While reading the article, Investigating the Effect(s) of Technology Integration on Teaching Practices that May Lead to the Development of a Community of Learners by Julie Machnaik (http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/machnaik/machnaik.pdf), it made me think: Educators often dictate to students exactly what they should know (in the name of objectives), but should that be their primary role? Perhaps […]
Learning as a Way of Life
“Learning is not a task or problem; it is a way to be in the world. Man learns as he pursues goals and projects that have meaning for him. He is always learning something.” Educational Psychologist, Sidney Jourard, 1972
Pleasant Surprise
Recently, we started exploring ways to use our learning management system to facilitate greater collaboration, particularly asynchronous communication. Today I was pleasantly surprised to see that a faculty member had opened a discussion post that inspired feedback from other members. With faculty being so over committed, being open to virtual discussion and collaboration will create […]
Modeling as an Instructional Strategy
As my organization transitions to a new learning management system (Desire2Learn), I keep trying to figure out ways to help acclimate the faculty I support to the new platform. The more I can model the functionality of various features in the section designated for discipline resources, the more opportunities the faculty will have to experience […]
Co-Authoring Documents
The everchanging schedule of approved textbooks would be perfect for co-authoring by multiple authors. All responsible parties could take ownership of their curriculum’s textbooks and have the capability of making revisions to their portion of the document as needed. This would allow for version control and we would have a record of any revisions.
Plan B
Looks like SharePoint is a no go for collaboration right now. Switching focus to temporarily using Blackboard LMS for document management. It’s not ideal because the features we have implemented don’t really facilitate document sharing and collaboration using a wiki platform, but for now it will do. There are multiple cloud-based web 2.0 tools, but […]
SharePoint Site Development
Starting to consider content to include in a division/team site. Curious to see how long it will take to get a skeleton platform up and running in order to house content for multiple projects requiring collaboration from various team members. Having a centralized document management location readily accessible by the entire division will allow for much more accurate […]
Professional Portfolio Update (3/30 – 4/6)
I think my portfolio is just about presentable! There are so many details to consider and everytime I view a page or get feedback from someone who views a page, additional changes result. This week, someone was viewing some of the content using an iPad and I realized that all of my flash based presentations […]
Staff Development Workshop Update (3/30 – 4/6)
Developing both a face-to-face and online version of the same workshop has been a great experience. I would recommend it to any instructor. Just when you think you have organized your course content in a way that is crystal clear, a workshop participant asks a question that alerts you the fact that it is not! […]
Technology Resource Center Update (3/30 – 4/6)
Putting my technology resource center analysis together has been much like completing a puzzle. I started off in 1 room, the instructional design lab, interviewing 1 man, the instructional technology specialist. Ultimately the impact was so far reaching that I found myself in faculty & staff offices, as well as classrooms trying to get a snapshot view of […]