in the forum."
Keith Hamon

What a Tech Start-Up's Data Say About What Works in Classroom Forums - Wired Campus - T... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...38960

Jeffrey R. Young writing PLN online discussion

shared by Keith Hamon on 22 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Keith Hamon on 22 Aug 12
     
    There's big talk these days about "big data" in education-looking for patterns of behavior as students click through online classrooms and using the insights to improve instruction. One start-up company that manages online discussion forums for thousands of courses recently performed its first major analysis of behavioral trends among students, and found what its leaders say amounts to advice for instructors.
Stephanie Cooper

ACU Connected Blog » Class Blogs as a Mobile Hub - 2 views

blogs.acu.edu/...class-blogs-as-a-mobile-hub

shared by Stephanie Cooper on 12 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Ideas to Get You Started Here are a few basic strategies for integrating student voices into your class blog this semester. Comments – Obviously the most familiar way to add student voices to a class blog is adding comments to a post. At the beginning of the week, the instructor or TA would create a post that includes a discussion question or prompt. Then during or between classes students would stop by to add comments to the main question or reply to the comments of others. Question Queue: create a standing post where students can raise questions they would like to discuss in class. Rapid Response: ask students, individually or in pairs, to contribute a 3-4 sentence position statement they will then defend or debate. Student Posts – One way students can master new concepts is by having to teach them to others. Most blog software provides user roles for secondary contributors, so with a little preparation, students can have their own dashboard and post content as a full author to the blog. If you imagine student work more like a short essay than a single observation, then allowing students to make full posts may communicate higher expectations and value of their work. Reading Journal: ask students to post a summary of preliminary research or more formal abstract to the blog for peer comments and critique. Media Mashup: have students analyze appearances of course concepts in popular media by embedding a YouTube clip and then evaluating its relevance. Post by Email – A final feature we found in many mobile blogging tools was post by email. For students and faculty with mobile devices, this provided us a simple way to share content quickly back to the class hub. Since most native apps on the iPhone offered email sharing of photos, links, and media, post by email become the common avenue connecting mobiles to the blog. (At ACU, this feature is built on a Gmail account associated with each blog and the Postie WordPress plug-in described below.) Webliography: early in a survey course, ask students to construct a bibliography of useful study materials and web sites by emailing links with annotations to the blog. Photo Shoot: send students into the community (or out onto the web) to capture images that reflect social attitudes toward a common topic then email them to the blog for discussion. (New iPhone or iPod touch users may not know they can tap and hold on a web image to copy it before pasting it into an email. Remind them to cite the original source of the image, or better yet copy and paste the URL as well.)
    • Stephanie Cooper
      Stephanie Cooper on 12 Nov 10
       
      This is great info to make class blogging successful.
  • WPtouch – An essential plugin for mobile blogging via WordPress is WPtouch (now standard on all WordPress.com blogs). Once installed, the plugin makes reading and commenting on mobile posts and pages easy. Simple to install and MU compatible.
  • CONS: essential links from sidebar widgets in a desktop theme must be added to the WPtouch menu manually.
Keith Hamon

Connectivism - 2 views

www.connectivism.ca

Web 2.0 power hierarchies networks rhizome

shared by Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Early research results aren’t surprising: - Students are heavy users of computers, but not for education. - Teachers make limited use of computers and other technologies in class - Parents are limited computer users - Teacher training is lacking in utilizing computers effectively in classrooms
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10
       
      To my mind, age is the real digital divide, not poverty. Even when given devices, olders will not use them as often or as well as youngers, which says to me that we QEP teachers must device strategies to work around our technological disabilities.
  • At the core of the discussion surrounding the future of education is a concern of how to navigate shifting power and control. What is the role of the student? The teacher? The school? The parents? If learners have the ability to do what educators have done in the past (access information directly), what role should the educator play?
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10
       
      This is the core question that will bedevil educators for the next decade: do we really want to create and empower independent learners? And if we do, then what role do we teachers assume when we can no longer dictate what happens in a class?
  • Perhaps face-to-face time should take on a different model than we currently utilize. We should do what we can with technology outside of classrooms. Then we wouldn’t need to meet in classrooms as often.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10
       
