The course is delivered completely online, so you can work from your office, home, or anywhere that you have an internet connection!

The next available section begins April 26th, and both full-time and adjunct faculty can enroll simply by emailing me.

What will the course be like?

The course revolves around learning about best practices for teaching online, discussing them as a group, and putting them into practice. We will interact in a blog and a wiki and get to experience dozens of online tools. Additionally, you will have two quizzes, build a rubric, and as your final project you will design an entire online assignment that promotes active learning and utilizes online tools.

The course is designed to be practical. Ideally you will be able to take what you’ve learned and created in the course and immediately use it in your courses. Your final project can be geared towards one of the courses you currently teach.

Is this a boring training I will mindlessly float through?
I hope not! No, this is intended to be a “real” course. It was designed to meet the needs of teachers who will be teaching online and in a “practice what we preach” format. The learning will be active — you will be participating and doing, not just reading. We will be having discussions every week and a few projects.

Is this a self-paced course?
No, this will be an active, collaborative, interactive classroom experience. Most of it will be “asynchronous” (not “live”) but nonetheless will involve lots of communication and interaction.

Why does it have to be online?
Well, if you’re going to teach online, you should be able to take a course online . Also, it will be valuable for you to experience things from the student side before you are on the instructor side of an online course.

What will I learn?:
As a result of taking this course, learners should be able to:

• Articulate an instructor’s role in an online learning environment
• Develop appropriate strategies for promoting active learning (using online tools, pedagogy/andragogy, etc.)
• Recognize learner characteristics or styles and apply appropriate strategies to
• monitor and facilitate students’ online learning
• Apply effective strategies for facilitating and assessing online interactions
• Manage your time, workload, and administrative issues related to teaching
• effectively online

How do I sign up?

Email me: edwards.m@rhodesstate.edu

Enrollment will be on a first-come first-serve basis, so if you are interested don’t hesitate! There are only 10 seats!

But, what if I still have some questions?!
Feel free to ask in the comments here or by emailing me or on Twitter!

Wowee kapowee!

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 helps with retention of knowledge.

Daniel described a healthcare marketing class that was facing some challenges in motivating student creativity. They hoped to make a change to increase student retention and comprehension. Instead of the typical “talking head” video to introduce a section, Garrick had another idea. They would parody of NBC’s The Office to create engaging and humorous videos.

Instructional Design: Finding a way to meet a learning objective

The goal of Daniel and Garrick’s project was to develop a learning resource that could demonstrate how certain marketing concepts are applied by showing situations students could relate to and easily interpret.

Their process:

• Use a team approach (to ensure humor and concept involved has wide appeal)
• Work with instructor to figure out the core concepts involved
• Have brainstorming sessions
• Develop character personalities
• Write the script
• Select cast members

Dan’s character was modeled after Michael Scott and Garrick after Jim. The important thing was to model the humor dynamics between different kinds of characters.

To write the script they did not want a long video. After about 15 minutes “students are gone.” They also wanted to be able to deliver it over the web using their school’s streaming server.

Leading up to shooting they had script readings to help people get into character. Ad-libbing was encouraged for some emergent humor.

They shot video for about an hour and took 3-4 hours to edit the footage. (Mike sez: This is quite fast for a video project!)

The video itself was hilarious and I hope they post it publicly so I can link to it. It was quite funny!

Assessing Learning

To assess learning they used a combination of the following:

• Journal Entries
• Quizzes
• Synchronous Chat
• Marketing Projects

The journals didn’t quite give them the feedback they needed. While student feedback was positive it was more in the form of praise for the humor of the video (“Hilarious! I showed my wife!”). To supplement the assessment effort they had quizzes to demonstrate knowledge retention. Additionally there were two synchronous chats for each module. Finally there were marketing projects to give students a chance to demonstrate their learning.

Dan said after they implemented this approach that the student projects were the highest quality he had ever seen.

