Making the information come to you

Posted on April 16, 2008 by

Have you ever found a really good web site where great new information was posted regularly?  Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of having to go to all of the sites you like to check if there was something new, if that information could just come to you?  Wouldn’t it save a lot of time if you could find all of this new information in one place?

Well….you can!  You may have seen a button like this and wondered what it was for.

That button is a common symbol for RSS used on the web.  What RSS allows you to do is subscribe to web page content so that anytime new information is posted it is delivered to you just like the morning paper.  The first step is to set up an RSS reader.  Bloglines and Google Reader are two of the most popular, so I would pick one of those.  The next step is to find content you want to subscribe to, such as a blog or news website that posts regular content.  The final step is to add the link to the site’s RSS feed into your reader.  Once you’ve done that you won’t have to go to the web site anymore.  When new content is added, it will appear in your RSS reader and you can read it from there.

Here is a video that does a much better job of explaining it:

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

When I first started subscribing to sites using RSS it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.  After spending some time using it, though, I began to see how powerful it could be.  The ability to connect to constant streams of information around specific topics or interests changes the nature of the web.  It allows you to follow ideas and people having conversations around those ideas from all over the world.  You don’t have to go searching anymore.  You can make the information that you want come to you.

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Teacher is a DJ

Posted on April 3, 2008 by

I wrote yesterday about some simple things that you can do to help get your students engaged and connected at the beginning of the quarter.  Today, I came across this blog post about engaging students online that relates teaching to being a DJ.  I’ve heard this metaphor before, but it had slipped into the back of my mind until I was reminded again.  I especially liked this quote:

How would the dynamic change if learners felt free to vote with their feet like the clubbers, to walk off the dance floor whenever a class became too lame? This is exactly what online education enables them to do, and this is exactly why paying attention to the social component of these experiences is so much more critical in online learning.

Here is the link to the blog post:   http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/227

I know that we have a lot of students “walking off the dance floor” in our online classes.  How can we keep them dancing?

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Starting the Quarter Off in Your Online Class

Posted on April 2, 2008 by

The first two weeks in any class is important to set the tone for the quarter, but in an online class, they are especially important.  Students often come into an online class feeling a little bit unsure and alone in the experience.  During the first two weeks it is important to make a personal connection with the students and engage them in conversation.  Students need to feel like they are learning with other people and not just learning from a computer (which is boring and lonely).

I’ve put together my top ten list of ideas that might help you to connect with your students at the beginning of the quarter.  If you have other ideas you’d like to add to the discussion, please share them in the comments.

  1. Post a welcome message to the students in the course announcements area which introduces them to the class, how to contact you and let’s them know what they need to do to get started.
  2. Send each student a personal message or e-mail asking them how they are and if they have any questions about the course.
  3. Try and set up an appointment with each student to talk to them by phone sometime in the first two weeks of class.  A short phone conversation can go a long way towards establishing a good relationship with a student and making them feel comfortable approaching you with questions.
  4. Respond to students within 24 hours.  Nothing turns a student away from an online class like feeling they are not getting adequate attention and feedback from an instructor.  The faster you can respond to students, the more likely they will be to come to you with questions.
  5. Share a little bit about yourself.  Post some pictures or share a story.  You could even post a video or audio welcome message.  Do something to let students feel like they know you a little bit so it is easier for them to connect.
  6. Report students who are not logging in or participating after the first week.  If you let me know, I can forward this information to retention staff or site coordinators who will be better able to contact students and help them get started.
  7. Write in a conversational style on your class page.  When writing announcements or messages to students, avoid using academic jargon or formal language.  You can do that in other parts of the class if you want.  Use these tools as a way to have a conversation with students in the same voice you would if you were talking to them in the hallway after class.
  8. Post regular announcements to guide students and keep them on track.  Each week at the beginning of the week it is a good idea to post a message to the course announcements outlining the activities for the week, letting them know what the expectations are, and introducing the topic.
  9. Try to send short messages or reminders every week in addition to the more formal weekly announcements to maintain a presence in the class.  This is especially good practice if you are not participating regularly in discussion forums.  Send quick messages with a thought about the class or something new you found on the web.  Maybe you could send a link to something in the news, a cartoon or funny video on YouTube that relates to the class somehow.  The idea is to continuously remind students they are in the class and engage them in continuous conversation.
  10. Try to have fun.  It’s difficult to add humor in an online class and the same jokes you use in the face to face classroom don’t usually translate online.  It’s important, though, to try and engage the class in some type of fun activities or share some funny stories.  A little bit of entertainment doesn’t hurt and can help make your class a more inviting and enjoyable place.
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eLearning 2008 Conference Summary

Posted on February 28, 2008 by

I was lucky enough to get to travel to the eLearning 2008 conference last week with Phill and Rochelle.  Along with hanging out at the beach, we gave a presentation about distance learning at NWIC, and learned a lot about what other school’s all over the country are doing with their e-learning programs. 