      This matches my own experience in F2F classrooms, where more of the classwork shifted outside the room to the Net, forcing me to shift what happened in the room. Mostly we shifted away from mere transfer of information, which is more efficiently done on the Net, and more toward group interaction: discussion, debates, group presentations, etc.
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  • Most of us in education agree on our needs today: 1. We want good teachers 2. We want good educational content 3. We want to give our learners a bright and hopeful future 4. We want school systems that are relevant to learners and to society 5. We want schools to remedy the social and cultural inequalities that other institutions of society generate
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10
       
      Nice list, but it omits the most common item listed by American educators: We want students to become productive members of society. Why?
  • We need to surface technology’s hidden ideologies and philosophies. If we don’t surface these aspects, we dance blindly to a tune that we refuse to acknowledge, but still shapes our moves.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10
       
      We in QEP cannot assume that introducing computers and writing (both are technologies) into our classes will have no effect on either the content or the conduct of our courses. The tech we introduce will absolutely change what and how we teach. We must accept that and be conscious of it.
  • The key question for me is whether we need content in order to start learning or whether content is the by-product of an effective learning experience.
  • In terms of content, learners should create, teachers should curate.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10
       
      At least one aspect of this orientation is that teachers can provide the historical context, assuming that they are older or more experienced than their students, that students lack.
  • Technology is, possibly in a positive sense, a lever for change. The systemic innovation that many desire may not be possible through policy decisions alone.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10
       
      In a reverse sense, technology can lead to change despite opposing policies. Thus, Web 2.0 will redefine how we think of privacy, regardless of our policy statements.
  • Leadership can be somewhat attended to by the contributions of many. When we distribute control, we distribute responsibility
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10
       
      The wisdom of crowds can almost always help, especially in large policy decisions, and especially when the crowd includes those most affected by the decisions.
  • Today, leaders need co-leaders – people who are active in experimenting and exploring future directions.
  • Writing excellent, thorough descriptions of what is happening can be very valuable in coming to understand the nuances of a phenomenon.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 21 Mar 10
       
      Most important observation for QEP. How often do we ask our students to describe, esp. as a gateway to understanding.
  • I have not seen any studies that evaluate the effectiveness of the iPod in listening to music. For end-users, it’s not an issue. They use it because it works. Perhaps research in educational technology should have a similar focus: use it because it exists, because it is a part of society, because it is used in other aspects of their lives. By this metric, simply have computers available and using them for learning is success enough.
Thomas Clancy

It's Not Just Grammar; It's Clear Thinking - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...ust-grammar-its-clear-thinking

grammar writing education critical thinking

shared by Thomas Clancy on 19 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Thomas Clancy on 19 Aug 12
     
    Let the discussion ensue!!
Stephanie Cooper

Learning through Reflection - 1 views

www.nwlink.com/...reflection.html

reading Reflection Learning reflective practices

shared by Stephanie Cooper on 19 Jun 12 - Cached
  • Strategies for Fostering Reflection Hatton and Smith (1995) reported four activites that in in the process of reflection: Action Research Projects Case and cultural studies Practical experiences Structured curriculum tasks: Reading fiction and non-fiction Oral interviews Writing tasks such as narratives, biographies, reflective essays, and keeping journals. However, although these strategies have the potential to encourage reflection, there is little research evidence to show that this is actually being achieved. Obviously "fact" questions do not promote reflection (e.g., What are the functional areas of an air base?). But posing hypothetical situations produced similarly disappointing results (e.g., Assume you have inherited a significant sum of money and wish to buy land in an environmentally sensitive area on which to build. What factors will go into your decision and why?). In contrast, the most successful probe asked learners to write a one page letter to a parent, sibling or other significant person in their lives.
    • Stephanie Cooper
      Stephanie Cooper on 19 Jun 12
       
