A Different Kind of Teacher

As soon as I read this, and things like it, I immediately and without fail always think to myself, “Yeah…what’s gonna happen to all the traditional classroom teachers eventually?”

Read this and share your thoughts:

As many brick-and-mortar colleges shed untenured teaching staff, and online learning programs – especially those run by for-profit institutions – continue to hire, teaching in a virtual setting is becoming the new reality for many more academics. Thursday’s presentation was one of several on online education at this year’s AAUP meeting. Even if they’re tech-savvy, instructors new to online teaching have a lot to learn, Barrett said, and need extensive training before being put before a virtual classroom. “This is where a lot of schools get into trouble,” he said. “They don’t know how to prepare people to teach online.”

News: Another Kind of Academic Career Path – Inside Higher Ed.

Effective E-Learning, Defined Well

I like that this is covered in-depth by this provider, before one ever begins to consider purchasing any of their products. Gives us educators a nice bit to think about before we go investing:

SuddenlySmart – What is Effective Elearning?

It’s widely accepted that e-learning requires interactivity to improve learners’ skills and deliver results. What’s not well understood is that not all types of interactivity are equally effective. In fact, the least effective forms of interactivity are also some of the most popular because they are easy to implement using templates and wizards. Examples include:

• Fact-based quizzes dressed up as mini-games
• Clicking glossy buttons to reveal more text
• Interactivity that is over-produced and under-designed

Creating effective e-learning does require some creativity and knowledge of basic design principles, but that’s what makes it interesting. Design techniques that make e-learning truly effective include:

Click the link above to read more…

Laptops Don’t Have to Be Classroom Distraction

U-M faculty is learning how to make laptops work FOR them and their students in the classroom, instead of allowing them to be learning deterrents:

“If you allow laptops in the classroom without a plan for how you’ll use them, you can potentially invite disaster. It’s unlikely that students will be so entranced by class material that they won’t wander off to their favorite social networking sites,” Samson says. “The key is to deliberately engage students through their computers. LectureTools does just that.”

LectureTools is an interactive student response system and teaching module. Instructors at more than 400 colleges and universities have set up accounts to use it.

More at http://ur.umich.edu/0910/May24_10/1260-how-laptops-can

New Term – Collagogy: The Art of Enabling Social Learning

Inevitably this was coming, but I like that it’s been coined, because it’s real, whether folks are ready for it or not:

“There are some key differences between how people learn from one another in groups versus how they learn in a traditional classroom situations. Therefore, the strategies that we use to enable learning in groups should be different than they are as traditional teachers or trainers. A new term that might capture this idea is: collagogy. Collagogy is the art of enabling social collaborative or networked learning. “Coll” is a Latin prefix, meaning “with” or “together” common derivative of com- or con-; and “-agogy” is a Greek suffix, meaning “leading, guiding, stimulating, bringing, taking, or promoting.” Combined, the word means leading, guiding, stimulating, etc. together. Think of a similar word – collaborate – which means, “to labor together”. Pedagogy is Greek for “child-leading”, and andragogy is Greek for “man-leading”. Following this format, collagogy could be described as “group-leading”.The details of what collagogy entails will require more thought and will be the premise of future blogs. For now, the basic set of strategies includes:

• Providing an environment for social/networked/collaborative learning
• Ensuring that learners have the knowledge and skills necessary to access and use the social learning environment and process effectively
• Leading the culture change to embrace and employ social learning regularly
• Designing learning solutions that maximize the social learning process
• Encouraging informal, as-needed, just-in-time learning
• Monitoring the social learning environment, communities, and transactions

Originally, I thought collagogy would just apply to adults and that it would be an expansion of Malcolm Knowles’ adult learning principles he called andragogy, but after reviewing the trends in both K-12 and higher education fields, I now believe that collagogy can apply to both children and adults.”

via CorpU » Blog Archive » Collagogy: The Art of Enabling Social Learning.

Instructional Technology Journals & Magazines

Instructional Design & Technology Connections: Instructional Technology Journals & Magazines.

Oakland CC adds 'early college,' eases transfers to Wayne State

Oakland Community College and the West Bloomfield School District last week announced the opening of Oakland County’s first “early college” high school, Oakland Early College. OEC is a public school open to all Oakland County students, regardless of district of residency. Early colleges blend secondary and post-secondary education, adding a year to high school in a college preparatory curriculum. Students graduate with a high school diploma plus an associate degree in five years instead of the usual six. More. Also, Oakland CC announced a new program to make transferring to Wayne State University easier after two years. More.

Tags: education, learning, training, instruction, development, knowledge, school, student, teaching, college, university, learn