Here is a link to the audio recording from our presentation, along with links to our notes and slides, for anyone who is interested in taking a look at what we did.

http://nwic-elearning-presentation.pbwiki.com 

I didn’t take detailed notes in all of the sessions like Rochelle, but I thought I would share a summary of some of the basic themes and ideas that seemed to expressed throughout the conference.

Shareable Online Content Creation

It looks like people are starting to get away from creating Word and pdf documents for their courses and are moving towards online tools instead.  Google docs and Google notebook were the most popular tools being used.  The advantage of using these is that they are free, can be easily shared and viewed online, and they allow multiple people to edit the same document.  A number of schools were doing some great classroom collaboration exercises with these tools, such as have students co-author documents or edit each others work.  Wikis were also being used quite a bit for creating content and as collaborative spaces.  Wikispaces and PBWiki were two of the sites which allow free wiki sites to be set up.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 was probably the biggest buzzword at the conference this year.  Basically it means the shift away from a web where students simply consume information to a web where students participate in the creation of information.  It is a shift towards a web that is collaborative and social as opposed to a static repository.  It is becoming less a library and more a conversation.  What this means for learning is that the web is not just a place for teachers to post content and students to read it.  There is a growing movement towards teaching methods where the web is used as a platform for student interaction and collaboration and where students are encouraged to post content for sharing with each other.  Popular tools for doing this are wikis, blogs, podcasts, Flickr and social video sites such as YouTube.  Del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site, is also being used as a way for students to save and share web sites they find useful.

Blogs as more than Blogs

Everyone is used to seeing blogs used as online journals, but now people are starting to explore new uses for blogs in education.  Blogs are being used as a way for students to create learning portfolios.  They are also being used by faculty as a content management system to create and share course materials (kind of like an online text book).  These are just some of the possibilities people are exploring.

Open Educational Resources

Everyone knows that students are sick of paying extraordinary amounts of money for textbooks and many people are now exploring how the web can be used to help create an alternative.  There are a number of open repositories such as Hippocampus and MERLOT  where you can share and search for educational materials.  In addition, there are a growing number of universities making course materials available online for free (Open Courseware Consortium).  One of my favorite sites I learned about was freedocumentaries.org, a site that has a growing library of free to view documentaries online. 

List of open education resource sites:

Future of E-Learning

In the closing keynote address, Elliott Masie talked about his visions for e-learning in the future.  One of his predictions was that e-learning would move more towards mobile devices (ie. phones & iPods) and information will be able to be accessed anytime, anywhere.  Imagine a biology lab where students go out in the field and then use a mobile web device to research a plant they are looking at.  Another trend he saw was the movement away from the traditional college model where students go to class for four years and then graduate from school.  He envisioned a model where the goal of the college is not to graduate students, but to keep them learning throughout their careers.  He also mentioned a growing trend of students taking classes from multiple institutions to obtain their degrees, instead of being place based at one a students have done in the past.

These are just some of the ideas we learned about at the conference.  If you have questions about how you can implement any of these in your classes, come and talk to me.

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Rochelle’s eLearning Conference Summary

Posted on February 28, 2008 by

E-Learning Conference 2008: Notes from Rochelle Troyano

This was an exciting conference for me. It was wonderful to meet colleagues from all over the country and to exchange ideas. Moreover, my traveling companions, Jason Myers and Phill Allen, were great!

I learned many things, two of which will play a part in my work in the coming year:

  • The philosophy of Web 2.0 as applied to academia: that learning is best accomplished if we don’t teach from the top down, but rather allow the students to participate in their own learning. I feel that the cultural philosophy of NWIC supports this kind of learning!
  • The move away from traditional textbook learning and into providing our students with learning coming from many different avenues. Technology is there to aid us in doing this for our students

Featured Presentation: Learning from our Worst Practices: Dr Myk Garn

Dr Garn gave a lively, interactive and humorous presentationhighlighting the desirability of willingness to make mistakes. This willingness will enhance our creativity in being able to make interesting lessons for our students. I loved this presentation. Dr Garn involved the audience by asking that we share our “dumb” mistakes. Some of the quotes that he had circulating in his presentation:

  • “A Zen Master’s life is one continuous mistake”
  • “Knowledge rests not upon truth alone but upon error as well”
  • “Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage”
  • “In times of change, learners inherit the earth”

                                                         

Creating Fast and Easy Courseware and Simulations With PowerPoint: Steve Bonham, Georgia Southern University

This was also a GREAT presentation. Almost all of us use PowerPoint and this presentation showed how to use it to make self-teaching lessons for online learning. I can’t wait to try this out.