      These are great ideas for creating opportunities for reflective practices into discussion questions and outside research.
  • Extending evaluative feedback might have even more powerful effects. Providing probes may cause the learner to continue to think about the topic, such as: "Have you thought about how a skilled operator might do this?" "But how much does safety really get compromised when you don't use safety shoes?" Pointing out other possibilities may also result in additional thinking about relationships among factors not previously considered, such as:  "Another factor you might consider is how many different tools will be required if you use different size bolts in the design?" "But what if the rate of water flow is doubled?" Although such feedback may be provided via written comments, they are probably most powerful when used interactively in interpersonal dialogue. Carrying on a dialogue with one or more learners about the work they have submitted is probably the ultimate in promoting reflection via feedback. But the logistics of doing so and having discussion leaders who are skilled in the content and possess good interpersonal skills may be beyond the capacity of the system to provide; unless it is computer mediated in some way. Other hints for encouraging reflection include: Seek alternatives. View from various perspectives. Seek the framework, theoretical basis, underlying rationale (of behaviors, methods, techniques, programs). Compare and contrast. Put into different/varied contexts. Ask "what if. . . ?" Consider consequences.
  • Stephanie Cooper on 19 Jun 12
     
    This may be  useful for the Reflective Practices literacy workshop.
Nicolette Elzie

Writing in College - 1. Some crucial differences between high school and college writing - 1 views

writing-program.uchicago.edu/...high_school_v_college.htm

Writing College university composition critical thinking

shared by Nicolette Elzie on 17 Jan 14 - Cached
  • You get no credit for asserting the existence of something we already know exists.
  • You must shape and focus that discussion or analysis so that it supports a claim that you discovered and formulated and that all of your discussion and explanation develops and supports.
  • In that sense, you might state the point of your paper as "Well, I want to show/prove/claim/argue/demonstrate (any of those words will serve to introduce the point) that "Though Falstaff seems to play the role of Hal's father, he is, in fact, acting more like a younger brother who . . . ."" If you include in your paper what appears after I want to prove that, then that's the point of your paper, its main claim that the rest of your paper supports.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Most of us begin our research with a question, with a puzzle, something that we don't understand but want to, and maybe a vague sense of what an answer might look like. We hope that out of our early research to resolve that puzzle there emerges a solution to the puzzle, an idea that seems promising, but one that only more research can test.
  • A good point or claim typically has several key characteristics: it says something significant about what you have read, something that helps you and your readers understand it better; it says something that is not obvious, something that your reader didn't already know; it is at least mildly contestable, something that no one would agree with just by reading it; it asserts something that you can plausibly support in five pages, not something that would require a book.
  • Nicolette Elzie on 17 Jan 14
     
    I thought this was a great article on the differences between collegiate level writing and high school writing. Moreover, it lays a groundwork for writing a paper. If only there was some way to convey these differences to our students in a way that they will understand without feeling discouraged. I think the weakness of the article is that it is very long, if I wanted to pass this on to a student I fear that the sheer length would deter them away from both reading it and/or finishing it. On the other hand, if we could manage to make this simpler or convert it into a series of short workshops for students then I think the content would be extraordinarily beneficial.
Nicolette Elzie

Is the Lecture Dead? - Richard Gunderman - The Atlantic - 1 views

www.theatlantic.com/...272578

passive learning traditional lecture nontraditional teaching environments classrooms balanced

shared by Nicolette Elzie on 22 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Nicolette Elzie on 22 Nov 13
     
    An article discussing the ways lectures are still beneficial to the classroom and the elements that a good lecture should consist of.
Keith Hamon

Connectivism Technology Web 2.0 Education Learning and Research - Connectivism, Technol... - 0 views

connectivismeducationlearning.ning.com

connectivism PLN Education 2.0 elearning social networking Web 2.0

shared by Keith Hamon on 06 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Keith Hamon on 06 Jul 10
     
    To share & discuss education, learning and research in Connectivism, Technology, Web2.0, e-Learning, PLE, K-12, Higher and Open Education
Stephanie Cooper

