I started work on this guide in 2011, and when Joyce stared working at Deakin Uni during the year, I was happy to work together with her to finish this version. We’ve chosen the most used D2L tools and mapped them in a matrix to give advice about how useful they are for specific learning activities and using colours indicated how well they fit to that task. We presented the new Desire2Learn Tool Guide for Teachers at the recent inaugural Desire2Learn Asia-Pac Teaching and Learning conference and hope that people find it useful. You can download an A3 Poster version (pdf) below. 

Desire2Learn Tool Guide for Teachers Sep2012

We have also created a Deakin version of the Desire2Learn Tool Guide that contains references to the Deakin Graduate Learning Outcomes and 12 Aspects of Cloud Learning that we see as important in supporting 21st Century Learning and developing work-ready graduates. We have released under a creative commons license that is non-commercial, share alike with attribution. It is intended that this might become part of the suite of professional development tools available to support online learning and teaching using Desire2Learn. Looking forward to your feedback. 

PS. Joyce’s original guide has been translated into over a dozen languages and has also been adapted for a different LMS – see the BlackBoard Tool Guide for Tutors & the BlackBoard 9.1 Tool Guide. 

Technorati Tags: D2L, Desire2Learn, LMS, Teachers, Tool Guide

Photo credit: psicologiaclinica

A tweet by Jenny Luca pointing to her blog post on using Vialogues (video & dialogues) indicated to me that more & more people are recognising the usefulness in education of being able to comment on video. The service suggests users to start a meaningful conversation and to, Create, Invite, Interact and Share. Jenny focused on using the video as a screencast and explanatory learning resource and I think this is a great way for student to interact with a resource and comment with questions, their understanding, or need for further enquiry. 

I’m also interested in how students might reflect on their own performance, say as a beginning teacher, nurse, psychologist, doctor, counsellor etc. A friend of mine has been working with a technology at RMIT called the Media Annotation Tool that allows for students to comment on an uploaded video (of themselves or for particular task) and then receive peer feedback on their comments/reflection before the teacher provides some feedback.  Megan Colasante has written a paper about this project, Using video annotation to reflect on and evaluate physical education pre-service teaching practice. I believe this tool has promise and hope development continues. 

There could be some remarkable power in a reflection when you have to watch your own performance (say against that of an expert) and then receive constructive feedback on your comments and performance – this should lead to engaged and meaningful learning. 

There are other tools that do similar things such as Voicethread (uses still rather than video) and the new TedEd Website features video lessons that can be ‘flipped’ and give teachers the opportunity to create lessons with reflective questions built in, but not the capacity to annotate the video. With video becoming more ubiquitous as students are now able to easily capture learning and practice moments via a smart device. I also understand that it may not always be suitable to annotate/comment after the fact, as it might be necessary to assess something while it’s happening live and not to have to watch a performance twice. While there are some professional video recording and coding applications available, I’m looking forward to further educational developments in this space. Of course there’s many other ways to use video for learning, but the idea of comments and annotations at specific points and events in a performance is very useful. The bonus would be the capacity of multiple comment tracks and maybe even some control over their visibility. 

In the meantime I’ll also be investigating the usefulness of point of view (POV) glasses for this sort of application.

Technorati Tags: annotation, comment, engagement, reflection, video

Recently I followed a link in a tweet to a video by Nirvan Mullick that has gone viral and had nearly 5 million views on Youtube & Vimeo in about a week. Caine’s Arcade is a heart warming story of a 9 year old boy in Los Angeles who build his own (slot machine) arcade out of cardboard and packing tap over the summer holidays. The video is well edited and a nicely paced story told an appropriate 11 minute package.

Caine displays lots of imagination, creativity, motivation and entrepreneurial spirit while remaining matter of fact sort of kid. The story of the arcade he designed and built provides a great example of what the outcome of good learning (mostly self-taught?) can be. The unique conditions in which he created the arcade (in front of the counter at his father’s car used auto-parts business) might not be what we’d think of as an ideal learning environment, it worked for Caine and was most suitable in this instance. I’d love to see more of this sort of thing being constructed in school classrooms.

Watch the video out on Youtube

Other than TV coverage there’s been some commentary about why this story might appeal, what might happen to Caine, and what makes a viral video.

