it is really hard to get an “A” in this course

I have really high expectations of my students. I find that students rise to them.

I hold myself to even higher expectations and I never ask them to do anything that i am not willing to do myself.

If students demonstrate that they are willing to try, I will do everything i can to support their success. Effort counts, however, it should be “hard” to get an A.

I get frustrated by a student that:

• doesn’t read instructions (minimum participation gets you a C – NOT an A)  ¡duh!
• is not willing to try (refuses to do activities, or thinks that discussion is just 20% of the grade, so he doesn’t have to do it -and he can still get a B)
• feels entitled (i always get A’s, but this course is too hard – is too much work – takes too much time – the implication being that it is my fault she is not getting an A) srsly?!?
• doesn’t seem to understand that she earns her own grades (wants an A, but is not willing to do what it take so get one)
• compares course workload with other courses (“but, all i have to do in my other summer course is write a paper and do some discussion…”)

The unspoken contract that i make with students is that if you want to learn, i will help you.

If not, you are wasting my time and that pisses me off.

“why do i have to blog???”

I teach a fully online master’s level course “intro to online teaching” and have used blogging as a metacognitive journaling activity in the course for 5 years now. (Here is a prezi about my course fyi http://prezi.com/yyzcr9_btox6/teaching-learning-in-the-cloud/)

So far, none of my students have ever really blogged before. Most of them really don’t want to. Many hate this part of my course.

I LOVE their blogs.

Blogging is a required component of this course. Students are required to reflect on their learning and to provide me with descriptive feedback on their learning experiences in the course. they are given specific guiding questions for each blogging assignment (1 per week/2 per module) and they must self assess their own posts based on a rubric http://etap687.edublogs.org/2008/06/02/reflections-blog-post-grading-rubric/

I have  specific questions that I ask them to address in their blog posts that revolve around the content covered in each module of the course and where they “are” in their development as online instructors, and in addition, I ask them to provide feedback on the course design and learning activities because I am trying to evaluate the tools we are using, how they are being used and the activities they are being asked to do in the course. They have to do one blog post per week. I have used the feedback from these student reflections to improve the design of the course and it has improved my understanding of the student experience, which makes me better at it. I get a better sense of how the students perceive the activities in the course, so that I can understand student perspectives and use that insight to improve the activities. I want to improve my own practice, and to do that I need the student feedback of how they are actually experiencing the activities, interaction and learning in the course. To get that, I need to get students to talk about their learning.

Students have freedom to blog about whatever they like, but they do have to address (in some way the guiding questions and the course materials) in at least one of their posts. They read and respond to each others posts and i comment and give them feedback in blog comments and using diigo highlights, stickies, and traditional blog comments. I also grade them based on the rubric. The activity is 20% of their grade.

Metacognitive reflection helps them better digest and apply what they are learning in the course. They must articulate what they learned and how they perceive that they learned it. They must reflect on what was difficult in this particular activity and why? It is a bit like therapy really. So I can hear you say “wait a minute, I am a teacher… not a psychotherapist!!” I teach XX (insert what you teach here) I am not here to analyze them…I am teaching them XX.

I respectfully disagree. I equally respectfully ask you to consider this- how do you know your students are learning? Your feelings about your teaching have little to do with your students’ learning and everything to do with you. There is an insidious teacher-centered narcissism here that I want to expose, explore, and eradicate. It is fine to LOVE teaching, to feel good, satisfied, and productive about it… but teaching and your feelings about yourself and what you teach are not the point – learning is. So how do you know that your students are learning and why don’t you give a shit about their learning? You may say that their learning is reflected in the assessments … I don’t know that that is true, or not. It might mean that they are good test takers, or good cheaters… the assessments tell me nothing about what they learned. I want them to show me that they learned. I orchestrate learning activities. They engage in the activities and then must demonstrate to me that they learned. Their level of engagement, their learning, their experiences are their choice. I didn’t teach them anything. They chose to learn or not. This is fundamental and revolutionary about what it means to be learner-centered. If you really understand what it means to be learner-centered, it blows your mind because you have to come to grips with the reality that there is no such thing as “teaching.” There is only learning. You design activities, you plop a student into the activities, and then you see what happens… it is kind of magic…maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe you have to redesign the activity to get a different effect. But you don’t know unless the student can make their thinking and learning visible to you – and in order to that, they have to talk about it, so that you can observe that.