Anti-Plagiarism Strategies - 0 views

www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm

plagiarism cheating research teaching writing academic education ethics

shared by Stephanie Cooper on 28 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Students are faced with too many choices, so they put off low priorities.
  • A remedy here would be to customize the research topic to include something of real interest to the students or to offer topics with high intrinsic interest to them.
  • If you structure your research assignment so that intermediate parts of it (topic, early research, prospectus, outline, draft, bibliography, final draft) are due at regular intervals, students will be less likely to get in a time-pressure panic and look for an expedient shortcut.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Many students have poor time management and planning skills. 
  • Some students fear that their writing ability is inadequate.
  • Reassuring students of the help available to them (your personal attention, a writing center, teaching assistants, online writing lab sites, etc.) may give them the courage to persevere.
  • Do not assume that students know what plagiarism is, even if they nod their heads when you ask them. Provide an explicit definition for them.
  • In addition to a definition, though, you should discuss with your students the difference between appropriate, referenced use of ideas or quotations and inappropriate use. You might show them an example of a permissible paraphrase (with its citation) and an impermissible paraphrase (containing some paraphrasing and some copying), and discuss the difference.
  • A degree will help students get a first job, but performance--using the skills developed by doing just such assignments as research papers--will be required for promotion.
  • Many students do not seem to realize that whenever they cite a source, they are strengthening their writing. Citing a source, whether paraphrased or quoted, reveals that they have performed research work and synthesized the findings into their own argument. Using sources shows that the student in engaged in "the great conversation," the world of ideas, and that the student is aware of other thinkers' positions on the topic. By quoting (and citing) writers who support the student's position, the student adds strength to the position. By responding reasonably to those who oppose the position, the student shows that there are valid counter arguments. In a nutshell, citing helps make the essay stronger and sounder and will probably result in a better grade.
  • Strategies of Prevention
Thomas Clancy

On private "classblogs" vs. the wild, wide open ~ Stephen's Web - 1 views

www.downes.ca/...page.cgi

classblogs elearning

shared by Thomas Clancy on 02 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Thomas Clancy on 02 Aug 10
     
    Please note this post and its comments (Downes' is a good blog to follow, too, btw). This is a "line" with which we are familiar--private vs. public student writing. Are we prepared to argue in support of "the wild, wide open"? Should we be appeasers and give our faculty the choice? *Let's discuss as a workshop topic.*
Keith Hamon

Personal Learning Network - 2 views

www.tobincls.com/learningnetwork.htm

Daniel Tobin PLN learning education social networking connectivism Education 2.0 rhizome

shared by Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10 - Cached
  • An important part of learning is to build your own personal learning network -- a group of people who can guide your learning, point you to learning opportunities, answer your questions, and give you the benefit of their own knowledge and experience.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      Okay, so PLNs as an educational concept have been around for a while, at least since 1998. And not just in education, but in the "real world." The significant change today is that we cannot speak of PLNs without talking about online networks.
  • we are all inundated with data (Stage 1) -- all those manuals, brochures, memos, letters, reports, and other printed material that cross our field of vision every day, not to mention all that we receive electronically
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      Data overload has simply been complicated and exacerbated by the Internet. We have WAY more data than we can possibly deal with. We have moved from an age of information scarcity to information glut.
  • when you take data and give it relevance and purpose, you create information. Information (Stage 2) is the minimum we should be seeking for all of our learning activities.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      This is a key component of QEP: to find ways to make the class data relevant and purposeful information-purposeful beyond simply making a good grade. We suspect that most students never move beyond memorizing the class data so that they can repeat it on the test and then forget it. They never turn the data into useful and purposeful information, much less turn the data into knowledge or wisdom.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Even when we have information, we must use that information by applying it to our work before we can say we "know it." Until we use it, it remains information. Knowledge (Stage 3) comes from applying information to our work. This is the stage at which most company training programs fail -- too often the content of company training programs never gets applied to the employee's work. To me, this means that the investment in that training is totally wasted.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      Applying information to our work is the tricky part for students: as most of them do not yet sense that they have any real work. QEP is looking for ways to turn their data processing into knowledge management.
  • Wisdom (Stage 4), that most precious possession, comes from adding intuition and experience to knowledge.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      I think that many believe wisdom is beyond the reach of most classrooms, but I'm not willing to give up on it. However, it means that we must provide real, relevant experiences in class through which the student can develop wisdom.
  • This is why having a personal learning network is so important -- to provide us not only with pointers to sources of information, but to answer questions, to coach us, to reinforce our learning when we try to apply it to our work.
  • First, we must sort through all of the available data to find only that information that is relevant to our learning needs and for which we have a purpose.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      Too often missing from our classes, which too seldom address a common question among students: how will I use this in the future?
  • Once we have gathered and learned the needed information, we need to apply it to our work in order to transform it into our personal knowledge.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      Applying new data to our own work to transform it into personal knowledge. This is as fine a statement of the aims of QEP as I can think of: we use online writing to help students create PLNs as engines for churning the data they are exposed to in their classes into personal knowledge.
  • Who should be in your personal learning network? The members of your network do not need to be people with whom you work directly. In fact, you do not even need to know the people personally. The members of your network should be people, both inside and outside of your work group and your company, who have the knowledge that you are trying to master and who are willing to share their knowledge and experience with you.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      A student's PLN should, of course, include fellow class students and the teacher, but also students, teachers, experts, friends, and others outside the class. We do that online.
  • To establish a learning network, you can ask other people in your group, or with whom you have gone through a training program, to participate in periodic discussions as you all try to implement a new way of working, to support each other and share experiences with each other. Most people are happy to help -- people generally like to talk about their own work and are honored to be asked to share their knowledge and wisdom.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      This is a key to social networks: most people LIKE getting together, talking about common interests, and sharing what they know. We need to connect our students to such networks-connectivity, connectivism.
  • the value of knowledge increases when you share it with others.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      We need to explore when knowledge is best considered a cooperative, connect-and-collaborate property and when it is best considered a competitive, command-and-control property. When should knowledge be part of the Commons and when should it be proprietary? What about on a test? What about in an essay or research document?
  • Building a personal learning network is requires that you not only seek to learn from others, but also that you also help others in the network learn.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      The principle of reciprocity is a key element in building PLNs, and one that most students never learn in grade school, where they are kept in their seats, eyes on their own work, hands to themselves, and forbidden to talk to their colleagues. Who could possibly run a real organization with those rules? It's a model of behavior for an assembly line worker, but not a knowledge worker. Why do our schools have this mismatch?
  • A personal learning network can be your most powerful learning tool no matter what the subject.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
       
