I have been involved with the EFQUEL community for a number of years now. It’s a great group and the annual conference in September is always good. Recently in addition to this we have established a new journal INNOQUAL, which will focus on quality issues in the use of technologies in education. This is an under-researched area I think and hence the journal is very timely. I am one of the editors, along with Ulf Ehlers and Jan Pawlowski. We are very fortunate indeed to have Ann Tannhauser coordinating the administrative side of things. The first edition is now out and has five great articles: Trusted Educational Networks for the Internationalization of Open Educational Resources PDF Jan Pawlowski, Kati Clements     Quality Assurance Processes in E-Learning - An Estonian Case PDF Toomas Plank, Anne Villems, Lehti Pilt, Marit Dremljuga-Telk, Merle Varendi, Eneli Sutt     Transtitution - Transforming higher educational institutions through modernization of middle management     PDF Radojka Krneta, Rolf Reinhardt, Danijela Milosevic     A view on Personal Learning Environments through approaches to learning PDF Esteban Romero-Frías, José L. Arquero     Evaluating staff led initiatives in teaching and management innovation in an online university: the case of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya PDF Nuria Ferran, Teresa Sancho   Ulf sets the scene for the issue as follows: Openness is arriving at educational institutions. It will hit educational institutions at large and change completely the nature of their organization, profile and mission. Like an avalanche it has started already on the top of the mountain and finds its way downward. You don’t see it but it is moving faster and faster with great force underneath the surface. If you are experienced with avalanches you know that it will hit but you don’t know when, and if you are experienced with ‘old style education and training’ you know why: Organisations are giving away knowledge for free. More and more higher education institutions are opening up, in their business models in their leaning designs and in their access regulations. Training institutions and schools are beginning to change. A huge pressure on the classical 20th century education and training organisation is building up because its unique selling point - to be the sole shepherds of knowledge - no longer holds differentiating power when knowledge is made available for everybody or free. When knowledge is available one of the important future tasks of educators will be to give orientation about quality and to organize certification and assessment. The intention of this journal is to lead the way to these horizons and discuss new emerging and more open forms and methods of quality development and assessment. If you are interested in issues around quality and e-learning, do consider putting in a paper to the journal!

Filed under: In The Classroom

Wondering what it takes to develop an outclass online training of your own? Below are some tips that will help you develop a powerful and rewarding elearning course. Planning: Smart planning is a key to success. Before you start writing your course, it’s better to plan a framework of your course’s description, its learning outcomes, training goals, organization and selection of course content, assessments, interactions, students expectations and so forth. Having this information in hand will keep things well organized and moving forward smoothly. Synergy: No matter how expert you are in your field and how well-crafted your course is, it is always a good idea to share your course’s draft with colleagues and experts. The benefit of this practice is that you will get an expert’s feedback and run a quick quality check on your elearning courses, both at the same time. Do not forget to accept criticism open-heartedly during this process. Arousal of Interest in Learners: Interest is a key factor in learning. Always remember to add items of learners’ interest in your courses. Do note that interest doesn’t mean flashy pictures or humorous quotes; an interesting element can be added to an online course in the form of interactive games, animations, videos, activities, real life scenarios, case studies, etc. Interesting and relevant images in a course can also motivate learners to focus on the subject more. Sprinkle interactivity and curiosity elements throughout the course to maximize learning. Remember, interesting elements in an online training course can transform a conventional course into an interesting story that every learner would want to hear. Precision and Simplicity: The beauty of effective authoring lies in presenting complex ideas in a simple and straightforward manner. While authoring courses, ensure to make best use of the course authoring tool that you are using and create simple, precise and compelling training. Shun lengthy and complicated sentence structures and transfer complex points of your training by using built-in templates (flowcharts, diagrams and animations) of your course authoring tool.  Effective Communication: Distance and its impact on communication can be one of the greatest challenges in online training. Most instructors are under a wrong impression that online learning does not require any communication or support. This mind-set is very limiting, and can result in a non-optimal course. Communication in an online course is as important as it is in a classroom training. Overcome the communication barrier between yourself and your potential student by increasing communication in the form of feedback during assessment, clear instructions, student interactivity, and so forth. Effective Assessments: Assessing students performance is crucial to the learning process. Well-designed assessments improve instructional process and enhance learning.  Add challenging assessments, practice exams and/or knowledge checks during and at the end of each lesson of  the course to help learners revise and absorb all the key ideas that they have learned during the training. Try out the above mentioned tips while authoring online courses to create training that is exciting to learn and has the ability to educate learners in best possible way.

