There are two things I’ve been trying to wrap my head around lately. The first is gaming. (That’ll have to wait for another post.) The second is mobile learning.
If you take a picture of it with a cell phone that has the right software installed, it will generate a link to this site (or phone someone or send a text message depending on the link you’re creating). You can generate your own QR code in a few seconds.
I was listening to a podcast the other day (sorry, can’t find the link but it came from a conference in Australia). It was done by a teacher who tags plants with these codes and then sends learners out to study them in their natural habitat.
The mind boggles. Do you have experience using QR codes? I’d love to hear about it.
UPDATE: Roger Smolski sent me a link to his site, 2d code. Roger has a fantastic collection of news, art, marketing and discussion related to QR codes. If you find QR codes, send them along to Roger. If you have something to say, 2d code is the place to share it. Thanks, Roger!
This past week, my good friend Alan & I gave a presentation about Web 2.0 to some colleagues in Truro. Here are the slides and links to the sites we talked about:
Here’s a video showing you how to use tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing lets you open more than one web page in a single browser window.
Gtalk is what Alan & I use to chat. If you’d like to give it a try, give one of us a shout by phone or email.
Digg is a news site where anyone can contribute or rank stories. The popular ones rise to the top. If something goes viral online, chances are it’s shown up on Digg.
Bloglines is an aggregator. Aggregators bring things together … things like web sites. Instead of visiting the sites you like every day, they come to you. Sweet. In addition to Bloglines, Netvibes and Pageflakes are two other popular aggregators. Think about how you might use an aggregator to create a “living textbook” or portal for your course. Think about how you might bring together career information for students. Perhaps you could make a living subject guide for a program. If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them.
StumbleUpon is pure evil for web junkies. It’s a way you can serendipitously find sites you might like.
You can set up your own wiki at PB Wiki. Here’s the Web Superhero wiki we used for a workshop for new faculty at Burridge last fall.
Flickr is a photosharing site. My husband Chris uses it with his photography students.
Second Life is a virtual environment. NSCC has a vibrant learning community in Second Life. There are faculty, professional support, managers and students all exploring and using Second Life to support their own learning. We hold an informal drop in on NSCC Island every Thursday night. Email me if you’re interested & I can help get you started.
Google Docs is a web-based version of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and more. We’ve used it for collaboration, and one of my children uses it to track their allowance.
Slideshare lets you share PowerPoint slides. (That’s what I used above.) It’s a great way to collect and share the PPTs you use in a course. I notice that some conference presenters are using it to bring together all the presentation materials from a conference. Much better than the traditional password-protected conference site!
43 Things is about setting and accomplishing goals together.
Ustream lets anyone stream video from anywhere. Have a guest speaker you want to share with the world? Stream them (with permission, of course). Be patient, however. Ustream can sometimes be slow.
How would you use any of this in your own job? Only you will know. My great idea might not work for you. However, your great idea might work for a colleague. So share! Play and share what you learn. That’s what our new google group is for.
I love everything about design. I love the design of buildings. I love the design of photographs. I love the design of a good meal. I just like how things are put together. Maybe that’s why I love being an instructional designer. But it’s hard sometimes to explain to other people exactly what I do & more importantly what I can do for you if you want to teach online.
What do I do? Well, I help make things simple. I help make things visual. I help structure things so that the path for learners is clear and meaningful and engaging. I help people move to a style of teaching that works when they can see people to one that works better when they can’t see people, from a style that works well when you all learn at the same time to one that works well when everyone chooses when they want to learn (which, if you look at our server stats, is usually somewhere between 4 pm to midnight). As I was wondering around the web this beautiful Sunday morning, I came across a wonderful quote from George Nelson. While Nelson is an architect, I like his definition: a designer is someone who “gives form to the essense of something”.
What’s the essence of what you do as a teacher? And what form will that take online? As an instructional designer, everything I do boils down to helping you answer those two questions.
Hmmm …. I wonder if that’s any clearer. :-) Let me know what you think.
Want to avoid presentationitis, that uncontrollable urge that many of us have to lecture at folks online? The idea is to show, not tell, to get your message across. Look at how Alvin Trusty does it by weaving two topics together: copyright & how to make a great PowerPoint.
In our office, we’ve started using Twitter to stay in touch with the people we work with but whose offices are at other campuses. Our college is made up of 13 campuses spread throughout Nova Scotia so Twitter can come in handy. It helps us know when we’re busy or free, what projects we’re working on, or when we’re heading towards a place where we might meet up. With our group, we’re getting there but we haven’t reached the tipping point quite yet.
If you haven’t used Twitter, Common Craft has produced another of their unique videos to explain what it is and how to get started. If you’d like to try Twitter, share the video with a few friends. Like a lot of social media, it’s the most fun when you try it as a gang.
This weekend, my 16 year-old daughter brought home a school project - a baby. It wasn’t a real baby. It was a plastic one. But it cried and burped and needed to be changed just like a real baby. Her exhaustion by the end of the weekend reminded me of what our lives were like when she first came into our world.
This weekend has been one of the richest learning experiences my daughter has had during school. Think of how she MIGHT have learned about parenting. She could have read an article. She might have done some research and a project. She might have interviewed an expert, like … er … maybe her dear ol’ ma. But nothing prepares you more than having to immerse yourself in the experience of being a parent by actually caring for a child and then stepping back to reflect on that experience. That’s been her weekend. It’s been a crash course in nighttime feedings and frequent diaper changes.
I wonder. How could we create learning experiences that are more like the way we learned to be parents? And what would that mean for how we view ourselves as educators?
