Twice a year we run a two-day research workshop for our PhD students. Pal Edirisingha always puts together a rich programme for these events and they are always enjoyable and productive. One of the themes for the forthcoming workshop will be a session to help with research writing and getting published. Writing is always a difficult process, but very rewarding when it goes well. There is nothing as good as seeing a paper or book in print. But the process of reviewing can be nerve wracking; getting critical comments back can be hard to take. So the session will help students develop strategies for writing research articles, as well as mechanisms to help them through the review process. We are delighted that Frances Bell (formally editor of Research in Learning Technologies) has agreed to run a session for us. 

Filed under: In The Classroom

. . WHAT Is Digital CitizenShip? Well, there is a lot of different views! WE will explore WHAT could be THE BEST way to teach and to learn about Digital CitizenShip (hashtag on Twitter is #digcit) … Source: gustmees.wordpress.com See on Scoop.it - FootprintDigital

Have you ever created what you thought was a really great course only to find that people who had taken the course were a bit fuzzy on the details a week later? Here are few guidelines that can help you create elearning courses that are "hard to forget." The golden rule of spacing On longer courses, most learners do not complete their training at one go. Days may pass between one session and the next in their online training, increasing the possibility that the student has forgotten many of the things that were previously taught. Applying spacing techniques to your online courses can help inhibit forgetfulness and keep things fresh. When writing course content, divide lengthy topics into smaller chunks of information to optimize students’ working memory. Spread information evenly with acceptable intervals giving ample time to the students to absorb it completely. Re-stimulate learner attention over time by using a variety of media to present and refresh content such as videos, scenarios, activities, games, and stimulating practice exercises. These methods will help keep things fresh in the learner’s mind as they proceed in the course. Repetition is the key to learning We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. — Aristotle Back in old days, repetition was commonly used in learning. When learning activities primarily consist of repetition, it can feel tedious. Balance is the key. We can use repetition methods tactfully and stealthily in our online training to ensure maximum retention and recall. Every online course has few important points that serve as the backbone of the subject matter and it is a good idea repeat that information to keep things fresh in learner’s mind. One great way to do this is by presenting reinforcing points interactively to learners so that they are involved and focused and remember it for a longer period of time. Use visuals such as flowcharts and diagrams, and activity templates such as drag-and-drop activities and scenarios in your online training to refresh key points and reinforce them in a way that makes them increasingly unlikely to be forgotten. Things naturally "stick" and get classified as "important to remember" when we encounter them with sufficient frequency. If you suspect the needed frequency will vary greatly among your students, consider a re-playable game or activity that puts the control in the learner’s hands. Our Learning Content Management System (LCMS) Flash Card activity template can be very handy in this as it helps in targeted learning of the content that is either not mastered or forgotten by the student. Students can work in learn or test mode. In test mode, a pie graph shows the student their progress in cards learned, almost learned, and still unknown. There are also other built-in activity and game templates in LCMS that can provide quick and easy-to-build interesting repetition of the subject matter, thus maximizing learning. Our games all pull from banks of questions, so they can be played multiple times to practice content. Check them out and see which activity and game templates would work best for your online training! The isolation strategy As per the Von Restorff Effect (also known as "Isolation Effect"), people pay more attention to unusual things and hence, remember it for a longer time period. Following isolation strategy in your elearning course can be a good idea to keep learners from forgetting your online training. Bring elements of surprise and unexpected outcomes in your elearning to apply the Von Restorff Effect. Surprise learners with unexpected story plots (elearning scenarios), fascinate them with interesting images and engage them with refreshing audio and video pieces. Experiment different font styles to emphasize important points. Frequent assessments While students typically don’t like tests, there is no doubt that tests can be a strong motivation factor that helps focus student attention and make them take subject matter seriously. Having frequent quizzes or tests in an online course can allow instructors to reinforce important points easily and inform and guide students regarding their performance, both at the same time. Studies show that frequent quick low-stake assessment activities can reduce overall study time and improve scores on final exams. Sprinkle practice assessments and low-stake light quizzes in your online training to help students recall the earlier information along with supporting feedback to clear ambiguity. Conclusion As elearning course developers, we have a responsibility to create useful and effective elearning courses that add to the learner’s long-term knowledge and meet their desired training goals. Create an elearning course worth remembering by leveraging and maximizing the smart technology and rich features of your authoring tool  to develop smart, admirable, and memorable elearning courses. Not yet a member of our authoring program? Sign up today for freemium tools and some of the best sales channels in the market for workforce training!

Last week we hosted 28 delegates from OU China. Pal Edirisingha put together a great programme for them; covering aspects of our research in ILI, as well as presentations from people across the university. This included Adrian Beck talking about the use of iPads in Criminology, Phil Wood talking about creating ebooks with iBooks Author, and Dylan Thomas talking about Problem-Based Learning. I ran an all day workshop on Learning Design on the Tuesday. Ming Nie in our team did an amazing job of interpreting and Terese Bird worked quietly behind the scenes to ensure that the technology worked. So a great team effort! There was plenty of opportunity for interactivity and we had some interesting discussions. The next two weeks they are visiting the OU UK, and then finally the Institute of Education. I hope they found the visit useful and that this is the start of some on going collaborations.