Image: http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ojs/index.php/jls/article/viewFile/282/278/1699  As I mentioned before, this week I am running a workshop at the EDEN conference in Olso on Learning Design and Designing TEL spaces. Below is an outline of the session, with links to all the resources. The resources are based on the 7Cs of Learning Design framework  and on iTunes U here, as well as the resources from the SKG project. The aim is to combine these resources to enable participants to design learning interventions that make effective use of both physical learning spaces and resources. One of the things I like about the SKG project is that it involved students; to elicit their views and what they needed to support their learning. There is a nice video on the site of a student John and his typical day, which is well worth a look at. By the end of the seminar, participants will have: Gained awareness and application of the range of resources, tools and methods which are available to support learning design, including learning design tools/methods and open educational resource repositories Considered a range of pedagogical approaches and the role played by different technologies in supporting these approaches Conceptualised the design process from different perspectives Developed an innovative storyboard to share with colleagues back in the office, to spark discussion around livening up a dry course Participants should have a specific course in mind that they want to design, redesign or review in terms of the effective use of technologies for learner interaction and engagement. Bring materials to session. The activities and resources are: Consider your course features (http://goo.gl/CRpc5) Apply the SKG 7 principles of design to create a Technology-Enhanced Learning space (http://tinyurl.com/jw9alcp) Consider your course map (http://goo.gl/Z5eu7 Tools to capture, communicate & collaborate Do a resource audit (http://goo.gl/C31yv) Develop your storyboard (http://goo.gl/z1VON) Analyse your activity profile (http://goo.gl/WMIzu) A more detailed outline of the workshop is on Google Drive.

Filed under: In The Classroom

Have you been thinking of making a course with 360training? In this fast-moving world, learner time is at a premium. How can we help learners get the most out of their elearning time? Here are a few handy tips to help you create time-friendly and productive elearning before you bring it to the market for sale. So let’s get started! Strategically use hyperlinks in your course Online education lacks classroom interaction and in order to bridge student-trainer gap, some course developers bombard students with numerous web-links in the name of additional information in an online course. As a course developer, we must conduct needs analysis before adding external information to our elearning and determine whether the information to which we are directing students is already covered in the course or not. One thing to consider when adding hyperlinks is their placement in the course. Some instructional designers make the mistake of sprinkling links all over the course. If presenting additional information is a must, organize that information properly. Add external links at the end of each lesson or module, or at the end of the course. Also, it would be nice to add a small note asking students to bookmark and read those links once the training is completed, so that their complete focus in on the course. Compiling and adding relevant and useful links for more information can be a service to the student as it saves them time finding the best resources themselves, but the provided links should be supplemental, and must not interrupt the course. One tip to save learners’ time is going through the recommended websites yourself and reference the supplemental material in our online courses (if time permits). Last but not least, set time expectations with the students so that they budget an appropriate amount of time spend. Provide targeted glossaries Glossaries are added in an elearning course to define certain terminologies and terms, however, unlike a grocery list, a long list of glossary can be time consuming. Avoid long lists of glossary entries and pick those terms that are relevant to your course and likely to be unfamiliar to the student. This practice will keep the glossary list short and precise. Be sure to introduce and define new terms in the slides to teach them. The glossary should simply serve as a reminder. Strategically use job aids and reference handouts in online training Job aids and reference handouts are very helpful in saving the learner’s time. They can allow students to fully concentrate on the course and can provide a handy review of the course once it is completed. One important thing to note about supplemental material is that it should support the core content presented in the course—not be used as core content. Supplemental material may be overlooked by students. If it’s important content, keep it in the main online experience flow. When adding practice material such as such as worksheets and exercises, always place them before assessments and final exams to promote in-depth understanding of the subject matter. Break video into bite-size chunks Videos are excellent audio-visual aids and can make the learning experience productive and interesting. Before you select and upload videos in your Learning Content Management System (LCMS), map out the number of videos that you would like to add and their duration. Short chunks of videos (2-5 minutes in length) tend to work better as they provide breaks, and allow users to easily fit learning moments into their schedule. Go for interesting videos with optimized length to keep students motivated in your online course. Keep content concise and pertinent Be wary of digressions and long asides. Stay focused on the content the student needs to learn in order to be successful in the real world. Captivate your students with smart visuals, short videos, and catchy activities to help them accomplish training goals, and maintain attention, both at the same time. Conclusion Maintain learner’s interest and help them get the most out of your elearning by keep things simple, pertinent and interesting. Remember: The better you meet your learners’ needs, the more value you provide, and the better your course will generally sell. Looking forward to seeing your new course in our upcoming contest. Good luck and happy elearning!

