Wordle example

Both Wordle and TagCloud seem similar in that they look at the frequency count of words in your blog site and then create a collection of Key words based on their frequency of use.   My blog theme site makes use of TagClouds but in case you’re interested in Wordle, here’s a link to this free service….http://www.wordle.net/

10 Key Suggestions for Online Instruction

Here’s my suggestion given my readings and workings with teachers developing and teaching online courses.

1.    Teachers should provide regular effective feedback and guidance to students
a.    Some course tools such as the assessment tool can provide immediate feedback on individual student performance
b.    Students can give feedback to each other on performance
c.    Some publisher site activities are designed to provide instant feedback on performance
2.    Course design should include authentic activities that are designed so that students learn to apply what they have learned to real world scenarios, i.e., anchored instruction/active learning
3.    Teachers should design activities that connect new content to be learned with students’ existing knowledge structures
a.    Pre-test students on material to be learned by creating an assessment or asking all students to answer a series of questions.  Content presented by the teacher is dependent on students’ answers
b.    Teacher summarizes what was learned in module one and explains relationship of it with material to be learned in module two
4.    Class should include a variety of collaborative (paired or small group) activities so that students develop awareness of diverse perspectives and to promote classroom community
5.    Provide course resources (scaffolds) for under-prepared students
a.    Prepare materials or locate resources to help those under-prepared students
6.    Make use of time management techniques and course tools to keep students organized and on task
a.    Create a course check-in routine that students follow every time they log into the course
b.    Make use of course tools like the calendar and get students used to checking it to alert them of pending deadlines and assessments
c.    Hide/Reveal course content to focus students’ attention on current and upcoming course activtities
7.    Online course materials should be designed to work in tandem with on ground materials, e.g., textbooks
a.    Course materials in books, textbooks, and handouts do not necessarily  need to be converted to present in your course
b.    Online course materials can act as an advance organizer to students’ on ground materials, i.e., textbooks, etc.
c.    If online materials are a duplicate of paper handouts, then students will likely read one or the other but not both
8.    Class activities should require students to make use of multiple sources of information including the Internet, library databases, etc., in completing assignments.
9.    Course should be designed so that students can easily find what work they’re supposed to be doing, when it’s due, where in the course they have to do the work, and how they’re going to be assessed on their work.
a.    See time management technqiues in number six
b.    Create a table/matrix that displays time  period, activity, due date, toolset being utilized, and method of assessment.
10.    Course should include pre-course (before course begins) and during course assessments to help students assess their readiness prior to instruction and graded activities
a.    Make use of college pre-course readiness assessment so students can determine their level of preparedness to begin the class
b.    Create readiness assessments prior to grade assessments to help students check their understanding

Some times it seems like we’re…

Some times it seems like we’re better at technology integration than people interoperability. But we humans are the original mashups, right?

Authentic educational activities and Twitter…

Here’s an interesting museum blog article from about a year and a half ago on the lessons that museums can learn from Twitter as well as an article at Mashable on using Twitter in journalism.  I’m glad that the latter article’s resources have largely been compiled by journalists.  Teachers might be able to use some of these resources to connect with journalists with the hopes that students can vicariously follow and communicate with the journalists  through the process of their developing a news article.  The museum blog looks at Twitter’s functionality and how it affects communication stream and subsequently people’s thinking  and action through Twitter use.

Twitter still too new for most faculty

Both the Chronicle of Higher Ed and Campus Technology magazine cited a national survey of faculty re Twitter use and as you might expect the majority of faculty don’t use Twitter on any regular basis.  Clearly, this like Facebook is a new tool and faculty are already inundated with other work so unless they’ve got some time to experiment, Twitter may seem like another layer of work.

My two cents…  Most new technologies require some experimentation and sharing of results with colleagues at both your school and others before you really reap the benefits of your time and results with your students.  Fortunately, most of these new technologies require little “mechanics’ time” to learn.   Most time is spent researching trying to find out what other colleagues have done with Twitter and how they’re using it in the classroom.  Here’s to more organized sharing!

Keep hoping that browsers stay…

Keep hoping that browsers stay speedy but look at Firefox. With every revision it moves like a turtle than a fox. Remember Word 5. Whats up?

Can’t believe school is starti…

Can’t believe school is starting already again. School really reminds how cyclical life is…

For our SBCC TurnItIn users, c…

For our SBCC TurnItIn users, check out its 7 new features (beginning 8/1/09) described on the FRC website at http://frc.sbcc.edu

More on using Facebook

Here’s a short PDF doc by mpstaton@gmail.com on Using Facebook in Instruction. It’s a little dated as the interface for Facebook and classes/courses app has changed but it’s still worth the peek.

http://org.elon.edu/catl/conference/documents/FacebookEducation.pdf

More on Facebook and instruction…

As I promised, here’s an update to my sense of using Facebook (FB) as a course management (CMS) tool.  If you don’t know it, in 2007, it appears that FB dropped development of its course management system leaving it to outside developers to improve its functionality and add features.  The results in my opinion at this time are mixed.

Teachers or really anyone can add a course in Facebook.  Of course, you must have a FB account in order to do so.  Your students MUST also be invited to join the class though you could certainly leave it open to the world…  Teachers or owners of the class can post assignments, links to other website, post announcements, and even have non-threaded
discussions.

But unlike other course managment systems, content does not roll over necessarily from one term to the next. This means a teacher would have to complete a pre-course setup each and every term for each course she’s teaching in FB. It appears you can’t even reset dates for assignments in current term if the due date has already arrived.  Only UPcoming assignments are visible on the main class/course page though students can search for past assignments.  You would have to recreate  an assignment if you wanted to change it.

Next, something that teachers generally take for granted is student enrollment.  Students are not automatically added to a course. You have to invite them which means they have to have a Facebook account.  So plan on helping at least a few of them navigate their way particularly when it comes to restricting who sees what in their profiles.  And let’s face
it, most teachers don’t want to be the technical HELP DESK for students when it comes to application support.

My sense is that FB may be more designed for teachers who are adding course materials and activities on the fly.  It may still be more suited for social or student activities such as keeping track of former students.  I’ll continue to keep an eye on its development but wonder about its viability compared to other CMS.  There have a lot of folks reviewing FB as
a teaching tool like Professor Nicole Ellison at Michigan State University-

http://nellison.blogspot.com/2007/12/ecar-facebook-as-teaching-tool.html.  Here’s an older review of FB she wrote.  It’s a bit dated but still relevant as some of the same issues she raised still exist.

Meanwhile, I’m gonna take a different approach here to see if students are using FB for academic classes in an umprompted manner, i.e., setting up their own informal structures to share course materials, study for classes, set up tutoring sessions, etc.  There may be more to it than the obvious. And like before, as I find more, I’ll post it here.

Facebook help link is http://en-gb.facebook.com/help.php