How Schools Are Using Social Media (Time to Get On The Social Media Bus) http://pmte.ch/1pYEI49 via Mike Paul (RT @AnibalPachecoIT: How Schools Are Using Social Media (Time to Get On The Social Media Bus) - http://t.co/RefgcsPKHU… Source: www.pinterest.com See on Scoop.it - FootprintDigital

Social media is great - right? I have made more connections through fb and Twitter than I can count, and have then met people face - to  - face and they have become friends. Cristina Costa, Ricardo Torres and many more. And online dating is a great way to meet people - right? You can find profiles of people you share things in common with, start a communication and get to know each other. But there is a darker, more sinister side to online interactions and unfortunately I have just experienced it…. Here is my story… I tried match.com a few years ago, but didn’t really have any luck, although I did meet someone who has since become a friend. I decided to give it another go and registered three weeks ago. On the Tuesday I saw someone’s profile who looked lovely and we seemed to share a lot in common. I sent him an email saying I liked his profile and if he liked mine to get in touch… He said his name was James Bishop, American, based in the UK for 4 years, divorced with a son in the States. We started having mega email correspondence on the site and then moved to our personal emails. Then we connected on a messaging App called Touch and exchanged literally hundreds and hundreds of texts a day…. We arrange to meet in London two Saturdays ago. Then on the Thursday before he told me he had to go to Tokyo because of a work crisis… Slowly but surely lots of things started to not add up… He sent me a friendship request on fb, I was his only friend. He said he didn’t like fb and only reactivated his account to connect with me… Plausible I thought but a little odd…. I suggested skyping, he said skype wasn’t working, something to do with upgrading his machine. We tried connecting via Google Hangouts, but it didn’t work, he said it was something to do with the hotel security network… We did have two brief phone calls. He sent me lots of pictures of him in Tokyo and his flight bookings, all looked genuine. We rearranged to meet today - in the evening. He was due to fly back on Wednesday. Then he said he had had a car crash and lost his wallet. He rebooked the flight for today and again sent the flight details. But then this morning he said he was at the Western Union bank when he should have been at the airport… So by now I was very very suspicious and just waiting for him to ask for money. Which he did in an email… Hey .. I hope you arrive safely .. Anyway some money came up and like I said I still need 3k pounds and is there anything you can do about it ??..  So that is that. I have de-friended and reported him on fb and will report him on match.com.  I am embarrassed to admit that I fell for this… particularly given the nature of my work. But I feel it is important to blog about this to warn others… Yes Mr or Ms right may well be waiting for you on some internet dating site, but just be careful there are some real sickos out there. This is supposedly a picture of him, wonder who’s digital identity he has stolen. So I am a little shaken and bruised… but will put it down to an experience….  

Scenario-based learning, though quite overused in today’s e-learning courses, still has a charm to it that attracts Instructional Designers to this strategy. Whenever there is a need to engage the learner and make courses interactive, use scenarios. And why not! After all, shouldn’t your courses be engaging enough to motivate the learners to take them? Scenarios are an icing on the cake to an otherwise dull, boring, and linear course. The learner would definitely be motivated now! The motivation, though, can be interpreted differently from a learner’s perspective - it could either be to get certified, achieve a training goal, or meet employer expectations.Argh!! There goes a brilliant strategy down the drain.Now, imagine if a learner’s real motivation is the fun and excitement of going through the course, enjoying full control over the learning. Wouldn’t that be great?Welcome to learner-driven scenarios, a slightly ‘difficult to implement’ but effective strategy to provide flexible learning options and opportunities for higher levels of engagement. Hand over the reins to the person who wants to learn. The learner gets to choose the learning method based on personal preferences. Excellent, it’s all very hunky-dory in theory, but how do you apply it?Well, to put things in perspective, consider learner-driven scenarios a subset of Exploratory Learning. Begin with analysing the starting point and the destination point the learner should ideally be at. Next, list out all possible methods the learner can utilize to make that journey exciting and the ones that will make the journey painful. Then, prepare a question bank from these methods and let the learner choose the path, learning from mistakes made along the journey. Remember, you should be a guide and a mentor walking the path along with the learner, rather than being that authoritative dictator using the stick to teach the learner.Scenario-driven learning; the traditional tried and tested strategy of building learning solutions or learner-driven scenarios; putting the learner’s needs first; bringing that much needed zeal to your courses! Which one would you choose? About the author: Ben is an enthusiastic learning and development leader with over 15 years of combined experience in delivering performance solutions to organizations. He is an International DiSC Certified Trainer by Inscape Publishing and brings a deep insight in the field of neuroscience in leadership, organization development and psychometric assessments.The post Learner driven scenarios- the new efficacy in learning appeared first on .

