Experiential Mobile Learning Activities: Presentation Materials

The Presentation Slidedeck

Website of Mobile Learning Activities

http://community-building.weebly.com/

Mobile Learning Reflections

http://issuu.com/jackiegerstein/docs/mobile_learning?mode=window

Social Media a Cause: Learning Activity

Assisting learners in becoming social activists as part of the educational curriculum is based on three premises:

1. Kids are bored and disengaged during school time.
2. Young people are engaged in social activism outside of school time.
3. If one of the goals of education is to help students become responsible citizens, then learners should be given the opportunity, skills, tools, and strategies to be active change agents.

Kids are bored and disengaged during school time.

Young people are bored at school.  Several polls and surveys provide evidence of this.  Gallup in a recently published poll found that Student Engagement Drops With Each School Year.

The Gallup Student Poll surveyed nearly 500,000 students in grades five through 12 from more than 1,700 public schools in 37 states in 2012. We found that nearly eight in 10 elementary students who participated in the poll are engaged with school. By middle school that falls to about six in 10 students. And by high school, only four in 10 students qualify as engaged

http://thegallupblog.gallup.com/2013/01/the-school-cliff-student-engagement.html

On older, more extensive survey, High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE), found similar results.  42,754 high school students participated in the survey. These students where selected from 103 different schools in 27 different states and reflected a cross section of the US population.

However defined, boredom is a temporary form of dis-engaging from school; it is important for schools to understand both the extent of students’ boredom and the reasons why students are bored. HSSSE asked two direct questions about boredom: “Have you ever been bored in class in high school?” and “If you have been bored in class, why?” Two out of three respondents (66%) in 2009 are bored at least every day in class in high school; nearly half of the students (49%) are bored every day and approximately one out of every six students (17%) are bored in every class. Those students who claimed they were ever bored (98%), the material being taught was an issue: more than four out of five noted a reason for their boredom as “Material wasn’t interesting” (81%) and about two out of five students claimed that the lack of relevance of the material (42%) caused their boredom. www.indiana.edu/~ceep/hssse/images/HSSSE_2010_Report.pdf

What is important to note, especially in the context of this discussion, is that students find the content material covered at school to be uninteresting and that it lacked relevance.  Students desire relevant and meaningful learning.  They want and deserve to learn about things that matter to them, things that they find relevant, things that they feel they can use in their outside of school lives.

Young people are engaged in social activism outside of school time.

But young people are engaged and find meaningful learning outside of school time through their social networks.

For all we hear about “kids these days” and their irresponsible use of social media−posting questionable pictures of themselves or letting Twitter corrode their ability to hold a thought for more than a nanosecond−it turns out that most are using it to express a genuine passion for changing the world around them. And they’re succeeding. And these trends extend well beyond the U.S. In other countries shows similar interests in contributing to larger causes. China’s young adults for instance, lead the world in online political discussions and offline they donate the most money to charities. India’s younger generation ranks the first in the world when it comes to staying informed, and they’re the most optimistic about the impact their activism has on the world around them.  It seems that our youngest generation of adults are the ones leading the charge when it comes to effectively making a difference. http://news.yahoo.com/kids-social-media-created-generation-activists-083812969.html

Specific examples of young people changing the world through social media include:

• Hasbro: Feature boys in the packaging of the Easy-Bake Oven
• Teen uses tweets to compliment his classmates
• 9-Year-Old Food Blogger Takes On School Lunch
•  Emily-Anne Rigal, from Virginia, who, at 16, developed online platform, WeStopHate, providing a space where hundreds of thousands of teenagers exchange views and insights about self-image.
• 11-year-old Gerry Orz’s organization, Kids Resource, teaches young people how to prevent or respond to bullying.

Although the following Infographic shows data from the 20-28 age group, this is not that far removed from the adolescent age group.

http://columnfivemedia.com/work-items/takepart-infographic-2012-social-activism/

If one of the goals of education is to help students become responsible citizens, then learners should be given the opportunity, skills, tools, and strategies to be active change agents.

Eric Dawson, whose organization has been training educators to teach peacemaking skills for two decades, suggests three things adults can do:

1. Ask young people questions of engagement. What do you think about that? What would you do? How do you think we could make this better?
2. Take young people’s ideas seriously.
3. Give young people concrete opportunities to act on their ideas.

“The idea is to invite them to try on this role,” he adds. “It’s having courage and compassion, taking risks, showing perseverance, crossing lines of difference, mobilizing and working with others.” (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/young-peacemakers/?hp)

The following learning activity, found in Technology Social Emotional Learning Activities, describes some ways social activism could be brought in to the classroom.

Goal

• To search social networks to explore and identify social causes of personal interest.
• To decide if and how one wants to contribute to these causes.

Procedures

• Social media is being used to promote social causes.  See the Infographic below about the social activism habits of today’s young people.
• Encourage learners to review some of the causes found on Facebook and other social media (e.g. Harry Potter Alliance); and report to one another causes of interest.  A list of causes that have a presence on Facebook can be found at: http://www.causes.com/discover?ctm=browse
• A new website, Kicker, helps young people understand what’s going on in the world – so they can then go change the world.  The site aggregates key media pieces; news articles, videos, Tweets, etc., about current news items and then ends their thread of media with a Kicker, ways young people can become active in related causes.  For example, here is a Kicker from the news thread, Youth in Revolt: How to Take Education Into Your Own Hands:

• DoSomething.org harnesses the awesome energy teens have and unleashes it on causes teens care about. Almost every week, a new campaign is launched. The call to action is always something that has a real impact and doesn’t require money, an adult, or a car.
• Through exploring and researching sites such as those recommended above, learners can decide if and how they want to contribute to identified causes.
• Note: The purpose of this activity is to have learners to search social networks to explore and identify social causes of which they have interest.  Since it involves social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter, learners will need to be over 13 years old.  An alternative for younger students is to explore the causes as a class using an Interactive Whiteboard or LCD project and decide on cause to follow/contribute to as a group.

Extension

• An extension for older learners (senior high school or older) is to help them establish their own cause and become their own 21st century activists.  Have them view and discuss the following video for ideas:

Example

The junior high students at a middle school were asked to do something to change our community, or change the world. Most groups just created videos about the cause and left it at that.

But one group went beyond these basic requirements and used social media to raise money for their cause, Pencils for Africa.  They . .  .

• Created a website, HSAAPAAT, to promote their cause

• Made a video

• Established and Facebookand Twitter  accounts to increase awareness.
• They even set a paypal account for donations.

Providing Opportunities for Learners to Tell Their Stories

One of the greatest gifts a teacher can give learners is the opportunity to tell their stories, and to establish venues to have those stories witnessed by others.

A Film by High School Student, Sam Fathallah

There is a movement among pockets of educators to make education a passion-based process of learning.

Instead of having all these preconceived ideas of what learners should doing, saying and producing, [educators] have to be open to what they find in each student. [Educators] have to discover – and help each student discover – their talents and interests and create a learning environment where they can use those gifts and passions. Passion-based learning in the 21st century: An interview with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

John Seely Brown noted how technology can ignite learners’ passions.