But wait, there’s more – a teacher has developed a lesson plan based around the story, there’s the Facebook page, and the Caine’s Arcade foundation has been set up to raise funds for an education scholarship. 

I found some comments in this article highlighting the amount of money raised by Caine’s Arcade foundation interesting when it suggested that: “Crowd-sourcing the funding of Monroy’s college education is great. But this is only helping one child and it isn’t sustainable,” says Gordon Coonfield, a professor of communication at Villanova University in Philadelphia. “We need to find more sustainable and broader-reaching ways to help those who need help. Maybe crowd-sourcing and social networks are something the nonprofit sector and education institutions need to take a closer look at.” 

I believe there’s also a responsibility for those who use the tools and power afforded by social media, to be aware of the potential for collateral damage. Remember Star Wars Kid? – see Wikipedia and Know your meme. While young Caine didn’t have much control over what’s happened to him and seems to coping with the new found fame, I hope he’s able to get back to what we might think of a normal life soon. 

But back to Shirky’s book and linking the ideas of the power of social media to organise groups and how this might be used in education/learning. The affordances of social media provides groups with efficiencies and a new capacity for ‘sharing, cooperation and collective action’. As we come to understand these new ‘tools of culture’ and as their design, functionality, and our access to them evolves, we need to think carefully about their use and understand the ramifications of the affects that they will have on all aspects of our lives. 

What does the power of social media and the willingness of people to engage & connect this way mean for us in higher education?

How does the possibility of these connections and collaborations affect our work in teaching and research?

Are particular (digital) literacies required to use social media meaningfully & responsibly?

Where is the place for ‘analogue’ means of connection as social media becomes a more ubiquitous tool of modern culture? 

PS. Danah Boyd has just published a piece in The Guardian called, Whether the digital era improves society is up to its users – that’s us, and discusses concepts such as the attention economy and radical transparency. The byline for the article is, “Social media in particular has inexorably changed the world, driving openness and fear – but it is not beyond our control”. An intersting read. 

Technorati Tags: books, Clay Shirky, crowdsource, flash mobs, groups, social media

Photo by Jan Tik

What I’ve particularly liked is the outline that has been used for each learning theorist.  They include an:

• Overview of the individual
• Specific theory and ideas on learning
• Relevance to learning
• Implications for E-learning
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

Where appropriate the author has also provided evidence that highlights the flaws in a particular theory and how it has been proved incorrect.

Any pre-service teacher or learning professional involved at any level, would do well to spend some time absorbing these overviews to help provide a context to what we understand what good teaching and learning might be. Thanks Donald…

Technorati Tags: education, learning, theory

Since coming back from FUSION 2011 mid 2011, I worked on a small research project that examined the planning for the integration of ePortfolios into degree program. I believe this is a worthwhile way to implement ePortfolios by having them embedded in a purposeful and meaningful way with authentic assessment activities. The resulting research report was submitted as the final piece of assessment for the Graduate Certificate of Higher Education (happy to say that I’ve now graduated).

Then there was a flurry of conferences from October to December that provided me with opportunities to share, learn, reconnect and be inspired. I was able to present the preliminary findings of the ePortfolio research project at the ePortfolio Australia Conference (#EAC11) in Perth last October.  I also came away from the conference understanding that sufficient planning & preparation are required to introduce ePortfolios successfully, that student respond well to engaging ePortfolio tasks, and that ePortfolios provide a useful platform for student reflections on learning. While in Perth I was also able to attend the Apple Paperless Padagogy Workshop (great to see the development of tools to create epubs on the iPad platform) and the ATN Assessment Conference (#ATN11). I came away from this conference thinking more about how we can design assessment to be more meaningful in the 21st Century, how we provide authentic assessment of graduate attributes, skills and capabilities attainment, and how we might provide alternative modes of feedback such as audio.

I was on the organising committee of the Teaching and Learning with Vision Conference (#TLV11) in early November and we had a great lineup of speakers and a great vibe over the two days. We were challenged to think about using games for learning, creating innovative learning spaces, how a new generation of learners like to learn, the power of networks for learning, learnt more about QR codes, using point of view (POV) glasses to record skill development, and we shared our favourite social media & networking tools. Make sure you come along to TLV12 in November this year.

