Sunday, March 25, 2012

Delivery Technologies

I honestly am feeling a bit of information overload after reading all the material for this week on Instructional Design.
Some of the items mentioned I am familiar with and other I have never heard of.
RSS-ok got an understanding of this one and a great way to keep the interaction with students. They subscribe to your feed and get updated every time you post a new topic. Flip side of it is that if you have 50 students there is no way you want to have an RSS feed to all of them.
WIKI-Apart from wikipedia this was a totally foreign concept to me. I am getting my head around it now and really looking forward to the group assignment where we will actually put together our own wiki.
Flickr- so I have now joined, always knew of flickr especially every time I have done a search on google images a number of images that come up are from flickr especially if you search specifically for pictures that are labeled for reuse.I have uploaded some of my own scenery shots . Basically same principle as facebook uploads so not too laborious.. So to share a photo from flickr I could not find an advanced search to search for photo's that had Creative Commons licence (ccl). This meant that I found a number of photo's I liked but then found the use restricted. The following photo is ccl
Animations and Gizmo's
Wow some of those Gizmos were really great and I could see the benefit when teaching subjects like maths and science. The best is that the are interactive and react to whatever the students enters.
Web quests These I had never heard of but having seen the potential I believe I could really make use of this as an alternative to the sometimes dry and boring learning packages that we offer to nurses. When I did a search I found a quest aimed at Paramedics and I realized the potential of this as a delivery method.I may even decide to used type of technology for assignment 2.
Slideshare This was another new concept for me.I have registered but have not put anything together as yet. Maybe when I do I will add it to this blog!

Well at the end what I want to  achieve is a way to communicate with the student in a meaningful way and above all to ensure interaction and engagement. If you have that learning will inevitably follow.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Learning and Teaching with Technology


Well this is my first post on my new Blog "Tertiary Teaching and Learning" I will be using this blog
to support my learning during the course of Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education.

I will eventually have links to my wiki and possibly a website if I find that will support my endeavours.
In a way I am lucky in that I have previously used blogging but in a totally different context. My previous blog was an attempt to educate and empower woman when making choices about child birth.My challenge their was to keep it updated. Since my focus has changed I think that will no longer be a problem.

So how can I use blogging to enrich learning?
In a way it almost seems that a blog in theory could replace the "lecturer " in the front if the class! Well not really but it will certainly add a new dimension and access to students.So what would we lack in the blog -well the face to face contact for sure but through comments there is an interaction that can occur between teacher and learner and between learners.
Questions can be posed that invite the participants to interact by commenting.The skill is in asking the right questions that attract the reader to get involved and make the comment.

What I like about the blog is that you can design it to be a 1 stop shop for everything the student needs.
Links to videos to explain or reinforce a point.
Links to other websites that will enrich the learning or offer resources to the learner.
Links to text books that are required or suggested and can be purchased on line.

Having RSS feeds ensure that those who wish to be updated can subscribe and be alerted when new topics are posted.
The ability to link new posts to facebook and twitter allow the users to be alerted to new material that is published.

So far I have looked at blogging only as a platform for me as the teacher to "speak" to the student.
I need to look at blogging from the other side too. How would a students use of a blog enrich their learning and how will I as the teacher be able to assess this as a learning activity?

Well that can be for next time...