Filed under: In The Classroom

By Janet Pinto, Chief Academic Officer, Curriki How do you engage today’s Digital Age students in relevant, authentic learning tasks? Project Based Learning (PBL) teaches both doing, as well as lea… Source: currikiblog.wordpress.com See on Scoop.it - InformationCommunication (ICT)

Editing your own work can be challenging. You know what you intended to say or type, and without active focus of your attention, your eyes may speed over errors. Getting a friend or colleague or editor to proofread your work is great—but not always an option. Below are some strategies to help ensure that your text-based content is the best it can be. After you believe you have a good candidate for your final draft, try the following. Read it later. Give yourself some time away from what you wrote before you come back and edit it. The more mental distance you have from the text, the easier it will be to see it with fresh eyes and catch wording that is unclear, potentially misleading, or afflicted with errors. Turn off all distractions. For greatest success at proofreading, your brain cannot be running wild, multi-tasking, listening to songs on the radio with words, half-paying attention to nearby conversations, watching television and videos, being constantly interrupted by email or messages, or otherwise having attention pulled away from the editing task at hand. Turn off the distractions. Go someplace quiet—or find a good pair of headphones. Focus. Listen up! Read the text out loud—and actively listen to yourself. Is what you read out loud what you intended to say? Are your brain, eyes, and tongue in sync? Did the written text leave any words out? Did the written text have any artifacts of things you might have cut and pasted, but not fully revised? Does the text sound natural? Are the sentences choppy or abrupt? Smooth it out and connect ideas. Are there sentences that are unnecessarily long or complicated? Have you built monumental passages that you can barely get through with one breath? Simplify and clarify them. Let software tools do their magic. Microsoft Word Run Microsoft Word’s grammar and spelling check. Word will not catch everything—but if it flags something, there is a very good chance that the word or sentence merits your consideration. In Word 2013, go to File and then select Options from the left navigation column. A dialog box displays. Click Proofing. Adjust the settings as desired. In particular, click the Settings button next to Writing Style. You will probably want all the checkboxes under Grammar turned on to ensure that Word has your back to the extent possible. If auto-correct is on, Word will flag things as you type. Otherwise, you can go to the Review tab and click Spelling and Grammar to achieve the same results. Word will put a red squiggle under words it does not recognize. If you right-click the word, it will offer suggestions. When you trigger a spelling and grammar check it will provide not only suggestions, but the definitions of each of the suggestions. Word will put a blue or green squiggle under perceived grammatical errors. Again, if you right-click, Word will offer suggestions. If you trigger a spelling and grammar check, Word will give you more detailed information about the rule and will provide reference examples. Google Docs Google Docs also offers a spelling and grammar check, though more basic than that of Word. To use it, click Tools, then click Spelling. A red squiggle will display under words that Google Docs does not recognize. Right-click for suggestions. Reverso A third option might be Reverso which offers spelling and grammar checks as well as translation options. Other free tools can also be found on the web. In all these cases, keep in mind that software-based spelling and grammar checks will not catch EVERYTHING. If a word has a legitimate spelling, but is not the intended word, software checks will often not catch it. Go slo-mo. Read the text at ultra-slow speed, pausing between each word and spending a second or two to look intently at the spelling of the word. Pay particular attention to headings, captions, labels on graphs, acronyms (and other text rendered in all capital letters), and other areas that may have been given different visual treatments from the main blocks of text. These frequently get overlooked in preliminary editing passes. Read backwards. If you find yourself speeding even when you try to go slowly, try reading the sentence backwards, word by word. Use a piece of paper to cover up the words before the one on which you are focusing. Putting the words in isolation will allow you to concentrate on just looking at the spelling. Double-check. If you have irksome doubts about whether something is definitely correct, research the case in a dictionary or grammar reference such as the Chicago Manual of Style. Conclusion Text that is clean and free from spelling and grammatical errors gives your online course a polished, professional feel—well worth the effort it takes to ensure it. Happy course building! Onwards and upwards! Laura and the 360training Authoring Team

Filed under: In The Classroom

Nice blog post by Helen Beetham on the ‘live writing’ approach we adopted for the conclusion chapter to the second edition of ‘Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age’. Helen states that she was slightly nervous about this. I think what made it work was that we all knew each other well and have collaborated extensively over the years. Also we were all comfortable with using social media and indeed many of us blog on a regular basis, so the mix of online and face-to-face activities felt comfortable. Helen lists the follow topics as ‘starters for ten’ for the chapter: the open vs closed internet, and specifically how that impacts on the opportunities for open educational practicesto evolve and spread digital literacy, and specifically how we develop critically techno-literate individuals with an awareness of how digital systems design our world and actions in it, as well as offering themselves for use mobile technologies and specifically the convergence of real and virtual space through ubiquitous connectivity and the use of geolocational data. These, and other themes that emerged during the workshop, are explored in more detail in the final chapter.