Blog posts

Bonk said that administration's ideas about open courses are consistent with the "convergence" he sees taking place in online learning. There is a growing belief that for many kinds of courses, there are best providers whose work can be made available online, there are large numbers of students who could benefit from those courses, and those who might benefit don't necessarily have a lot of money.

The meta-analysis findings do not support simply putting an existing course online, but they do support redesigning instruction to incorporate additional learning opportunities online.

<p>You wouldn't hire an interior designer only to inform.them that you've already chosen all the colour schemes and furnishings; you wouldn't engage an accountant and then explain to them the way you wanted them to process your figures; you wouldn't employ a fitness trainer and then tell them what to include in your workout; you wouldn't buy a dog and then insist on doing all the barking.</p> <p>So why, then, do we continue to encounter situations in which line managers tell the guys from l&amp;d exactly what they want in terms of learning interventions, with the expectation that the they'll simply take those instructions and run. </p>

1. Not Considering the Impact of the Visual Design

2. Lack of Unity

3. Graphics Don’t Match

4. Confusing Use of Contrast

5. Misuse of Fonts

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.

<p><font size="2" face="Arial">The perspective of communities of practice affects educational practices along three dimensions:</font></p> <ul> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <i> </i><li><i>Internally</i>: How to organize educational experiences that ground school learning in practice through participation in communities around subject matters?</li> <i> </i><li><i>Externally</i>: How to connect the experience of students to actual practice through peripheral forms of participation in broader communities beyond the walls of the school?</li> <i> </i><li><i>Over the lifetime of students</i>: How to serve the lifelong learning needs of students by organizing communities of practice focused on topics of continuing interest to students beyond the initial schooling period?</li> </font></ul> <p><font size="2" face="Arial">From this perspective, the school is not the privileged locus of learning. It is not a self-contained, closed world in which students acquire knowledge to be applied outside, but a part of a broader learning system.</font></p>

<p>To test their hypothesis, the team recorded two versions of a PowerPoint lecture. The presentations differed only in the presence of animation to incrementally present information. They then showed students either the animated or non-animated lecture and then tested the students recall and comprehension of the lecture.</p> <p>The team found a marked difference in average student performance, with those seeing the non-animated lecture performing much better in the tests than those who watched the animated lecture. Students were able to recall details of the static graphics much better. Animated slides meant to present information incrementally actually require greater concentration, which makes it harder to remember content as well as reducing overall exposure time to the "complete" slide, the researchers found.</p>

<p>To test their hypothesis, the team recorded two versions of a PowerPoint lecture. The presentations differed only in the presence of animation to incrementally present information. They then showed students either the animated or non-animated lecture and then tested the students recall and comprehension of the lecture.</p> <p>The team found a marked difference in average student performance, with those seeing the non-animated lecture performing much better in the tests than those who watched the animated lecture. </p>

This issue is all about trust. Schools don’t trust students or teachers to do the right thing. Companies don’t trust employees. but the problem lies not with the technology, but with with setting expectations and ensuring those expectations are met. When a company blocks access to social media, it is blocking access to its own future growth and when a school blocks access to social media it is blocking access to a student’s future growth.