How We Learn: VOST2011 Elearn Opinion Articles | Digital Delights | Scoop.it. Although I love online teaching, I've always been very grateful about the fact that my job allows me to teach both online and face-to-face courses My experiences teaching in both online and more traditional classroom environments have made me a better teacher, because what I learn from my students in one environment naturally informs what I do in the other environment. Yet despite how much I enjoy working in the online environment, there are times when that can get very isolating. Generally, during the academic year, I might have one full semester where I only teach online courses.
The following semester, I might teach mostly online and then teach one classroom-based course. I think teaching in both environments can make for a better learning experience for my students. As an example, in the classroom, I carefully observe what activities tend to engage and motivate the students the most, in turn I also attempt to observe where students struggle the most. About the Author Dr. Welcome to LearningExpress Library! | Digital Delights for Learners | Scoop.it. From Classroom to Online, Think “Transform” not “Transfer” by Jane Bozarth.
“Find out which aspects of the classroom program are most successful ... and which aspects fail. Talk with learners and the classroom instructors, and review any evaluation or follow-up data they are able to provide.” Converting an existing classroom course to an online format can be a tricky, time-consuming undertaking. The easy way out — simply moving the content and lecture portions to an electronic means of delivery — is what leads to e“Learning” at its worst: slide after slide of bulleted information and loss of engaging activities and the contributions of individual instructors. What’s a better way to go? Look for ways to capture the richness that a good instructor brings to the classroom, such as responsiveness, a sense of humor, interesting stories and examples, and immediate feedback. Also, when considering moving a classroom course online, approach it not just as converting one form to another, but as an opportunity to improve the existing product.
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5 Tools for Building a Next-Generation 'Hybrid' Class Website. [Nicholas C. Martin is a visiting professor at American University and the United Nations University for Peace. He is also co-founder and president of TechChange, an organization that trains leaders to leverage emerging technologies for sustainable social change. TechChange specializes in creating “next-generation” e-learning content, tools and communities. You can follow him on Twitter at @TechChange. Last month, I co-taught a course at American University’s School of International Service entitled ”Applications of Technology for Peacebuilding.” Prior to the course, we created an online social learning community in Drupal with a number of innovative features.
Once we got the Drupal site up and running we began creating and embedding various tools to support the learning process. If you’re interested in seeing some of these tools in action you can view a sample TechChange Unit. What We’re Working on Next: Photo provided by Nick Martin. Return to Top. Home | TechChange. Technology-for-Social-Change-syllabus. Edistorm - Edistorm - Online Brainstorming and Planning. Add a sticky note and post it online. Online Mind Mapping and Brainstorming - MindMeister. A Social Network Can Be a Learning Network - Online Learning. By Derek Bruff Last fall, for my first-year writing seminar on the history and mathematics of cryptography, I posted my students' expository-writing essays on our course blog. The assignment had asked students to describe a particular code or cipher that we had not already discussed—how it came to be, how it works, how to crack it, who used it.
They described more than a dozen codes and ciphers. It seemed a shame that I might be the only one to read such interesting content, so I asked the students to read and comment on two papers of their peers. The course blog provided an ideal platform for that task. About a week later, one of my students arrived at class excited. He had Googled his paper's topic (the "Great Paris Cipher") and saw that his paper was the third result listed. Online Learning: The Chronicle's 2011 Special Report BROWSE THE FULL ISSUE: News, Commentary, and Data BUY A COPY: Digital and Print Editions at the Chronicle Store Social bookmarking.
Back channels. Challenging the Presentation Paradigm: Prezi. With the semester creeping closer and closer and many of us frantically prepping new classes (or doing vital updates to existing classes), the topic of lecture slides invariably crops up. Are my slides really that useful to my students, or are they just a crutch for me? Should I use my old slides (with necessary minor updates)? Should I throw my slides out, and try something completely new? We are all aware that using lecture slides comes with some pretty problematic baggage. Personally, I’ve got to admit that I often feel a little academic guilt about using lecture slides – even though I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid “Crappy PowerPoint Syndrome” – CPS! (keep text to an absolutely minimum, no massive bullet point lists, lots of illustrative images, use slides to stimulate discussion, etc, etc, etc).
But let’s all be honest here, its unlikely that we’re going to completely change the way in which we deliver lectures. In the spirit of these questions, Prof. Have you tried Prezi? Prezi - The Zooming Presentation Editor. Reflections on Teaching with Social Media. As I’m a little more than a month out from the semester’s end, I’ve been reflecting on different aspects of the semester: things that worked well, things that didn’t work at all, and things that could be tweaked for the future. In particular, I’ve been musing on how I integrated social media into my classes. My classes tend to be fairly technologically heavy for a number of reasons: my own research revolves around the use of technology within narratives; I believe that teaching humanities students to use different tools in the classroom teaches them transferable skills; and I like to experiment with how technology can change the classroom space.
In other words, I use technology in the classroom for thematic, practical, and pedagogical reasons. I even have a technology policy in my syllabus. That being said, I used more social media this semester than I have previously. And as I mentioned previously, some of it worked and some didn’t. Twitter Wiki Google Wave Zotero And so on…. Return to Top.