Saturday, 24 March 2012

Curation and Online Teaching


I spent 25 years in classroom as a die hard computer using k-12 teacher. A decade ago I morphed into an online teacher in the privileged position of teaching other teachers how to teach online.

From the very beginning my teaching has been about gathering and sharing information. As one who teaches inside a computer, I'm dedicated to sharing how to find, categorize and distribute information. As a long time user of social bookmarking sites like Diigo and Delicious. These great social sites help me to save a road-map of my reading.  Lately, however my attention and passion has turned to Curation using the graphically interesting and very well designed curation tool Scoop.it.

I've built three Scoop.it digital magazines that I use in my online classes:

E-Learning and Online Teaching
21st Century Information Fluency
6-Traits Resources

Scoop it provides a rich search field for my subjects of interest.  I can search and subscribe to the work of other curators. I can easily 're-scoop' articles that fit my needs. I also troll for information on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and many blogs. When I find an article that fits the needs of my students I use the handy Curation Widget to capture a summary of the article.  If I'm being disciplined I also apply tags (keywords) to the articles that will help me when I'm teaching my classes.

Let me use my E-Learning Magazine as an example of the power of tagging.  I follow (and encourage my students to become aware of) the predictions published by Educause via the Horizon 2011 report.  The trends and technologies they predict to be the most important over the next five years are.  Here are the articles I've tagged on each Horizon 2011 topic:

Learning Analytics:  http://www.scoop.it/t/e-learning-and-online-teaching?tag=analytics
Augmented Reality: http://www.scoop.it/t/e-learning-and-online-teaching?tag=augmented-reality
Games and Gaming: http://www.scoop.it/t/e-learning-and-online-teaching?tag=games
Mobile Learning: http://www.scoop.it/t/e-learning-and-online-teaching?tag=mobile
Touch and Gesture Computing: http://www.scoop.it/t/e-learning-and-online-teaching?tag=gesture-based

By tagging articles that address these topics I can quickly generate specialized pages that serve up all articles carrying a specific tab.  This means I can quickly reply to student questions with a preselected listing of current information.

As a teacher and learner, the act of curating has become an essential part of my personal learning network and ongoing professional development. By reading, evaluating, and categorizing articles from my field of interest I'm able to stay up with current developments and to better imagine what is coming in the rapidly changing fields I'm fascinated by. In many ways I'm supercharging my imagination to feed my critical and creative thinking.  It's a recursive loop of reading and sharing that keeps me both engaged an fascinated.

The Scoop.it platform has some additional advantages that attract me.  As the program advisor for the E-Learning and Online Teaching Graduate Certificate Program at University of Wisconsin Stout, I am responsible for marketing our courses.  Scoop.it provides me with a dashboard of re-publication options that I use to contact all of my social networking sites.  Once I've Scooped an article, I'm just a few clicks away from sending the articles and my comments to my Facebook Page, Google+ Stream, Pinterest Pages, Twitter stream, Tumblr Blog, Wordpress Blog, and Stumble Account.  The system gives me a one stop shop for the social media communications I need to keep my program scoring high in the search indexes.

Can you tell I'm a Scoop.it fan?  It's true. I've been with them since start up and find the entrepreneurs behind the site to be thoughtful and responsive to suggestions.  The seem to be adding new features every month.

If you are passionate about a topic, if you teach in an online, blended, or flipped setting I recommend you start today to build a Scoop.it archive of carefully tagged articles. If you'd like to stay notified about my work, just click Follow on any of my Scoop.it pages! You'll be glad you did!

See you online!   ~ Dennis O'Connor

Friday, 2 March 2012

E-Books and Online Classes


Tech Tips Newsletter
March 1, 2012
Editor: Karen Franker
This e-newsletter is brought to you by University of Wisconsin-Stout School of Education. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please see instructions to manage preferences at the bottom of this message.
 
 
 
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In this issue...
  1. Top eBook and ePublishing Tips
  2. Featured Instructor - Dr. Susan Manning
  3. New Online Course  “Using Games for Learning and Assessment”
  4. List of Summer Online Courses Including Four New Courses
  5. Tech Tip: Read ePub Files in Your Web Browser; Write an ePub Book in Google Docs  

Top eBook and ePublishing Tips
This newsletter features how to use eBooks and electronic publishing to create customized and meaningful content. Explore our list of best resources for helping instructors and learners to create and share digital books.
 
9 Things You Should Know About ePubs
The Ohio State University’s Office of the CIO has created a useful guide describing the “why’s” and “how’s” of e-publishing.
 
Discussing What Apple’s eBook Moves Mean for Higher Ed
Lisa Spiro delves into the possible impact of Apple’s digital publishing initiatives on higher ed textbook creation.
 
Richard Byrne provides an excellent overview of tools for creating eBooks, including Simple Booklet and 2EPUB.
How to Create Your Own Textbook—With or Without Apple
Dolores Gende describes a three-step process for involving students in the creation of a digital textbook.
 
How to Create ePubs
James Lengel explains how to select tools for creating and sharing eBooks.
 
eBooks and mLearning Aren’t as Easy as iBooks Author
Michael Grant shares three key findings about creating an eBook that he has shared with his instructional design students.
 
Nicolas Franz describes common eBook design platforms from low to high complexity.
 
Student eBook Creations
Explore eBooks created by K-12 students in the Clarke County (GA) School District.
 
Tech Tips:  Read ePub Files in Your Web Browser; Write an ePub Book in Google Docs
 
Read ePub Files in Your Web Browser
Richard Byrne explains how to use two browser add-ons to read ePub files: ePUBREADER for Firefox and Magic Scroll for Google Chrome.
 
Write an ePub Book in Google Docs
Cheryl Davis provides a step-by-step guide to creating a book to share on the ePub Bud site.
 
 
Meet Our Instructor – Dr. Susan Manning
We interviewed Susan Manning to find out what she enjoys about her new Using Games for Learning and Assessment online course.
 
“In the late 1990's, educators took a huge leap forward with distance education as they developed the first online courses.  Today we take their early efforts for granted. 
Teaching this new course in a badging program feels a little like that again. 
 
I am confident that game-based learning and badging opportunities will take root in many schools and colleges, and that makes teaching this course especially exciting.  Teaching with game-based learning and in a new interface also reminds me of the simple truths of learning  - clear instruction, ongoing feedback, personalized (and internalized) assignments, community,  humor and levity!  If you'd like to stretch yourself as an educator, please join us!”

EDUC 696C Using Games for Learning and AssessmentExplore quests, incentives like badges, the core tenets of game-based learning and how it supports the inquiry process. Get your game on and gamify learning for your students!
1 graduate credit
April 9 - May 4, 2012 or July 9 – August 3, 2012

You may enroll in this course to meet your goals for continuing education professional development and license renewal.
 
Summer Online Courses
List of Summer 2012 Online Courses 
Check out the four new courses. Register now to reserve a spot.  No tuition due now; tuition is due on the first day of the course.


Online Professional Development
University of Wisconsin - Stout
Phone: (715) 232-2253

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