Mike’s take:

Dan and Garrick did a phenomenal job not only entertaining us, but also by describing a clear process for creating engaging videos. They discouraged boring, long lecture style videos that mainly feature a “talking head” and encouraged creativity.

(Unfortunately the presentation was much more of a tour of Moodle than it was a guide to best practices in collaboration.)

Kimberly started off polling the audience about what their job is. The crowd was a mix of principals, professional development specialists, technology specialists, and library technologists.

Kimberly then encouraged us to be willing to envision something “complex” in planning for online learning. She encouraged study of options and ensuring that there is sufficient infrastructure, robust training, and clear expectations. Additionally, it is highly recommended to have dedicated support and development personnel.

The Green High school district used Moodle, a free and open source Learning Management System.

Starting small

Before launching into online learning, Green High decided to start by building a professional learning network. They began by converting all hand-out materials to a one-stop-shop online source. This included:

• Staff handbook
• Staff directory
• Links to important information
• Instructions for staff

Additionally, they began in a blended format while they acclimated the staff to using the online tools. They set up a school-wide discussion forum to support teachers. Kimberly encouraged those wanting to dive in to automate tasks normally done on paper, demonstrate collaborative features, and eventually to outright require collaboration from teachers.

Avoid Clutter & Reinvention

Kimberly had these tips:

• Stay focused on district and building goals
• Don’t “crowd the inbox” of staff members
• Make a long term commitment to developing the online learning environment.
• Be prepared to meet people where they are and then move forward.

At this point Cindy took control to show us the setup of their Moodle homepage. She gave us a tour of all the kinds of documents they had posted on their Moodle site.

Cindy explained how Moodle helps them to keep to keep their eye on the goal of accomplishing teaching and curriculum goals.

Craig speaks up

Craig took over at this point. He became interested in Moodle through a course he took from U of Akron. Akron used Springboard (another LMS) and Craig really enjoyed the interaction and reduced paper overhead in taking the class. All class assignments were downloaded from the web and most class participants had laptops.

Craig uses Moodle in his math classes to post lessons and notes as well as quizzes.

Mike’s Take:

The presentation provided a good overview for school districts who have yet to dive into teaching online and supporting faculty development with online learning tools. It wasn’t much up my alley because I’m already in a college system that is using these tools for online courses.

Moodle has always looked really busy to me. Like  it has too much clutter in your face. That said, it’s great to have a free and open source option for learning management.

Microblogging? What!?

Microblogging is the use of tools such as Twitter to send out short (140 character or less) messages. They are ubiquitous because of integration with mobile phones, web browsers, and robust standalone apps.

Mary describes herself as “always looking for things to use that are out of the box.” While her school had Blackboard, she preferred to find alternative web tools to use for her classes. She required that these tools be easy to use, have low learning curves, and require little effort to set up.

There are over 139 microblogging sites (a conservative estimate). How to pick one?

Overview of (some) tools

Edmodo

http://www.edmodo.com

• Many “classroom” type features.
• Enables users to create groups and share files, links, embedded videos and images along with alerts, assignments and events.
• SMS text; mobile phone app
• several resources for teaching tips.

Mary said edmodo was great because it included lots of features useful for teachers. In fact, it was created by active teachers! Since it is specifically geared towards teaching, it could be ideal for educational applications of microblogging. However, Mary noted that it is a fairly new service and is very private in nature. As such it might not fit your classroom depending on your intended use of microblogging.

Jaiku

“A twitter wannabe” as Mary put it.

http://www.jaiku.com

• Posts limited to 100 characters
• “channels” allow you to separate conversation streams and thread comments
• lets you add RSS feeds from your blog or photo site; nice features for uploading images
• each post has its own page for comments

Plurk

http://www.plurk.com

“If you are visual, this tool is for you.”

• Social journaling with a visual timeline (140 characters)
• Can create “cliques” to send information to specific groups and manage audiences
• Allows messaging; sharing of images and videos
• Allows for keyword searching to locate
• Nice built-in features for posting

Plurk doesn’t support SMS text messaging for posts. Also, as the userbase is small there may not be as many support materials.

