ubiquitous’s posterous

These are part of the presentation I am in right now. Have yet to figure out what they are for?!? If you have any ideas please let me know...
 
 
 
 
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Sean seems to be enjoying shopping at Costco... :-)
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Here is a paper I have written for my new course on virtual lesson design...

    The effective fostering of learning communities in the digital age is similar to the growing of a garden.  Initially, each requires a fair amount of hands on guidance, but through this organic process, both can become self-sustaining, requiring little maintenance for their continued development.  However, this task must not be taken half heartily.  It is important to remember that students, parents, and instructors each have unique needs and wants that the learning community must at least attempt to provide for, or the members will become disillusioned, inevitably leave, and cause the communities eventual collapse.  To prevent this fate, the following elements must be explored and implemented during the development phase: instructor experience with online education, lesson development within virtual environments, management of learning communities to maximize achievement, and clear communication between all members.  If these four elements are considered and employed, a virtual learning community will dramatically increase its chance of survival and student success.

    The concept of formal online instruction is foreign to most educators and students alike, because of this it is vital that teachers participate within various seminars, social networks, and even classes offered online by other instructors and institutions before developing and delivering their own online lessons.  This virtual initiation process provides valuable first hand knowledge of the World Wide Web and how it can be used for education.  By placing themselves in the students shoes, instructors are better able to comprehend another perspective in terms of virtual learning, clearly identify areas of concern and frustration within their own lessons, and apply corrections to avoid virtual learning pitfalls.  Educators also benefit from this virtual exposure by being provided with opportunities to form online educational cohorts, which can be used to stay abreast of new approaches and applications, allowing a wealth of knowledge to be accessed with the click of a button.  This approach also allows educators to model the learning behaviours they ask their students to develop, demonstrating that life long learning is essential in the modern world.  Lastly, these online connections can help combat feelings of isolation, providing instructors insight on concerns in this area, and hopefully triggering the development of student activities designed to limit this issue.  This essential component to lesson design increases the comfort and understanding teachers must have with virtual education, providing a strong foundation for any learning community to now be built upon.

    Virtual education suffers from the inability to direct student attention through traditional means, due to these limitations instructors are forced to explore new methods, approaches and media to create engaging online education for all students.  This can be achieved by designing virtual lessons while simultaneously determining their required interactivity and multimedia resources, allowing for the utilization of sound pedagogical approaches, while providing current, appropriate and available tools.  It is also vital during this process, that a specific progression of lessons be included, allowing students to build the necessary skill sets they will require in later life.  This progression initially starts with all lessons firmly guided by the instructor, who gives clear objectives, and specific conference topics to be discussed.  This provides students time to safely introduce themselves, become comfortable within the virtual space, and develop trust in the learning community.  Once this initial phase is complete, lessons must then provide more ambiguous objectives allowing students to construct relevance for themselves, however the discussions will still be instructor led.  In the courses final lessons, students must be given opportunities for nonlinear exploration, post and debate topics of their own choice, tutor and receive tutoring regarding difficult concepts, and develop overarching projects of various course objectives.  This approach fosters student ownership of their own learning through collaborative opportunities, participation in social, task-based activities, and projects designed to utilize the media richness of the Internet.  However for this overall progression to occur, instructors need to slowly morph from teacher to educational Sherpa, weaving together various conversations, focusing vague questions, and providing insights for advanced and struggling students.  This may seem like a daunting task, however if lessons are planned correctly, instructors can easily empower students without losing control over the learning environment.
 
    After the design is done the real work begins, it is important for any online course to have a clear management plan, ranging from the information being provided, to how instructors present themselves.  This plan requires specific documents to be given, such as the syllabus containing the courses expectations and pace set forth by the instructor.  This, along with new course information and weekly lesson updates, should be easily located from the main page, giving students the opportunity to manage their own learning.  Normally the management plan would provide for student empowerment, however if the initial lesson development was appropriate in this regards, the educator now only needs to manage the learning communities conversations.  For the instructor, it is essential to portray specific mannerisms during these interactions, for this medium easily allows for the application of the readers emotions to the text, due to the lack of tonal inflection or visual cues.  This drawback forces an instructor to be painfully aware that all their communications need to provide support, encouragement, and above all honesty with their students.  These interactions, must also be sensitive to the needs of the student, model respect for all members of the community, and follow the expectations they laid forth for their students.  By providing and following an open atmosphere of interaction, the instructor is able to maintain course harmony, model the expectations they require of their students, while still allowing discourse within topic discussions, all which is essential for any learning to take place.

    Failure is almost guaranteed if communication within a learning community is found lacking, regardless of teacher experience, lesson development, or effective management.  To avoid this catastrophe, courses and educators need to expand beyond common forms of communication (traditional and electronic mail, telephone and fax) used mostly for assignment submission, parent contact, or simple question and answer sessions.  Applications such as Elluminate, and uStream can provide synchronous learning activities, such as weekly guest speakers, course lectures, debates and interactive tutoring.  These sessions may also be recorded, allowing for asynchronous learning, providing students with the opportunity to review important concepts and conversations regardless of time zone or schedule.  Just as the broadcasting of information within a course should be flexible, so should assignment submissions, and student activities in a learning community.  Blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and wiki's allow students to be creative, active, and involved in their own education, as well as promote a collaborative online atmosphere between each member of the learning community.  However for these tools to be used effectively, they must not be an after thought by the instructor, but an essential resource tasked to complete specific objectives within the designed lesson.  It is as equally vital that the instructor manage, guide and weave together these virtual submissions and conversations, this is easily managed using RSS readers, hash tags and Google Alerts.  Lastly and most importantly, all forms of communication within the learning community needs to be timely, if this one basic element is lacking, the learning community will become easily frustrated resulting in disharmony, requiring virtual teachers to be on duty seven days a week.
 
    The design, development, implementation, management, and communication of virtual courses are a difficult time and consuming process.  However, if care and attention are paid throughout, lessons will run smoothly for all involved, making this new and exciting form of education more successful for all members of the learning community.

Just seeing how posts look being sent from the new phone...
 
And pics too...
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