Online Teaching/Learning Quotations
Collection of quotes related to online teaching and learning
Learning 2.0 Strategy : eLearning Technology
7 aspects of learning 2.0 strategy, with a recurring theme of focusing on small, simple, tactical changes rather than trying to do a top-down approach. This makes sense; web 2.0 isn't a top-down exchange of information, so learning 2.0 shouldn't work best with that kind of hierarchy either. Focus on the behaviors you can change and the tactics that can be immediately successful, then let the organizational culture and strategy follow.
Kapp Notes: Free e-Learning Stuff
Resources for e-learning, all free. Includes an online book, whitepaper, interview transcript, presentation, book chapter, book summary, and more.
Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students
The 5 mistakes outlined in this article are
- "Ineffective contextualization" (not thinking about the best way to use blogs, usually self-reflection)
- "Unclear Learning Outcomes"
- "Misuse of the environment" (treating blogs like wikis or discussion forums)
- "Illusive grading practices" (lacking clear rubrics)
- "Inadequate time allocation" (both for students to write and instructors to grade and give feedback)
iterating toward openness » Blog Archive » If Facebook Worked Like Blackboard
A short post, but very pointed--if Facebook worked like an LMS, no real community would ever develop. Questions the whole idea of closed educational systems.
<p>What if Facebook worked like Blackboard (or pretty much any other LMS)? </p>
<p>Imagine if every fifteen weeks Facebook:</p>
<ul>
<li>shut down all the groups you belonged to, </li>
<li>deleted all your forum posts,</li>
<li>removed all the photos, videos, and other files you had shared, and</li>
<li>forgot who your friends were.</li></ul>
ZaidLearn: 27 Inspiring Women Edubloggers
Zaid Ali Alsagoff responds to the discussion about his previous edublogger list being male-dominated (22-3) with a list of women edubloggers. Also check the comments, especially Janet Clarey's explanation of why this discussion matters (with 10 full APA citations--gotta love it).
Groups into Networks New Curriculum Needed - CCK08 - ubiquitous's posterous
An idea for how to move towards networked learning: start with groups, which will initially be more comfortable and less chaotic, then gradually increase the freedom to learning in networks.
Once students get the hang of groups online, just like any mother bird,
the teacher needs to slowly start pushing them out of the nest. And I
do not mean anywhere near Middle School. Most of the students in a
school will be ready for this kind of experience nearing High School,
and I believe this age will slowly lower as time passes and this form
of education becomes more common.
The process of moving the students forward from a group setting to a
network will be required, so will an educator familiar with both. For
this process to properly occur, curriculum will need to be specifically
designed and implemented, taking into account, emerging technologies
and student safety within an online environment.
Using Blogs to Enhance Learning – Some Helpful Tips - OpenEducation.net
Tips for using blogs as learning tools, including making sure they are actually the right tool for the task, using blogs to record the "learning journey" and reflect, and using appropriate assessment.
» What Everyone Should Know About Working with Subject Matter Experts The Rapid eLearning Blog
Tips for working with SMEs:
- Don't expect SMEs to be experts at learning theory
- Present good examples of what you think will work
- Everyone is working for the organization's success
Main Articles: 'New Schemas for Mapping Pedagogies and Technologies', Ariadne Issue 56
Schemas for categorizing the use of pedagogies, learning theories, and technologies. For example, Table 1 maps learning theories (behaviorism, cognitive constructivism, social constructivism, and situated learning) against types of technologies. Online communication tools offer more potential for social constructivist interaction and joint construction of knowledge.
This article also suggests a way to map tool use along three dimensions:
- Individual - Social
- Information - Experience
- Passive - Active This isn't a simple framework where a single tool always is used the same way. Blogs can be more social or more based on individual reflection, and could be at different places in that framework depending on the actual learning activities.
How to Build Quick Elearning Demos for Your Portfolio « One-Stop Resource for Instructional Designing
Rupa discusses common reasons why instructional designers don't have work for a portfolio and suggests how to put together some quick demos in Captivate or Camtasia to show off your skills.
Brave New Classroom 2.0 (New Blog Forum) | Britannica Blog
Discussions pro and con about technology in the classroom, in response to this question: "Do the new classroom technologies represent an educational breakthrough, a threat to teaching itself, or something in between?" Michael Wesch and Steve Hargadon are two of the educators included in the discussion.
eLearning Learning
Aggregated resources for e-learning. Essentially, this aggregates feeds from a large number of e-learning-related blogs and lets you do a metasearch across them. You can also browse by keyword, tools, and companies.
Systems thinking and innovation | effectivedesign.org
Live blogged notes from AECT about systems thinking, innovation, and games for learning. Lots of side comments too, including some good connections to instructional design and getting too bogged down in multiple theories.
This is exactly what has happened to instructional design, and could by <a href="http://effectivedesign.org/2008/02/11/instructional-design-in-academia-where-theory-and-practice-rarely-meet/">why theory and practice don’t meet</a>. <strong>So much theory has been introduced that we can no longer see how instruction is actually designed.</strong> That’s why I think many times it has become easier for novice (in this case non-academically trained) designers can do it so often. They are not encumbered by the fog of theory.
Creating Custom Buttons in Captivate 3
Directions to create custom buttons in Captivate, with the required file names and location to put the finished files
CCK08: How to Profit off of Open Source, Or at least pay the Bills « Bradleyshoebottom’s Weblog
Building on ideas from Stephen Downes on different models for sustainable open source work, this provides specific examples of how open source could benefit a complex industry like telecommunications and benefit that corporate environment.
