About Me
Michael Edwards is an Instructional Designer for the Center for Distance Education at Rhodes State College.This blog contains his thoughts on various elearning resources, pedagogy, technology, and web 2.0 as well as feeds from some of his favorite resources.
Author Archives: Michael Edwards
Stepping out of the box: Using Parody and Humor to engage students /OETC2010
Daniel Hoppe and Garrick Ducat of Mercy College presented on the use of humor for engaging students.
Benefits to laughing in the classroom
Garrick began the presentation by noting that there isn’t a lot of research out there about using humor to support learning. The biggest problem facing students is high anxiety. Humor helps diminish that. Humor also [...]
Collaboration 101: 21st Century Learning Management /OETC2010
Kimberly Brueck (Instructional Technologist), Cindy Brown (Associate Principle), and Craig McKendry (Math Teacher) from Green High School presented on using blended learning to encourage professional development and innovative teaching. Although geared towards K-12 I decided to attend anyway in hopes of more universally helpful principles and tips.
(Unfortunately the presentation was much more of a tour [...]
Posted in Default, elearning Tagged Collaboration, Green High school district, Learning management, moodle, OETC2010 Leave a comment
Teaching with Microblogging Tools /OETC2010
Mary Hricko of Kent State University presented an overview of how educators and administrators can use microblogging tools for teaching, learning, and supporting students. What follows is a summary of her presentation, which was quite excellent. At the end I’ll offer my thoughts on it.
Microblogging? What!?
Microblogging is the use of tools such as Twitter to [...]
Posted in Twitter, Web 2.0 Tagged Edmodo, Jaiku, Kent State University, Mary Hricko, Microblogging, OETC2010, Plurk, Twitter 3 Comments
Thinking Historically /OETC2010
For my first session at OETC2010 I am attending “Thinking Historically: Building a Primary Source Exhibit and Online Teaching Module with Omeka.” (There was an earlier session, but I was unable to remain in it…)
Presenters Gail Greenberg and Nadine Grimm discussed their digital exhibits project for encouraging students to higher-order thinking. Utilizing the free and [...]
Posted in Default Tagged Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, History, OETC2010, Omeka, Web 2.0 2 Comments
Got Kicked Out of a Session /OETC2010
I suffered through Columbus traffic with fellow traveler Rick Woodfield to finally reach the Ohio Etech Conference 2010. We finally get to the conference at about 9AM and after registration we split up to go our separate ways.
I stopped in the main hallway to get my bearings and choose a 10AM session to attend. I [...]
Dan Pink on human motivation, creativity
Discussion question: How could these ideas about intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation inform the way we teach courses?
Upcoming Event: Faculty Professional Development
I and a guest, Corinne Hoisington of Central Virginia Community College, are presenting this week to the Rhodes State faculty on technological tools they can use to enhance their classes and engage their students. Details below:
Thursday, Sept 17, 2009
Tech Lab, Rooms 111 & 129
Rhodes State College
Session 1: 9:00AM-NOON
Lunch: Noon-1:00PM (Pizza in TL Lobby)
[...]
Posted in elearning Tagged Blended Learning, online, Presentation, Professional Development, Web 2.0, web20 1 Comment
Google Wave: The Future of Online Collaboration
This is cutting edge, breaking news in web products. Google announced Wave yesterday.
General information
http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html
In a way, it’s a combination of several familiar forms of communication, including:
Email
Discussion Boards
Wiki
Instant Messaging
Text Document
Image sharing, files, etc.
You can have interactive conversations, threaded discussion, and “living documents” all at once. It’s a mashup of email, discussions, wiki, blogging, everything in real [...]
Sloan-C: Designing for a Blended Community of Inquiry
Designing for a Blended Community of Inquiry
Karen Swan introduced Norm Vaughan (Mount Royal College) as he delivered an interactive workshop about blended learning across two sessions divided by a break.
Attending: Quality Matters training