Registration is closed for the 2011-12 Certificate since we are far along, but if you want to join in to any of the weeks and activities without going for the certificate, you are still welcome. This is an open learning experience! Contact Lisa M Lane if you want your blog included, or just use the tag "potcert11" on your regular blog.
I am hoping that this week’s discussion stirs up some interesting discussion (to go along with the FAQ assignment listed below). As I review–and in some cases re-examine–the texts Lisa has collected for us, I must confess to a healthy dose of skepticism about generalizations–however putatively research supported they claim to be–about online students. On the other hand, every time I study these kinds of studies and discussions, I invariably come up with some cool ideas for improving my teaching by creating a more welcoming and pedagogically productive space!
So with that paradox of productive skepticism in mind, I await your insights and ideas about our students and what the resources we are studying this week tell us about them (and, most importantly, how to help them learn!). After, of course, you do your FAQ homework
Before reminding you of our to do list, I want to give a shout out to my awesome colleague (and program for online teaching alumnus), Julie Vignato, for giving us some interesting starting points for our explorations.
Thanks Julie!
Please check out Julie’s video before beginning your own journey.
And here, again, is our agenda for the week:
Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 10: Preparing Students for Online Learning
I have never used a mind map before, but did finally get one made. The map kept wanting to go left of my main root, so finally I just created a new root and got the nodes
created to the right side of the Main Box which is what I was originally trying to do. Nice program, good visuals. I will also be using this for my hybrid class, so glad to be efficient. My survey is also
perfect timing, I was going to do a one-minute paper while in class, but this will save precious class time. See my mind map in Jing below…embedded. I am learning that I need to publish immediately because if I use the embed code and then change something, it doesn’t seem to work.
Regarding this week’s reading I enjoyed the section on Student-Generated Content. Encouraging the use of different type of media to share, collaborate and communicate in a hybrid or online class, may very well increase the student’s involvement and interest in the tasks. I like to give students some choice in the assignments we need to do, let it be in their choice of format, their choice of topic or any other aspect of the assignment I can think of.
On the matter of polls and surveys I like to ask for feedback on activities and test we do in class. I do that in the discussion board in blackboard. Using a survey like Survey Monkey is a good idea. I ask for feedback often in different ways, but I will use Survey Monkey for a more formal survey right after the midterm. This is my link to a brief sample survey I created just to familiarize myself with the program: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8SKZYRC
I find Mind- Mapping having many uses. The first one I can think of is for vocabulary building presentations when someone is studying a foreign language and has to learn so many new words. Rather than having the vocabulary lists displayed on the page, one can start building his/her own mind mapping that may include small pictures too to help visualizing the word along with the object.
I used Mind- Meister to make a brief mind mapping about a general explanation of the distinction between the Preterite and the Imperfect. These are two past tenses in Spanish that are not interchangeable but that first time learners may interchange at first. I used Jing to create a screencast to narrate the short presentation. Here is the link to my Jing:
On a personal note I have to say that putting Thursdays as the first day of our week worked better for me. I find myself posting my weekly assignment late lately. Hopefully that won’t be the case every week. I am enjoying all we are learning very much and wouldn’t like to fall behind.
I looked at several of the mind-mapping tools that were suggested. However, I decided to use Power Point to accomplish the same goals. Although it is helpful to know that so many different tools exist, it is more practical for me to focus on using a few basic tools well. In this presentation, I am using Power Point to demonstrate the mind-mapping that I used to create my online class.
Most mind-mapping tools seem to be linear. In contrast, my course, Dance Cultures of the World, looks at dance from a global perspective rather than historical. I broke down this course into its main components by asking, What is Dance?” and “How does the function of dance differ in different cultures of the world?” I also decided to use images and graphics because dance is so visual. Using mind-mapping concepts also allows me to easily re-organize the structure and ideas that are presented in the course. Below is the Jing that explains the Mind Mapping process that I used.
This week’s assignments focused on creating polls or surveys and mind-mapping. I usually use a short survey on the first day of class so I can get a better idea of the students’ backgrounds, interests, goals, and expectations. In an on-ground technique class, it is also important to be aware of any student injuries or special needs. However, I also like the idea of a quick poll to see how students are doing on a particular assignment or what they think is particularly helpful or engaging. I used SurveyMonkey to make the following suvrvey. The program was easy to set-up and use.