Photo By miz minh TLV11

In mid November I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Informa Technology for Learning and Teaching Forum and caught up with friends Steve Wheeler, Tom Cochrane and Dave Cummings (amongst others). Then at the end of November there was the ConVerge conference (#ConVerge11) and I enjoyed catching up with Howard Errey, Greg Young, Joyce Seitzinger and Nancy White. Came away with a better understanding of; how MOOCs work, ways mobile devices and video conferencing can be used for engaged learning, how to create epubs, the use Diigo & Evernote for social bookmarking, and the power of connecting groups and networks. 

Also late in the year I applied for a job in the School of Medicine at Deakin, and was very happy to be offered the position of Senior Lecturer, Medical Education (eLearning). This meant that I had to say goodbye to my team and colleagues in the Faculty of Business and Law and finished up on the last working day of the year. My new role is to support the use of technology in learning and teaching so has a similar focus as my previous position, but I’m also keen to develop the research component of my work to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of what we do. 

In early December I was able to attend ASCILITE (#ascilite11) in Hobart and and caught up with friends, made some new connections, and got to know some of my new colleagues from the Faculty of Health. I appreciated hearing about projects involved with; learning design and the use of technology in teaching, student response systems, rubric creation and use, curation and social media, and the potential for learning analytics. 

ascilite 2011 opening keynote

I started in the School of Medicine mid January and have been busy getting to know staff and students as well as learning how the medical program is delivered. The LMS (Desire2Learn) is used extensively to support the delivery of the program and I see lots of opportunities to augment that system with the use mobile devices, ePortfolios, and video and multi-media. I hope to get a few projects going and looking at how we can improve the outcomes of learning & teaching program for both students and staff. 

So, while my work has been constant over the past nine months, there has been some change in the context of what I’m doing. I was very fortunate and appreciated the opportunities of professional development through conference attendance late last year and look forward to making a contribution in my new workplace. 

Technorati Tags: change, jobs, work

There’s been spectacular thunderstorms each evening this week and the thunder & lighting generally announce a good downpour. The days have been warm but I haven’t been outside all that much as the conference has kept us busy from 8-4:30. There have been lots of sessions to choose from, including hands-on workshops to help people learn more about particular tools. Plenty of D2L staff have been available to discuss issues and I liked the triage desk (with staff dressed in white coats & stethoscopes) where you could go and chat about feature requests or other things that are of concern/need fixing. Nice.

I usually find conferences are a good litmus test of how we are travelling with regard to our practice and use of technology for learning and teaching. It’s been good here at D2L, to be confirmed in a way that indicates that we ‘up there’ with regard to best practice and robust implementation. Great to talk to other educators though, and hear about alternative ways of doing things and I’ll be reviewing all this as I debrief after the conference.

Technorati Tags: conference, Denver, Desire2Learn

Storms in Colorado (photo credit Jerry W. Lewis)

So, for some calm I’m heading over to Denver, Colorado on Friday where I’ll be attending the Fusion 2011 Desire2Learn users conference. I’m looking forward to it as it will be the first D2L conference I’ve attended, I’ve never been to Denver before, and the weather’s going to be much warmer than I’ve been experiencing lately (and I hope it’s calmer than the photo I found to illustrate this post).

I’m also looking forward to meeting other D2L users and having an opportunity to share our stories while doing some networking. The D2L staff will also have my attention as we get to know each other and establish our partnership as client and vendor. Amongst other things, I’ll be learning as much as I can about the ePortfolio tool and how others are using D2L for blended learning.  I’ll also be giving a presentation with a colleague in which we will provide two perspectives (learning systems and an academic) of the implementation process so far. I’ll be sharing some insights via twitter of course (@colwar) and intend to supplement them here with some blog posts.

Now to pack my bags – I hope there’s some good company & movies on the plane.

Technorati Tags: conference, D2L11, Desire2Learn, Fusion 2011, LMS

Narelle’s tweet led me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Connections site that invites its “staff to offer their personal perspectives on works of art in the Museum’s vast collection. Their voices range from the authoritative to the highly subjective, and touch upon any number of themes and concepts.”

What I like about this project of a potential 100 episodes, is that each person brings a knowledge and passion to the subject they are covering. They have selected specific art works from the museum that focus on, or reference a theme, such as Hands, City, Water, Light, Maps, etc. I think this is a great resource and models a nice format that could be used by students to use in assessments such as reports. To take a problem, issue, or topic and to research around that, collecting relevant information in text with illustrative and supporting images, and then creating a story that links the parts to create a snapshot that is greater than the whole. This type of project outcome can quickly become a useful collection to share with other students and a resource to add to an ePortfolio. Are we able to rethink assessment so that it is conceptualised as a potential resource, something of value that is reusable?

