The posts for the October Union Strasse newsletter come on the heels of a successfully
executed virtual national faculty meeting. All recordings and resources from
each presentation are available in the WINK
group on CampusWeb, and I encourage
everyone to stop by and revisit the informative workshops by led by our
generous, expert faculty presenters.
Our keynote speaker, Dr. Bernard Bull, is the Assistant Vice
President of Academics, Associate Professor of Education, and Director/Chair of
the M.S. in Educational Design & Technology at Concordia University
Wisconsin. His presentation addressed the topic, “Online Learning through
Community, Connectivity, and Collaboration.”
Many of you who attended reported how encouraged and
inspired you were by Dr. Bull’s vision of using virtual classroom tools to
cultivate better learning communities among your students.
The goal, he emphasized, is never to use technology for the
sake of technology. Rather, technology becomes a means of achieving our main purpose:
keep relationship and connectivity at the center of our mission and calling as
teachers.
The calling of the online learner in the twenty-first
century, Dr. Bull said, is as much about building learning communities and
learning networks as it is about accessing information. He offered seven
dynamic tools to empower instructors to cultivate those learning and networking
communities with their students. I wanted to remember those seven tips and
tricks here.
1) Google+:
This platform is similar to Facebook, and it is great for inviting outsiders into
a virtual space to have a conversation, share videos, type comments, and share
photos. Find more
information here.
2) Twitter:
Dr. Bull said that using Twitter might see odd at first, but Twitter is really
like micro-blogging—you can type 140 characters or less in any online posting. He
encouraged us to use Twitter as a great place to share links and resources. He
even recommended Twitter as a way to build 30 minutes of professional
development into your day by just subscribing to certain Twitter accounts. In
this way, a faculty member or a student becomes exposed to more resources by
being connected to other people than they would find by trying to research it
all on their own. Find out more here.
3) Google
Hangouts: This interface is similar to Adobe Connect. You can host up to 10
people in a virtual room, and the interface contains video and audio features. You
can share screens and interact with a chat portal. The “On Air” capability
allows you and your students to automatically record a meeting and stream it to
YouTube. Recording is useful in case you or your students want to save the
meeting for future reference. Find
out more here.
4) Diigo
(Digest of Internet Information, Groups, and Other Stuff): Diigo is a social bookmarking
website that allows users to highlight any part of a page and to attach a “post-it-note”
to the highlight or to an entire page. If you are looking to organize a series
of websites for your students, or if you want students to bookmark, record, and
add notations about the usefulness of certain websites, Diigo is an excellent
tool for individual research and for shared, team research possibilities. Find out more here.
5) Blogging:
Never underestimate blogging as a formative assessment tool. You can use any
number of blog sites for students to record journal entries or begin drafts of
papers for you and other students to give feedback. Find out more
here.
6) Google
Docs: This feature in Google is useful for writing collective essays. The
program also allows users to view and track editorial changes. This tool is an
excellent compliment to a letter-grade assignment, ensuring that students have the
opportunity to practice and learn before turning in their final draft. Find out more here.
7) Digital
Learning Community: The last tip is to encourage students to think about and become
a member of a digital learning community. Part of being a digital learning
community is to communicate early and often, be really curious, and to look for
and reach out to specific individuals. Another part is to encourage and affirm
IN OUR WORDS and talk intentionally rather than to discourage and distract. A
digital learning community is a space to challenge and question one another and
build upon the ideas of others.
Dr. Bull said that putting some of these tools into place
has three advantages. Using them: 1) increases learning through practice, 2)
increases student engagement and a greater sense of community and
responsibility, and 3) increases access and possibility to your learners.
If you are an instructor at Union, and you have not already done so, please send me an e-mail at
VPAA@myunion.edu and let me know how you
think you could use some of these tools to increase connectivity, relationship,
and engagement in your courses!
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