I feel very strongly about public blogging. If it is in the course and student access to it is removed at the end of the term, then it is NOT a BLOG. The very nature of a blog is that it is yours and public. If we ask students to generate content and then we take away their access to it, how is that student-centered? I also want my students to have the experience of developing their public digital voice and to contribute to the living discourse on the social web.

The explicit purpose of the student blogs in my course is to have students articulate and verbalize what they are learning, how they are learning, how they are applying what they are learning, and how they feel about what they are learning- and to do it publicly. Student blogged reflections are a completely different type of discourse than what happens within the course discussion. They have a completely different type of  voice when they are asked to reflect on their learning.

I have 3 main objectives for using metacognitive reflection as a component of the course:

1. The process of self-reflection enhances student learning.
2. I use it to get descriptive feedback from the students on the design of the course that I can use to improve my practice and the course itself.
3. The process of writing publicly gives the student the opportunity to explore their online voice and digital identity and gives them exposure to and experience contributing their voice to the social web.

The value for them is:

1. They get a blog that they can keep and continue to maintain beyond the end of the term.
2. They get real-life experience blogging in a guided feedback-rich environment within a safe, yet public (class) community.
3. They experience reflective (public) writing.
4. They establish or add to their digital identity by exploring the social web for academic and professional purposes.

The value for me is that I learn from them. I can watch their progression from the first to the last day. I get a deeper understanding about how they learn, what they are learning, how they prefer to learn, and how they can improve what they are learning in the course. I have to filter, interpret, and diagnose where they are coming from and engage them in the process of productively reflecting on and demonstrating their learning so that they can move forward in their learning and the course. As the instructor, I read their reflections and sift through them for opportunities to diagnose misperceptions and provide corrective feedback, or to probe something to get the student to go further in their thinking, or to question something, or to prompt the student to question their own assumptions, assertions, opinions, or biases. You have to really listen to what they are saying. If a student says an activity sucks, I probe that and make them articulate exactly what, how, where, why they feel it sucks – perhaps they have other expectations, perhaps they fear something, perhaps they disagree ideologically with the approach – I try to get them to expose the roots of their feelings, so we can look at them and decide what to do with them… and we both have the opportunity to learn from that interaction. So, whether I learn something about myself, or about the student, it gives me the opportunity to make changes in my own understanding, or in the course, or I can confirm/affirm my perspective… and so can the student.

You can browse through my students blogs here http://etap640.edublogs.org/   Current live student blogs are links on my blog and a selection of blogs from 2011-2008 past semesters are also links.

The quality of their posts and their insights are astounding.

for example:
http://joanerickson.edublogs.org/
http://joyquah.edublogs.org/
http://francapponi.edublogs.org/

I heart diigo!

I have been using diigo for several years now in my online course and in addition to delicious for my social bookmarking… (I started out in delicious and then moved to diigo… but could not let delicious go … still have it and have diigo update my delicious bookmarks)

I LOVE diigo and characterize it as “delicious on steroids” : )

I have a diigo group for my course that is open to the public for viewing, but private to my students for contributing to. http://groups.diigo.com/group/ETAP687

In my course i use it to co-create with students an annotated bibliography of shared resources for the course that <and this is KEY> persists beyond the end of the term and outside the boundaries of the LMS – because their access to their student-generated content and contributions to that bibliography would go away when the course ends, if it were not external to the LMS.

There are so many things that i love about diigo. It helps me express my teaching and social presences to my online students, and helps me build class community.

It assists me to (1) present content, (2) to facilitate engaging and enhanced collaboration and interaction, and (3) it gives me tools with which to provide enhanced and engaging feedback to my students.

These are the 3 categories i use in evaluation of instructional technology, and diigo hits all three. I also evaluate with the following critera, “does the tool allow me to achieve an instructional objective <better, faster, safer, easier, or cheaper>. Diigo hits <better, faster, and easier>.