I also just created and completed my first online quiz for my class. I’m using the quiz maker in Moodle and find it helpful in organization and grading. It quickly gives me a graph of the class bell curve and percentages of correct and incorrect answers.
The text does bring up some concerns that I have, such as web sites that pull students out of the course management system. To avoid this, I will have the web sites open up in another window whenever there is a choice.
One problem that I am encountering is how to get the students to watch the videos that are posted. I ask them to discuss two of the videos, through comparison and contrast, but some of them seem to translate that to mean that they only have to watch two. Teaching my first online class is definitely a learning work in progress.
Some thoughts related to this week’s reading of the textbook:
I increasingly like the idea of student generated content. In my “Java Programming” class, I proposed my students 4 voluntary tasks that will allow them to contribute to the course contents. Hands were immediately raised and the tasks assigned to agile volunteers. The four tasks are:
a) create a glossary of technical terms.
b) create a clean and tested version of the java code required as a response to assignments, following the course coding conventions, which will be published after all assignments have been graded as an aid for lagging students to catch up.
c) create one jing per basic procedure that a student is supposed to know how to execute (e.g. compiling a program using Eclipse).
d) poll the class on helpful issues (e.g. which topic is most difficult to master, or should be reinforced).
Task d) above, was inspired by the mention in the textbook about polls and formative assessment.
I agree with the authors that a variety of multimedia formats may generate additional interest from the students.
Comments not directly related to the textbook:
I attended a brief course on “Hot Potatoes” a few years back. This may be an alternative to SurveyMonkey.
I explored Mind42. I did not like it, it is counter-intuitive to use, and has a poor usability. You need to read more than 10 lines of text to learn to use it, which is below the current standard of quality for these kind of tools. In the time it would have taken me to read the tedious paragraphs of the Mind42 tool, I had already finished my MS-Visio diagram (not free, I use it in my professional activity. A program so easy to use that you do not need to invest any time in learning to use it, comes at cost.).
I recorded a jing explaining my diagram on the topic of “The Dances of Dancesport”. Since WordPress does not allow me to embed video with the “add media” button, you will have to access my jing via the URL:
The reading for this week was very interesting. It provided many useful tools as well as reflections on the instructional uses of audio and video.
I tried several times to synchronize the mp3 Audacity audio file and and the slides in Slideshare to create a Slidecast but I was unsuccessful. Then I created a different presentation from the one I had originally planned. It is a presentation on a guided relaxation and it does not need synchronization with the slides.
I liked Audacity and the possibility of converting audio files to mp3.
Eyejot was easy to use. I would like to be able to crop the screen so the camera is closer to me and I can crop the background behind me. I don’t know if after the video has been recorded one can edit it. I have not seen any editing options in the Eyejot website.
This week inPedagogy First we looked at an assortment of tools for generating mind-maps, surveys and screencasts.
Working with Mind-mapping Software.
I chose to work with Mind42.com for the mind-mapping exercise.
In the past I have used mind-maps in the early stages of a new project or assignment. Often I have a lot of ideas and my thinking tends to jump around between planning, presentation ideas, lab projects and back and forth. Using a mind map is a good way to start organizing this chaotic stream of consciousness. The goal is usually to get the thoughts into some kind of linear form in order to create a task list or outline. This is one case where I prefer paper and pencil over a program. Dealing with the machinations of a software program while trying to capture all the ideas can be distracting unless I’m very familiar with the program.
I don’t think that Mind42 won me over, though it was pretty easy to use. In this practice exercise I was working with material that was already very familiar though.
Mind42 gives you embed codes if you want to put it in your blog. I’m not sure I like the way it looks in my blog . Sometimes these mind-maps can get very large, so it might be better to just include a link to the mind-map on Mind42 so the reader can re-size the view. Here’s the link back to my mind-map on Mind42.
And here’s the embedded version:
Surveys
We were also asked to try creating a survey or poll using Survey Monkey or Google Forms. I chose to try SurveyMonkey since I haven’t used it before. However, I’m still trying to think of uses for surveys in an online class. The class evaluation seems like the most obvious use. Another use might be some kind of ice-breaker or interest survey for students to take at the start of a course. SurveyMonkey also provides embed codes if you want to display your survey on your web page or blog, but it didn’t seem to work here.