We must think about how technology, content, and knowledge of learning and teaching can be creatively combined to enhance education and ignite students’ passion, imagination, and desire to constantly learn about — and make sense of — the world around them. http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Connect-Technology-and/24884/

Diane Rhoten stresses that learning should be interest-driven, that learners should create narratives that they find personally motivating, personally relevant, personally interesting using digital media tools to tell their stories.

Providing learners with the tools, skills, time, and venues to tell their stories creates a powerful strategy for tapping into learner passions.  It also utilizes the tools and learning strategies they are using during their out-of-school time.  This is stressed in a new ebook by ithemes media,  Kids Creating Stuff Online: Inspiring the Innovators of the Future.

Let’s face it: everything is online, even our kids. The Internet is no longer something people figure out when they get old enough. Many kids are growing up with laptops and tablets. They have cell phones that can do more than most computers of the past.  Kids need to take the opportunity to embrace the online world and create a positive digital footprint. Instead of freaking out— “Won’t someone think of the children?!”—we should see this as an opportunity. Kids and teens are interested in the Internet and the online world, so let’s make the most of it.

This isn’t a how-to post.  It provides a rationale for educators to facilitate having their learners (all ages) create a video of something for which they have passion and create a venue for students sharing those videos with a global audience – Youtube, Blogs, wikis.   The videos would become a type of Ted Talk.  Karl Fisch facilitated this process with a group of high school students.

• Culminating Project:  You will create your own TED talk based off our essential question “What Matters?”
• Theme:  You will use “What Matters (to You)?” as your ‘essential question’ to explore for your own talk.  Essentially, you will select a topic based on something that truly “matters” to them and craft video about that topic (6 minutes or less).
• Give a Talk: Each student will give their own TEDx Talk.  These will be done on video, uploaded to YouTube, and then embedded on the class Google site to be seen by others.  You will prepare with a ‘global’ audience in mind from day one. Remember “Spread an idea worth spreading.” https://sites.google.com/site/ahstedtalk/creating-a-ted-talk

Small Talks is a new website (under development) that provides educators with resources to assist students in researching, writing and recording their own lectures on subjects they’re passionate about. When they are ready they can be uploaded for others to see.

Here is an example learner talk:

In a related post about interest and passion-driven learning, The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Tinkering and Maker Education, I discuss a learning cycle of tinkering and maker education where a final activity is learners sharing their passions and discoveries:

• Live or videotaped instructional videos, where students teach others the skills acquired.
• A pitch for a new invention or process: the learner presents ideas for a new invention with the audience providing recommendations and positive feedback.

In this standards driven world, educators might argue that they do not have the time to do such a project with students.  I could easily identify the content-area standards addressed with this assignment – language arts, oral communication, visual arts, technology skills.  The more important outcomes, in my perspective, of such a project are increased confidence, development of self-regulation skills, enhanced sense of personal identity, and increased feelings of significance – that they have been been seen and heard.

Connectedness, or lack of, in Education (School)

This is a post about connectedness and its importance for human growth and learning.  Prior to this discussion, though, it is important to note that many educational institutions are silos of isolation (thanks to Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach for this term).  Learners are often isolated from one another – told to pay attention to the teacher, not interact with one another during class time.  Their connectedness often comes through recess, lunch, and secret texting to one another.  Teachers and classes are often isolated from one another – remaining closed and isolated within the four walls of the classroom.  Schools are often isolated from other educational and community organizations – “safe” within the confines of literal and figuratively self-built walls – done so under the auspices that learners must be kept inside and strangers kept from entering.  These walls include firewalls that prevent the entering or exiting of social media and Internet content.

http://www.happinessandessence.com/2012/08/too-many-walls.html

To continue to exist, a system must be able to import energy across its boundary or have a capacity to create new sources of energy. A system that is able to import and export energy is called an open system. One that cannot import energy is called a closed system. A closed system that cannot generate a sufficient amount of energy internally to replace what is lost to entropy will die.

The improvement of quality involves the design of an educational system that not only optimizes the relationship among the elements but also between the educational system and its environment. In general, this means designing a system that is more open, organic, pluralistic, and complex. Frank Betts http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov92/vol50/num03/How-Systems-Thinking-Applies-to-Education.aspx

Openness and connectedness has morphed into something qualitatively different due to the Internet, Web 2.0, and social media.  In an interesting re-mix of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in this age of social media, Pamela Rutledge proposed that connectedness is at the core of all other needs.

http://mprcenter.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Maslow-Rewired.jpg

Needs are not hierarchical.  Life is messier than that.  Needs are, like most other things in nature, an interactive, dynamic system, but they are anchored in our ability to make social connections.

Social networks allow us to see, as never before, the interrelated nature of society and the palpable development of social capital from the emerging and intricate patterns of interpersonal relationships and collaboration.  The strength of our networks and our bonds improve our agency and effectiveness in the environment.  Our need for survival through connection plays out through every successful social technology.

• Collaboration and teamwork allow us control our environment
• Reciprocal and trusting relationships create effective collaboration
• Social comparison establishes organizational structure, leadership and order
• Social validation and social identity maintain emotional engagement and enhance attachment to our mates and our group
• Competence contributes to the survival of our group and our sense of security and safety http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/positively-media/201203/rethinking-maslows-hierarchy-implications-socially-connected-world

The Connected Learning Research Network introduced the Connected Learning initiative.  It advocates for broadened access to learning that is socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or political opportunity.

http://connectedlearning.tv/infographic

This week (January 2013), the Connected Learning Research Network released a report entitled, Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design:

Connected learning taps the opportunities provided by digital media to more easily link home, school, community and peer contexts of learning; support peer and intergenerational connections based on shared interests; and create more connections with non-dominant youth, drawing from capacities of diverse communities.

Connected learning environments have the following characteristics:

• Equitable: Connected learning environments ideally embody values of equity, social belonging, and participation.
• Production-centered: Digital tools provide opportunities for producing and creating a wide variety of media, knowledge, and cultural content in experimental and active ways.
• Shared purpose: Social media and web-based communities provide unprecedented opportunities for cross-generational and cross-cultural learning and connection to unfold and thrive around common goals and interests.
• Openly networked: Online platforms and digital tools can make learning resources abundant, accessible, and visible across all learner settings. (See my related post: Information Abundance and Its Implications for Education.)

http://dmlhub.net/publications/connected-learning-agenda-research-and-design

The benefits of connected learning cannot be overstated.  Not only are learning objectives and content-area standards more likely to be achieved as students become more excited and engage in learning; but their social-emotional needs have a greater potential to be met.  Schools are doing learners a disservice (verging on being unethical in my perspective) by putting up all of those walls that prevent connection.

Let Children’s Play (with Technology) Be Their Work in Education

The importance of play as part of a child’s development has been the focus of educational specialists and research for decades.  Piaget and Montessori have emphasized that a child’s play is his or her work.