• I use it to document resources for the course.
• I use it leave comments, highlights, and sticky notes on online web resources for my students and on their course blogs.
• My students use it to bookmark EVERY link, reference, citation that they mention in ANY part of the course.
• My students use it to comment on each other’s bookmarks and on the pages themselves – highlighting passages, asking each other questions, pointing things out to each other. (I model this for them and give them feedback to improve their uses of the tool.)
• I provide a directed learning activity in diigo during the course in which they must find, bookmark, share, and annotate 3 resources that they will use in their own online course and comment on each other’s resources in diigo. I even have experimented with having a class discussion right in diigo.
• I give them feedback and evaluate their use of the tool throughout the course.
• I create a dynamically aggregating link roll that i have in my course on the front page so every time students login to the course they see the latest links that we have all added to our shared bibliography.
• My current and past students remain members of the group and all the artifacts from every time i have taught the course persist as members in the group so we have a community of practice being built and grown with each term.

Diigo allows me to create a resource for my course that captures links to stuff that would otherwise be buried forever in my very discussion-rich fully online course. It helps students learn how to evaluate online resources, how to tag and organize resource links, and provides lots of features and functionality – some of which i have not tried yet.

I also use diigo to curate resources for my instructional designer community. You can see an example here: http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com/  - on the lower left of the page and here: http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com/group/twitter

Like i said i also use it for my own personal social bookmarking and have an extensive library and many groups that i participate in. It is a fundamental part of my PLN and something that i do and use daily. Twitter and diigo are connected in my mind as i bookmark all of the things i learn about via twitter in diigo, and use specific tags and their rss feeds to feed link rolls and tag rolls on a variety of topics or disciplines in the various social networking sites that i manage. The link rolls at the bottoms of all the country pages in this wiki i built for example all draw dynamically from specifically tagged resources in my diigo library, see http://onlinelearningsnapshot-sa.wikispaces.com/

I have begun the internal process of recommending diigo as a university-wide tool.  : )

Diigo is really cool  : ) I <heart> diigo!

cooltools 2012

Here is my “Top 10″ list for 2012:

1. facebook – i have a page set up for my course.
2. netvivbes -  a customizable dashboard publishing platform for the Web to aggregate things from around the web.
3. screencastomatic – Screencast alternative to jing.
4. Scoop.it – information, curation, dissemination, niche, platform, online, social network.
5. audioboo – a mobile & web platform that  allows you to record and upload audio.
6. vyou – broadcast video structured as conversations.
7. glogster – multimedia online posters.
8. ipad – The iPad is the first tablet computer developed by Apple Inc. Announced on January 27, 2010, it is part of a device category between a smartphone and a laptop computer.
9. amplify – Amplify gives an easy way to clip, share and spark conversation around articles, blog posts or anything else you read on the web.
10. pinterest – virtual pin board. A content sharing service that allows members to “pin” images, videos and other objects to their pinboard. Also includes standard social networking features

did not quite make the  list, but still very cool:

1. http://typewith.me/

Cool tools 2011

Cool tools 2010

Cool tools 2009

Cool tools 2008

IMHE “What Works” Conference, Managing Quality Teaching in Higher Education

(Mexicali, Mexico – 5-6 December 2011)

My teaching and learning in the cloud presentation.

slides – http://prezi.com/yyzcr9_btox6/teaching-learning-in-the-cloud/
tools – http://etap640.edublogs.org/2011/07/14/tools-i-use-to-enhance-my-instuction-to-engage-online-learners/
example: technology-enhanced course - http://ualbany.mrooms.net/course/view.php?id=140 – enter with guest access
handout/links: http://etap640.edublogs.org/2010/10/07/teaching-in-the-cloud/

selected links for the presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/alexandrapickett

http://www.youtube.com/alexandrapickett#p/c/16B1004AC945748C
http://etap640.edublogs.org/
http://groups.diigo.com/group/ETAP687
http://etap640.edublogs.org/2011/07/31/2011-course-review-screencasts/
http://etap640.edublogs.org/2011/07/10/learning-activities-feedback-2/
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1106177

my questions to the group:
how do you support teaching innovation at your institution?
what are the difficulties/challenges in supporting teaching innovation at your institution?
how do you overcome these difficulties/challenges?
how do you catalyze change? what motivates faculty? what incentives are there?
how do you keep current with innovative instruction, change, technology?
how do you decide what technologies/initiatives to adopt?
how do you scale and sustain such initiatives?
how do you maintain/insure quality, security, safety, etc.
what are the costs? are they free like “beer”, or free like “puppy”?

