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

Elluminate - Real time interaction in Moodle

For those of you who haven’t done much exploring in Moodle recently, note that you can now add an Elluminate activity to any weekly or topical center block in Moodle. You can set the dates of availability and restrict user access to a single student or make it available to the entire class.

Like the other human presence tools in Moodle, you can’t set up an Elluminate activity as a graded one except for attendance. When you set up the activity you can set a point value and later when you mark attendance after the event the point value goes into the gradebook. Note, students either get all the points or no points for the activity. An alternate approach is to not set a point value in the activity and enter a score manually in the gradebook for the activity.

Elluminate has most features that other virtual classroom applications have.

• You can upload any type of file, share it, use a highlighter on it, and save the results as an image file for later review.
• You can also upload a powerpoint presentation to give a lecture.
• You can link to websites, chat with students, and share applications or windows on your desktop.
• All of the presentation and interaction including your voice can recorded and archived for later viewing.

Elluminate works well with most browsers I’ve checked except it requires a java applet to run and you must accept a web certificate since our SBCC instance of Elluminate runs on one of their servers.

If you’re interested in experimenting with Elluminate OR you want to review their online archived tutorials, you can access them for free at http://elluminate.com/support/training/index.jsp. Select the link for the recorded moderator training for version 8. The Elluminate folks also sometimes do free web demos if you want a real-time demonstration.

Some typical educational uses of Elluminate include:

• application training
• question and answer review
• e-lectures
• small-group meetings

As I find more specific uses of Elluminate in instruction,  I’ll post them here as case-studies for our campus faculty.

Using Pod/Vcasts in Instruction

Given the fact that many educators using technology tend to replicate activities online that they conduct in the on campus classroom, and the lack of emprirical evidence supporting the use of Ipod- like devices to improve learning, it makes sense that teachers employ teaching strategies and techniques that have some proven ability to influence learning.

So, rather than record an entire 60 minute or so e-lecture for ItunesU, I recommend that teachers lean towards brevity, e.g., less than five minutes in length and use a technique such as advanced organizers to provide a framework for the content to be learned based on students’ prior knowledge because one of common problem students have is seeing the relationship between former content presented and content to be presented in the next lesson. Advanced organizers serve as a framework for the content to be learned based on students’ prior knowledge.

Advanced organizers generally take on two forms. They are comparative organizers and expository organizers. Comparative organizers form a bridge between new and old “familiar” content by comparing and contrasting new ideas with content previously presented. Here’s a common example. If a teacher were to give a lecture about an atom’s structure, the teacher could discuss the similarities between the electrons circling a nucleus of an atom and the moons orbiting a planet. Expository organizers set the stage for new concepts and information by giving students a general framework that becomes the basis for new content.

Here’s another common example. Before introducing students to the structure of state government, have students recall the structure of the federal government of which they may already be familiar. The expository organizer acts like a bridge between old familiar content and new concepts and information to be learned.

The publication and theory of advanced organizers is generally credited to David Ausubel (1960). Ausubel (1960) argued that in order for meaningful learning to occur, students should bring to the learning situation what they already know. The teacher’s job is to provide an introduction or framework that helps the students mentally organize their thoughts “before” being introduced to the details of new concepts.” Ausubel (1963) also argued that “advanced organizers were different from overviews and summaries which simply emphasize key ideas and details in an arbitrary manner.” Rather, he suggested that advanced organizers act as a “subsuming bridge” between new learning material and existing related ideas (Ausubel, 1963). Advanced organizers have been shown to be effective with students of all abilities and grade levels but especially with students of lower ability (Luiten, J., Ames, W., & Ackerson, G., 1980). For more teaching tips, see our SBCC teaching tips database.