Play activities are essential to healthy development for children and adolescents. Research shows that 75% of brain development occurs after birth. The activities engaged in by children both stimulate and influence the pattern of the connections made between the nerve cells. This process influences the development of fine and gross motor skills, language, socialization, personal awareness, emotional well-being, creativity, problem solving and learning ability.  The most important role that play can have is to help children to be active, make choices and practice actions to mastery. They should have experience with a wide variety of content (art, music, language, science, math, social relations) because each is important for the development of a complex and integrated brain. Play that links sensori-motor, cognitive, and social-emotional experiences provides an ideal setting from brain development. http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/play-work-of-children.shtml

Children are still playing in this age of technology but the type of play and results are evolving.  Lego, with its introduction of the new Mindstorm, created an infographic that describes the changing pattern of kids and young peoples’ use of technology and how it is affecting their development.  Of special note to educators is the section on the changing world of children at play.

http://legoexternal.23video.com/

To summarize, the key areas of the change nature of play as identified by Lego are:

1. The future will see the creation of more diversified playful relationships due to the ease of creating an online persona and free networking sites like Tumblr and Youtube.
2. Children will continue to demand more control over complex outputs. Children are creating computer games, movies, their own content.
3. Visual instruction is the way of the future. Kids go to Youtube to learn.  They create videos and complex stories via gaming platforms (Mindcraft, Scratch).
4. The boundaries between digital and physical interaction will continue to blur.  Kids are growing up with augmented reality toys and body-gesture systems.
5. Customizing one’s toys and play will be an integral of child development.  Creative expression via the DIY movement is rapidly growing.
6. Children with share an increasingly amount of humanity with their toys and play.  Technology enables children to create, navigate and perform their emotional lives.

The world is qualitatively different than when the educational system was conceptualized; than when educators were students in that system.  Kids are growing up and developing in a world that is highly technologically-driven, information-rich, and connected.  The Institute for the Future discuss this in their Magic of Kidstech report:

With touchscreens, simple programming languages, and other lowered barriers for human-computer interaction, kids are poised to gain a high level of technical proficiency. When you combine this access with the resources kids have—time, a highly plastic brain, and the freedom to experiment with new behaviors, interests, and ways of being—it is not hard to imagine a level of empowerment for kids never before seen in human history.

The Institute for the Future reinforces some of the ideas the Lego shared.

1. Authorship, storytelling, fantasy, and role-playing will expand into new media.  Growing up immersed in virtual worlds, social networks, and YouTube videos, children will develop a different set of expectations for evaluating human proximity and presence, as well as a comfortable confidence expressing their views.
2. Play will be a more fluid material experience, blending the virtual and the physical.  Kids will have many fun options to explore depth, sound, gesture, and images.  By 2021, kids will expect their digital and physical objects to share more characteristics, including tangibility and connectivity.
3. Toys show kids how to get emotional with technology.  Smart toys are becoming, in essence, sociable robots, and children are expanding the kinds of relationships they have with them via touch, voice, and gesture.  Sociable robots are drawing our children into caring for them, nurturing them, and creating more powerful and affective human-machine partnerships.  (http://www.iftf.org/future-now/article-detail/the-future-of-kids-play-cross-dimensional-playgrounds/)
4. Kids are global children.  Reality for children today is not confined to their room, or house, or school—it is a global community of networked peers and endless virtual horizons. Creating and sharing videos with billions is a normal activity for many kids today, giving them a vastly different perspective on distances, times, and relationship with others than previous generations held.
5. Kids are empowered and connected in ways not seen before. This “magic” that they wield with ease, and the expectations that are being inculcated now for technology, society, and even reality, will echo through time as these generations grow into key players in the economy and society. (http://www.iftf.org/our-work/people-technology/technology-horizons/the-magic-of-kidstech/)

How many educators are teaching in their classrooms the way kids are learning during their own playtime using their own technologies? How many state educational standards address how children are playing and learning in this amazing age of technology?  Many teachers, schools, district are not giving kids a chance to play nor use technology in ways that come naturally to them.

What follows are some simple suggestions I have to facilitate play with technology in educational settings:

• Let learners bring in their devices (all types – mobile, gaming, robotics) for use in the classroom, to reinforce learning, and for show and tell.
• Use some educational monies to purchase “fun” technologies – gaming systems, Lego robotics, iPad apps.
• Give kids unstructured free time play using their and their peer’s devices.  See Tinkering and Technological Imagination in Educational Technology.
• Ask learners to teach you and the class about a technology he or she is using at home.
• Give learners a choice how they want to demonstrate their content area learning – a video? a online game?  a board game?
• Explore and integrate Maker Education as part of the curriculum.
• Encourage and provide the time and tools for students to share their learning with a global audience – e.g. Skyping with another classroom,  blogging, Tweeting, creating videos and newscast.

This pretty much sums it up . . .

New technologies are going to help many kids play the part of the magician. They will enchant us with their creations and sleight of hand. They will also amaze us with their ability to escape from the technological chains we’re tying them up with as well. We live in a world of fast and accelerating change. Kids are in some ways ideally prepared to deal with change, and may have more to say and more power to influence the world than at any other time in history. That new empowerment will be the real magic kids bring to the world. (http://www.iftf.org/our-work/people-technology/technology-horizons/the-magic-of-kidstech/)

New Website: Technology-Enhanced Social Emotional Activities

http://www.projecthappiness.org/programs/social-emotional-learning/

Schools that create socially and emotionally sound learning and working environments, and that help students and staff develop greater social and emotional competence, in turn help ensure positive short- and long-term academic and personal outcomes for students, and higher levels of teaching and work satisfaction for staff.  http://casel.org/why-it-matters/benefits-of-sel/

The Technology-Enhanced Social Emotional Learning Activities website (http://seltechnology.weebly.com/) has been designed to describe technology activities that facilitate social emotional learning.  They can be used within formal and informal educational settings.  Even though the focus of the activities are on building and enhancing social emotional learning, many can be connected with content standards related to language arts, visual arts, oral communication, media literacy, and ISTE’s National Education Standards for Students.  Also, age levels are not recommended.  Most of the activities can be adapted for any age level.

List of Activities:

• Acts of Kindness
• Book Trailers
• Collage of Feelings
• Conflict Management Strategies Posters
• Dear Abby Letters
• Feelings Posters with Photos
• I Am Posters
• Identifying Emotions Apps
• Mobile Sharing
• Personal Support Networks
• SEL Comic Creation
• Social Media a Cause
• Teach Tech to Grandparents
• Twitter for Good

Technology Enhanced Social Emotional Learning Activities by Jackie Gerstein is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://seltechnology.weebly.com/

Learner Agency, Technology, and Emotional Intelligence

http://www.visualsforchange.com/blog/2012/12/11/david-preston-on-open-learning/

Preface

Early in my training as an educator, I was exposed to William Glasser’s conceptualization of basic human needs and their importance in creating a healthy educational setting.  They are:

• Belonging – Fulfilled by loving, sharing, and cooperating with others
• Power – Fulfilled by achieving, accomplishing, and being recognized and respected
• Freedom – Fulfilled by making choices
• Fun – Fulfilled by laughing and playing

They resonated deeply and made sense to me.  Instructional strategies and learning activities should build in ways for learners to get these needs met.

