Michelle’s Online Learning Freakout Party Zone

In the ever-expanding search for ways to visualize the “new” PLE environment, I ran across Scott Wilson’s latest visual (posted back in Nov 2007). I have to noodle on this a lot more, but it sure points out the “murky land” between…

He explains this to encapsulate ““…. the set of connections between what an institution offers and what individuals manage”.

I re-arranged this a bit for my use, so I thought I would re-post it here. Any messing up of the original is my fault and my apologies in advance to Scott for this.

He’s certainly right – these new systems are not like VLE’s/LMSs we deal with now. We are starting to see some possibilities with the SOA model… I also still struggle a bit with the difference between the coordination space and a portal… Mabe its becuase my concept of a portal is so different than that of the reality of portals.

To me the portal should be the flexible interface that allows us to put things together (ala netvibes) but the reality is a bit too rigid. Sigh.

What I am still trying to figure out is how we make this concept “manageable”. People who are immersed in the Web 2.0 world understand that there is a beautiful order and simplicity in this “chaos”. Those that are used to a world of well-bounded systems shake their head and shudder.

I can’t wait for the day where are institutional identity and portal systems catch up….

As I perused my bloglines this morning, as usual, I look at the earthquakes feed first (the USGS makes a variety of feeds available at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/catalogs/.

As usual, there are names of places I have never seen before. I never even heard of the Kuril Islands before I started monitoring this…

How could I use these data in a classroom? Icebreaker, perhaps?
1) link the RSS feed into your course web site
2) with the students input, select a location.
3) Take a look at the description on the USGS site…
4) Fly to it on Google Earth and talk through the geological setting…
particularly since you can also load up the plate-boundaries layer (available linked off the same page above).
5) Depending on your course – there are other layers available (cultural sites, parks, etc.) What are the implications of an earthquake in that area? What else can we learn about the region? (you could even do breakouts with the students at that point and see what each of them find out by searching for more information on the area).

This would work for all ages of students, pretty much, I think…

Yes, Google Earth does have a recent earthquakes layer… but I like the idea of pulling up a list on a “2-D page”, letting the class pick a location and then flying in from there…

Just an idea… has anyone tried something like this? Seems like it would be a fun way of pulling “current” data/events into the classroom…

One of the points we covered in the podcast interview with Sally Taylor was the importance of a VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection. I’m not sure, but I suspect that the importance of this type of connection is not well understood. This seems to be particularly relevant to the advantages for online access to libraries.

Along the way I discovered the link with Google Scholar was more accessible when linked into a VPN. The behaviour is slightly different for Firefox and Explorer (I think — at least that is how is worked for me!) – but essentially, if I am linked into a VPN, Google Scholar searches provide information contextualized to UBC – with library catalogue links, etc. Very cool.

I took a bit of time yesterday and through together a quick overview of VPN connections. I uploaded it into my course. Not sure if others will find this useful, but I thought I would share it here:

Why Use a VPN When Researching Online.

Last year I actually found that is was not only library resources this applied to. One of my students was in England, and she had difficulty accessing a required movie resource from the a public site. Turns out these films were only available to North American web sites. Once she accessed via a VPN she was good to go.

Hope this is useful to others!

I have likely mentioned before that I teach an online course each year – EOSC 311 – The Earth and its Resources. The course is designed for students who are not majoring in science. I focus on geological processes that relate to the Vancouver Region. Since Vancouver is essentially the most amazing geological laboratory in the wold (a little bias showing) we can and do cover a wide range of topics. Two of the core objectives of the course are:

1. To understand the processes that shaped the origin and distribution of the earth materials in the Vancouver region (southwestern BC).
2. To be able to apply those recognition skills and understanding of earth process to other regions.

One of the ways they apply the concepts to other regions is to ask them to research an area outside of the Vancouver region. A challenge I face every year is helping students with “getting started” on these term papers. Where does one find reliable science (particularly geoscience) sources?

This year I teamed up with Sally Taylor, one of our Science Librarians (in the Woodward Biomedical Library) and Brian Lamb to do a podcast interview. I can’t thank the two of them enough for their help with this — it turned out really well!

The process was amazingly simple! I forwarded the outline of the paper to Sally, and she put together an outline in the form of questions; I modified some of them and added one or two questions from my students. My particular concern was on distance students – students that we cannot assume will be able to visit the physical library. We sat down for about a half an hour and did the interview in one take. Brian taped and edited the interview. In addition, Brian put together a wiki where more information could be found. I was really surprised at the easiness of it all!

(Wait, should I be saying things like that?)

If you are interested in the final product, the links are below. People are welcome to link to them if you find them helpful.

The podcast is linked here.

The wiki is linked here..

Brian has said this before… and I agree… Librarians are amazing… If you are thinking of how you might create an engaging resource for your students.. team up with librarians and your local learning technology specialists.

Thanks again, Sally and Brian!

Thought I would pass this along… a good opportunity to have good work recognized!

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
BC 2007 INNOVATION AWARDS IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

The 2007 Innovation Awards in Educational Technology honour and recognize BC public post-secondary individuals who test, implement and use educational technologies to enhance teaching, learning and/or who provide greater service and support to students, faculty, staff or administrators.

Deadline: March 16, 2007

For information and nomination criteria:
http://www.bccampus.ca/EducatorServices/ETUG/InnovationAwards.htm