elearn2lead

Free Educational Resources: Access and Share

 OpenLearn LabSpace: This website gives free access to learning materials from higher education courses educators can edit and share. You can collaborate with others and publish new versions of the learning materials to share with the world. Arts, business, social and natural science resources are available.
 

Open Training Platform, a site sponsored by UNESCO, offers a rich source of resources in a global context. Topics range from Agriculture and HIV AIDS to Education, Entrepreneurship, and Management. Each category contains hundreds of links to free materials. Uontribute your own for others

WikiEducator is an evolving community intended for the collaborative planning of educational projects and content.

Digital Wisdom: At Any Age?

The other day I posted links to a new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project about Generations Online in 2009, which disputes the stereotype that the Internet is the domain of the young. Working, learning, participating online is essential to people of many age. Then I saw a new article in the journal Innovate titled "H. Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom." (Read with free registration.) Author Marc Prensky coined the terms "digital immigrants" and "digital natives" to distinguish between the people who grow up with digital technology and those who started out analog and migrated to the land of digital. He now argues that it is more useful to think in terms of digital wisdom, resulting from interaction of the human mind and digital technology. He says, "Digital technology, I believe, can be used to make us not just smarter but truly wiser. Digital wisdom is a twofold concept, referring both to wisdom arising from the use of digital technology to access cognitive power beyond our innate capacity and to wisdom in the prudent use of technology to enhance our capabilities."

Prensky makes an insightful observation that "the distinction between those who are truly digitally wise and those who are merely digitally clever is important. People who are digitally clever may be very good at manipulating digital technology, but they do so in a way that does not exhibit wisdom and does not help them become wiser. " So just being able to use (or even create) technology, just being ICT literate, isn't enough. We need people who are wise enough to apply new approaches to solve problems or create opportunities.

Hmmm... this gives me food for thought. How might "natives" and "immigrants" develop new wisdom? Can people of all ages be "digitally wise"? Is it time to conceptualize a 21c. melting pot where digital natives and immigrants alike use technology to become wise? As educators, how can we give attention to becoming more wise-- and guide and support our learners as they develop wisdom?

Given the challenges that surround us in these times, we need all kinds of wisdom!

The Internet: Not Only for the Young!

Look out-- grannies are online! Whether you are offering education, services or you are trying to sell things online, don't assume that the people you will reach are young. A new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, "Generations Online in 2009" suggest that all generations are logging in for a variety of reasons. See the report at: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/275/report_display.asp

MIT Management Cases Now Online

Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made a set of teaching materials available free online. MIT's Sloan School of Management offers educators everywhere access to case studies, videos, interactive teaching tools, and teacher’s notes. The site is called  MIT Sloan Teaching Innovation Resources. MIT also offers materials through the OpenCourseWare project.

 

Blogs and Team Learning

Could your learners use blogs to exchange ideas or post reflections on team learning activities?

Blogs are essentially chronological online entries. They are informal means for asynchronous communications.  While most blogs can operate as one-to-many communication, they can also be established by a team  to operate in a many-to-many form.

Here are reviews and links to articles that might help you decide which tool would suit your purpose:

• Weblogs in the Classroom provides links to articles, tools and examples. (http://www.eddept.wa.edu.au/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/weblogs/).
• Blogs in Education also links to articles and examples.
• ( http://awd.cl.uh.edu/blog/)
• EduBlogs offers free blogs to educators and learners. (http://edublogs.org/)
• Seven Blogging Tools reviews features for the following platforms:    LiveJournal, Typepad, Movable Type, WordPress, ExpressionEngine, and TextPattern.  Some of these tools are free, others have a fee. While this article discusses potential uses by nonprofit organizations, educators may also find the information of use. (http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/webbuilding/page4998.cfm.)

Writing Across the Curriculum

More on writing...

Writing Across the Curriculum, with discipline specific ideas
http://mendota.english.wisc.edu/~WAC/

Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse
http://wac.colostate.edu/

Journals Online

Articles on collaborative, team and other creative approaches to e-learning can be found in these peer-reviewed journals:

• American Journal of Distance Education http://www.ajde.com/search.htm
• Academic Exchange Quarterly http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/
• American Communication Journal - http://acjournal.org
• Innovate http://www.innovateonline.info
• International Forum of Educational Technology & Society  http://ifets.ieee.org/
• Journal of Digital Information http://jodi.tamu.edu/
• Journal of Electronic Publishing - http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/
• The Journal of Interactive Online Learning http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/

 

Teaching with Virtual Teams

Would your learners gain more from learning collaboratively than they do studying alone?

Reduce isolation with online team projects! If you would like to use virtual teams with your online or hybrid course, you may be interested in some ideas and best practices: Download virtual_teams.pdf

 Let me know what you think!

Visual Mapping

Visual mapping techniques are known by a variety of names, including concept maps, mind maps, and decision maps. Visual maps describe a graphic depiction of concepts, their order and relationships.

Mapping is useful for teaching and learning. Mind or concept maps are favored by constructivist educators, because they “help to make evident the key concepts or propositions to be learned, and also suggest linkages between the new knowledge and what he or she already knows.” Instructors can use mind maps to “determine pathways for organizing meanings and for negotiating meanings with students.” (Gowin & Novak, 1984) Educators can use visual maps to present or summarize information. When educators teach learners how to create their own visual maps, individuals or teams of learners can use these tools to create visual depictions of projects or demonstrate understanding of concepts.

Here is an example I created that shows another reason visual mapping is important—21c. critical thinking mean being able to evaluate and convey information and relationships between concepts. (Click to see full-size image.)

 

Learn more and try it out!

• Building on New Constructivist Ideas and CmapTools to Create a New Model for Education http://www.ihmc.us/users/acanas/Publications/NewModelEducation/NewModelforEducation.pdf
• CmapTools: A Knowledge Modeling and Sharing Environment http://cmc.ihmc.us/papers/cmc2004-283.pdf
• How to MindMap http://www.jcu.edu.au/studying/services/studyskills/mindmap/  

References: Gowin, D. B., & Novak, J. D. (1984). Learning how to learn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marguilies, N., & Maal, N. (2002). Mapping inner space: Learning and teaching visual mapping (Second ed.). Tuscon: Zepher Press.

 

 

Digital Storytelling Resources

I am posting some of the resources shared at the Knowplace Digital Storytelling weekend, with thanks to David Brear.

What is Digital Storytelling?  

Start with the art of storytelling. Add   the use of technology and storytelling goes digital! There are   many forms of digital storytelling that may combine any of the   following elements: text, image, sound, voice and moving images,   in a coherent story. It is the interplay of these elements, each   of which plays a unique role, that gives this medium its power.   However, no amount of digital magic will turn a poor story into a good one.

Elements of Digital Storytelling
http://www.inms.umn.edu/elements/

Telling Your Story- a handbook for putting the story into digital ( and traditional ) storytelling.
http://www.jasonohler.com/pdfs/storybook11-v2.pdf

The Visible Knowledge Project
http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/vkp/newsletter/0902/resources.htm