Livestreamed Chemistry Labs Keep Learning Real — Mistakes, Spills and All — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

To keep students engaged, the synchronous sessions include small-group breakout sessions and on-the-spot activities like having students name compounds; balance chemical equations; predict the outcomes of experiments; and calculate masses, amounts and concentrations for the chemicals used.

 

[Re: online-based learning] The Ford Model T from 1910 didn’t start out looking like a Maserati Gran Turismo from 2021! [Christian]

From DSC:
Per Wikipedia, this is a 1910 Model T that was photographed in Salt Lake City:

The Ford Model T didn't start out looking like a Maserati from 2021!

 

This is what online/virtual learning looks like further down the road. Our journey has just begun.

From DSC:
The Ford Model T didn’t start out looking like a Maserati Gran Turismo from 2021! Inventions take time to develop…to be improved…for new and further innovations and experiments to take place.

Thinking of this in terms of online-based learning, please don’t think we’ve reached the end of the road for online-based learning. 

The truth is, we’ve barely begun our journey.

 


Two last thoughts here


1 ) It took *teams* of people to get us to the point of producing a Maserati like this. It will take *teams* of people to produce the Maserati of online-based learning.

2) In terms of online-based learning, it’s hard to say how close to the Maserati that we have come because I/we don’t know how far things will go. But this I do know: We have come a looooonnnnnggggg ways from the late 1990s! If that’s what happened in the last 20 years — with many denying the value of online-based learning — what might the next 5, 10, or 20 years look like when further interest, needs, investments, etc. are added? Then add to all of that the momentum from emerging technologies like 5G, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, bots, algorithms, and more!


From DSC:
To drive the point home, here’s an addendum on late 9/29/20:

Mercedes-Benz Shares Video of Avatar Electric Car Prototype

 

How to Maintain Peace in Your School Pod — from nytimes.com by Katherine Cusumano
‘It’s important to approach this with the idea that there’s no ideal situation. If there were, we’d all be doing it.’

Excerpt:

Most disagreements, according to Waine Tam, a founder of Selected for Families, an online service that matches families and slearning pods with qualified teachers, “tend to come up front.” Having frank discussions early on might make finding suitable podmates and forming a pod more difficult — but they can also contribute to the long-term success of the group, if you approach them with sensitivity and flexibility.

 

DIY Checklist to Set Up Your In-Home Learning Pod — from families.getselected.com

 

Olympia parents form ‘co-op style’ learning pods to support kids without a price tag — from theolympian.com vby Katie Hayes

 

Unschooling: The New School — from risingkashmir.com
The term unschooling was coined in the 1970s and used by educator John Holt, who is regarded as the father of unschooling

  • Unschooled kids pursue Self-Directed Learning as they are free to choose what they want to learn and who they want to learn from
  • Unschooling is becoming a trend in urban India with Bengaluru and Pune leading the chart
    Learning is entirely interest driven not dictated or directed by an external curriculum, by teachers or by parents
  • Socialization, development and isolation are some of the demerits of unschooling
  • Unschooling community is not claiming that their education model is better than regular schools but say that the latter is fundamentally flawed
  • An individual’s calibre is what makes him/her a creator of circumstances or a creature of circumstances
 

How Do You Make Zoom Breakout Rooms Less Boring? — from edsurgey.com by Bonni Stachowiak (Columnist)

Excerpt:

My first recommendation was to keep the breakout room time-frames short. If we allocate too much time, some groups will be done with the exercise with lots of time left, which can lead to social awkwardness. My preference is to have a few, shorter breakouts instead of one long one.

The second recommendation I had was around making the students’ work more visible when they are in the breakout rooms—through the use of an editable, shared document of some kind.

 

How to Engage Students (and Identify Them) — from thejournal.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

“The lessons that created the most engaging experiences for students often were a combination of opportunities that encouraged discussion, gave students learning choices and allowed students to create. These elements are immensely transferable both in the online and in-person classroom and can facilitate a positive learning environment, whether in a synchronous or asynchronous setting.”