      This one sentence should be in all correspondence, advertisements, and discussions about QEP.
  • Keith Hamon on 23 Jul 10
     
    An important part of learning is to build your own personal learning network -- a group of people who can guide your learning, point you to learning opportunities, answer your questions, and give you the benefit of their own knowledge and experience.
Keith Hamon

Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org: 5 Steps to Digitizing the Writing Workshop #edchat #writing - 3 views

www.mguhlin.org/...gitizing-writing-workshop.html

writing digitalstorytelling edtech Miguel Guhlin PLN Web 2.0

shared by Keith Hamon on 03 Aug 10 - No Cached
  • Expecting students to write in our classrooms for hit-or-miss praise is criminal. Their nimble fingers can text an entire piece of writing via their mobile device to a relevant audience online at the same time they publish to a worldwide network. For them, the pay is in the joy of publication, in the act of making their work known, and of partaking of the work of others.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 03 Aug 10
       
      This is a big part of the intrinsic, and fun, motivation for writing online.
  • Take advantage of over 20 digital tools for students (Sidebar #2 - Digital Tools for Students).
  • You can easily transition from notes and highlights kept in Diigo.com social bookmarking tool to a written piece that appropriately cites content. Check Sidebar #3 for Electronic Citation Resources.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • reflect on the teacher's role in the writing workshop, and the technology available to organize the writing workshop.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 03 Aug 10
       
      One of our tasks in QEP is to devise tools and strategies to make the instructor's job easier, not more difficult. Technology can help, and we want to explore how.
  • Create a Self-Editing checklist that is actually a GoogleForm or the Questionnaire Module in Moodle so you can quickly see class progress in graphs. Students complete this information via a web-based form that allows you to quantitatively track progress in class. Create a bank of online mini-lessons that students can watch and listen to again and again in an archive. Build that in your GoogleSites Wiki or Moodle. Facilitate sharing using recording tools in a discussion forum or Sites wiki. When doing the Group Share during a Writing Workshop, you can either play the students' presentation of the audio (which they recorded when they were ready) or record the feedback students get so that it can be added to the written piece/recording shared. That way, students can come back and reflect on the advice provided by their peers.
  • Using a Moodle or wiki, you can create a reference point that can house your mini-lesson content, including audio and/or video recordings.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 03 Aug 10
       
      Perhaps we could build a mini-lesson space on the Writing Labs wiki?
  • VoiceThread.com - Enables teachers to create an enhanced podcast about the MiniLesson content, but also allow students to contribute audio, text, or video content as comments. This enables many to many interactions.
  • GoogleDocs Presentation Tool - Enables teachers to create a slideshow that students can participate in chat, as well as contribute slides to.
  • As wonderful as a writing workshop teacher may be, s/he cannot offer the feedback that ALL students may need. However, online discussion forums through Moodle, attached to wikis, or with blog postings and comments CAN facilitate student to student interaction independent of the teacher. While many fear these kinds of interactions, in online learning, these interactions make or break an online course...or a face to face one.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 03 Aug 10
       
