I’m doing a presentation next week for Alec Couros‘ s EC&I 831: Social Media & Open Education course and as part of it I’ve need to organise some required reading one week prior to the presentation. I’ve been asked to focus on educational blogging and building personal learning networks so I’m hoping you can help as I want to: Demonstrate how conversations in blog comments provides greater knowledge gain for all involved, because each individual sees a different perspective of the task - giving everyone greater "food for thought!" Model personal learning networks in action! About The course EC&I 831: Social Media & Open Education course is an open access graduate course from the Faculty of Education, University of Regina for both registered and non-registered students. Participants are all teachers, or principals, and most are new to using social media. Can you share your thoughts on the following: What are the benefits of blogging with students and/or yourself? What are some of the challenge of student blogging and how do you avoid them? Can you recommend any ‘must read’ articles on student blogging? What questions would you most like me to answer if you attended a presentation by me on educational blogging and building personal learning networks? And if you’re enjoying this blog, please consider Subscribing for free!

Commenters on my What Are Your Thoughts on Educational Blogging? post asked if I would share the essence of my presentation from Alec Couros‘ s EC&I 831: Social Media & Open Education course — so as promised here it is! You can watch an Elluminate recording of the session here. Pre-presentation Preparation One of the best aspects of Alec’s course is that participants post reflections on their blogs.  Wouldn’t that be nice if you could research and interact with participants before every presentation to be better prepared? By checking out their Shared Google Reader folder I was able to: Read their posts and leave some comments. Get a feel for who they are as individuals and where they are at Find out what they learnt in previous sessions Target my presentation based on my perception of their needs Most of the participants are fairly new to using social media and blogging so I decided to focus on what they really needed to know about educational blogging. Here’s What I Covered I created the following diagram to explain how through the process of writing posts and engaging in discussions in comments we are constantly evaluating, reviewing, reflecting and revising information.  And that by this continual process we’re learning. Unfortunately I don’t feel I adequately emphasized how this learning is very different from how most of us are used to learning. Nik Peachey provides a great summary in  his comment "With out this final stage of reconstructing information and turning it into knowledge that is useable by others in my professional community, much of the information that I read or see on the web would just pass straight through me". Community and learning as part of a community (or network) is one of the most important aspects of educational blogging and one of the key areas that most educators fail to appreciate. The whole process of creating, connecting, communicating and collaborating as part of a community through the interactions of posts and conversations in comments is essential. Unfortunately educators often fail to adequately encourage the community and commenting aspects in their student blogging programs. Here are a few examples of good approaches to student blogging: Jan Smith’s Huzzah class blog - starts her students on the class blog and gradually moves them onto their own student blogs. Sue Wyatt’s Student blogging challenge It’s really important to experience how blogging  changes your own learning to appreciate the impact it has and to understand how to use it effectively with students. Here is the participants brainstorming of their thoughts, challenges and concerns based on where they are currently at with their blogging. A key point I emphasized is their course provides them an excellent opportunity which is ideal for developing their blogging skills; they need to focus on working together as a community while gaining skills they can use with their own students. My tips were: Step 1: Change comment moderation settings Currently they are all using the default comment moderation setting which means all commenters must have had a previously approved comment otherwise the comment is moderated. Unfortunately in their situation this is negatively impacting in the comment conversations.  New commenters don’t gain from reading older comments. You change comment moderation settings by going to Settings > Discussion. Step 2: Set up Google Reader The best way to work as a community is to set up your Google Reader account so that you are subscribed to both posts and comments from all the blogs. Here’s my instructions on how to Manage Comments and Posts On Blogs Using Google Reader. Step 3: Engage in Conversations They need to start focus more on learning off each other and engaging in conversations by: Reading each other posts - each of them will have different perspective on the topic and working collectively they will gain more than working individually Commenting on each others posts - take the time to share their thoughts in response to each others posts.  To expand the conversation and really make each other think. Comment back to comments on their own posts - respond to people who leave comments.  Use it as an opportunity to find out more information from the person who left the comment. Learn how to pingback on other bloggers posts Final Thoughts Alec asked me to frame a question for response by participants at the end of my session. So I’ve asked them to write a post on "What are 3 questions (and why) you would like answered on educational blogging or building personal learning networks? so that I and the other participants could visit their posts and leave comments to answer their questions. If you would like to ask me these same questions please feel free to write your own post and: Pingback my What Are Your Thoughts on Educational Blogging? post so I’m notified of your post And/or leave a comment with a link to your post on this post Thanks to everyone who left comments on What Are Your Thoughts on Educational Blogging? — all participants have been asked to read through your comments! Would also love to hear your thoughts.  What would you have said differently?  What else should I have included? And if you’re enjoying this blog, please consider Subscribing for free!