Today I was interviewed by people from Epigeum. Interesting set of questions, thought I’d provide a summary of my answers here. Questions 1.     Why is it important for an online teacher to establish a social presence with his/her online class? Establishing an online social presence is essential. In face to face situations you can gauge the situation by visual clues - eye contact, body movements, whereas these are absent online. You can to some extent mimic them through the use of emoticons etc. but it is not the same online. If students are going to engage in meaningful discussion online they need to feel at ease and feel that they can trust others, only then will a community of practice start to develop. 2.     What strategies would you recommend for a teacher seeking to establish a social presence? How do they differ from what you do in a face-to-face environment? Firstly, it is important to make it clear what the role of the online space is; how it will be used and what the benefits of participation will be. Secondly, you need to clarify the ground rules for how the students should interact, what is in scope and out. So for example, encouraging mutual reciprocity, supportive discourse and group engagement. Thirdly, you need to establish the level of digital literacy skills the students have; i.e. whether or not they have participated in online forums before and if not providing guidance and support for them to develop these skills. Fourthly, topics should be clear and interesting, topics that open themselves up for discussion, not simple yes or no answers. Fifthly, the moderator should introduce the topic and suggest possible lines of enquiry for discussion. They should then steer (not dominate) the conversation - providing both individual answers, as well as group replies. They should bring the conversation to a clear conclusion at the relevant point, to avoid the conversation fizzling out. This topping and tailing is one of the key success strategies in facilitating meaningful online discussions. Finally, it is advisable to have a clear start and end point to the discussion.   3.     Can you give an example of a situation where social presence has ‘broken down’? What were the consequences? In a sense the answer to this is the opposite of success strategies. So a discussion forum where it is not clear to the students as to what the purpose is or a forum with badly formulated questions. Sometimes the group dynamics doesn’t work and in this case the moderator needs to try and steer the discussion to redress the balance. 4.     What is the top advice you would give to a new/reluctant online teacher? Have a go! I think things like participatory workshops showing teachers good examples of effective moderation can be very helpful and opportunities for them to explore the online space and experiment. We do this as part of our 7Cs of Learning Design workshops and encourage participants to work in teams of 4 or 5, so that they can learn from each other. Questions What are the key concepts of the learning design model? Our 7 Cs of Learning Design framework is based around: Conceptualise, Capture, Communicate, Collaborate, Combine and Consolidate. See http://e4innovation.com/?p=628 for more details. The framework provides teachers with guidance and support to make more effective design decisions that are pedagogically informed and make appropriate use of technologies. How do you use learning design in your practices? In two ways. In the design of my own courses such as our MSc in Learning Innovation and reflectively looking at the evaluation of workshops we run to iteratively improve them   Could you describe the work that you have done with the OU on the Learning Design Initiative? What are the aims of the project and what insights are you gaining into the design process? The OULDI was the starting point in many ways for my learning design work, although it built on the DialogPlus toolkit we developed at Southampton. The 7Cs work builds on it incorporating the work at Leicester and in particular their Carpe Diem work. What are the fundamental benefits of using the learning design model? I think designing for learning is the key challenge facing education today. Despite the enormous potential of technologies to facilitate different pedagogical approaches and support rich interaction, communication and collaboration, technologies are not being used extensively. Learning design provides a mechanism to increase uptake and use of technologies.