The needs of freedom and power are of special note to this essay/topic:

• Freedom – This is the need to choose how we live our lives, to express ourselves freely, and to be free from the control of others. Helping students, especially younger ones, satisfy this need does not mean giving them the freedom to do whatever they want to do. It is giving them the freedom to choose.
• Power – The need for power is the need to feel that we are in control of our own lives. When educators give their students the message that they need to learn in ways that the teachers ultimately demand, their need for power becomes frustrated.  When students are given choices, their need for power is satisfied and they gain feelings that they are responsible enough to have control over their own learning and behavior.(http://www.socialskillsplace.com/archive/0410.newsletter.html)

What is learner agency?

Learner agency is “the capability of individual human beings to make choices and act on these choices in a way that makes a difference in their lives” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_agency).   As related to the needs as identified by Glasser, elements of freedom, choosing how we want to live our lives, and power, choosing what and how to learn, address learner agency.

The notion of agency as contributing to cognitive processes involved in learning comes primarily from the Piagetian notion of constructivism where knowledge is seen as “constructed” through a process of taking actions in one’s environment and making adjustments to existing knowledge structures based on the outcome of those actions. The implication is that the most transformative learning experiences will be those that are directed by the learner’s own endeavors and curiosities. (Lindgren & McDaniel, 2012)

Schwartz and Okita developed the following table to compare and contrast high versus low agency learning environments.

Learner Agency and Emotional Intelligence

A direct connection can be found between self-directed learning, learner agency, and emotional intelligence. Learner agency leads to increased feelings of competence, self-control, and self-determinism; and higher emotional intelligence. Bandura (2001) highlights the role of agency in the self-regulation of learning: “The core features of agency enable people to play a part in their self-development, adaptation, and self-renewal with changing times” (p. 2) (in Lindgren & McDaniel, 2012).

Boyatzis (2002) connected self-directed learning and emotional intelligence, which he discussed extensively in his article Unleashing the Power of Self-Directed Learning.  He specified some signposts of self-directed learning.

1. Has the person engaged his/her passion and dreams?
2. Can the person articulate both his/her strengths (those aspects he/she wants to preserve) and gaps or discrepancies between those aspects he/she wants to adapt or change?
3. Does the person have his/her own personal learning agenda? Is it really his/her own? Can the elements of the plan fit into the structure of his/her life? Do the actions fit with his/her learning style and flexibility?
4. Is the person experimenting and practicing new habits and actions? Is the person using their learning plan to learn more from their experiences?
5. Has the person found settings in which to experiment and practice in which he/she feels psychologically safe?
6. Is the person developing and utilizing his/her relationships as part of their learning process? Does he/she have coaches, mentors, friends, and others with whom they can discuss progress on their learning agenda?
7. Is the person helping others engage in a self-directed learning process?

Learner Agency and Technology

Learner agency is feasible in educational settings, both formal and informal, given this Internet age of information abundance and ease of access, and the use of social networks for personal learning.  The final piece of this discussion focuses on leveraging technology to enable, elicit, and encourage learner agency which in turn builds emotional intelligence.

Technology presents new opportunities for drawing out and leveraging student agency. One of the ways that technology accomplishes this is by personalizing the learning experience, allowing students to work at their own pace and being responsive and responsible to their own individual needs. (Corbett, Koedinger, & Anderson, 1997, in Lindgren, R., & McDaniel, R. (2012.). As Magni (1995) noted in her dissertation, if we combine the principles of learner-centered pedagogy, the methods of participatory design and the flexibility offered by the Internet, educators can use technology not as a prescriptive learning tool but as one that enables students and teachers to gather material, manipulate and alter resources to design environments that are suitable and appropriate for the learners. 

Technology also has the potential to directly enhance emotional intelligence.  Chia-Jung Lee (2011) described some ways:

• Digital tools can connect people’s feeling to enhance emotional learning. Digital tools can support students’ emotional connection to a content or other people. This helps students learn better.
• Technology can satisfy personal learning pace and style to support emotional learning.  The flexibility of digital tools enables students to learn based on the way that they feel most comfortable [which is directly related to agency.]
• Digital tools can provide private spaces for students to explore difficult issues.
• Empathy can be enhanced through emotional learning by means of technology. For example, students may develop empathy by viewing videos of personal stories of others in need; others who are experiencing some form of distress or problems.  http://teachteachtech.coe.uga.edu/index.php/2011/05/13/technology-integration-and-emotional-learning/

What follows are some general ideas for using technology to encourage self-directed learning, learner agency, self-regulation, and self-determinism.

• Create a database of student passions, interests, hobbies.  Share the list with the students so they can connect with one another.
• Offer students a variety of different ways to learn content material – video, audio, online readings, games.  Let them choose ways to learn it.  Invite students to add to the resource archive.
• Ask students to curate a subtopic within the larger topic being covered based on their own interests.  Offer a choice of online curation tools (e.g., Scoop.it, Pinterest, MentorMob, Diigo) for them to use.
• Encourage students to set personal goals for themselves for the class.  Provide some online options (e.g. 8 Online Goal Progress Tracking Tools) or apps (15 Fantastic Apps to Track & Manage Your Goals; Goal setting Android Apps; ) to track progress.
• Ask students to find an expert in their area of interest via a social media and attempt to make contact via Twitter, Facebook, Skype, etc.
• Assist students in developing their own PLNs using social networking sites of their own choosing (Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr).
• Allow students to express what they learned in a way that works for them.  A list of ideas can be found at A Technology-Enhanced Celebration of Learning.
• Ask students to publish and share their work with their own networked public.
• Implement a peer feedback process; where groups of peers develop their own grading criteria and use this criteria to review one another’s work.
• Ideas for others – please let me know.

References

Boyatzis, R.E. (2002). Unleashing the power of self-directed learning. In R. Sims (ed.), Changing the Way We Manage Change: The Consultants Speak. NY: Quorum Books.  Retrieved from http://www.eiconsortium.org/reprints/self-directed_learning.html.

Chia-Jung Lee (2011). Technology Integration and Emotional Learning. Retrieved from http://teachteachtech.coe.uga.edu/index.php/2011/05/13/technology-integration-and-emotional-learning/

Lindgren, R., & McDaniel, R. (2012). Transforming Online Learning through Narrative and Student Agency. Educational Technology & Society, 15 (4), 344–355.

Magni, P. (1995). The design and development of a hypertext environment for adult learners of Italian. Doctoral Dissertation.

Schwartz, D. L,  & Okita, S.  The Productive Agency in Learning by Teaching.

The Social Skills Place. (2010). 4 Basic Psychological Needs That Motivate Behavior.  Retrieved from http://www.socialskillsplace.com/archive/0410.newsletter.html.

