Image from WikipediaOne of my favourite sites is The Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies which contains a link to Jane Hart’s blog. Jane keeps a finger on the pulse of e-learning and she’s doing some great longitudinal research into who is using what tools and where. I’ve been signed up via her blog this
Continue reading ...I stopped by a PD session for educators online this morning. It was run via ustream.tv on the wiki site Open pd and was not without its glitches (sound drop outs etc but this is almost mandatory in sessions like this). This truly open, global professional development session demonstrated a very useful way for individuals’
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There’s been something of a theme running through the last half dozen or so posts here. I guess it’s a function of the time in the new academic year … beginnings and the raising of issues that are challenging us all. I was at another faculty meeting last week where e-learning was discussed. You could feel spines stiffen a bit as the topic went round the table. The conversation went something like this: ‘People won’t (make an effort/change their way of doing things/appear to be even slightly interested in innovation or … add your own phrase here) unless they are made to.’ Now the ‘people’ being referred to are academics. I’m moved to ask what happened to the spirit of intellectual inquiry and the desire to develop one’s scholarly practice? Well that’s another matter, but for now there’s a management imperative that has to be addressed by individuals in the faculty collective, and fast.
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The focus of this post concerns the changing nature of our ‘classrooms’. School’s in for the year and we’ve hit the ground running as they say; at least we’re there on the ground in traditional classrooms, in workshops, and online. The electronic revolution is nibbling insistently if not biting hard yet … at least as far as e-learning is concerned in my neck of the woods.
Last night I worked in a virtual classroom in a live chat with a very small group of students … hope this grows! Memo to self: strategise getting them on board! They still need help, as do my colleagues, to make sense of this Web 2.0 world. I’ve also been working in a traditional classroom in the stand and deliver mode this week, but even there I’m more interested in getting the students to do the learning, rather than to stroke my own ego by giving them the goods culled and mediated through my own experience.
Continue reading ...There’s a sense of winding down, of taking stock all over the blogosphere … must have something to do with the end of a year and the start of another. Now that another year of e-learning adventures is coming to a close, I’m doing the list thing. What would I do differently if I were
Continue reading ...It’s actually Day 2 starting as I write this. It’s a glorious spring week here at the Gold Coast in Queensland. Lots of temptations to lure away the conference delegates, not the least of which is the gorgeous beaches … but! We’re here to soak up the good stuff, and that’s the usual round of
Continue reading ...Spring has sprung in the southern hemisphere. The days are warmer, the outdoor delights increasingly drawing the devoted blogger from the desktop. But wait! What’s that on Google Docs and Spreadsheets? It’s (drum-roll) Google Presenter. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Those amazingly creative and feverishly fertile (spring analogy) folks at Google
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I’m being mocked by the hubris of a blogpost last week … something about making a habit of blogging etc. Just to keep faith in myself and you, dear reader, here are some quick observations from my part of the world and symptomatic of the busy week in which I find myself right now. Yes
Continue reading ...It’s been a pressure-cooked month for everyone taking the 31 Days to a Better Blog Challenge but it’s been worth it. One of the best spin-offs has been the support given by others on the road with me … that and learning tips, tricks, and many of the skills of the fine art of blogging.
Continue reading ...I am sure this is a terrible title for the post but as it’s a staging-post post on a journey, it works for me. The journey is the one that this blog is charting … my adventures in online teaching and learning. For a while now, and through various courses I’ve taught, I’ve been concerned
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