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I am doing a keynote later this week at the 63rd ICEM conference in Singapore and wanted some new videos on emergent technologies. Here are a couple of classics…. ·      Social Media Revolution 2013   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCfFcchw1w ·      Micheal Wesch the machine is us/ing us   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE ·      Micheal Wesch - a vision of students today   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9 Google Glass project  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSnB06um5r4   I asked for some suggestions on fb and there are the replies I got… thanks everyone! ·      Drew Wentworth - The Sinclair ZX spectrum o   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwsHACwuzyk ·      Alastair Creelman - The Clangers o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Golf34zPQ ·      Rebecca Ferguson - Minecraft o   https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fminecraft.jokaydia.com%2F&h=OAQFEDAit o   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24177844 ·      Fiona Chatteur - Augmented reality o   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24177844 ·      Erik Duval -  16 films that got the future right o   http://gizmodo.com/16-classic-films-that-got-future-tech-right-1184346443 o   http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806146824/melon-a-headband-and-mobile-app-to-measure-your-fo o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znYTmu2trKE ·      Tony Ratcliffe - Gray’s Anatomy in Twitter o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdprRW-Jvzk ·      Penny Bentley o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHEYtw4IMpY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHHEYtw4IMpY&app=desktop ·      Katherine Dalton - multi-media text and use of iPads o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yMT3pCEQIs o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH-WSJhI_i8 ·      Alice Godwin-Davey - A day made of glass o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38&app=desktop ·      Joyce Seitzinger - entrepreneurial learning o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiGabUBQEnM ·      Emma Duke-Williams - Changing educational paradigms o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U ·      Andy Heath EPII o   http://gpii.net/ ·      Alice Goodwin-Davey future of learning o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8c7Q-WIJQ&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCw8c7Q-WIJQ&app=desktop ·      Mark Smith - Monty Python sketch o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc ·      Alice Goodwin-Davey I have a problem with my blackberry o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSpx3yVgv6k

Testing an @IFTTT trigger #lessoncrashers — Charles Cooper (@Thrasymachus) April 8, 2014 from http://ift.tt/1eJsdUe via IFTTTFiled under: In The Classroom Tagged: IFTTT, Twitter

What makes a great teacher, and how do they treat their students in the classroom? Source: www.topteachingcolleges.net See on Scoop.it - Educational News and Web Tools

Just been asked the following question: What are the most effective uses of mobile and online technologies in education? Here is my answer…  For me mobile and online technologies have transformed my practice as a learner, teacher and researcher in a number of ways. Firstly, social media mean that I am now part of a global, distributed network of peers, able to communicate and share on a wide range of topics. I can pose a question on Twitter and get answers in minutes, I can support Phd students with their research questions, I can share research findings and discuss the findings of others. Secondly, my blog has transformed the way I research - the way I think and the way I write, I truly value the comments that colleagues make and the feeling of being part of a connected community of peers. Finally, new tablet devices, like the iPad mini, mean I can connect and browse anywhere, anytime, through a rich set of interactive and communicative Apps. Technologies continue to evolve - wearable and seamless technologies are now becoming a reality. I cannot conceive what the impact of these will be on our daily lives; I can only say that I think they will be profound and, if used effectively, will certainly enhance our learning and the learning of our students.  

"A picture is worth a thousand words" aptly characterizes that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single graphic. Visualization makes it possible to absorb large amounts of data quickly which shows why we happily share a child’s first drawings and cards with our friends and family. One of the many Cognitive Biases is the Picture Superiority Effect which states that concepts that are learned by viewing pictures are more easily and frequently recalled than concepts that are learned by viewing their written word form counterparts. Auditory images and motor images help memory. Aesthetics have not only been proven to improve usability, but also to increase retention. Effective eLearning deliverables require more than just text and a few random graphics. Good graphic design, user interface (UI) design and user experience (UX) design aren’t optional - they’re necessary. When choosing graphics for eLearning or designing media to compliment textual content in eLearning, it adds great value to implement ‘communication functionality’ in the media objects used. Let’s look at the images below. They present the anatomy of the human hip joint. Without any further reference, what can be perceived with the images? It is important to note that Image 1 and Image 3 are animated videos, while Image 2 and Image 4 are static images. Irrespective of the media type, if the above images are studied in a series, they provide sequential information on the anatomy of the hip joint. The different tabs thus transition from one visual space to the next visual space. It is thus important to note that what caused learning in this case is not exactly the media type. It is the ‘communication functionality’ of the series of images that presented the complete picture. In Series 2 of this article, we will share more about the visual design process, common pitfalls to avoid while designing eLearning media, communication taxonomy of media and more. Keep watching for the more information in this series of posts! About the author: Shikha Bhasin works with InfoPro Learning as a communications expert and brings more than 7 years of experience in content development. Shikha has worked with GE, DLF, Genpact and other companies in various roles and helped these companies in content development, training need analysis and eLearning development.The post Using the Right Graphics to Spruce up Your eLearning Engagement: Series1 appeared first on .