Enhance and Enliven Your Teaching with MERLOT: James Rutledge, St. Petersburg College

MERLOT stands for Multimedia Educational Resource For Learning and Online Teaching. It’s one of the earliest collection of learning resources, or what is called OER (Open Education Resources). And it’s FREE. These are peer-reviewed, college level lessons and learning objects.You can join for free and while creating your profile, indicate your discipline. Finding material to use in your face to face and online classroom is not difficult.

http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm

Strategies for Motivating and Retaining First-Term Online Students: Carolyn Stevenson and Carol Forrey, Kaplan University

I liked this session and was able to join into the discussion. Some of the things that the presenting group did or were discussed at large:

  • New Student Orientation 1 week prior to start of classes for 1 credit
  • “R U Ready?” group of student mentors who personalize the new student experience by calling each new student and then being on-call to them
  • Support Site piggybacked on Moodle – called SOS (Support Online Site). You can out other student service options
  • Solicit senior mentors by giving certificates
  • Online audios/Videos of previous students’ experiences
  • Web repository of why students came back to school
  • Synchronous “chat”

Mashing Up the Face of Academia: John Krutsch, Utah Valley University

Does anyone remember the Simon and Garfunkle song, “The 6 O’clock News”? In this song, the 6 o’clock news (with dire events) comes on while Christmas music is playing. The news gets louder and louder by the end of the song. This is a mash-up, a term I didn’t know but I think we all know the concept. Applying it to academia, it would be like not just using the textbook, but bringing in many more resources. Applying it to technology, it becomes mixed media and it can be fun for Instructor (if they like to experiment) and student alike.

The Community College Consortium for Open Education resources: Fred Lokken, Travis Souza, Dan Jones: Truckee Meadows CC and Coastline CC

The stress in this conference was certainly on moving education AWAY from expensive textbooks and the one-prong approach to teaching and learning that usually goes along with that. I came away with MANY resources for obtaining free, vetted and quality material for serving our educational needs. This new consortium (CCCOER) offered several resources:

The Promise of OER: Hippocampus Reaches Out to the Underserved: Terri Rowenhorst, Monterey Institute of Technology

Terri started right off offering me an information sheet about NWIC joining Hippocampus free, because they wish to involve tribal colleges at no cost. Hippocampus is again an online repository of online course work and learning objects, funding by NROC (National repository of Online Courses). Link: http://hippocampus.org/http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/

Second Life for Administrators: Andrew Jones, Patti Jennings, Erin Jennings, U. of Texas

This one was definitely not for me! This was based on gaming and simulations.

Building Communities of Discourse Online: Kevin Morgan, St Petersburg College

I felt right at home in this group because Kevin conducts his online class in the same way as I do! He felt that, given the right tools, an Instructor could make an online course superior to F2F (face to face). He stated that the “discussion Forum” is the heart and soul of online learning. I have found that to be true in my online courses as well. His lessons were called “Cyber Journeys” and students write their 500 words discussions relative to these journeys. He has a sliding point scale for when someone posts their discussion (earlier is better) and whether they respond to other students in a substantive way.I entered into the lively discussion and took away some ideas on how to enliven my hybrid classes as well!

As soon as the ITC (Instructional Technology Council) has the sessions posted, I would be happy to provide you with links to any of the sessions. Here’s the link to ITC:

http://www.itcnetwork.org/

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Welcome to the NWIC e-learning blog

Posted on February 27, 2008 by

I’ve been meaning to set this up for a long time, but have been putting it off for one reason or another.  After my experience at the eLearning conference last week I’m feeling motivated to put it up so I can share some of what we learned at the conference and continue to share ideas as I come across them.

At first I’ll send e-mails to notify you when I add new posts, but eventually I will get away from spamming your inboxes and let you retrieve the information on your own through RSS.  I know that right now, only a few people probably know what I’m talking about, so don’t worry.  I’ll be putting together a tutorial for you on that.  It’s a really simple and powerful tool that lets you subscribe to pages on the web and have it new content delivered to you as it is created (instead of you having to search for it).

More to come…. 

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