Ignatia Webs: My top 5 list of agonising eLearning Myths
Persistent myths about e-learning, including "it's all about the technology" and "eLearning is putting text online and adding multiple choice questions."
Imported from Diigo
Clark Aldrich's Style Guide for Serious Games and Simulations: Techniques for grading student performance in a simulation
When using simulations for learning, how do you assess what people have learned? Clark Aldrich shares some suggestions.
ClassTools.net: Games for Education
Free games, tools, and graphic organizers, including a Venn Diagram, priority chart, timeline, and timer. You can create your own casual games with questions, like a word game based on "Space Invaders."
Voicethread 4 Education » home
Wiki collection of resources and examples for using Voicethread for education purposes. Also includes some best practices and professional development examples.
Ruminations of a Learning Professional: Call a Spade a Shovel - but make sure you describe!
One learning professional asks if the title "instructional designer" is perhaps not the most accurate description for what we do, especially with learning 2.0 and increases in learner control.
Is the term Instructional Designer a dead description, title, category or classification?<br><br>In light of web or learning 2.0, there are theories that in fact a better name would be an <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">information and instruction architect</span>.
Don’t Fear the Conversation: Four Reasons People/Companies Reject Social Media and Shouldn’t : UberNoggin
Four common objections to using social media for organizations, with responses.
Tools Used : eLearning Technology
Tony Karrer looks at some results from the eLearning Guild survey on eLearning 2.0, specifically what tools learning professionals are using themselves. He compares people in corporations, education, and government. Surprisingly, people working in education are using more of these tools than their corporate counterparts.
YouTube - Learning Styles Don't Exist
A cognitive psychologist argues that learning styles, as the theory is generally understood, don't exist and aren't supported by research. He acknowledges that there are differences in visual and auditory memory, but says the research doesn't show that differentiating instruction based on learning styles actually has any effect.
Cool Cat Teacher Blog: How to Make Wiki References
Screencast and directions for adding references in Wikispaces. Wikispaces references now work like Wikipedia, where you can add a reference and it creates a linked footnote.
WebAIM: Web Accessibility Gone Wild
Common web accessibility mistakes and what you should do instead.
Should we be using learning styles? What research has to say to practice
Long PDF (84 pages) on learning styles research and how it can--and should--influence pedagogy. Examines 13 learning style models and finds a lot of variety in relability, validity, and general usefulness of the models.
New link 6/29/12 http://www.arasite.org/RMdatabase/Coffield.pdf
Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning
Book-length literature review on learning styles research, concluding that the usefulness of learning styles of pedagogy depends greatly on what model you use.
New link: https://crm.lsnlearning.org.uk/user/order.aspx?code=041543
Assessing the Online Learner by Jossey-Bass Online Teaching & Learning Series
15-minute podcast interview with Palloff and Pratt on assessing online learners and social presence. They talk about authentic assessment rather than closed-book quizzes, based on the assumption that students will cheat on tests and quizzes but responding to scenarios is a better measure of learning.
ZaidLearn: Amazing Free e-Learning eBooks Collection
Like the title says, a collection of free ebooks about e-learning. I'm not sure I'd call everything here an actual "ebook" (like Jane Hart's list of Top 100 Tools), but it's certainly a lot of reading material. I just wish this was more than a list of links. Annotations or even tags would make it much easier to figure out what's useful for a specific purpose. If you want to pretend you're browsing a bookshelf and looking at book spines though, this is a good list.
Connectivism_Week1
Table comparing 4 learning theories: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, connectivism. Includes a summary of what's different about connectivism.
Project Based Learning
Resources for middle and high school project-based learning, including relevant research and a library of projects to build on
Half an Hour: Response to Fitzpatrick
Stephen Downes, responding to lengthy criticism of connectivism from a learner in the CCK08 class.
We argue that learning occurs in networks, and therefore, that the properties of successful networks are also the properties of successful learning environments. We don't 'apply' this in any strict sense - we would never force people to be connectivists. Indeed, within the learning environment, we believe there should be diversity; we believe people should be free to choose their own form of learning.
Maybe this is part of my problem as I'm trying to figure out the "right way" or "best practices" for applying connectivism to what I do. There isn't a right away--Stephen says here we shouldn't even "'apply' this in any strict sense."
To me, <span style="font-style: italic;">far more</span> complex - and insightful - forms of reasoning are being created through the interplay among thousands, or millions, of individual content elements. Where each content element may by itself appear to be <span style="font-style: italic;">simple</span>, it is the interconnections between them that creates a much more complex, deep, and <span style="font-style: italic;">rich</span> tapestry of meaning, <span style="font-style: italic;">far more</span> than could be created merely using linguistic devices.
