Author Archives: cindyu

Thinking About Learning Webs

Why webs for learning? In designing the Teaching With WordPress course, we ran across a notion proposed by Stephen Downes that open course design should be more about creating a web than a website. The idea, as I understand it, is to create opportunities for cross connections between ideas, resources, people and their networks. The […]

Thinking About Learning Webs

Why webs for learning? In designing the Teaching With WordPress course, we ran across a notion proposed by Stephen Downes that open course design should be more about creating a web than a website. The idea, as I understand it, is to create opportunities for cross connections between ideas, resources, people and their networks. The […]

Thinking About Learning Webs

Why webs for learning? In designing the Teaching With WordPress course, we ran across a notion proposed by Stephen Downes that open course design should be more about creating a web than a website. The idea, as I understand it, is to create opportunities for cross connections between ideas, resources, people and their networks. The […]

Hackathon for Blended Learning 101

Lately, the big question[s], I am grappling with have to do with notions of learning community or learning webs: what conditions are necessary for learning webs or communities to work? why do we care about webs, networks and communities for learning, and how do we make that explicit to learners? why would learners care about […]

Hackathon for Blended Learning 101

Lately, the big question[s], I am grappling with have to do with notions of learning community or learning webs: what conditions are necessary for learning webs or communities to work? why do we care about webs, networks and communities for learning, and how do we make that explicit to learners? why would learners care about […]

Hackathon for Blended Learning 101

Lately, the big question[s], I am grappling with have to do with notions of learning community or learning webs: what conditions are necessary for learning webs or communities to work? why do we care about webs, networks and communities for learning, and how do we make that explicit to learners? why would learners care about […]

Week 2: Summary

This week brought new participants and more great sharing of examples of courses built on WordPress:
* Chris Lott’s graduate course on Digital Literacy & Intellectual Property.
* Tom Woodward’s examples of making things work with duct tape and bailing wire (or plug-ins and forms of you prefer). Plus an interesting implementation of gravity forms and FacetWP for a course directory.
* Colin Madland’s online faculty development using the Learn Dash plug-in to help create “collections” of lessons and units within sections (hope I have interpreted that right, Colin!)
* Jeff Merrell writes about the design challenges he is grappling with in his course.
* Jan Webb has reflected on her learning experiences with WordPress as preparation for developing a WP backdrop for her english courses this fall.
* other great examples were shared via the Google Hangout for this week. You can view the archive here.

EconProph reminded us in his sign on post that one of the biggest barriers to “the spread of open pedagogy and open teaching is the hierarchical and “silo-ed” nature of higher education. It results in a lot lone wolf’s who all have to reinvent the wheel.”

And, Christina started a discussion around her big question of the week (captured below in Storify).

Ways To Share Your Stuff!

  • Offer your own reflection/summary of Week 2 by tagging your post twpweek2
  • Comment on this page, if you prefer.
  • Add your assignment ideas (for use in a WP course) to the Assignment Bank.
  • Share your work in progress. In week 3 we ask you to share your progress on your course and think about which aspects/elements you’d like TWP15 participants to review and offer feedback on.

Ways to Reflect on Your Learning

Most of us are doing this in an open/sharing way via blog posts. There may be value (for some) in other ways of reflection and perhaps using a rubric or guide as a springboard for this. We offer a guide for reflection/self assessment based on Wiggins and McTighe’s work on designing for understanding. Even if you don’t find it helpful for yourself, we’d love your feedback on whether or not you would find it helpful in your teaching contexts.

Thanks for another great week in TWP15!

Week 1: Summary

It’s been a great start to TWP15 from our perspective! Here’s a brief summary of this week’s activity on the blog hub and Twitter discussion:

Please feel free to add your own summary – tag a post with twpweek1 (see all posts with this tag on our Week 1 discussions page), comment on this page (if you prefer) and (if you like) engage in a personal reflection.

Let’s keep the interactions going in comments on blogs, on Twitter, and here on our site as we move into week 2 soon!

Week 2: Join us for a hangout on June 8th!

computerMonday June 8, 12-1pm Pacific (3pm Eastern, 19:00 UTC): WordPress for teaching webinar. Join Christina Hendricks, Alan Levine, and Tannis Morgan for a deep dive (or shallow wade?) into the WordPress waters to talk about various ways in which we use WordPress for teaching and learning. This will be on Google Hangouts, broadcast live on YouTube. Click here for information and how to sign up.