Tumblr

http://www.tumblr.com

• “Like an online scrapbook. Good for podcasting/videos.”
• More of a mini-blog than a micro-blog
• Photos, video support

Tumblr blogs are all public and have a moderate learning curve. Might require more setup than other tools.

Other microblogs to check out:

Hictu – http://www.hictu.com

Like Skype+microblogging+YouTube

Squeelr - http://www.squeelr.com

“Anonymous” microblogging. “I don’t like it but I want you to know about it because it’s like an evil Rate Your Professor! Watch out!”

iPhone only app that uses geolocation for postings.

Blip.fm – http://www.blipfm

Music microblogging.

——-

Features to consider when choosing a microblogging tool:

• Tool integration and mashup capabilities (Does it work with other things?)
• Ease of use
• Support systems (forums? guides?)
• Privacy and security funcitons
• Messaging accessibility (SMS text)
• Levels of control (Owner vs. contributor vs. reader…)
• Read up on a tool on http://microblogs.gemzies.com/ to compare features and get the lowdown.

Uses of microblogging:

Announcements

• Class events
• Assignments
• Updates

Academic Support

• Study groups, tutoring library support
• Information: FAQs on school policies, procedures, safety information

Instructional activities

• Enhance class discussions with postings
• digital storytelling; “twittories”
• Platform for meta-cognition (clear-concise-thinking) activities
• Enhance cross-cultural experiences
• fieldwork notebooks
• medium for brainstorming

The 3 C’s

Communication, Collaboration, Creating

• Microblogs provide both synchronous and asynchronous communication exchange of content
• accessible medium for collaborative global classroom projects
• 140 word digital formative assessments
• instant feedback for lectures

Social Literacy

• Teach information literacy skills
• Provide access to instant news coverage of events as they unfold – election night
• Teach students appropriate ways to converse online
• Prompt students to engage in user content creation and to evaluate user generated content in an immediate manner

Solve problems

• Course centric streams for specific class topics
• Case study analysis; trend analysis
• Collaborative research projects through project-based channels
• Enables opportunities for students to answer queries within brief timeline
• Post to the politician, community leader

Build citizenship

• Learn a language
• Follow global trending topics
• New version of pen pals
• Connect students to social service agencies to address community concerns
• Cultivate cultural exchanges on a wide range of current event topics; issues; debates

Foster teaching

• Share links and resources
• Mentoring tools for other teachers
• Help student teachers
• Facilitate ongoing “teacher chats” (On tuesdays follow hashtag #edchat)
• Personal learning networks
• Connect conferences (Like #oetc10)

Questions to ask yourself before using microblogs for education

Mary discussed some big questions to ask when considering use of microblogging tools.

• How do I convince administration that I can teach with these tools?
• What type of controls will I have in place to ensure privacy and security?
• How do you assess the use of MBs for learning?
• What happens to the content?
• How should I integrate micro-blogging into my teaching?

Final recommendations

• Select the tool that best fits your purpose
• Determine parameters for classroom use of the tool to control “noise” levels
• Ensure that use of the tool is linked to meaningful activities that reflect learning objectives
• Know when not to use the tool
• Integrate microblogging with other proven tools.

Mike’s take on the presentation

Mary’s overview of microblogging was excellent. Not only did she explain a variety of tools but she described a huge amount of uses for the tools.

Presenters Gail Greenberg and Nadine Grimm discussed their digital exhibits project for encouraging students to higher-order thinking. Utilizing the free and open source Omeka, they built a virtual “primary source exhibit.”

Digitized history exhibits? What?

Drawing on maps, photos, documents and other primary sources and packaging them into interactive online learning using Web 2.0 tools.

George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media strives to “use digital media to preserve and present history online, transform scholarship across the humanities, and advance historical education and understanding.” They are in year 2 of a 3 year project partnership.