The assignment asked us to create a Jing screencast to demonstrate the mind-map. However I’ve seen many Screenr screencasts recently and wanted to give it a try. Since I worked with Jing earlier in the course, I opted to use Screenr in the spirit of learning something new.
Personally, I have enjoyed this section of our class. Trying out all these new tools is just something I like to do. There are many more tools that were described in Ko and Rossen, not to mention all the stuff we’ve been saving in Diigo. I hope to find time to try out even more.
However, our course is called Pedagogy First, and that’s a reminder that all these cool tools are, well, tools. It’s not necessary to use them unless they serve pedagogical goals. However, I think that having an awareness of them may help us find new ways to accomplish our goals, especially for online teaching. Who knows, maybe the best thing we can do with these tools is to teach them to our students and then see what they come up with.
I’m dedicating my work this week to helping a professional association that I’ve worked with, in various roles, for many years. When I was a rookie teacher, the North Carolina Reading Association, was a network that welcomed me into the profession. I was befriended and mentored by many educators I admired and learned from. They also gave me a chance to try out my leadership wings as I volunteered or was volunteered to create and manage projects. My favorite and the one that has taken on a life of its own is the association’s Young Authors Project. I’ve never worked so hard on such a creative challenge and received so much in return.
The association is in trouble now. And it’s not alone. Clay Shirky, in a webinar sponsored by the National eXtension Service, warned that membership organizations may become extinct if they can’t evolve in this digital age. The ultimate problem they face is that professionals do not need these associations any more to provide networks of others with similar interests and needs. The Web offers tremendous opportunities for creating our own personal and professional learning networks.
To survive, Shirky encourages creativity:
The opportunity is that that those organizations, by using the same tools and the same environment, can help create or facilitate a kind of value that their members, their audience, their customers couldn’t have gotten any other way. Finding imaginative uses of those tools that allow for that new creation of value is the real challenge for a lot of these organizational questions.
What might that be for a state-wide association dedicated to promoting literacy?
That’s the challenge that NCRA faces and the impetus for undertaking a website makeover. Planning the website makeover gives us an opportunity to design a survey that can begin to help us focus on what we can offer members that is unique to the association.
One of the questions on the survey asks members to rank the tabs they think are most vital for the navigating the site. To come up with the tabs, the small survey-planning team analyzed the current NCRA website and reviewed the websites of other associations to come up with a proposed sitemap. Here’s an overview of the sitemap:
In the sitemap for the revised site, you’ll see the typical categories. Nothing radical. But there is something unusual. I’m proposing an association-sponsored Ning, an online social network. I’m sure many of you have experienced Nings — the ebb and flow. Some have been incredibly successful. Jim Burke’s English Companion Ning is 35,000 members strong.
I have no delusions that an NCRA Ning would ever go viral, but I do think that it would make a real contribution to the literacy effort in our state, and, perhaps, beyond. It would be free for everyone. A place where educators can come to ask questions and find collaborators. There’s the potential for many valuable groups, such as one for exploring the new hot topic of Common Core Standards, or one focused on the reading-writing connection. There could even be one for those working on the Young Authors Project – sharing ideas, resources, and support.
If we build it, will they come? I’ve always been the relentlessly optimistic one when it comes to creating resources for teachers. They didn’t come to Second Life; they’re not coming to the bookcasting project. I don’t know if they will come to the Ning. It may be enough like Facebook that it’s non-intimidating. If we could win the support of a small, enthusiastic core group then there could be a chance.
If they come, I think this could be a place where literacy educators find a safe, low-risk space, where they can learn more about technology, expand their network of colleagues, and be so inspired by the creative projects that they will in turn design their own and seek collaborators. It could serve as a nursery of sorts for cultivating new leaders. For the association, for the state, and for the profession.
We met in Second Life on October 27 and Cris recorded it on Ustream. Enjoy!
October 20's synchronous session was led by mentor Ted Major, and we discussed community, and blogging vs the discussion board, plus lots more. The link is here.
I have to say that putting Thursdays as the first day of our week worked better for me. I find myself posting my weekly assignment late lately. Hopefully that won’t be the case every week. I am enjoying all we are learning very much and wouldn’t like to fall behind.