At this week’s EDEN conference one of the sessions I am involved with is a plenary for young scholars. To kick-start the discussion Eva Suba has set up a page with a number of hot topics for discussion: Using technologies effectively to meet the needs of a diverse student population How to acquire sufficient theoretical grounding in the field prior to undertaking empirical research How can assessment with e-portfolios enhance students’ performance by means of personalization? How to foster the avoiding of student drop-outs? How to motivate teachers who are not used to ICT at their lessons? How to organize the "Use 1 PC for 1 pupil model" (Moodle) at school with limited finances? From campus focused student research to distance (&blended) education How can we incorporate social media in pedagogically meaningful ways? Should be an interesting session!    

Post by ICTSFPHMS. Bringing #Twitter to the classroom! Utilizing #SocialMedia to enhance class debate! #edchat #edtech Source: www.facebook.com See on Scoop.it - InformationCommunication (ICT)

Filed under: In The Classroom

Top-rated instructors strive to create useful and engaging online training to help learners get the most out of their elearning and help them apply the knowledge in practical life. They seek to shift from the traditional learning paradigm of "knowing" to the modern learning paradigm of "knowing and doing." They explore methods and approaches, like those of Dr. David Merrill, Professor of Instructional Design at Utah University, to keep the learner engaged and incorporate interactive and real-life problem-solving elements in their online training, moving the learner away from "click-click click" course navigation mode to deeper learning and understanding of the course content. eLearning scenarios are an excellent way to engage learners, promote their decision making skills, and to help them apply the acquired knowledge through practice. Scenarios can help students get the jist of different real-life situations that they may encounter, and equip them with problem-solving skills to make sound judgments in such complex situations. The following are some of the essential components of an effective elearning scenario: Realistic: eLearning scenarios should be closely related to real-life situations so that learners see reflections of their world in that scenario, understand its relevance, and are interested in the outcome. Similarly, the answer choices should reflect the real-life dilemmas and should be thought-provoking. For example, if your elearning scenario is about a woman mistakenly eating food to which she is allergic, your answer options may expand beyond simply calling an ambulance or consulting with her family members or friends who are present. Should you open her purse to see if she carries emergency allergy medicine? Should you check her phone for an emergency contact number? Should you stay on the sidelines, hoping there is a doctor in the area, not wanting to make a wrong or misinterpreted move? Real life can have complicated choices. Relevant: Scenarios are a great way to assess students’ understanding of the subject matter. Craft scenarios according to the information presented in the course and help learners practice and apply that information by attempting the scenarios. Motivational: eLearning scenarios should be motivating and closely linked with the learning objectives of the course. Adopt a story-like approach when writing scenarios and avoid lengthy text. Grab learner’s attention by adding risk-filled situations and challenging elements and keep the students alert with unexpected outcomes. Simple: Use simple and direct language while writing elearning scenarios to avoid confusion and keep learner attention from wandering off. Luring learners through acres of dense jargon-filled description is often not successful and may diminish the effectiveness of your scenario in supporting the related learning objective. Present the case clearly and crisply. Challenge learners’ current understanding and allow that to be the focus of the scenario. Informative feedback: Good course developers strive to write interesting, informative, and useful feedback so that the learner will read it willingly and use that information successfully, whenever required. Try adding the consequence of each action (answer choices) to help learner understand the course content at a deeper level. For an incorrect attempt, feedback such as "That’s not right" or "Try Again" may not be adequate. Inform learners about the possible result of their selected course of action so that they can understand and chose the right direction. Catchy pictures: A picture is worth a thousand words. When developing elearning scenarios, use interesting and relevant images to help student to visualize the situation. We usually don’t get a second chance to correct ourselves in real-life situations, but with the help of elearning scenarios, a student is provided an opportunity to learn and practice in an authentic environment. Write effective eLearning scenarios to infuse problem-solving and strategic decision-making skills in your students. Become an elearning author. Get the best tools and the best distribution network for workforce training. Make a difference. Onwards and upwards!