The report is available with an email address through the GoGuardian website.

Go Guardian's 2020: State of Engagement Report

 

We’re All New This Year: How Advice for Rookie Teachers Can Help Everyone During Virtual Learning — from kqed.org by Kara Newhouse

Excerpt:

How can I teach music if the kids aren’t allowed to sing indoors? How will lag time affect group singing online? How will I make students feel seen and heard via Zoom? Those were some of the questions that elementary music teacher Angela Carpenter spent her summer trying to figure out. Though she would be entering her 15th year of teaching, it was like being new to the job. “No one has done this before. Even the teaching that we’re doing now is so vastly different than what we did in the spring,” she said, “because that was panic teaching.”

She’s not alone with that thought.

 

Best Practices for Teaching Online -- K12 -- Laurel Springs School

[K12] Best Practices for Teaching Online — from Laurel Springs School; with thanks to The Journal for their article on this entitled, “While Schools Go Online, Here’s How Teachers Can Turn Uncertainty Into Opportunity” by Megan O’Reilly Palevich

Excerpt:

As I was reflecting on the magnitude of what is happening in K-12 education, I wanted to figure out a way to help the teaching community. It dawned on me that Laurel Springs has just over 150 teachers and almost 30 years of distance learning experience as a school. So, I asked our expert teaching faculty—what are your best practices for teaching online? I was overwhelmed by the responses and goodwill from my team. I am excited to share with you a guide to help with working remotely, communicating with students and families, and the best tips and resources for lower, middle, and upper school.

I hope that you find this information useful and share it with your colleagues. Feel free to pass it on and share—we are all in this together. As a parent, teacher, and leader, I appreciate you and all of the wonderfully creative things you are doing to do what you do best: TEACHING.

Please feel free to contact me for any additional support!

Warmest regards,

Best Practices for Teaching Online -- from Laurel Springs School by Megan O'Reilly Palevich

PDF file here.

 

Students need digital skills more than ever. We know because they’re telling us. — from jisc.ac.uk by Ruth Drysdale
As learners return to colleges and campuses, there’s no turning back from the online shift they’ve experienced this year. Embedding digital in both face-to-face and remote learning is more crucial than ever.

There’s been impressive change in the past six months, but we’ve also seen emergency measures, introduced at speed, as a ‘good enough’ sticking plaster solution. Students are telling us they need digital embedded into their courses. Now is the time to listen and respond, transforming approaches and delivering robust systems that can withstand the uncertainties ahead.

 

Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom – What’s Working, What’s Not — from derekbruff.org by Derek Bruff

Excerpt:

Now that we’re a few weeks into the semester, I wanted to know what was working and what was a continuing challenge for instructors, so I convened a conversation on teaching earlier this week attended by 18 of my faculty colleagues representing a range of disciplines. They were excited to be back in the classroom this fall. “There’s a different energy when we’re face-to-face,” one of them said. We had a lively discussion via Zoom about hybrid teaching, including what made it exciting and what made it frustrating, and I wanted to share a few highlights here on the blog.

I waited a minute or two while the participants thought and typed, and when it was clear that most of the participants were no longer typing, I said, “Ready, set, go!” Everyone hit enter, and a slew of responses appeared in the chat at the same time. At this point, we all spent a couple of minutes reading through the responses. I selected a couple that were particularly interesting and called on those participants to elaborate via video.

Also see:

Active Learning in Hybrid and Physically Distanced Classrooms — from cft.vanderbilt.edu by Derek Bruff

 

If I’m standing at the front of the classroom with half or a third of my students in the room with me, but sitting six feet apart from each other and wearing masks, while the rest of my students are joining class by videoconference, what strategies might I employ to engage all of my students in meaningful learning?

