Monday, March 21, 2011

VLearning Survey

This is an alternative access for the VLearning Survey, in case students have problems accessing the Google Survey via the link I emailed:

Monday, March 14, 2011

Salman Khan TED Talks Khan Academy Online

Every educator owes it to him/herself, his/her students, and the future of education to watch this video. While Khan's approach is but one of myriad possible ways to improve Education (with a capital E), it potentially addresses several root manifestations of the fine fix we've worked ourselves into:

  • The damage that homework does to family, child, and learning
  • Lecture as primary mode of teaching
  • "Classroom management"--Sit quietly in your seat and pay attention: Do not talk
  • Standardized testing = principle assessment tool
  • Missed steps in learning snowballing into failure
  • The bad rap that making mistakes has been saddled with
  • Games = the enemy


Saturday, March 12, 2011

ISTE SIGVE Meetup and Speaker Session Tuesday-- MISSION US!

SIGVE- Speaker Series
Special Guest:   Joanne Henning and Kimmer Jameson
MISSION US- A New Way of Learning History

WHEN:  Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
WHERE:  ISTE Island Auditorium, Second Life
TIME:  5pm SL time

Remember when History class was dull?  Well, no more.  Mission US is part role-play, gaming system, and virtual environment.  This web based or downloaded program combines powerful content with an engaging format for middle school age (grades 5-8) students.  Please join us as we meet  MISSION US AZ Teacher of the Year - Joanne Hennin along with PBS Ei8ht’s Kimmer Jamison.  They will share Joanne’s award winning project -- and why it was such a successful implementation model for students, as well as share the resources for MISSION US.


Important Links:
http://www.m
ission-us.org/
http://www.thirteen.org/
http://www.asset.asu.edu/new/mu_az_teacher.html
http://innovateclassrooms.blogspot.com/2010/05/opportunities-in-second-life-learn-more.html


Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Value of Peer to Peer Interaction is Often Ignored in Online Course Design

I came across this just yesterday and shared it out via my Facebook network, but I'm thinking it belongs here. Doing some writing today and I'm hoping to add a bit of meat to this blog's bones soon. Meanwhile, if you are at all interested in designing courses for online learning and teaching, you absolutely must be familiar with this tidy little interview with Richard Culatta: