Hello, and happy fall break (to those of you who get one, anyway.)
Since we have an (officially) short week this week, I’ll try to keep “The Weekly” short this week, too.
The Week that Was
First, great job on the online discussion from the Hawkins readings. I really enjoyed last week’s online conversation. If you haven’t checked in for a few days, you might want to revisit last week’s summary to catch up on some of the later postings. (While you’re there, help Sharon pick a new smartphone!)
Second, if you haven’t done so already, please create and share your wrap-up posts on last week’s reading and discussion on your own blogs. (I’m heading out of town tonight for a one-day “fall break” of my own. When I get back on Wednesday, I’ll go through your blogs to catch up on grading. Since it’s my birthday, too, I’m in a good mood, so am willing to give credit for posts on last week’s reading and discussion that went online after the Sunday night deadline as long as they’re on your blog when I get to it on Wednesday morning.)
Also, if you haven’t already done so, please let me know what you thought of “On Intelligence” overall by completing the reading evaluation survey.
This Week
Somehow we’ve fallen a week behind on our readings based on the syllabus schedule. (I’m not sure how this happened yet, but I am certain it’s something I did.)
Since this week is a short week and next week I want you all to focus on the VoiceThread debate, I’m going to compress things a bit.
First, Ginnette has created a summary and discussion questions for the Hardre reading on motivation on her blog, which we’ll use for discussion this week. (Thanks, Ginnette.)
Second, I have created a highlighted and annotated version of the reading on “Multimodal Learning Through Media” that we should have been to last week to help you key in on some especially important ideas from that reading. (There’s some really good stuff in here that I think you will find nicely connect some of the brain theory material we’ve already covered to concrete learning design.) You can see my highlights and annotations by downloading the PDF file here and then opening it in Adobe Acrobat Reader or the “Preview” application if you’re a Mac user.
So that you don’t miss out on an intro to either of these articles (but don’t get doubled up on writing during what’s supposed to be a short week anyway) here’s what I’d like you to do:
- Focus your responses on the Hardre reading on Ginnette’s first discussion question. If you’re feeling particularly “motivated” (heh), respond to the second one as well. However, I’ll still give full credit for participating if you just focus on the first question in the discussion on her blog.
- Focus your blog post on an important “take-away” idea from the reading on “multimodal learning.” (You will not need to create a separate blog post on the Hardre article, although you are of course free to do so.)
Sorry for the little mix up there. However, a spot of good news: Other than the material you’re finding in your research, there’s no “assigned” reading for next week in LRND 6820!
Coming Up
Next week we shift modes just a bit for our VoiceThread debate, which kicks off with the first VoiceThread post by the “affirmative” team by Sunday night. (I’m really looking forward to this! I used to coach high school debaters, and thought it was a great activity for critical exploration of complex topics.)
In case you missed it, team assignments and a link to the project requirements are posted here. Hopefully you’ve already connected with the other members of your team to divvy up the tasks and come up with a game plan.
If your team has set up some kind of private group site to coordinate your efforts and collect resources, I’d appreciate it if you would grant me access. (I promise not to give away your secrets to the other team.) I’d be curious to see how you’re using online collaboration tools to work together. In return, I will try to give you a few pointers and share some relevant resources I’ve come across that could help you build your cases.
Please keep working on your PLEs and research projects and let me know if you have questions. Feel free also to use the rest of the class as a sounding board on these projects, too. I’m finding there are a lot of smart, creative people in this program, so encourage you to take advantage of each other’s talents and expertise in the spirit of “networked learning.”
That’s all for now. I’ll be offline tonight and tomorrow, but will be back on the grid on Wednesday, so will catch up with you then. In the meantime, have a great week!
See original post on Posterous at http://lrnd6820.posterous.com/the-weekly-8-fall-2010