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Tuesday, July 1, 2014

online platforms

Moodle, D2L, Canvas

video for MOOCs

Here are some links to explore further:

1. I would say interactive videos could be created by Powerpoint as well. with narrations and converting to video
2. using many other free software  take a look at www.powtoons.com really cool to trailers.. 
3. here is a list of other sowftware you can use- 
www.wiziq.com
screencastomatic-http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ 
http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html
http://atomisystems.com -- good one
http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html
or....
Search as screen casting software. ;)

https://unhangout.media.mit.edu/about/

Saturday, June 28, 2014

structure of the course

So there are the following componenets:
- videos (short)
-forum
-office hours (using IRS or Google Hangout)
- course wiki (which is so far empty and designated for the use by students)
- emails (not more than 2 per week as the instructor promised)

No readings, but links are suggested here and there by the instructor and the peers.



Badges


This is part of gamification...

The badges I come up with:

Some useful sites on this:
 http://idstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/%23altcred 


I think badges can be useful if they are generalised somehow and linked to certain skills (soft/transferrable). This is good for self-awareness, identifying own strenghts and weakness, goal-setting. Also, and most importantly maybe, can be handy in job interviews or evaluations where we are usually asked to describe a situation where we have demonstrated certain skills, e.g. teamwork, problem-solving... So I started thinking from that:

Teamwork
-giving constructive feedback
Encouraging others (by comments etc.)
- helping others (sharing links, answering questions, ..)
Critical thinking
-Giving insightful comments
Asking thought-provoking questions
- Problem-solving
Answering questions
-          
Reflection on learning/practice
Writing comments by reflecting on learning
-Setting own goals
-          
Cultural awareness
-Sharing practice in own culture/context by comments
-Making contacts with others (by addressing names, commenting on someone’s comment or questions, remembering the info about others), showing the learning about different cultures/contexts through comments…
-showing empathy/respect in comments towards other cultures

MOOCs

 MOOC stands for massive online open course.
There are several websites offering MOOCs for free of charge.
www.coursera.org
www.edx.org

How MOOCs are different from online courses? I need to explore..

here is the post by janet Webster which explains it clearly
https://class.coursera.org/massiveteaching-001/forum/thread?thread_id=126
I have a lot of experience teaching online courses at my university using Moodle LMS (free open software) and more recently (past 2 years), I have been involved in the open education movement by taking and co-facilitating Moocs.
Let me try and answer your question (I probably need cutouts....)

 The boundaries are fluid with all of these categories.
  •  For example, I teach online courses, but students are required to attend campus for their final exams. The scheduled campus meetups (if any) are at the discretion of each professor. The courses are marketed to students as 'online', but in reality they still require f2f contact.
  • A regularly scheduled blend of f2f and online are these days called 'blended mode' courses. Again, the professor determines the 'blend' and of course there is a lot of experimentation involved-what works and what does not.
  •  Other institutions (not mine) offer distance education (old term)  or online (current term) where all course requirements are met on whatever online platform has been adopted by the institution (Moodle, D2L, Canvas and others)
  • You can now accomplish undergrad and even graduate designations completely online through a program of studies offered by many institutions by taking all of your courses online. Generally, the curriculum is determined by the prof for each course
  • These kind of online courses are not open; you pay for the course and get  password protected access to the online course. There is a limit to the registration.

Year 2008 and along comes the Mooc- a term coined by Canadian Dave Cormier: here is Dave Cormier's You Tube video 'What is a Mooc?'

The original concept of a Mooc is that of a networked learning environment that is open on the internet (free access to knowledge, teaching / learning). The important principle of the Mooc as it was conceived by Stephen Downes is that of a network of learners-sharing resources and participating in the knowledge - building. Creative Commons licensing is very much in the spirit of the connectivist Mooc as originally conceived.
here are many educators running really open Moocs on the internet using freely available online platforms such as WordPress, Google, Twitter. Check out University of Mary Washington's (Md) Digital Storytelling 106- courses are run on campus, but are also completely open to anyone with an internet connection. Many courses and programs have played around with certain characteristics of the Mooc and discovered new ways of offering material on the internet.Debbie Morrison has a good blog here about xMoocs and cMoocs.

Starting up a MOOC

This week I started a new on-line course on Teaching goes massive: new skills required through courseera. It is my first experience of taking such courses, so I felt overwhelmed with the flow of information going from the instructor as well as the students. The number of people enrolled is quite impressive (at least for me) which is more than 6000 people all over the world. The level of experience of taking MOOC varies a lot, but there are certainly some leaders who seem to have lots of experience in this.

At first I felt I totally lost in this world of new terminology, concepts, videos, fora... My head was spinning already in the second day. Then I think I am finding my way, by not try to grasping everything, but focusing on certain things that mak sense to me at this stage of my development.

I think it would be better if I use separate posts for things that I learnt so far, and want to explore further.