Developing a MOOC-Inspired Course

During Fall, 2012, I taught a Boise State University EdTech graduate course in Social Networking Learning.  I wrote about this course in Educators as Social Networked Learners.

I decided to write a separate post about their final assignment, creating a MOOC-Inspired course.  The assignment description, some of the group MOOCs produced, the peer assessment, and some student reflections about the project follow:

MOOC Assignment Description

MOOCs were originally intended to provide for engagement and collaboration. The first MOOC made use of participatory-engagement tools:: a wiki, a learning management system, blogs, Twitter, and videoconferencing. And originally, the MOOC was based on:

1. Aggregate, in which students engage with lectures from experts, daily content links provided through a course newsletter, and reading content on the Web.
2. Remix, with students being encouraged to communicate with peers about content and what they are learning, through blogs, discussion boards, or online chat.
3. Repurposing, as students construct or create knowledge.
4. Feed-forward, with students encouraged to publish (and thus share their knowledge) in blogs or other “open” venues. http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/11/29/essay-challenges-posed-moocs-liberal-arts-colleges#ixzz2Dpa6iXuv

For your final project, your same group will be formulating, outlining, proposing your very own MOOCs. Creating your own MOOC for your final project will provide you with the opportunity to synthesize and apply the social networking skills and strategies you learned throughout the course. The term of MOOC is being used loosely for this project. MOOC, in terms of this assignment, is meant to provide a philosophical foundation and design framework rather than have a goal of creating a massive course. Hopefully, you will also leave with a “product” you can use in your work setting.  The topic, format, tools, and assignments are up to you. You need to include:

• Course Description, Objectives, and Expectations
  • Course description
  • Rationale for using a MOOC (for using student-centric, decentralized and networked social learning platforms)
  • Learning outcomes
  • Performance and participation expectations
  • Social Media Use Guidelines
  • You will need to have a central hub to share information – WordPress, Google Sites, Wiki, Edmodo. (This will also be the site where you address all of the requirements of this project.

• Student and course content creation and sharing platforms (along with specific directions on set-up, purpose, and potential use for your course):
  • Sharing work and discussions: Edmodo, Facebook
  • Student work: blogs; wikis
  • Photo and video sharing: Youtube, Flickr
  • Synchronous meetings discussions: Google+, Webinar Platforms
  • Social Bookmarking: Diigo, Delicious
  • Information Sharing and Dissemination: Twitter
  • Curation: Learnist, Pinterest, Storify, Scoopit
  • Student Collaboration: Google Docs, Etherpad, Edmodo
  • Student interaction: Develop a process for students to interact with and collaborate with one another.
  • How you will have students form small study groups or cohorts for project creation, collaboration, and feedback
  • How you will rotate facilitation of weekly discussions
  • How the group will report their progress – e.g., weekly summary (see Storify)
  • Apart from the course social networking platforms, participants should be encouraged to generate content spaces of their own, allowing them to both increase their Personal Learning Environment, as well as share their experiences with both the other MOOC participants as well as their own Personal Learning Network (http://moocguide.wikispaces.com/4.+Designing+a+MOOC+using+social+media+tools) This, obviously, needs to be discussed and presented to the students that is age-grade appropriate.

• Assessment Plan: this is your plan for assessing student performance and work. (You do not have to develop assessments for specific learning activities nor course requirements – this is just your plan)
  • Statement about the assessment process (self and peer assessment, reflection)
  • Peer review should be a part of the process
  • Consider using badges for assessment (e.g. http://classbadges.com/about)

• How You Plan to Monitor Course Interactions, Make Announcements, and Summarize and Disseminate Student Contributions
  • Course Tags and Hashtags
  • You, the educator, need ways to collect all the information and RSS feeds that your students are producing. Netvibes works well for this or gRSShopper (developed by Stephen Downes, a MOOC guru) if you have a server and some basic sysadmin skills (or know somebody who does).
  • Your process of disseminating announcements and aggregated student contributions on a regular basis.

• Sample Learning Activities
  • List at least three learning activities for your course – make sure they address your learning outcomes and include many, if not all, of your course’s established social networks.

Example Group Projects

• Short Story Writing

Despite a passion for creative writing, many people refuse to identify themselves as writers. There are a number of misconceptions about writing including the idea that a true writer is one who is published by a publishing house. This course seeks to change that narrow view of writers. The writer is a person who finds joy or purpose in writing and endeavors to write often.

The hallmark of any writer is that they write and write often.  Students will write often and collaborate with other writers in class to develop a 15 -20 page story that will be published online at the end of the course. This course will use social media and other technologies to help writers create a useful archive of resources and create a network of similar-minded writers. Students will leave the course with a story they publish to an online website and skills to continue writing. http://sswrite.weebly.com/index.html

Of special note, Andrea, Alyssa, Darla, and Christina’s MOOC included the following:

• Course Social Networking Technologies – http://sswrite.weebly.com/course-technology.html.
• Example Assignments (posted on their class Edmodo page):
  • One of the biggest challenges that all writers face, is how to begin. What will you write about? You will be using your researching skills to brainstorm different literary genres. You may use any search engine you see fit. Then, once you’ve identified different genres of literature, start thinking about what makes a story fit into that particular genre. For instance, what elements make a story a horror story?   To begin this activity, you will need to have your Diigo account set up and have joined the ELACADE. You will add 10 different bookmarks to Diigo, from your genre research. Once you have added your 10 resources for genre and characteristics of these genres onto Diigo, you will tweet them to our class hashtag #ELACADE.  Once you have completed posting your resources to Diigo and tweeting them to our group, you will need to read through the research that your classmates have posted. Remember, that you are trying to identify the genre that you would like to use for your short story and get some ideas for plot. Tweet at least 10 other students in the class about their research. (*Include elements you found interesting or new ideas for your own story that you thought about after reading their research.)  By the time you have finished this assignment, you should have a clear understanding of the genre of story you will be writing and what elements your short story should contain in order to fit into that genre.  Students that complete this portion will receive the Brainstorming Badge.
  • After completing the Twitter brainstorming activities, you will create a visualization board using Pinterest to help brainstorm setting and characterization. Visualization often aids writers in articulating written details about characters and setting.  You should have set up a Pinterest account prior to beginning this activity. Review your brainstorming ideas and responses from your Twitter activity. Then, use Flickr or other internet resources to locate pictures to represent your setting and characterization ideas. “Pin” at least 25-30 images, websites, videos, or other media that helps you to visualize your storyline, characters and setting. Post a link to your Pin board in the Edmodo forum. Then, review and reply to the Visualization Pin boards of the members of your group.  Students who complete this assignment will earn the Lessons Badge.