My responses to these questions, for example: 
http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com/ – Join!

twitter example:
submission form – http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com/page/share-what-you-know
white paper – http://issuu.com/alexandrapickett/docs/what-i-know1v1?mode=embed&viewMode=presentation&layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Fgrass%2Flayout.xml&showFlipBtn=true
workshop – http://prezi.com/qlrwf_cuenc1/powerful-uses-of-twitter/
group to continue discussion/sharing – http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com/group/twitter

does it take more time to teach online?

I was recently asked by a colleague from another institution the following 2 questions.

1.  From your experience (both personal and working with other faculty), would you say that teaching online takes more time (simple answer requested here).
2. Are you aware of research that indicates either more, the same, or less time is required to teach online.

My answers:

1. no. (I think that the design of the course can result in it taking more time- I think that level of online experience and training of the faculty factor into that). It should take no more time to teach online than f2f.
2. some refs on all sides of the issue : )
   • BRIDGES AND BARRIERS TO TEACHING ONLINE
   • Teaching Online – A Time Comparison
   • Journal of Interactive Online Learning -Frequency and Time Investment of Instructors’ Participation in Threaded Discussions in the Online Classroom
   • DOES TEACHING ONLINE TAKE MORE TIME?
   • The Benefits of Online Teaching for Traditional Classroom Pedagogy: A Case Study for Improving Face-to-Face Instruction

how to build a successful online community

1. How do you build a successful online community for education and professional development?
   Create relevant value.

2. What defines success in online communities?
   Members find relevant value in the community and engage, contribute and participate in the community.

3. What elements of community building contribute to the ongoing engagement of members in an online community?
   -generosity and willingness to share what you know for the good of the community
   -shared passion, values, interests, purpose
   -positive non irritating communications
   -relevant content
   -rulz – aup – tolerance, respect
   -a continuum of expertise is represented in the community from novice to rockstar
   -leadership with cred, skillz, and willingness – it also helps to have heart, charm, personality, and a POV = passion
   -supports network and ways to contribute and a place to talk – interact.
   -TRUST and a shared sense of belonging.
   -continuous improvement with community input
   -interaction.

4. What role do community leaders play in the sustainability of their online community?
   depends on where the community is in its life cycle. at the beginning it is essential that leaders play a major role – Herculean effort that requires authentic heart, genuine passion. it requires being a force of nature.
   
   
5. How do you encourage members to create content?
   ask questions, provide a focus and context for relevant affinity groups and discussions

6. What kind of community features are most used?
   profiles, introductory discussions

7. What community platform do to use? How did you arrive at this choice?
   ning. http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com i could create it and support it by my self  : )

8. Can you share any best practices for moderating a community?
   keep it fresh/updated, with regular current relevant new content. Work smart not hard. Guide, seed, cultivate, model, give generously of your IP and time. don’t trick people or use gimmicks.

9. What kind of rules or guidelines will your community have?
   -new member guide – what you can do features – description of and links to all the stuff you can/should do to get started.
   -community guidelines- what NOT to do and what to do.
   -FAQs
   -TOU
   -a way to report problems/suggestions/questions
   -privacy
   -copyright

10. How do you measure success?
    People join, share, contribute, participate, interact, come back, invite other/more people, post content, initiate interaction, respond, express that the resources and community are valuable
    People value their membership and feel ownership of and belonging to the community.

JOIN!!  http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com

2011 course review screencasts

Video playlist of your course review screencasts. Scroll to locate yours. Listen to those of your classmates for additional feedback that will be relevant to you and your course design.

eduMOOC 2011 – Online Learning Today… Tomorrow

Intro: what i do

My digital footprints: http://bit.ly/mTQBIt
My work: http://slidesha.re/ppIpE1 and http://sln.suny.edu
My team: http://wiki.sln.suny.edu/display/SLNED/*about
Work bio: http://slneducation.edublogs.org/about/ and http://etap640.edublogs.org/about-2/

My faculty hat: http://bit.ly/o1bpVT and http://www.albany.edu/etap/iotl.htm

My community: http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com/ – JOIN!