Not that everyone has the capacity to develop a website such as this with it production values, but there are a number of other ways to create such a multimedia collection. You could do this as a narrated PowerPoint (such as Pecha Kucha style), or online using Voicethread, or an image sequence in QuickTime with an audio track that is saved as video, or a even with screen capture software such as Camtasia. I’m sure there would be many more… Can you suggest other ways?

Of course this isn’t to dismiss the fact that these could also be done in ‘analogue’ by creating a book or folio by hand. I’m just cognisant of the benefit of a digital format and that is can be shared with many. Is anyone already doing and happy to share their story?

I’d love to hear about your ideas about thinking differently about assessment, particularly in higher education.

Technorati Tags: art, connection, creation, curators, multimedia

At my university there is a significant usage of recorded lectures, and students demand access to them. Staff are stressed over whether the recordings have worked and are of good quality. Some staff even fear that they will receive bad student evaluations if the system fails and students complain over not having access to recorded lectures to supposedly review their study.

Photo credit: Ben McLeod

I don’t want to go into the pros and cons of recorded lectures or of the systems that support them. What I wanted to write about was the process we’ve just begun of reviewing our current lecture recording system. We undertook a logic mapping workshop with relevant stakeholders from across the university and spent some time working through strengths, problems, solutions and benefits (sort of like SWOT but different).

One of the outcomes of this process was to suggest that we may need to think differently about our idea of what a lecture is. The technology has been constraining the paradigm of what we understand the lecture to be. Originally developed to be able to record the delivery of an oration and maybe also capture a series of powerpoint slide or some video, the software was modelled on the idea of one teacher talking to an audience (of students). Blended and flexible learning paradigms are showing us that the traditional oration (while appropriate in some circumstances) needs to be adjusted to support new ways of teaching and learning.

I’ve been encouraged that we will be developing a proposal and framework that understands that we may need to record more than just a stand & deliver lecture. We’ll be seeking to be able to record interactive lectures, short ad-hoc talks & presentations (with or without video). The aim then, is to also be a catalyst to help teachers come to understand different models for getting a message across.

As Stephen Downes recently argued in a debate, ‘The Lecture Must Stand’, it just needs to be adapted appropriate to the need.

Technorati Tags: audio, lecture, recording, teaching

There’s been plenty of mainstream media coverage of recent Skype, Twitter, and Facebook controversies in Australia, where people have made inappropriate and immature comments about others that are disappointing and embarrassing. While I find aspects of this unfortunate and disturbing, I understand that it may be simply reflecting what may often happen in a smaller sphere, and not out in public. What surprises me is that the people getting up to this sort of behaviour should know better. Are people more inclined to act this way because they can hide behind their social networking software and not have to say things to someone’s face?

I admire that TV shows such as Q&A invite the participation of social media into the program and allow the audience and viewers to comment. I believe this can be a good thing, but I find that it also encourages and provides a platform for people to take a cheap shot, or be critical without backing up their position. Maybe I’m being naive, but I wonder why there seems to be too much of a willingness to slag off and polarise. I’m not sure if the motivation is to express an alternate view, seeing how clever they can sound, or just to draw attention to themselves. This bothers me enough to the extent that I don’t even want to watch the program, let alone follow the #qanda hashtag. I’m not for a moment suggesting that there are no useful, thoughtful questions and comments that people do make, it’s just the other stuff detracts from the conversation/discussion and often isn’t funny.

I suppose my point is that it can be difficult (but not impossible) to have useful & wholesome debate using social media, it’s just that it often seems to be a bunch of people making noise that irritates, like a dog barking away behind a fence. I’m thankful that at least I can choose not to listen… What do you think?

Oh, and if you’re after some guidance on how to use social media and participate in social networks there’s no excuse as there’s plenty of resources…

Telstra’s 3 Rs of Social Media Engagement

Intel Social Media Guidelines

Framework Social Media Guidelines | Australian Flexible Learning Framework

Enterprise: A List of 40 Social media Staff Guidelines (Laurel Papworth)

Technorati Tags: facebook, guidelines, skype, social media, twitter