• Space: The MOOC

https://sites.google.com/site/spacemooc/

Of special note, Jon and Fabio’s course included the following:

• A Netvibes was set up to aggregate course resources, social networking sites, and student blogs – http://www.netvibes.com/spacemooc#Main_and_Group_MOOC_Resources
• Groups assignment based on interest:  https://sites.google.com/site/spacemooc/extra-credit
• A sample assignment:  For this activity, we will meet up in real time via twitter to view the night sky and compare the constellations in view over a period of time.  Utilizing a Skymap App, you will share their view of the night sky with classmates to get an understanding of the movement of the constellations across the night sky, the impact of latitude on what is seen and the speed at which the view changes.
  Some good Skymap apps are listed below:
  • For Android Powered Devices
  • For iOS Powered Devices
  • SkyView (a great iOS app)
  • Google Sky (PC and Mac)

  After your group stargazing, please visit our Facebook Group Page and reflect on the experience.  Your reflection should include your perceptions before and after learning about constellations.  Also, please respond to at least two group members posts.

Peer Reviews of MOOC

Assignment Overview:  You are being asked to provide feedback for one of the other group’s MOOCs via a audio-visual screencast. There are a number of Web-based tools that can be used to do this.  Screencasts increase the social networking level of the teaching-learning process and helps to insure that the feedback is rich and that thorough critiques are provided.  Here are some example screencasts from the course:

Final Course Reflections

The final task for the course was a reflection on the course, what worked, what didn’t work, what was learned, what will be used in the future.  A few students discussed the MOOC as being a significant component of the course.

From Christina:

I believe that my favorite (while frustrating) assignment was the final MOOC project. While I always hope for the most detailed outlines and instructions for assignments, the freedom to create a social media and networking course on our own was challenging and exciting. I have always enjoyed how the final projects in our EdTech courses serve as a means to solidify our learning. The MOOC project was able to help me see how the previous assignments from the semester could be integrated and applied in a meaningful application of social networking. Our project on Healthy Living integrates a variety of social networking components that I am always afraid to try with my students. But now that I have had the practice of applying these tools in a practice setting, I am more likely to attempt to use them with my “real-life” students. http://cmoore23.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/hello-my-name-is-christina-and-i-was-a-lurker/

From Fabio:

Now for the best part of this course and what I enjoyed the most – the MOOC.  I didn’t know that these existed.   I love this idea.  I’m a lifelong learner.  I learn to learn and I don’t care what it is as long as it interests me and stimulates my brain.  MOOCs are awesome and I can’t wait to delve more into this fascinating area and possible even conduct a few. We can create communities of student centered self guided learning in which a teacher may not even necessarily be needed in the traditional sense. In this model the entire group would teach and learn from each other. I’d really love to take part in the one that I designed and others that I saw my peers start and design. I may not make an entire course into a MOOC, but I definitely will add aspects of MOOCs into my courses. http://edtech.cominotti.net/llog/2012/12/10/social-network-learning-course-reflection/

Leveraging the Devices, Tools, and Learning Strategies of Our Students

I developed a mission statement as an educator several decades ago.  It is simply, “To provide students with the knowledge, skills, and passion to become lifelong learners.”  I have never swayed from that mission, but as I say in my Twitter profile, “I don’t do education for a living, I live education as my doing . . .  and technology has amplified my passion for doing so.” Technology makes possible 24/7, interested-driven learning.  I teach online so I get the opportunity to learn everyday all day long due to the Internet and social networks.  Students of all ages and settings should also be given the skills, tools, and time to engage in this type of self-directed, passion-based learning.

Higher education and high school teachers have stubbornly kept lectures as the primary mode of instruction.  Most students in these venues report boredom as a result.  I discuss this more in Who Would Choose a Lecture as Their Primary Mode of Learning.  An opposing state of being passionate is being bored, a contradiction to my mission statement . . .  and I believe that most educators would report that do not wish to elicit a state of boredom in their students.  This is why I am confused that in these amazing times of the abundance of information, mobile devices, and free technologies, educators are not leveraging them in the classroom.

Where, when, how, and even what we are learning is changing. Teachers need to consider how to engage learners with content by connecting to their current interests as well as their technological habits and dependencies. http://learningthroughdigitalmedia.net/introduction-learning-through-digital-media

Reports continue to be disseminated about how young people are using technology.  These devices, tools, and strategies can be integrated into existing lessons to enhance the learning activities and create more engagement, excitement, and possibly some passion among the students.

What follows are the results of some recent research and surveys about how young people are using technology along with suggestions how educators can

Pew Research’s Photos and Videos as Social Currency Online

A nationally representative phone survey of 1,005 adults (ages 18+) was taken August 2-5, 2012. The sample contained 799 internet users, who were asked questions about their online activities.  Based on the results of the survey, recommendations are made how these online activities can be leveraged in the classroom.

Have Students Show Their Learning Visually with Photos and/or Videos

Taking photos and videos are commonplace for many young people.  Students can demonstrate their learning through some form of visual media.  Using visual media in the classroom is congruent with brain research about the power of vision in learning (as per neuroscientist, John Medina) and supports research that visuals enhance learning.

Resources:

• Image Is Everything
• 100 Ways to Use Digital Cameras
• Student Generated Digital Video

Have Students Curate

As instructors, we are all information curators.  How do you collect and share currently relevant content with your students?  How do your students research and share information that they find with the rest of class? What tools do you use to manage or facilitate presentation of resources? Is it public? Can students access it at other times? In groups?  Modern web tools make it easy for both students and instructors to contribute online discoveries to class conversations.  Using free online content curation software, we can easily integrate new content in a variety of ways. http://iteachu.uaf.edu/grow-skills/filelink-management/content-curation-tools/

. . . and as Bill Ferriter notes:

While there are a ton of essential skills that today’s students need in order to succeed in tomorrow’s world, learning to efficiently manage — and to evaluate the reliability of — the information that they stumble across online HAS to land somewhere near the top of the “Muy Importante” list.  http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/2012/12/curating-a-content-collection-activity.html

Resources:

• How can I use Content Curation in My Class?
• Teaching With Content Curation
• Students Becoming Curators of Information?
• Content Curation for Online Education
• Teaching Kids to Curate Content Collections
• How Educators Are Using Pinterest for Showcasing, Curation

Have Students Connect to Other Students, Teachers, and Experts Via Their Social Networks

By utilizing a technological channel that is popular with users, professors are increasing participation among students and seeing the results. Due to the real-time format of these outlets, students can contact peers, faculty and other authorities anywhere in the world, and usually elicit a prompt response. Despite its reputation, social media platforms allow professors to approach curricula in ways that are more creative and engaging to students. The College Bound Network has said of social learning, “Despite what you may have thought, technology doesn’t hinder learning—it fuels it.”  http://www.business2community.com/trends-news/the-modern-student-the-rise-of-online-schools-social-media-and-institutionalized-understanding-0356321#tosmQAvUcXUAKmbU.99

Resources:

• How teachers use social media in the classroom to beef up instruction
• Social Media Belongs in the Classroom
• 50 Reasons to Invite Facebook Into Your Classroom
• 100 Ways To Use Facebook In Your Classroom
• 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom
• 10 ways to help students develop a PLN…

Have Students Use Their Own Devices During Class Time

Two reports/infographics support this strategy:

View this document on Scribd

There are limitless ways to use student devices during class time.   I recommend to educators to take what they are already doing well in the classroom and brainstorm how these learning activities can be enhanced using their mobile devices.