The project:

They built an interactive website to collect various digital media relating to history and to organize it into teaching modules that students can move through. The presenters showed us various images they had gathered from Schwebel (the bread company).

The presenters wanted to emphasize that their presentation was about a process and not just a product. They weren’t just sharing a useful Web 2.0 tool, but were exploring a strategy for teaching history online.

Mike’s take:

I felt they could have done a much better job explaining what advantages they found in creating/using Omeka versus other site-building products. Additionally, I would have liked more of a description of the project from the student perspective. How did they go through the course? What did their activity consist of? What were the results?

Omeka?

Omeka is open source software that makes it easy to share or layout goods in a collection. As such is was ideal for the creation of online exhibits. The project involved over 50 teachers and required orientation and training sessions to acclimate them to using Omeka.

Learn more:

http://chnm.gmu.edu/omeka/

I stopped in the main hallway to get my bearings and choose a 10AM session to attend. I decide on “What’s in their pockets?!? Using what your students already have.” and head to the D section of the extensive conference center. Even though I’m 30 minutes early, this room is packed. There are no open seats and people have begun sitting along the back wall. Seeing as there is no wall space left, I decide to sit on the floor in an aisle between tables. The aisle is wide and I figure I’m plenty “out of the way.”

Then the presenters announce excitedly that the room next door is not using their chairs, so I rush over to grab a chair only to find that they ARE having a session. No chairs. I walk back to the room and take my seat on the floor again. I’m as inconspicuous as possible and far to the side, out of the way of anyone who needs to walk down the aisle.

As I’m getting my laptop connected and logging into my blog I am approached by a blue shirted conference worker. He tells me I can’t sit in the aisle. No attempt was made to find a seat for me, or to provide any alternatives. I simply had to go.

So I left the session completely!

Here’s the thing that bothers me: It wasn’t that the room was full of people shoulder to shoulder. There was plenty of space at the tables. There were simply not enough chairs in the room.

How about providing adequate seating next time, OETC!

Discussion question: How could these ideas about intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation inform the way we teach courses?

Session 1: 9:00AM-NOON
Lunch: Noon-1:00PM (Pizza in TL Lobby)
Session 2: 1:00PM-4:00PM

Grab a seat and prepare to learn about a multitude of online tools you can use in your courses.

• Learn about Blended Learning pedagogy that will equip you to make the most of teaching tools available online and for your classroom.
• Get hands-on experience with online tools.
• Ask questions and enjoy quality discussions.
• Learn about tools such as ChaCha, Ustream, Google Sites, and many more!

See the flyer I made:

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 time. Google is making it open source and extendable, meaning that anyone can freely take the platform they create, tinker with it for their own needs, and deploy it themselves.

Hard to explain in words, so if your interest is piqued, set aside some time and watch the unveiling here and imagine how we will be able to use this in education.

Why should you care?

This will make engaging, interactive collaboration EASY. It will bridge the gap between these many “separate” tools we have sitting out there, and, here’s what I think is huge: Wave will make it possible to seamlessly shift between different forms of communication fluidly. We can leave messages but also immediately discuss them as well as edit previous mistakes. Finally, there is a way to review what happened in a chronological fashion. Media can be tied into it. You can add/remove recipients on-the-go, so if you think someone should be part of an already ongoing discussion, you can add them just like you add a recipient to email.

It’s all searchable, and based upon contacts/friends akin to email or facebook, but this is email for the 21st century — doing away with some of the old post office metaphor.

It’ll be intuitive, including drag-and-drop support for image sharing and using the latest web technologies included in HTML5.

It will be mobile friendly, both because smart phones are becoming more widespread but also because the technology behind it is all about connectivity.

I know there is lots of skepticism about both the innovativeness and the disruptive potential of this, but in my opinion this is the next big thing. The fact that Google is making it open source is even better. The need for proprietary software is shrinking with tools like this. Imagine the day when the old post office metaphor for email is no longer the dominating understanding of communication.

We should keep it near and dear on the radar to see how we can take advantage of this for distance learning.