Sloan-C: Great Ideas series

By Michael Edwards | Published: April 27, 2009

Great Ideas series

A series of short (10 minute) presentations of ideas and tools for blended learning. Read More »

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Sloan-C: Blending With Purpose

By Michael Edwards | Published: April 27, 2009

Blending With Purpose

Anthony “Tony” G. Picciano facilitated a panel that included George Otte (City University of New York), Karen Vignare (Michigan State University) and Tony himself.

Before the panel format began, Tony talked a bit about the emergence of blended/hybrid courses over the past 6 or 7 years. Tony had put together a multimodal model of blended learning intended to address both learning styles, student learning outcomes, and relevant web technologies and tools to create quality blended learning environments that are interactive, engaging, and collaborative. Read More »

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Sloan-C: Welcome & Introductions

By Michael Edwards | Published: April 27, 2009

Sloan-C Blended Workshop

Mary Niemiec kicked things off at the 2009 Sloan-C Blended Workshop by speaking a bit about the evolution of blended learning. “When we first started it was an invited 30 people. Blended learning wasn’t well defined (hybrid? tech-advanced?).”

“It took almost two years to agree on a common definition that seems to be permeating both the US and Canada.”

Blended learning, she explained, is an intentional blend of online and face-to-face instruction. That could be just a blended course or an entirely blended program.

Data Collection

Other problems she noted were the lack of a consistent method of collecting data about these courses. Generating data about performance, retention, and more remain issues regarding blended learning.

The dominant theme she sees is that blended learning is becoming a part of almost every institution, especially as budgets get tight.

Niemac, finally, stressed her hope that we would leave this workshop (“Not a conference, a workshop!”) with new ideas for planning and teaching in blended formats, but also to become committed to collecting good data and assessments of how blended courses and programs are working.

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Attending: Sloan-C Workshop on Blended Learning

By Michael Edwards | Published: April 24, 2009

I will be attending the Sloan-C Workshop on Blended Learning and Higher Education this weekend hosted by the University of Illinois at Chicago in Lisle, Illinois.

You can find more information on the conference page, but during the event I will be:

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Blogging In Education

By Michael Edwards | Published: March 19, 2009

I am presenting to some Allied Health faculty today on using Blogs in education. Check out the pdf:

Blogging In Education – (PDF 1.6MB)

bloggingcover

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LLT09 Video Highlights

By Michael Edwards | Published: March 4, 2009


View on Vimeo.

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LLT09: Responses & Reflection

By Michael Edwards | Published: March 4, 2009

I’d like to hear others’ thoughts about this year’s Learning, Libraries + Technology conference.

Here are some potential prompts:

  • What sessions did you attend? What did you think of them?
  • Was there any technique/technology/idea that has stuck in your mind that you might consider implementing in a course?
  • If you were there for the keynote on Monday, what did you think of Michael Wesch’s presentation?
  • Did you find Wesch’s statistics about YouTube astonishing? (In short, YouTube has generated more video content in 6 months than 4 major tv networks have since they came into existence).
  • What did you make of Wesch’s argument that old models of education (information is above comment/discussion, scarcity of information, authority of the teacher) have been shaken?
  • Anything else come to mind?
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RAD133 Welcome Video

By Michael Edwards | Published: March 3, 2009

I used a Flip Mino HD ($229!!) to shoot this welcome video to RAD133. Edited in iMovie ‘09 (I like the new typography options in ‘09.)

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LLT09: Quality Matters – Collaborations in Quality

By Michael Edwards | Published: March 2, 2009

Connie Molnar, Brenda Boyd, Mark Karamol, Paul Bowers, Sheryl Hansen & Leslie King led a panel presentation/discussion about the Quality Matters consortia.

Quality Matters is “both a process and a (not-for-profit) service.” An inter-institutional peer review for improving online course design. It is a collaboration on rubrics, standards, support, and more.

llt09_qualitymatters

Connie Molnar and others present on Quality Matters

QM does a lot of work to help improve online courses by, among other things, creating a good dialogue about quality in course design. It should be noted that QM focuses on DESIGN and not DELIVERY — which is a whole other arena of evaluation.

In addition to encouraging excellence and improvement, QM helps build collaboration between institutions as well as within institutions.

More information about Quality Matters can be found here:
http://www.oln.org/QM/qm_consortia.php

An area of concern from my perspective is the high costs associated with participating. I’m generally on board with the whole idea, but I imagine that many institutions are struggling to compensate their faculty for developing and teaching online in the first place, let alone investing that much into evaluation and improvement.

Anyone else have thoughts?

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LLT09: University 2.0 How BGSU Leveraged Open Source Technology to Create a Web 2.0 Learning Landscape by Terence Armentano

By Michael Edwards | Published: March 2, 2009
Terence prepares to present

Terence prepares to present

Terence, using the impressive and dynamic Prezi, presented on how BGSU took an open source blogging platform (WordPress) and built a “learning landscape.” You can find out more on the blog Terence set up for the conference as a live & ongoing demo.

More powerful, more versatile

Moreso than the narrow and commercial LibGuides, BGSU’s implementation of WordPress shows how, given the necessary staff and support, an open source platform like WordPress can be much more versatile for solving problems and building learning solutions.

Terence also made a great point about how blogging opens up the windows of transparency for BGSU. Programs, offices, and even individual faculty can build an online presence that not only creates an identity, but can generate a community by utilizing the blogging, podcasting, and RSS capabilities of WordPress.

Open and Expandable

Terence stressed the scalability of WordPress as a solution. For those with simple needs (editing text, uploading documents) it was very easy to use, but for those with more complex needs (i.e. building an online BlackBoard tutorial database) it could easily adapt.

After his presentation, Terence opened it up for discussion and a lot of good topics were involved:

  • Content issues, copyright, censorship, and related policies
  • Server considerations, costs, “what’s the hidden cost.”
  • How many people does it take to keep it “alive”? (Answer: 2 people).
  • Tying user accounts with their campus accounts.
  • Overcoming administration resistance to the open environment of blogging.

Overall, a fantastic presentation. (I’m biased in that I LOVE WordPress…) but the extensibility of the platform is just astounding, and I’d like to see it take root at my college, Rhodes State College.

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  • 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.