  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. 

Planning to author a technical course? Authoring technical training is often a top activity for experts who have years of hands-on experience in a given field. The knowledge transfer can be highly beneficial for learner-practitioners seeking to deepen and improve their job performance. Unfortunately, technical training can sometimes be very dense, complex, and dry. Here are a few techniques to present technical subject matter such that the learner remains engaged and receptive throughout the course and is able to apply the newly acquired information in best possible manner. Simplify and Focus Vocabulary. Keep in mind the expected experience and knowledge of your students. Do they know all the technical jargon you use effortlessly on a daily basis? Are you assuming background knowledge that they may not yet have acquired? Keep things simple and take the content stepwise, to allow more novice students to grasp the subject matter more quickly and keep them from being overwhelmed and giving up. Define technical terms, acronyms, and jargon with which they may not be familiar. Concepts. Be wary of "expert blindness"—when you know so much about a subject that it can be easy to forget what it was like when you didn’t. When writing content, consider things from a learner’s point of view. Start explaining concepts by referring to the things with which the student is already familiar and expand from there to the new material. Analyze the amount of information the student needs to learn right then, and consider leaving additional details for later. Keep content crisp to quickly establish the concepts, then build on this with detail and reference as the course progresses. Enliven Comparisons. Try out metaphors and analogies that help students grasp core concepts more quickly. Use comparison techniques to arouse interest and analytical thinking. Examples. Weave real-life scenarios in your technical training courses to change up the pace, and show students how the technical concepts fit into their world. Show—more than you tell. Videos and animations can be excellent ways to help learners visualize and understand a concept that cannot be explained merely with text-based content. For example, assembling a piece of equipment, performing a certain task, operating a piece machinery, or applying prevention methods can often be more easily instructed with the help of videos—allowing learners to get some experience without potentially dangerous or costly real-life interaction. Animations, on the other hand, are ideal for explaining abstract concepts, process-flows, and demos. For example, methods of chemical analysis, equipment control, task elements, or steps of a process can often be taught best with the help of animations. 360training Learning Content Management System (LCMS) comes with different templates that support all of these visual formats. Upload animations and videos as assets in the Learning Content Management System (LCMS) and incorporate them easily in your online courses. Involve Activity and game templates can be instrumental learning aids in a technical training course. Activity templates can come in handy in situations where there may be sequences or processes to explain, important terms and definitions that the learners should know, overlapping information between which students should be able to differentiate, visual interpretation tasks, and so forth. For example, a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) built-in activity template such as "Drag-and-drop Categories" can be used to help learners pick out items in their relevant categories (e.g., metals/non-metals, hazardous/safe etc.) and receive immediate feedback against each of their selections. Similarly, the activity template "Sequence" can be instrumental in helping learners recall different steps—performing an action, operating a machine, explaining a process, etc. Game templates are ideal to stir up your learners’ attention and increase their knowledge of subject matter by answering questions play by play. Game templates offer ample opportunity for practice and review. The built-in activities and games in our Learning Content Management System (LCMS) are easy to use and can help learners better understand complex information with high engagement. Every learner has their own way of learning. Try out different techniques and see which works best in order to create an exciting and engaging learning experience for your students.  

Filed under: In The Classroom

I have been recently thinking about adapting my classification for MOOCs to describe OER communities/initiatives thoughts welcome. Each dimension can be considered in terms of whether it is evident low, medium or high. Will discuss this tomorrow in our POERUP meeting.  Some initial thoughts…