G’day
one month down already and orientation week for our students is only a few weeks away. You knew that anyway so all your plans are in place for another successful year, yeah right!
It’s going to be another busy year. The 8th NZ SharEFest will be in late September and this will be followed by a jolnt conference on quality in education between Chinese and New Zealand educators; more on both as the year progresses. For now it’s down to planning for another introduction to elearning course for a group of senior educators from Thailand health sciences. The course in 2014 was very successful , hence the repeat; hi ho.
In this posting there are links to articles on Mooc’s, competency based education, mobile Apps, objectives, assessment and learning outcomes,learning analytics,JISC exemplars on digital environments,making elearning content, free learning tools conferences and the odd one out
‘Learning will occur at the interface of knowledge and understanding, contextualised by the nature of the environment and information provided to the learner’.
That’s it until a new March is played in.
1.JISC digital studentInvestigating students’ expectations of the digital environment.
JISC have a history of producing some very useful and practical resources for the education community at large; this set of resources is no exception. The links take you to a variety of reports , guides, information and ideas for supporting students in digitally driven environments from a wide range of disciplines. Pick and choose . There has to be something here to light your fuse and get you thinking and acting to help students achieve.
http://digitalstudent.jiscinvolve.org/wp/exemplars/
2.ALL HANDS ON DECK: TEN LESSONS FROM EARLY ADOPTERS OF COMPETENCY-BASED EDUCATION: This document provides an overview of the experiences of colleges in USA with the use of competency based education. In the first paragraph, the author states ‘Competency-based education (CBE) is the latest disruption that seeks to respond to the growing sense
of national urgency to boost education attainment’. Probably true as there seems to be a general trend towards creating competency base education and training. Worth reading to see how others have fared in the process.
4. MATCHING LEARNING METHODS TO LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND AUDIENCE.Non Formal education Manual from the Peace Corps, USA. Very comprehensive and interesting document not least from the point of view of the producers.I thought it is well structured and contains many useful overviews, examples and explanations. The fishbowl approach to brainstorming was a new one on me; might try it at the next SharEFest. Have a look at the table in Appendix F. Does it resonate with your thinking around learning styles?
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/peacecorps/nonformal_ed_manual2.pdf
If you want to look at chapters 1 to 4, go to:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/peacecorps/nonformal_ed_manual1.pdf
5. Matching Assessments to Learning Outcomes (Prepared by Michelle Schwartz, Research Associate, for the Learning & Teaching Office at Ryerson University, Canada): A very useful guide to matching assessments to Learning Outcomes. There’s a lot more to it than the title suggests and it’s well worth perusing to extract some ideas, gems and information for your assessment regimes. Some links to useful related resources are included.
http://www.ryerson.ca/content/dam/lt/resources/handouts/examslearningoutcomes.pdf
6.All about MOOCs: This publication of Current Issues in Emerging eLearning (CIEE) is a special issue of the journal focusing on Theoretical Perspectives and Pedagogical Applications of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).Worth catching up on current views on the nature of Mooc’s.
http://scholarworks.umb.edu/ciee/vol2/iss1/
7.Learning Analytics: Challenges and Future Research Directions. An interesting paper on learning analytics and where they might usefully go in the future.
http://eleed.campussource.de/archive/10/4035
8.How to Make Sticky eLearning Content. This one of number of short articles on this site that provides some common sense ideas , suggestions and guides to effective use of elearning. Lots to explore on the site.
http://elearningbrothers.com/how-to-make-sticky-elearning-content/
9. The free tools and guides on this site subscribe to the concept of universal design for learning. The site has recently been revamped and is easier to use and most of the resources are free. Must be something here for you.
http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com
10. For those of you who into mobile Apps, this blog provides an overview of some of those consider to be ‘the best’ of 2014. You be the judge and maybe you already use the lot: Top Ten mobile Apps for 2014:
http://manishmo.blogspot.co.nz/2015/01/my-top-10-mobile-apps-for-2014.html
11. Conferences for 2015
11.1 ALT Annual Conference 2015: Shaping the future of learning together
The 22nd annual conference of the Association for Learning Technology, 8–10 September 2015, University of Manchester, UK
Download the Flyer:
The ALT Annual Conference 2015 Call for Proposals has been issued at:
http://altc.alt.ac.uk/conference/2015/submissions/
11.3 Ascilite 32nd conference. Perth, Western Australia.
Globally Connected, Digitally Enabled: November 30th to Dec 3rd 2015.
Website:
http://www.2015conference.ascilite.org
11.4 8th annual New Zealand SharEfest: 28th and 29th September 2015. Watch this space.
12. The odd one out: Judgment Call: Maturity, Emotions and the Teenage Brain: Started to read this and got totally absorbed with the infographic and the wealth of information very clearly laid out and explained. A useful resource for those of you interacting with teenagers, students or not.
http://schoolpsychologistfiles.com/blog/
TTFN
Richard
Richard Elliott
The Eternal Macademic
Auckland
New Zealand