Oct 17

Just a friendly reminder that the VoiceThread debate starts tonight with the opening presentation by the affirmative team.

(Affirmative team: once you post your initial VoiceThread, please post a link in the comments for this post so everyone can find it.)

By tomorrow night, the negative team will post it’s counter case.

On Tuesday, the affirmative team will then post a second video or presentation in which it attempts to refute the negative team’s case and answer the negative team’s critiques of it’s own case.

On Wednesday, the negative team will then have the “last word,” rebutting the affirmative team’s Tuesday night presentation.

After the “formal” part of the debate ends, please feel free to continue the conversation on the VoiceThread.  (During the debate itself, you are advocating for a specific side, but after Wednesday you should feel free to voice your actual opinion, even if it doesn’t support the side of the argument to which you were assigned.)

Remember that the blog assignment due this coming Sunday is to synthesize for yourself the key points from the debate and to share your own conclusions about whether/how the Web is affecting how we think and the role that learning designers could play in helping maximize the cognitive benefits and minimizing the risks/harms of technology use. 

So that I can award appropriate credit, please also include in your blog post a description of your contributions to your team’s effort.  (This will be especially important for those who contributed a lot to research but don’t have much “on camera” screen time.)

I hope you’re looking forward to this as much as I am.  I think it will be a fun and challenging week.  I’m also excited to actually get to see and hear some of you for the first time!

 

See original post on Posterous at http://lrnd6820.posterous.com/voicethread-debate-starts-tonight

Oct 16

What do you guys think about this idea? (You know, for next year’s students.)

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/making-student-blogs-pay-off-with-blog-…

See original post on Posterous at http://lrnd6820.posterous.com/making-student-blogs-pay-off-with-blog-audits

Oct 11

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

Oct 09

See original post on Posterous at http://lrnd6820.posterous.com/course-reading-evaluation-survey-hawkins-2004

Oct 07

LRND6820 Students: Below are the “teams” for the VoiceThread debate assignment.  I decided to put together only two teams, so you’ll have an extra partner or two with whom to share ideas (and work!)  The teams were drawn by lottery, and then I flipped a coin to determine which team would argue which side of the debate.

For a refresher on what this project entails as well as links to tutorials on VoiceThread, please see this page on our class wiki.

I highly recommend that each group set up a group on Diigo, Google, or Wikispaces to use as a shared resource for coordinating work, compiling shared research resources, and plotting strategy.

Affirmative Team

(Arguing that the Web is, overall, making us “shallower” thinkers.)

  • Wes
  • Frank
  • Melissa
  • Ian
  • Rachel
  • Misty

Negative Team

(Refuting Carr and company and arguing that the Web is, overall, making us smarter, better thinkers.)

  • Breanna
  • Matt
  • Aaron
  • Ginnette
  • Sharon

Good luck, play fair, and let me know if you have questions.

See original post on Posterous at http://lrnd6820.posterous.com/voicethread-debate-teams

Oct 07
An interesting journal article looking at academic use of Facebook by online students in Malaysia: http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde40/articles/article_2.htmSee original post on Posterous at http://lrnd6820.posterous.com/facebook-as-a-forum-for-class-discussion

LRND 6820