Assignments as Checklists for Student Self-Directedness

Business Faculty Robert Cartelli graciously agreed to share one of his practices that support student self-directedness.

When he posts the assignments for a given week, he advises students to use the document as a checklist so they can track how they've met those assignments.

View a Checkpoint Checklist here

Last but not least, this is a great example of a learning-college principle (the philosophy which informs CMC practices)--that learners take responsibility for their learning.

Color Blindness Quiz

Another educator sent me this quiz.

Try it and see how you score. It reminded me of the importance of color-contrast when you are creating materials for courses or other purposes.

Color-blindess quiz

Trust or Distrust? Using Antiplagarism Software

An interesting article on the different approaches used in colleges and universities to the sticky question of plagarism detection software . . . to use it or not to use it. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i25/25a01201.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Monday sessions at e-Learning 2008

Just a note that I am continuing on annual leave after the conference. I appreciate the comments that have already been made. I'll plan to respond to these and any others that are made next week. Hope your week goes well!

Okay, get ready to overwhelmed. I don't recommend trying this at work because you may end up spending the rest of your day checking out this site. On my first post from the conference I mentioned Web 2.0 tools. Take a look at the possibilities on this site: http://www.go2web20.net/. Keep in mind this is a wide open list so be prepared for anything when you click.



I attended sessions Monday on:

• Predicting and Ensuring Student Success in the Online Classroom


• The Idea of Quality and Intentional Improvement


• Tackling Diversity and Culture in Distance Learning


• Instructional Challenges in the Mobile Education World

Some points made by presenters and subsequent areas for discussion rolling around in my head

... distance learning has a paradox in that the reason students enroll in our courses (my job is too time-consuming for me to attend classes) becomes the very reason they don't complete said course (my job is too time-consuming)

... how warm and welcoming is your first Blackboard announcement?

... how important for student success is the textbook you choose? do you need to look at something different?

... a couple of presenters have challenged faculty to have an anonymous discussion forum addressing what should I (the instructor) keep doing, stop doing, and start doing -- anyone daring enough to invite that feedback?

... from a diversity perspective (though it really applies to all students), we need to increase the student's self-confidence with the technology so success can be achieved and connect students to what they already know and value from their own culture (one attendee described it as helping students "find themselves in the course")

The most moving part of the day was the award of the Distance Learning Student of the Year. This is annually given to a nominated student from the host school for the conference (St. Petersburg College this year). I can't really do justice to this student's story so I'm hoping that they taped it and will put it online. I'll keep an eye out for that and share it with you when available.

Good morning from e-learning 2008

For those that are wondering, it is cloudy with a chance of rain on the central Florida gulf coast. Truly! You could look it up.

The e-learning 2008 conference sponsered by the Instructional Technology Council (ITC) is off to a great start. Following a Saturday night keynote address on busting the myths of e-learning (and we do hold strongly to some of the myths!), Sunday saw a number of concurrent sessions presenting great ideas. I already have several pages of notes.

One session was how to reach the digital natives, aka the Millenial generation (those born 1982 and later). There are some interesting demographics and shared experiences in this group that really set them apart from those of us who are older. We really need to consider how to use Web 2.0 tools (as one slide I saw yesterday pointed out ... some folks may not even realize there was a Web 1.0 ... or a Web 1.5) to reach this generation. Examples are YouTube, blogs, wikis, RSS, the list grows longer each day. One common characteristic of this generation is that life is spent in continuous, partial attention. Hmm ....

Attended a great session on Online Instructor Competencies. The presenter challenged us to think about HOW learning occurs. This may be a more fruitful starting point than the course compentencies -- though we do eventually get to those. We need to look at the following 5 areas from the student perspective:
1. subject
2. type of relations (with the instructor and other students)
3. control of time, place, and PACE of learning
4. type of assessment
5. media used.
The presenter talked about the importance of the instructor reaching out to students ON THE DAY THEY REGISTER ... even before the first day of class. We'll be having more discussions about this among distance learning faculty (I know some already do just this).
Here's a link to the slides from that presentation: http://bowene.edublogs.org/2008/02/12/elearning-2008/presentation-slides-2/
Let me know via the "comments" below if this link isn't working correctly. Hard to tell on the computer I'm on.

A couple of the general sessions on Sunday covered Learning from Our Worst Practices and a debate on the topic Classroom Observation is an Administrator's Right (specific to the online environment). I'll share more on these two topics at a later time.

On to Monday's sessions!

Learners in Roy Brandt's Class Use Social Bookmarking

Sometimes we have students find websites that relate to our classes to share or annotate. On our own computers, Favorites is the tool we often use to save sites for future references. However, social bookmarking allows us to save them at a website so we can retrieve or share them wherever we are online. Look at Roy’s post as he explains what that practice looks like for learners in his courses.

Here’s Brad LeFever's three-minute something video explaining it:



To learn more about the Social Bookmarking, visit Educause’s “Seven Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking":

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

Some widely used social bookmarking services are Del.icio.us, Furl, and Magnolia.

Being There Now: Bringing Learners Together via Phones, Classroom, and Online Conferencing Software

This afternoon I was a guest in a meeting with a grad class in a Virginia classroom, online, from my cell phone in Colorado. Graduate learners in Badrul Khan's class at George Mason University have been in an online dialogue about a paper I wrote applying Badrul's Flexible E-Learning Model to a Second Life course experience I had last term. (I took it as a post-grad learner.)

Badrul called me on the phone and had most of the learners together in a room. One person was participating via a virtual conferencing software. I was visiting from my cell. We all had the chance to share additional Q and A about the current paper.

Additionally, I talked to them about how the online collaboration tools we now have available are so helpful to scholars who want to share their ideas about something they are working on for a couple of great reasons: 1) Honest dialogue in community really surfaces audience issues as the piece develops; 2) In the case of designing a study, multiple sites could establish criteria together, then move to doing the studies simultaneously at different sites, bringing a study to scale much more quickly.

Here is one more example of how technologies are allowing us to have community across the many miles.

Virtual Library News: Downloadable Videos

Our Virtual Library collection of downloadable media now includes videos. The new video collection features instructional and travel videos, documentaries, short and feature films.

Access Overdrive library database: http://marmot.lib.overdrive.com/. Scroll down the page to the “Video” section. Select “More…” to see all available video categories.

Don’t forget to explore audio books and music collections as well.

For questions, contact Yuliya Lef at ylef@coloradomtn.edu.

Smart Pen

LiveScribe is marketing a device to college students with the slogan "Never miss a word." It is a combination recording machine and camera. When a student takes notes with the pen, the information is being recorded in the pen's recording device. When the student touches the pen to a specific passage in his/her notes, the recording of the instructor speaking is played. It is estimated that it will cost around $200. To read more info, go to http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2110/inventor-targets-colleges-students-with-smart-pen. What do you think about students using a device like this?

Students Create a Slideshow at Slideshow.com

You may have read the eNews story about Timberline Ski Area Operations students who extended their snow industry learning beyond the classroom and created a snow park on their campus.

http://enews.coloradomtn.edu/index.cfm?method=c.artDetail&artID=2616

In addition to that accomplishment, they used Web 2.0 tools to put a slide show online documenting their progress: (They used Slide.com, but a person could also use Slideshare.)

http://www.cmctimberline.blogspot.com/