Lingueo, the Paris based marketplace for online language lessons launched a new website although the actual format is around for quite some time already. PolyglotParty.com is the new home of the very successful offline event with the same name that … Continue reading →

As everybody is talking about the recent changes in the Google algorithm and more importantly the effects of those changes I am pleased that David Schapell, the CEO of TeachStreet, gave me his OK for a quick talk about that. … Continue reading →

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Michael Butler. Recently I discussed two broad approaches to materials creation, which I termed episodic and systematic. Today I would like to discuss two approaches to instruction, which I term Incremental and … Continue reading →

Tuesday evening I had the pleasure of hosting TWiST Paris, our meetup that enables French start-up companies to pitch a local audience in English and then get the opportunity to present their business to US entrepreneur and investor Jason Calacanis live via … Continue reading →

As today is a public holiday in France (Assumption Day, just fyi) what better day to choose than this to start a new series on this blog. The inspiration has formed over the past couple of weeks when a few … Continue reading →

We have the first LAUNCH Pad Tablet Conference coming up on Oct. 21 at Microsoft in Mountain View, California. As the name suggests, the conference will focus on how tablets have changed the way we use technology and engage. The … Continue reading →

One of the major topics among edupreneurs, online marketers, blogger and others relying on Facebook traffic is the recent change in what fans actually see popping up in their news stream. I wanted to title this post "Waahaa - Cry Babies want their Facebook traffic back!" but that would have been a bit unfair . [...]

Published August 2004 What does the increasing move toward outsourcing mean for CLOs? What skills and new responsibilities will be necessary for success? What will be the new measures of success? First, CLOs will increasingly need to focus on the "business of learning." The 2004 Accenture Learning Survey of 285 enterprise learning organizations found that CLOs are being measured more and more by how they run their learning function as a "business unit." CLOs are focusing more on capabilities such as managing their learning budget to plan, and increasing efficiency and effectiveness by focusing on the business impacts of learning. Figure 1 below examines the most prevalent performance measures in place. New alignment processes will also become important to CLOs. These range from managing service-level agreements (i.e., measurements promised by outsourcing partners in the operation of a function) to formally tracking the business value of the investment in learning, ultimately providing business insights. CLOs will also need to look at more effective governance and accountability structures to align learning to business goals. Establishing a governing board for the learning function is only the first step toward aligning learning with business goals. Governing councils are also vital. These councils-for the senior leadership of the organization as well as for each business unit-provide input into how learning can achieve strategic business priorities. Decision-making councils involve executive and senior management, business unit management and business/learning relationship managers. Governance of the learning function must involve a process for consistently translating business challenges into the performance needs of the workforce. The difference between being a manager and being a leader may be the greatest challenge CLOs face. As interest in outsourcing increases, CLOs will focus less on managing the day-to-day design, development and delivery of learning, and more on exercising leadership and communicating a vision. CLOs will need to be effective communicators and marketers, and this means more than learning portals, road shows, course catalogs and newsletters. An effective communications plan is vital. Leading learning organizations work with their marketing and communications professionals to plan and execute a blended marketing model that leverages both on-site and online marketing and communications tools. The outcome is that all levels of the organization, as well as the extended value chain, understand that learning is a strategic asset, not simply a cost of doing business. CLOs who understand the learning and business dimensions of their jobs will prosper. Some companies may fritter away their learning investments on programs that have not changed substantially year-to-year. Successful learning organizations will design and communicate the decision-making parameters and mechanisms that will enable learning investments to fulfill the strategic priorities of the organization. A business-focused CLO will be the difference between success and failure of the function. Technorati Tags: Outsourcing, CLO