Multilitteratus Incognitus

Seems like this will be the summer of professional development :-) On a tip from Igne I signed up for the Mobile Learning Manager certification course which is a self-paced learning program to certify managers of mobile learning initiatives. I think the US equivalent would be a training manager, focusing on mobile learning.  The course is a bit rough around the edges (which is why they wanted some guinea pigs this time around ;-)  ) but so far it's enjoyable!  More on this as I experience more. On a tip (or rather blog post) from Serena Turri, I saw that OER Foundation is offering a free five week course on Open Content Licensing for Educators . This course is free to join and offered on Moodle.  At this point they are already on Week 3, so I have to catch up a bit - but luckily (contentwise) I am not a n00bie, so I can really jump in an start interacting :)  More on this, as I interact more.

Last week, despite the craziness, I completed two courses.  First, I completed the #fslt12 MOOC, which I really enjoyed a lot!  The interactions between my peers and the facilitators were great, there was a lot of sharing of best practices and lived experiences, and I took a lot of things away; both things that I can immediately put into practice, and things that I need to read up on :-).  It was a bit of a bummer that I was not able to attend the final session and present my microteaching activity (see a blog post or two back), but my peers did discuss it and gave me some feedback which was pretty cool! I hope that Oxford Brookes runs this MOOC again next year because I think it's beneficial to people that are new to the teaching profession :-) The other course that I completed was a course/workshop from the Sloan Consortium on implementing the quality scorecard in online programs.  This was a pretty interesting course. Going into it, I was under the i...

Here it is! The final week of FSLT12, and the topic is evaluation! A topic near and dear to me, especially considering that it's the final step in th ID process before iterating :-) Here are two parts of this weeks lecture presentation.      

Here is an interesting synchronous session recorded last week on FSLT12 with Etienne Wegner   

This week I've been at the NMC conference (and Monday I was sidelined with a summer cold, no fun), so I've skipped out on most of this week's fslt12 activities. I've been thinking about this microteaching activity, and what I can teaching in 10 minutes. The activity reminds me of a reality TV show, the next Food Network Star, where contestants have to show that they can do something, in a short period of time (a promo video for their show) that they would be expanding on (supposedly) during the full episode. So, what could I teach in 10 minutes? The big issue is that I am thinking too big! Then, it hit me! I could go back to my tech-training background and show people how to use the cameras in their iPhones. Sure, it's not super academic, but what if I were an assistant for DS106? DS106 has the Daily Create activity, where learners in DS106 (and interested participants) can use their phones to participate in this activity. So, here is a quick 10 minute lesson pl...

Here's a quick recap of yesterday's NMC12 breakout sessions. I decided to skip the morning plenary- 2 hours of 15 minute presentations is a little too much for me, and I can get those on iTunesU anyway ;-). Yesterday's breakout sessions were mostly interesting (and I had quite a few interesting side conversations!)   Exploring a Tablet Application for the seminar Classroom With Eric Gordon from: Emerson College And Drew Harry from: MIT   This was the first session the day (and if I am not mistaken I had seen something like his last January at the NERCOMP mobile session). We've seen tablet (or laptop) applications that tap into the backchannel in large lectures to capture the pulse of the classroom, but the idea behind this particular application was to tap into the "backchannel" in small lecture group (15 or fewer, based on the design of the application) and the idea is to be able to propose topics for discussion and to track discussion topic time. There wa...

This blog post might be long...but what the heck, a long post every now and again is OK ;-). These are my thoughts on Sessions that I attended. Some were great...and some not so much (they had potential but did not deliver)     Digital Badges on Campus: More than Just a Game With: Mike Soupios, Danielle Mirliss, Thomas McGee from Seton Hall University   This was my first session of the day, and it did not disappoint! The presenters were all from Seton Hall University and they were describing the initial phases of their campus engagement tool. They implemented an OpenBadge compliant system which they introduced to their incoming freshman population. The initial badges that students got wet fairly easy to get, as with any social system that awards badges, in order to get people used to the idea of the reward. The system debuted this summer when students came to their campus preview activities. They got a badge for attending the preview (week?) as well as participating in ac...

This year the New Media Consortium conference was held in Boston and hosted by MIT, so it was a good opportunity to attend given that it is my own back yard. In this post, I don't plan to recount blow by blow each session, but rather post what seemed most interesting about each. In the welcome keynot was made by Joichi Ito, the MIT media lab director, and the topic was on innovation in open networks ( check out the recording on iTunes U here ) . Even though I missed the first half hour of the talk die to commuting the remaining 45 were inspirational, perhaps because I already ascribe to the principles of open. One of the main takeaways from this talk was to just to it. If you have an idea and it's within your financial means, just do it. Don't conduct (costly) feasibility studies to see if it's worth spending the cash to work on your idea. The worst that can happen is that it doesn't work. Thus, don't be afraid to fail, and of course, learn from your mistakes ...

Hmmm...I was glancing over at my calendar telling me to work on DS106 the other day (an alarm that I set last spring for this summer), and I decided to head on over to DS106 and check it out...only to find out that it had started already (week 4 if I am not mistaken).  Oh well.  I missed the boat but not by much! So, this time I will take a queue from a few of my MOOC acquaintances and set goals.  I realize that I don't have enough time to partake in the full DS106 experience, so my goals for this summer, with regard to DS106, are the following: June: Every Tuesday and Thursday complete a Daily Create (to be posted on my tumblr photoblog ) July:  Every Tuesday and Thursday complete a Daily Create (to be posted on my tumblr photoblog) August: Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday complete a Daily Create (to be posted on my tumblr photoblog) If this goes well, in September I will undertake 2 assignments...and re-evaluate from there :) I am curious ...

Here is this week's video (lecture!) on lecturing, from the FSLT12. I have currently paused the video to post it here (see, blogger is not competing for my attention :-)  ).  Thoughts on lecturing to follow!

This week I started a 2-week (online) workshop from the Sloan Consortium on Implementing the Quality Scorecard for the Administration of Online Education Programs . So far it's a pretty interesting course, and I've read through the reading materials supplied by the workshop facilitator.  One of the things that stands out, and this makes sense, is that an academic department can't go at it alone.  In order to implement a quality online program you need to reach out to many stakeholders, gatekeepers, and partners. In project management parlance, you also need a champion! One of the things that I've been thinking about over the past few years has been this tension between the online and the on-campus sides of operation.  In most departments there is an online person and an on-campus person.  In some departments there isn't that distinction, but in the minds of people there still is that online vs. on-campus  - this comes from discussions with people on my own cam...

Well, the BonkOpen MOOC is almost over, I earned my badge (seen on the right) and in the process picked up some new knowledge, information, skills, and professional contacts! At the same time I was able to see Blackboard Learn in action as a host for a massive online course. I think, that by and large, the MOOC was a good one, and the organizers and coordinators were responsive to the people who attended the MOOC and modified it, as the MOOC progressed, based on the feedback of the participants. There were a number of good things about the MOOC, but also a few mis-steps.  Here are some lessons I learned about using an LMS for a MOOC. No need for introductions . In a MOOC there are just way too many people to make introductions feasible.  The introduction isn't for the speaker to say who they are, but rather for the hearer to know who the speaker is.  This wasn't accomplished with the introductions in this MOOC.  The introductions were setup like a "normal" 15-...