The role online technologies can have in online learning
http://bit.ly/teachinginthecloud
* facilitate more engaging collaboration and interaction
* provide more engaging feedback
* make me more effective/efficient
* criteria: better faster safer easier or cheaper

How do you engage online learners ?
My teaching: http://prezi.com/yyzcr9_btox6/teaching-learning-in-the-cloud/
About my course: http://etap640.edublogs.org/2010/10/07/teaching-in-the-cloud/
My tools: http://etap640.edublogs.org/2011/07/14/tools-i-use-to-enhance-my-instuction-to-engage-online-learners/ and  http://etap640.edublogs.org/2011/01/22/top-10-cooltools-for-2011/

(voicethread) enhancing content presentation and interaction: social presence/class community
Ice breaking activity: http://voicethread.com/share/1991825/

(microblogging: twitter) content presentation: social presence, teaching presence, engagement, interaction, microlearning/blogging
https://twitter.com/#!/etap640
Engage students in personally driven professional development, community of practice, affinity groups. Reaching out to and engaging in self directed passion driven professional development.
About twitter: http://issuu.com/alexandrapickett/docs/what-i-know1v1?viewMode=presentation

(social bookmarking: diigo) enhancing student engagement: student-generated content, shared resources, social bookmarking
http://groups.diigo.com/group/ETAP687
We co-create a shared annotated bibliography of resources that persist beyond the end of the term.
Makes me more effective and efficient in providing feedback.

• My professional development and community of practice: http://twitter.com/alexpickett plus diigo: http://groups.diigo.com/group/slnonline and http://www.diigo.com/user/alexandrapickett
• About twitter: http://issuu.com/alexandrapickett/docs/what-i-know1v1?viewMode=presentation
• http://etap640.edublogs.org/2009/05/15/my-criteria-for-evaluating-whom-to-follow-on-twitter/

(blogs: edublogs) reflection and metacognitive journaling: developing a public voice, presence and contributing to the read/write web and social discourse
To establish an online presence: for academic and professional purposes
To contribute to and engage in academic and professional public discourse
My current students’ blogs: http://www.netvibes.com/alexandrapickett#ETAP640_-_summer_2011
My blog grading rubric: http://etap640.edublogs.org/2008/06/02/reflections-blog-post-grading-rubric/

(screencasting: jing) enhanced and engaging feedback    and makes me more effective and efficient in providing feedback, examples:

• http://www.screencast.com/t/whCXu3oj4b – feedback.
• http://www.screencast.com/t/gvb43kilynw – response to question and how to instructions.
• http://www.screencast.com/t/P8rpgTNt1O – clarification.
• http://www.screencast.com/t/hhrJp3h2 – instructions.

(podcasting: audacity and podomatic) engaging audio feedback
http://etap640.edublogs.org/2011/07/10/learning-activities-feedback-2/
http://alexandrapickett.podomatic.com/
http://www.podomatic.com/playlist/alexandrapickett/412413

engaging presentation of content, feedback, interaction
video: YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL16B1004AC945748C

My community: http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com/ – JOIN!

Tools I use to enhance my instuction -to engage online learners

I use a variety of web2.0 tools external to the Moodle course management system in this course:

• to enhance the presentation of course content,
• to faciltiate your engagement and interaction with course material and with your classmates,
• to provide you with access to course materials beyond the end of the term, and
• to expose you to tools and utilities that may have potential to enhance instruction.

1. voicethread – an online media album of any type of media (images, documents and videos). Used in this course as an ice-breaking activity.
2. diigo – social bookmarking tool. Used to bookmark, highlight, and comment upon and share references used in the course.
3. edublogs – education-focused blog. Used in this course to keep metacognative journals and reflections/feedback on the online teaching and learning experiences.
4. twitter – micro blog. Used in this course for newsflash type announcements, questions, interaction.
5. jing – a screen capture tool used to provide instructions, feedback, and clarification.
6. meebome – an IM utility to facilitate synchronos extemporaneous interaction from the course homepage and course blog site.
7. audacity – an audio recording utility used in the course to record audio comments and interviews with exemplar online faculty.
8. podomatic – a podcasting utility used to deliver the audio feedback created with audacity to you.
9. youtube – to record and view course-related video materials.
10. voki – a speaking avatar used for announcements in this course.
11. breeze – used to create voice-annotated powerpoint course materials.
12. polldaddy – survey tool used to collect feedback from students on the course.
13. rate my professor – professor rating tool.
14. jumpscam – a QR code generator used to create a scan-able QRcode with information about this course.
15. vyou – conversational video used to ask and answer questions.

http://www.appappeal.com/web-2-0-application-world-mosaic/
http://www.go2web20.net

cooltools

teaching in the cloud prezi

Teaching in the cloud links