      Fostering this kind of online conversation is key to QEP. It's what we are about, but we recognize that most of our students are unaccustomed to conversing about academic issues among themselves. We want to teach them to talk college.
  • Collaborative word processors can also serve as a way for students in groups to interact with ONE text online.
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 03 Aug 10
       
      This is an excellent entry point into many different kinds of exercises: group editing, group writing, group brainstorming, group illumination (adding images and video). I like this.
  • Shelly Blake-Pollock, the teacher and author of the TeachPaperless blog (http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com), encourages his students to publish online. Beyond that step, though, he offers feedback on their writing online as well via screencasts, or video recording of his computer screen. Screencasts, or "JingCrits," that he creates are short, less than 5-minute video clips where he highlights student work on screen and offers feedback (View an example - http://bit.ly/bsgVQQ).
    • Keith Hamon
      Keith Hamon on 03 Aug 10
       
      This could be a wonderful strategy for moving our QEP Writing Labs into the online world, enabling writing specialists to engage student writing, and offer useful feedback, online.
  • Keith Hamon on 03 Aug 10
     
    This article is about 5 steps you can take, as a writing teacher, to digitize your writing workshop. There are many more, though, so "stay tuned" for future articles!
Keith Hamon

What's the Trick to Building Community in the Classroom? | p e d a b l o g i c a l - 0 views

www.tengrrl.com/...ing-community-in-the-classroom

Traci Gardner elearning social networking writing PLN rhizome connectivism Web 2.0 Education 2.0

shared by Keith Hamon on 07 Sep 10 - Cached
  • the key to a successful community is “connecting a group of people online and making them feel a part of something special.” Students aren’t going to launch into discussion just because we throw them together. We have to give them reasons to connect.
  • Give students time to bond and make connections.
  • the class needs to do things together.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • community challenges can also be effective.
  • Consider community participation projects as well.
  • do all you can to encourage authentic conversation. Allow students to discuss topics freely and without fear of criticism.
  • Keith Hamon on 07 Sep 10
     
    Online or off, getting students to talk to each other is a tricky task. … The FeverBee Primer About Successful Online Communities can help. While meant more for corporate and public community building, the lessons apply to the classroom just as well.
Thomas Clancy

What if We Ran Universities Like Wikipedia? - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Ed... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...27612

education wikipedia

shared by Thomas Clancy on 15 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Thomas Clancy on 15 Oct 10
     
    Everyone else may have looked at this article and its comments, too, but there is so much good back-and-forth in the comments that I didn't want to take the chance that it would be missed. Get ready for some spirited sparring! --and it even relates to our QEP discussions, too!
Keith Hamon

Chapter 6 - 1 views

cde.athabascau.ca/...ch6.html

eLearning media pedagogy

shared by Keith Hamon on 19 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Keith Hamon on 19 Feb 10
     
    The decision to adopt online technology (defined here as predominantly Internet-based delivery, with provision for interaction throughout the process), even on a limited basis, is always complex and can be risky, especially if the adopting organization lacks structural, cultural, or financial prerequisites (Welsch, 2002). A discussion of some attributes of media and of the modes of teaching presentation and learning performance they support, in relation to some influential learning models, might help to clarify some of the implications in the choice of any specific delivery or presentation medium.
Keith Hamon

OnFiction: Lights, Cameras, Fiction - 1 views

www.onfiction.ca/...lights-cameras-fiction.html

writing fiction nonfiction

shared by Keith Hamon on 16 Feb 10 - No Cached
  • Keith Hamon on 16 Feb 10
     
    It is becoming increasingly difficult to discuss the psychology of fiction in light of the blurring boundaries between fiction and nonfiction.
  • Thomas Clancy on 17 Feb 10
     
    I'm not sure that the kids "fictionalized" the beating. I would go with another term such as hyper- or meta- reality. Or what's that other term -- not virtual reality but amended, enhanced, or embellished reality? Or maybe this is "re-created reality"?
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