Engaging students

 

Graphic organizer

•Content

•Smart boards

•Powerpoints

•interactive boards such as the ipads

•e-readers such as the Nook and Kindle

•Pod casts

•Communication

•E-mail

•instant messager

•chat rooms

•social pages such as facebook.

•Blogs

•Collaboration

•Wikis

•Blogs

•Discussion boards

•Social page

•Chat rooms

The use of the technology that is available allows educators and people who are working together to benefit from the knowledge that the students, other educators, and other people have.  The different tools that are available now days provide for opportunities that were not around before. Pod casting for example allows people to communicate new ideas without the expense of traveling. Everyone can make video using simple cameras that are now being included with computers. According to Mobile Cast media (2010) “Video is so powerful because it showcases charisma and communication skills, allowing for transparency, which builds trust” While the instructor or speaker may be hundreds or thousands of miles away they can still influence the education of their students.

Other tool such as Blogs and discussion boards allows the instructor or students to communicate and learn from each other just by simply reading the material that is available. The fact that educators can use the tools that have been used for so long by other media groups, this allow the educator to be more interactive with the students and colleges that they are around or have similar interests with.

References:

http://www.mobilecastmedia.com/podcast-and-online-video-benefits.htm Mobilecast Media (2010)

Online learning community discussion Blog question

• How should participation in a collaborative learning community be assessed? How do the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a course affect the instructor's "fair and equitable assessment" of learning?

When assessing a collaborative learning community, there should be an established goal from the beginning. Once the goal is set, there needs to be an understanding of what the expectations of the members of the community is. Once this is established this will allow the students to understand what they need to in order to be able to positively contribute to the group. According to Palloff and Pratt (2005) “A simple rule to remember when assessing collaborative work is that collaborative activities are best assessed collaboratively” (p.44). The members of a group understands what the others in the group have done and what was expected of each of the group members.

            When considering the different skills and knowledge of the students in a course it is important to keep a rubric. A rubric allows the students to see what is expected and what the standard is. Once the students understand this, they can perform to the standard to the best of their ability. The rubric will also allow students to grow as learners and allow the collaborative group to grow as well. 

• If a student does not want to network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, what should the other members of the learning community do? What role should the instructor play? What impact would this have on his or her assessment plan?

If a student choose not to network of collaborate it is important that the student has an understanding why they feel that way and what the whole reason behind the networking is. Clearly the student is not feeling like they are having the connection that they would if they were involved with an online learning group. The other members of the group need to make an effort to contact the missing group member and encourage them to keep working with the program and the learning group. The instructor in this case should be acting as a cheerleader or a moderator for the group. According to Palloff and Pratt (2007) an important way to get the involvement of the missing member “all means of communication including the telephone and face to face meetings” (p.65) If all means of communication has failed assessment should be done according to the rubric that was established for the learning community.

Reference:

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007) Building online learning communities. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

Palloff, R. M. & Pratt, K. (2005) Collaborating online. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, Ca.

Story Board Online COllaboration

Section	Narrator	Item
1	Robert Carter	Introduction: Online Collaboration Speaker talking about the concept.
2	Robert Carter	Define: Collaboration: Speaker about collaboration with power point
3	Robert Carter	Define: Online Learning community speaker about online community with images of different online communities
4	Robert Carter	Demonstration  of collaboration video with in person collaboration
5	Robert Carter	Examples of online groups and types of collaboration tools
6	Robert Carter	Benefits of collaboration
7	Robert Carter	Issues with online collaboration
8	Robert Carter	Research of online collaboration
9	Robert Carter	Conclusion: Speaking about the online collaboration as a wrap up

Updated Stoary Board

Section	Narrator	Item	Action with participants
1	Robert Carter	Introduction: Online Collaboration Speaker talking about the concept.	Speaker in front of the camera about the introduction.
2	Robert Carter	Define: Collaboration: Speaker about collaboration with power point	Powerpoint presentation video outline the definition of collaboration. Robert Carter
3	Robert Carter	Define: Online Learning community speaker about online community with images of different online communities	Robert explain what an online learning community is and a powerpoint of different online communities.
4	Robert Carter	Demonstration  of collaboration video with in person collaboration	First grade PLC team of SPES actively collaborating.
5	Robert Carter	Examples of online groups and types of collaboration tools	Power point of online groups with Robert Carter speaking about the examples.
6	Robert Carter	Benefits of collaboration	Demonstration of collaboration results in action in actual classroom. 1st grade Carter’s class Subject Math.
	Robert Carter	Online collaboration	Robert speaking about an experience with a particular online learning group that was successfully done in an online reading masters program.
7	Robert Carter	Benefit of collaboration resulting from online interaction	Video of teacher reading group related with results from an online discussion.
8	Robert Carter	Issues with online collaboration	Robert Talking about issues with online collaboration.
9	Robert Carter	Research of online collaboration	Research explanation of online collaboration
10	Robert Carter	Conclusion: Speaking about the online collaboration as a wrap up	Robert talking about the whole program.