Blog posts

And content creators aren't so wrapped up in the virtual world that the real world suffers — they're more likely than their less-creative peers to participate in school clubs and to hold a part-time job.

In it, the authors argue that the educational system must strengthen reading, writing and research skills for students to be able to fully engage with the new participatory culture. But schools also have to do a better job of training students for a new literacy, which will demand experimentation, collaboration and interpretation.

<li>encourages contact between students and faculty,</li><li>develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,</li><li>encourages active learning,</li><li>gives prompt feedback,</li><li>emphasizes time on task,</li><li>communicates high expectations, and</li><li>respects diverse talents and ways of learning.</li>

Students perceived the course as having the most impact on their critical thinking skills, with 87% rating the course as extremely or very useful in developing these capabilities

Overall, 79% of respondents felt that this totally online course was extremely or very useful in fostering student interaction, a principle of effective teaching that students often fear will be lacking in their online courses (Bullen 1998; Ward 1998).

As Chris says often, “Technology is not additive; technology is transformative.”

Finally, the one real head twister that I got yesterday was during Chris’s own session when he was talking about how his thinking is moving away from the “having kids publish globally to the world” product piece of all of this a “let’s focus on the process of community building and publishing within the walls” approach.

The culture of sharing and participation that is created within the local community is more important almost that making those connections outside.

I think, in this instance, the consideration of varied design approaches has been tied to the wrong variable (generational differences). The greater area of change and impact is found in the habits, activities, and needs of learners (not based on generations, but on how technology creates new opportunities for learning networks far beyond the narrow domain of classroom walls).

I'd like to see an instructional design process that attends to the complexity of emergent or unknown processes.

<strong>Most eLearning tools do not promote the creation of effective courses, do not promote web standards, and do not promote accessibility; they merely make cookie-cutter course development easier for technically inexperienced course developers.</strong>

How might faculty members use blogs to help their students reach particular learning goals? I use blogs to accomplish two goals in my courses: to facilitate serious communication and cooperation between students on course–related topics and tasks, and to generate efficient and meaningful class discussions.

The difference with blogs, and it is an important difference, is that students take possession of the class blog in ways they never did with these other products.