We have come to a time when we need to accept the fact that the concept of 21st century skills is no longer a progressive phase to latch onto but a reality that we need to instill into our school systems. When students bring their own devices it literally transforms the conversations that take place in the classroom.  http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2012/08/are_schools_prepared_to_let_students_byod.html

For several semesters, I taught an undergraduate course on interpersonal relations.  It was at a vocational-driven local college with most of the students being between the ages of 17 to 22 (some high school students) and a handful of students in their thirties and forties.  I took learning activities I had developed and taught in the past and enhanced them with technology.  Reflections about these activities can be read at:

• Cell Sharing: An Ice Breaker Using Mobile-Devices (BYOD)
• Communication Activities Using Mobile Devices
• The Equity Game: A Mobile Device-QR Code Driven Activity
• QR Coded Student Videos: Classifying Activity

For more resources, see my curated Scoop.it of articles and resources related to Mobile Devices with Bring Your Own Devices

Pockets of institutions, administrators, and educators are successfully integrating the tools and strategies discussed above into their setting.  More blog posts, case studies, journal articles, and news pieces about these initiatives can give permission and suggestions to those who are willing but scared or a bit reluctant.

Educators as Social Networked Learners

http://gretelpatch.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/periodic-table-of-connectivism/

This fall, I am getting the opportunity to design and teach a graduate course for Boise State University’s Education Technology Program entitled, Social Networked Learning.  The majority of students in the program are K-12 in-service teachers who are seeking ways to enhance their teaching with integrated and emerging technologies.  I am so excited about what students are producing for this course and in terms of meeting this goal that I wanted to share information about the course, a sampling of course activities, and example student work.

Course Description

This course explores collaborative and emergent pedagogies, tools, and theory related to the use of social networks in learning environments. Participants gain hands-on experience with a variety social networking tools, create their own personal learning networks, and have an opportunity to develop a MOOC-inspired course for their learners.

The ideas, content, and exercises presented in this course are driven by two basic tenets:

1. We are living, learning, and educating in an information-rich (Shirky), connected (Siemens), creative (Florida), participatory (Jenkins) culture.
2. This culture is seeing growth, development, and evolution of information and technology as never seen before in the history of  humankind.  As such, educators need to become learners along with being teachers.  Educators, in this age of teaching and learning, have a responsibility to connect with, learn from and with, and share resources and information with their students and other educators both locally and globally.

Drawing from these tenets and borrowing from Howard Rheingold’s syllabus on Social Media Literacies, I believe the course can be further described by the following:

Today’s personal, social, political, economic worlds are all affected by digital media and networked publics. Viral videos, free search engines, indelible and searchable digital footprints, laptops in lecture halls and smartphones at the dinner table, massive online university courses — it’s hard to find an aspect of daily life around the world that is not being transformed by the tweets, blogs, wikis, apps, movements, memes, likes and plusses, tags, text messages, and comments two billion Internet users and six billion mobile phone subscribers emit. New individual and collaborative skills are emerging. This course introduces students to both the literature about and direct experience about how to leverage social media for teaching and learning, skills and tools necessary for critical consumption of information, best practices of individual digital participation and collective participatory culture, the use of collaborative media, and the application of network know-how for professional development and networking teaching and learning.  (http://goo.gl/h5CIW)

Learning Goals 

1. Use a Personal Learning Network, and explain its value in educational settings.
2. Understand the value of web-based social networks within educational settings.
3. Identify learning theories and researched-based practices that support current approaches to effective use of social network technologies for learning.
4. Analyze strengths and weaknesses of various social networks and information management technologies for a variety of learning goals.
5. Contribute to professional-based social learning networks using a variety of media and communication mechanisms.
6. Identify factors with successful social networks, and create a social learning network-driven course for learners addressing these factors.

Course Modules

• The Theories Driving Social Networking: Communities of Practice, Connectivism, Personal Learning Networks
• Social Media for Professional Development & Reputation Management
• Building Your Personal Learning Network
• Social Networking As An Instructional Strategy
• Creating a MOOC-Inspired Online Community of Learners

Course Assignments

• Set Up Course Social Networking Areas and Sites
• Communities of Practice, Connectivism, Personal Learning Networks: Resource Identification
• Communities of Practice, Connectivism, Personal Learning Networks: Creative Understandings
• Social Media for Professional Development & Reputation Management
• Real Time and Live Professional Development
• Positive Digital Footprint and Reputation Management Plan
• Curation: Criteria for Quality Curation
• Curation: Curated Topic
• Building Your Personal Learning Network
• PLE Diagram
• Social Media Policies and Your Own Online Communities
• Synthesis and Application of Social Networking Tools and Ideas
• Creating a MOOC-Inspired Online Community of Learners
• Peer Review and Reflection

Module One: Communities of Practice, Connectivism, Personal Learning Networks

Assignment

During this module, you will be exploring communities of practice, connectivism, and personal learning networks. Understanding these concepts, philosophies, and ways of thinking provide a foundation for social networking.  It can help you use social networks strategically and with intention.  It helps inform your actions so you can use networks for engaged, participatory learning.

Create one or a combination of the following to demonstrate your understanding of these concepts:  a slide show or Glog of images, an audio cast of sounds, a video of sights, a series of handrawn and scanned pictures, a mindmap of images, a mathematical formula, a periodic chart of concepts, or another form of nonlinguistical symbols.  Note that it is not about words but about images and symbols.   Your product should contain the major elements discussed in this module: CoPs, Connectivism, and Personal Learning Networks.  Include a reference page of at least 10 (ten) CoP, Connectivism, and PLN resources you used to inform your work. Creating a “product” to represent your understanding of the concepts addresses (1) that we have become producers as well as consumers in this age of social networking and web 2.0; and (2) according to neuroscientist, John Medina, visuals are very powerful means for learning and understanding.

Student Examples

Deborah Lyman

Module Two: Social Media for Professional Development & Reputation Management

 Assignment

Educators really can’t afford to NOT be on Twitter.  Our educational landscape is changing very rapidly.  Our students are using this technology every day, and as educators we must continually be growing and finding new ways to learn and to reach our students.  Is Twitter perfect?  By no means.  But used correctly, Twitter can really become a catalyst in transforming your classroom, your school, and your teaching.  (http://www.texasprincipal.org/index.php/texas-principals-education-help-support-team/entry/twitter-a-necessity-for-educators-in-2012)

If you haven’t done so, set up a Twitter client (e.g. Tweetdeck).  Find at least five hashtags that reflect your interests and set up columns for them on your Twitter client.  Tweet out your chosen hashtags using #EdTechSN.  Post a screenshot on our class Facebook page of your Twitter client with the at least five hashtagged columns (not including #EdTechSN). Include a summary of what hashtags you follow; three new things, resources, ideas you learned by following them; and your thoughts about about using Twitter as a form of just-in-time professional development.

