Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A few ideas to think about




Well, this is an easy post to write, regardless of the fact that I am R&Ding it. (Thats a term for another post, gotten from a wonderful presenter we've had at the site, Danna Messer .. she's on Facebook, go find her. She's simply awesome.)

The first idea that I wanted to share was Fifty Ways to use Graphic Novels in a classroom. Simple, yes. Also all in one place? Yes. Maybe something to be covered in another environment.

The second and third and next set after that ideas are from this book:


This is a text from an online course I looked at taking a few months ago. The course was upwards of 1200 bucks USD, and didn't do anything for my bottom line, so I didn't take it. I did, however, take down the title of the textbook .... and am now reading it chapter by chapter. It's very good at what it proposes to do, at least so far.

I'm in to page 87, and it's telling me I need to find an RSS feed to my iProducts in order to keep learning, keep developing as a person and as an employee.

the book also outlined a simple lesson plan for mobile learning. First it was to be short about ten minutes in length. Which is about what people can handle, in my opinion. After that it gets messy with attention span and other distractions ... like driving. As a general rule, this is just good lesson planning: Introduction, give a situation, discussion of the situation. At this time, that is where my efforts stop in the online community. What happens in this model is a short test with some feedback. And then a summary of what has been done. This last step I do a lot of already when I am in front of people. It is that second to last step which sometimes gets overlooked.

How ofter do people in a regular classroom get a chance to interact with the instructor? In an online learning situation, it is going to be a lot higher number of interactions. That is where learning takes place.

I need to find something out about Donald Kirkpatrick's learning evaluation model. It's on the interwebs somewhere.... and is mentioned in this book, too.

Lastly in the same chapter, there were mentions made of a number of webpages which educators can use to their advantage:

Blip.tv

Mobile learning

and for me a more relevant topic to think about is wowio.com

Free stuff for teachers, too.

Whoa, that looks like a pretty incredible post ... but it was all from an email I get posted to me daily... and a book I'm reading, too. I heart reading.

Finally, something that got emailed to me that is giving me a chuckle.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Another working Break day


Well, I'm on Break and yet, I'm still trying to get some reading done for work.

I guess I'm just like that. I read the first blog post about teaching online in the States. Seems that's the way that it's going there.

Speaking of teaching stuff online, here is an article about using Google Docs, something that was covered in the "E-Ducation" course last year, but not really understood by yours truly. S'all good.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Whoa, early start

Yeah, it's the first day of Break, and I'm up early reading articles for work on my Macbook.

Here's one from Hawaii, a school that uses iPads in their teaching practice.

Here's one about kids using iPad apps to learn about nutrition. I'll have to see what it is all about this week. I'll get back to you on this one.

Here's something you can put in the "I just learned something today" file, too. Seems the US has National Teacher Awards, and this young lady won an award for being an online teacher. Interesting read.

Lastly, I am going ot remind my faithful readers to back their laptops up this week. Take the time to do it properly, too.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Friday March 11

Yes, this is the last day before March Break. I feel grateful that I have a job, and even more grateful for a paid vacation from that job. Rarely, if ever, do people get a job such as mine on this planet. It affords me time to experience the joy of being a father, a husband and all that I am.

I was working with a book I purchased a while ago, Mobile Learning Edge. I got a few ideas that I will put together in a presentable manner later. Seems a blog IS a right thing for me, as I get some support for it at work. Besides, I find that keeping a blog is jsut right for me; most especially, thanks to rich people like Gary Vaynerchuk, I know that blogs and other social media are the may to millions.

I love reading. It SOOOO helps my brain become smart.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

What does a connected classroom look like


Here is the thing that I learned about today.

I saw a blog post on what a connected classroom looks like.

And I learned that Dropbox is really, really good.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Whoa... two posts today

I was on my twitter account, and this popped up:







I thought it was so insightful, I'd blog about it.

Another Thursday post




I'm looking around the interwebs again today - found this blog from a university in the States about learning how to teach online courses. Seems there's a certificate in that these days.

Hmmm ... makes one thing about expanding one's teaching credentials into the online sphere. Only makes sense, right?