Category Archives: Online Learning

Teaching Online: Guide To Four Complex Learning Theories

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I am currently in Week One of the MOOC “Teaching Online: Reflections on Practice,” and already there is a wealth of material that I am putting to (good) use. My primary reason for taking the course was to get a deeper experience of Canvas (a Learning Management System), but the course aligns nicely with work and my interests.

One of the resources shared this week was an infographic for “A Simple Guide To 4 Complex Learning Theories” (Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism, Connectivism). Very useful, and worthy of sharing:

A Simple Guide To 4 Complex Learning Theories

A Simple Guide To 4 Complex Learning Theories

Source: Edudemic

Google’s News LMS (Apps for Education)

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A colleague at work alerted me to the news that Google has a new free LMS for schools. Google Classroom will be the new tool that adds a Learning Management System to Google Apps for Education.

Campus Technology has a brief piece of news here, and Google has a page where you can sign up for an invite.

There is a certain degree of déjà vu all over again with the news. Google has released, or announced, similar initiatives in the past:

Google is known for discontinuing great products and services (such as Lively, Wave, Google Reader), seemingly because a product manager leaves or moves on to another project. Whilst being a free option, there may be some risk in committing to the new Google Classroom.

CourseMaster, edX, and my LMS Wishlists

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Coursemaster

On Friday, I had the chance to talk with Daniel McKelvey (VP of Business Development at CourseMaster).  CourseMaster is positioning itself as an edX service provider. edX is open source, so those with both the technical resources and the inclination can download and install their own instance of the software. Alternatively, organizations can turn to a third party like CourseMaster.

In our conversation, Daniel positioned CourseMaster as having three distinct advantages (i.e. elements added by the company):

  1. LMS core (branded, fully serviced and supported)
  2. Faculty dashboard
  3. Social collaboration and gamification

Support is for both faculty and students.

The business model is based on users (defined as interacting with 20% of course content) and duration of the course.

This looks interesting, and I intend to investigate further. Working on getting some colleagues to collaborate on a pilot.

The faculty dashboard and collaboration modules are what I am most interested in. Currently, Learning Management Systems are still pretty much Web 1.0. Most educators use the LMS as a publishing platform, and student interaction gravitates towards discussion, quizzes, and the uploading of files. Hopefully we will soon see Learning Management Systems approach Web 2.0 interactivity.

For example, services like Doodle allow me to quickly (and automatically) negotiate the best time for a group of colleagues to meet. Imagine if a LMS allowed for that type of automated decision making for the composition of student groups (based upon skillset, timezone preference, and/or project preference).  Affordances like this are what is needed in a LMS, particularly as we see increasing time demands on both students and faculty. I still have yet to see true collaboration tools built into the leading LMS providers that come close to the power of Google Docs, Skype, or Facebook. WordPress is a model that I would like to see Learning Management Systems follow here, where you could browse for plugins that add the collaboration functionality you need (that being said, WordPress  can be used as a LMS).

Introduction To Flipping The Classroom

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Flipped learning skepticism: Is flipped learning just self-teaching?

A colleague at work shared a great article from the Chronicle of Higher Education on flipping the classroom (Flipped learning skepticism: Is flipped learning just self-teaching?).

The article (by Robert Talbert) provides a well-articlated reason to teach in a flipped manner, and suggest ways to use the in-class time effectively (think coaching). If looking for a good introduction/example to share, this is a contender.

Blue Jeans: Web-Based Videoconferencing

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Blue Jeans

Blue Jeans

A colleague at work suggested I look at Blue Jeans, a web-based videoconferencing service  (similar to Google Hangouts or Vidyo). I had never heard of the service until the suggestion. Blue Jeans looks interesting, and does 80% of what Scopia does (another service we use).

Cost seems to be about $50 per user per month. I don’t know if that would be a floating license. I think the service is worth testing, and will try and find some time to do so. Vidyo, their competitor, had a strong product when I looked at it last, so I am wondering how well it competes (in terms of usability and cost) with VidyoH2O for Google Hangouts.

Online Learning: Key Design Principles

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Key Design Principles

Key Design Principles

Hank Bowman (Chief Sales and Marketing Office, Adapt Courseware) recently gave a presentation at the New Directions in Online Learning conference. His presentation was focussed on introducing Adapt Courseware to the audience, and the underlying design philosophy of the company. One particular slide caught my eye, and this was the five gurus they looked to for Key Design Principles. This is a particularly useful cheat sheet for anyone in the field of online learning and instructional design:

Key Design Principles

 

I have added links for those interested in exploring further.

A Visit to edX

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edX

At edX

I was lucky enough to visit edX last week. This is going to spur me into investigating their technology a little deeper. Johannes Heinlein provided a very helpful overview of where edX is now. Personally, I find it very interesting that Google is now onboard. edX might have the potential to supplant Moodle.

Anyway, Jeff Cattel (from CLN) sent us all a photo from the day…

Innovative Advertising

Gadgets, Internet Marketing, Online Learning, , , ,
Stukent Advertising

Open, and magically a video starts playing automatically.

I received a rather nifty package at work yesterday, one of the the more interesting examples of advertising I have seen for some time…

In the same way that some birthday cards play a message or tune as you open them, this mailer started to play an advertising video. A hidden magnet detects whether the cover is open or closed, and plays the video on a loop when open.

 

I was impressed.

Ad

The mysterious “Ad”

I don’t really have need of the service (stukent.com/special), but I started to experiment with the package. At the bottom of the mailer I could see a Mini-USB port. Connecting a cable allowed me to see that the device showed up as external storage (Ad), with a video directory. Providing I replaced the existing video file there with nothing larger than 97.4 MB, I could play my own videos on the device. Neat.

When I have more time to kill, I am going to cut away the cardboard exterior, and see how I can repurpose this. Possibly in a small frame. Could make for a clever animated wallhanging.

Thank you mysterious stranger for sending me this. I hope you get some business out of this…