I’m going to try to outline some options here in this blog post, drawing on ideas and resources from across the higher education community, but I would enthusiastically welcome additional approaches in the comments below or via Hypothesis annotations.

Derek Bruff

 
 

Reflections on some nice ideas from Dr. Barbi Honeycutt [Lecture Breakers Weekly!]

Per this week’s Lecture Breakers Weekly! from Dr. Barbi Honeycutt:

Break up your online lectures with the Watch Party! Here’s how you can do it: 

  • Pre-record your mini-lecture or find a video you want to use for your lesson. 
  • Instead of asking students to watch the video on their own, play it during your synchronous/live class time.
  • Explain to your students that they are watching the video all at the same time and that you will be facilitating the chat and answering their questions as they watch the video together. It’s a watch party!
  • Option: Take the conversation out of Zoom or your LMS. Create a hashtag for your course on Twitter and invite other experts, colleagues, or friends to join the conversation.

Instead of presenting during the synchronous class time, you can now focus completely on managing the chat, prompting discussion, and responding to students’ questions and ideas in real-time. And be sure to record and save the chat for students who couldn’t attend the live session or want to review it later.

From DSC:
This is one of the kind of things that I envisioned with Learning from the living class[room] — a next-generation, global learning platform.

Learners could be watching a presentation/presenter, but communicating in real-time with other learners. Perhaps it will be a tvOS-based app or something similar. But TV as we know it is changing, right? It continues to become more interactive and on-demand all the time. Add videoconferencing apps like Zoom, Cisco Webex Meetings, Blackboard Collaborate, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Connect and others, and you have real-time, continuous, lifelong, relevant/timely, affordable, accessible, up-to-date learning.

Also, you have TEAM-BASED learning. 

Add videoconferencing apps like Zoom, Cisco Webex Meetings, Blackboard Collaborate, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Connect and others, and you have real-time, continuous, lifelong, up-to-date learning.

 

 

8 innovative virtual learning design tips to engage your remote teams — from elearningindustry.com by Shannon Hart
Virtual learning is an essential component in the Learning and Development toolkit, and it is widely used for training and educational purposes. It is not, however, always high quality or effective. Here are some design tips from the instructional and visual perspectives to give your virtual learning a real boost.

Excerpt:

With more employees working remotely than ever before, it is crucial that we create learning assets that really engage. Let’s talk about two aspects of design that are equally important if you want to provide virtual learning that really gets results—Instructional Design and visual design.

#visualdesign #instructionaldesign
#elearning #simulations #interaction
#corporatelearning
#graphicdesign

From DSC:
Notice the variety of necessary skillsets involved in Shannon’s article! This is one of the reasons I’m for the use of team-based content creation and delivery.

 

Teaching -- over at The Chronicle

Subject: Teaching: Tips for Helping Students Through Another Tough Semester — from chronicle.com by Beckie Supiano

This week:

  • I share some simple ways professors can help stressed-out students navigate their courses.
  • I pass along some other resources for supporting students during the pandemic.
  • I share some recent articles you may have missed.
  • I ask for your perspective on how the fall semester is unfolding.
 

From A New Way Forward:

Grab the remote! A series from Big Picture Learning!

Grab the remote! A series from Big Picture Learning!

Also see the following “Must Reads” from A New Way Forward:


From DSC:
Along these lines…in regards to digital equity, I’m reminded of this recent graphic:

Let's use television for folks who don't have access to the Internet -- Daniel Christian

 

Just released today! Jane Hart’s Top 200 Tools for Learning

Jane Hart's Top 200 Tools for Learning -- released on 9-1-20

Top 200 Tools for Learning — from toptools4learning.com by Jane Hart

Excerpt:

The Top Tools for Learning 2020 was compiled by Jane Hart from the results of the 14th Annual Learning Tools Survey, and released on 1 September 2020. For general information about the survey and this website, visit the About page. For observations and infographics of this year’s list, see Analysis 2020.

 

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian