Teaching at a Distance

Trust is the Key to Web 2.0

Originally uploaded by kid.mercury

I’ve just returned from the ELI Annual Meeting in San Antonio. The topic was Connecting and Reflecting: Preparing Learners for Web 2.0 ( a much maligned term referring to principles and practices of collaborative, participatory, democratic participation on the web). Technology plays a role, no doubt – but it’s all about the learning and the transformations that are beginning to emerge.

There are so many thoughts and resources I could share. Here are a few take-aways and some accompanying resources that I will be revisiting for some time. Hopefully, you’ll find some of these as thought provoking as I have:

• Encouraging learners to fully participate in designing their own learning leads to more “ownership”, more authentic learning outcomes and greater partnership between learner and teacher. Resource: podcasted conversation with conversation with Barbara Sawhill, Director of the Cooper International Learning Center at Oberlin College, and Jude Higdon, Instructional Technology Support Team Coordinator at the University of Minnesota (about half an hour in length).
• There is much fear associated with the use of collaborative tools and technologies associated with web 2.0 in academia- it’s important to keep the dialogue open and moving forward. Resource: A Digi-Drama about Fear 2.0. I wasn’t lucky enough to get in on this session but have since reviewed the videoclips and they are well worth the half hour spent!
• Access to excellent, good and mediocre quality learning resources on the web has exploded. We have a role in helping learners learn how to navigate this, learn how to make meaning and make learning processes more transparent. Resource: An assortment of the video archives of featured sessions hosted by the ELI. Average length: about an hour.

  And , if you are interested in poking around at some of the resources that Educause has to offer, you may want to start here.

All for now.

Student in Class

Originally uploaded by foundphotoslj

I thought I’d share something inspiring with all of you as we approach the end of the term. It’s about one teacher’s experience in appreciation of his students. Christopher Phelp’s Diamond in the Rough reminded me just how courageous, tenacious and adaptable we are. Appreciating those qualities in students is something we miss sometimes because we haven’t taken the time to get to know anything about them.

Getting to know students in a print-based distance course may be a bit of a challenge, but there are some ideas that you might consider:

• Send a welcome message via the Faculty Service Centre to all of your students at the start of term. Consider sharing something interesting about you and encourage them to send you a return message.
• Follow up regularly with students who miss assignments, don’t log into the course or haven’t contacted you in a while. A friendly check in goes a long way to creating a teaching presence that is so important in distance learning.
• Consider sending a brief survey out to students at the start of term. It’s a good way for you to find out something about their knowledge or interest in your subject matter and their approaches to learning.

What about you? What do you do to get to know your students? How do you stay connected during the course? Please leave a comment and share…

Happy Holidays all!