It is substantially <span style="font-style: italic;">harder</span> to work with the disorder and complexity we see within a connectivist network. Because linguistic (syntactical and semantical) descriptions of the concepts and entities in such a network just barely touch the surface, and students must therefore immerse themselves in the process of reasoning in such a system, rather than merely reading about it.
eduweb: research
Research on educational games from Eduweb
Learning Visions: Instructional Designers with ID Degrees? Survey Results...
Cammy Bean has updated her ID degrees survey results. It's up to 34% of IDs having an advanced degree in instructional design--higher than it was the last time she reported, but still clearly a minority.
CCK08: let’so go for a walk in a wood and relax … « Insegnare Apprendere Mutare
A beautiful metaphor for CCK08. A massively open course like this is too complex to understand the whole thing at once the way you would know a traditional course. Instead, think of the course like a walk in the woods, where you get to know the woods at different levels and in different ways.
However, nobody would assume that in order to know that wood one has to know exactly every tree, one by one, its shape, age and location. Every plant. Every leave of every plant. Every animal and where every animal is and what every animal is doing at any instant. Every stone. Every particle.
TravelinEdMan: The Price of an 8 Pack of Learning Theory Lectures? Nothing! Just a Lot of Bonk!
Set of 8 video lectures on learning theories from Curt Bonk at IU. The post says these can be used by any instructor teaching a course, although there isn't a specific CC license on them.
Half an Hour: Types of Knowledge and Connective Knowledge
Stephen Downes on connective knowledge. This starts with qualitative and quantitative as two types of knowledge recognized historically, continuing with some history of philosophical positions on types of knowledge. Downes argues that connective knowledge is not either empirical or rationalist, but a third type of knowledge. He uses a metaphor of carbon in different forms: carbon atoms connected differently can be coal, graphite, or diamonds. It's the same atoms, but the connections are different.
So, connective knowledge is knowledge OF the connections that exist in the world. It is knowledge about how such connections are created, and what impact, or effect, such a system of connections has.
So we have two types of connective knowledge, the knowledge that we have OF networks, that we obtain by looking at networks, and knowledge that is created and stored BY networks in the world.<br><br>Summary: Connective knowledge is both:<br>- knowledge OF networks in the world<br>- knowledge obtained BY networks
Summary:<br><br>Active participation in the network:<br>- as a node in the network, by participating in society<br>- as a whole network, by perceiving with the brain (the neiural network)<br>Reflective participation in the network:<br>- by observing society as a whole<br>- by reflecting on our mental states and processes
Test your web design in different browsers - Browsershots
Enter your URL and see screenshots in numerous browsers. The service is free, but pictures expire about 30 minutes after you make a request. It's fine for a quick check, but be sure to save the images locally if you need them long term. Nice way to test what your pages look like in, say, Linux even if you don't have that available.
Connectivism & Connective Knowledge » At the End of Week Two
Stephen Downes summarizes week 2 of CCK08, including a description of how different the discussions in Moodle and on the blogs are. The Moodle discussion has become very angry and dominated by a handful of people, while the blogs show much more diversity in perspectives.
Getting Started with Instructional Design
Manish Mohan on getting started in the field of instructional design, responding to several reader questions. Includes links to blog posts about ID careers (including my 2007 series), companies that hire IDs, courses and certificates available in India, and salaries.
Group Work in Distance Learning Courses
Nice list of different types of group assignments that can be used in online learning. Includes tips for facilitators to manage group work.
Working with Small Groups in an Online Classroom
Quick overview of small groups in online learning, plus a collection of strategies for working with groups.
When Things Go Wrong: Handling Problems During In-Class Group Work
Ideas on how to address issues with small groups in courses. This is written for face-to-face learning, not online, but a number of the tips still apply or could be adapted.
An open letter to Baby-Boomer Managers from Gen X/Y Employees : UberNoggin
What matters to Gen X/Y employees at work, written as a letter to Baby Boomers. Very much about what we value and what drives us crazy when working.
4. We don’t respect titles; we respect people.<br>
The internet has served as a great social equalizer. In most online communities your value (and therefore reputation and power) are based on what you contribute not who you are. A well-read 18 year old who knows his stuff and is constantly active in the editing process of a Wikipedia article may be revered more than the heavily credentialed professor who interjects, corrects, and condescends to the community of the page. These relationships break down entitlements and, instead, center on accomplishment and contribution.<br>
So if you want to respected, simply play your part and contribute. You’ll be known for the actions you take that probably earned you that title in the first place.
Clive on Learning: Who re-uses learning objects?
A pragmatic view of reusable learning objects. It's a nice idea on paper, as Clive says, but the reality isn't generally as clean as the theory. He sees the object-oriented approach to instructional design to overall be beneficial though.
And of course, it is difficult to create good content that is free of context, certainly not content that anyone would want to use.