Now how do you make this open source and still pay the bills. One way would be to make the training content truly open like MIT. To recover costs, the manufacture or the training provider could charge for certification exam, access to mentors, discussion groups, and access the training equipment. So if certification credentials are import to the customer, then this model works.
or example, I have already explained how the customer can build dynamic content around their features, but a customer could also using Wiki-like features, go in and upload their system schematics, photos, maps, or IP addresses and then have the content repository publish a unique document for the requestor. The automotive industry is already moving in this direction creating unique user manuals for each customer based on the features selected at the time of purchase.
In the Middle of the Curve: Deeper Instructional Design
Wendy Wickham's liveblogged notes from Clark Quinn's presentation on Deeper Instructional Design. Lots of ideas in this post--create models that actually help people understand the content and recognize patterns, pay attention to motivation and emotion, give learners the least they need to get them to do what's needed, create learner-centered objectives instead of designer-centered objectives, use stories and active practice.
We can't "create" learning<br>- We can design environments conducive to learning.<br>- We design learning experiences.
Don't design CONTENT, design EXPERIENCES<br>- Design the "Flow".<br>- Start bringing in emotions and the actions they take
I Came, I Saw, I Learned...: Adobe Captivate 3: 508 Compliant Image Buttons Are Possible...
Nice tip on creating image buttons in Captivate that can be read by screen readers
The Bamboo Project Blog: Deconstructing the Work Literacy Learning Event
Michele Martin debriefs the experience of teaching the Work Literacy online course via Ning. Several things they did were very successful. Ning was a good platform, even though it's intended as a social networking tool rather than a CMS. Explicitly saying that different levels of participation were acceptable meant that lurkers felt comfortable dipping in and out as legitimate perispheral participants. Was the course a success? It sounds like they all learned from the experience; to me, that means it's a success even if some aspects didn't work as they hoped.
Tips For Making Virtual Classroom Sessions More Interactive | Mobile Technology in TAFE
Ideas for making synchronous whiteboard sessions more interactive with labeling activities, wordsearch games, "wordstorms", partner activities, and polls/quizzes.
Half an Hour: The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On
Stephen Downes revisits his predictions from 1998 and looks forward to future trends.
Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008
Sloan-C report on online learning in US higher ed. Among the findings:
- 12% growth in the last year
- 20% of students took at least one online course in fall 2007
- Current economic problems (rising unemployment and fuel costs) are predicted to increase demand for online learning
Top News - Report challenges online-learning assumptions
Results of a study showing deeper learning in online courses than face-to-face ones
<p>Some critics of distance learning say face-to-face classes give students a better learning environment, but a recent Indiana University study found that online learners reported deeper approaches to learning than classroom-based learners.</p>
<p>Deep learning, researchers said, is a type of learning that goes beyond rote memorization and focuses on reflection, integrative learning, and higher-order thinking--analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.</p>
According to the survey results, 37 percent of first-year online learners and 45 percent of seniors said they participated in course activities that challenged them intellectually "very often," compared to only 24 percent of first-year classroom-based learners and 35 percent of seniors. The survey also found that online learners reported slightly more deep approaches to learning in their coursework.
Survey results showed that 58 percent of first-year students taking most of their classes online reported using higher-order thinking in their coursework, compared to 55 percent of classroom-based learners. Results also showed that 69 percent of first-year students taking most of their classes online reported using integrative thinking in their coursework, compared to 67 percent of classroom-based learners. Additionally, 62 percent of first-year students taking most of their classes online reported using reflective learning in their coursework, compared to 59 percent of classroom-based learners.
NSSE 2008 Results
Results from the National Survey of Student Engagement. The full report has limited information about online learning, but does include results showing that students in online courses report more deep learning, intellectual challenge, and reflection than those in face-to-face courses.
Usability in eLearning « eLearning Weekly
Brief intro to usability and a collection of resources for usability and usability testing
eLearning Tool Chest
E-Learning book reviews, software reviews, industry news
Collaboration Tools : eLearning Technology
Text version and list of tools for screen sharing, VOIP, video conferencing, web conferencing, multimedia presentations, file sharing, and more. The mind map version might be easier to understand than the text list, but having the list as a starting point for your own research is nice.
100 Conversation Topics : eLearning Technology
A list to go to when you're stumped for something to blog about. Imagine you had a conversation about one of these 100 topics related to learning, e-learning, and technology.
My Top 25 blogs for 2008 | The E-learning Curve at Edublogs
Michael Hanley has collected his list of top 25 blogs, related to e-learning, learning, training, and education. I'm on the list, and I recognize most of the names here, but there are some blogs that are new to me.
Sakai 3 Proposal
Vision for what Sakai could look like in the future. The authors envision an LMS based on widgets with lots of flexibility, social networking, and content creation tools. The proposed changes to the organization (doing away with sites) would make Sakai much more flexible outside of a traditional academic course environment. The ability to have groups persist outside of courses would allow cohorts to be part of a group together, which creates some interesting possibilities.
"In summary, our ambition is not merely an incremental improvement of Sakai nor is it to copy Google. Our goal is not simply to create a better and cheaper version of Blackboard. It is time to arrive at a clearer understanding of the capabilities that represent needs unique to education and for the Sakai community to focus its development effort on providing these capabilities while taking advantage of established open‐source efforts to provide more generic capabilities. We should, in short, strive to create a different type of academic collaboration system."