Student Examples

A few student reflections about setting up and using Twitter for Professional Development:

• Thoughts on Twitter for Just in Time PD
• Twitter Power

Module Three: Positive Digital Footprint and Reputation Management Plan

Assignment

Your task for this assignment is to develop a specific plan for you as a professional to establish a positive professional online presence while at the same time developing steps to insure that your reputation remains “safe” and positive.  Include at least 10 individual strategies.  Use references to support your ideas/strategies.  Post your ideas on a site that permits comments and feedback – you can create a video and upload on Youtube, a Voicethread, a Flickr slide series, a Facebook Page, a wikipage, or a Google doc (making sure you enable comments).

Student Examples

Module Four: Curation

Assignment

“Curation comes up when search stops working,” says author and NYU Professor Clay Shirky. But it’s more than a human-powered filter. “Curation comes up when people realize that it isn’t just about information seeking, it’s also about synchronizing a community.” Why Content Curation Is Here to Stay

Review the readings and resources about curation. Based on your readings, develop a checklist of at least 15 criteria that will serve as a tool for assessing the the quality and value of a curated topic related to your specialized content area and/or grade level.  This is a group assignment – to be completed with the group you formed in the last module.  Decide as a group which collaborative online tool you want to use to complete this list of criteria, e.g., Wiki, Google Doc, Primary Pad, etc. Reflect on the process of creating the checklist and working as a group in the comments section of their Facebook checklist post.

Using a tool specific for curation (e.g, Pinterest, Scoopit, Educlipper, Livebinders, Learnrist, MightyBell), curate a topic of your choice, applicable to your content areas and/or grade level.. This is an individual project. Include at least 25 resources. Use your group’s checklist to self-assess its value.  Post your results in the comments section where you posted your the link to your Curated Topic. Use your group’s checklist to assess the curated topics of your group members.  Please note what was especially noteworthy and also what needs further development/tweaking.

Student Example

Curating is hard work. To come up with this list of 25 acceptable resources involved a lot of filtering, sifting, and otherwise weeding out. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. That somebody is me – and lots of educational technology professionals like me who take pride in their work. We do the hard stuff so you don’t have to. The end result is a resource I feel is substantial, helpful, and contributes to the greater good of knowledge. Gretel P.

• Behind the scenes of NETS•S K-5 Curriculum Integration Curation: A Reflection

Module Five:  Your PLE Diagram and Reflection

Assignment

Create a PLE diagram of your online communities.  Represent at least 10 different online communities in your graphic and explictly show connections between the communities. You can be as creative as you’d like with this depiction.  You can hand draw and take an image, or use any type technology.  There are a number of mindmapping tools that can help you – http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/06/18-free-mind-mapping-tools-for-teachers.html  Post a link and screenshot of your PLE so you classmates could view it on Facebook and Tweet your diagram out using the #EdTechSN hastag.  Complete a reflection that addresses the following questions:  What did you learn about yourself when looking at your PLE? Visit your classmates’ PLE posts.  How does your PLE compare to other peers in class? Write a self-reflection and a comparative analysis that discusses similarities and diffierences between yours and your classmates’ diagrams.

Student Diagram Examples

Student Reflections: Completing the PLE Diagram

This experience has allowed me to look at the communities in a new light. Before, I simply used them for their entertainment value. An escape from work and learning. Little did I know that they would become the basis for my new way of learning. Each day I am amazed by what I find.  Andi

This class, or more importantly this assignment, has made me realize just how much I have not been truly using the Internet and all its tools and resources to its ability.  It is like when you bite into a candy thinking that there is yummy goodness in the middle only to find out that the middle is actually hollow and the candy just had a thick shell.  But it also has allowed me to immerse myself into resources, tools, and communities that I might never thought of using/joining and broadening my network for the better.  Christina

This idea of growing our network, of growing ourselves, aligns well with the connectivist framework I have been researching lately. Like George Siemens said, “The learning is the network” (2004). Gretel

I had a wonderful experience creating my PLN and it gave me a map to use when socializing and gaining information to help me with my teaching degree. It is now much easy to “see” where I should be going and “who” I should be networking with. I am excited to see where this will lead me and what the future holds. Debi

 I have learned that I have ideas that may be beneficial for other educators and students and often felt like I had no avenue through which to share them besides in direct communication with the students and teachers at the school/colleges where I teach. By creating this PLE diagram, I have been able to see how many avenues I do have to make more of a contribution to the educational community at large, going beyond the schools I am directly affiliated with. Jaime

Joining new professional networks to include on the diagrams stretched me outside of my comfort zone. Activities that instigate discomfort can be amongst the very best opportunities to learn. angi

PLE Diagram Blog Entries

• http://edtech.cominotti.net/llog/2012/10/29/263/
• http://benmooreedtech.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/543-personal-learning-environment-reflection/

Module 6: Social Networked Learning in Your Classroom

Assignment

Social media is fast becoming as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. Many schools and districts around the country have taken steps to create social media policies and guidelines for their students and staff. In my work with several districts to draft these documents, I have seen many approaches that work well, and some that don’t. That said, there is no silver bullet for administrators; every school, district, and state has a different set of circumstances. (How to Create Social Media Guidelines for Your School)

Either (1) develop social media policies for your learning environment, or (2) establish a plan to have your learning community develop social media policies for your school or organization.  Include steps to get input and ideas from students, parents, teachers, staff, community members.

Student Reflections About Creating a Social Media Policy

While many teachers still choose to keep their head in the sand, the fact is that Social Media is in our schools.  Moreover, that’s where it should be.  There is no doubt that dealing with social media in a school setting is tricky business.  Fears about students safety, cyber-bullying, reputation management, distraction in school and the like are real issues that should be addressed by school communities.  More and more, this is being handled by the development of a Social Media Policy for the school or school district.  This is an important part of creating a culture where students learn to use social media,, something they are already doing in the personal lives, in the space they spend so much of their time.  By taking the approach of creating a policy that cultivates an understanding of the proper use of social media, schools not only protect themselves and their students, they also help students learn to better use such technology.  Jon F.

I’m disappointed, though not surprised, to see how many districts and schools ban external social media sites completely. Sure, it may protect and cushion students, but it also creates a long-term problem of not helping students learn to navigate a world they are already using daily. Schools do students a huge disservice and only compound the problem by feeding school-life-home disconnect. Students will still use social media outside of school but are given virtually no practice to use it wisely and well – and certainly not for learning.  I drafted a social media policy for our school and will present it to the Technology Committee for preliminary review and hopefully adoption. I believe it’s important to have this in place in addition to an Acceptable Use Policy, because 1) it states our belief that social media has a valuable place in our school; 2) it educates students, parents, and teachers on appropriate online behavior within social media sites; and 3) it helps ensure that everyone is accountable and safe.  Gretel P.

Examples of Established Social Media Policies

• Development of a Social Media Policy
• A Plan to Develop a Social Media Policy
• Social Media & Acceptable Use Policy Plan
• Social Media Policy

Assignment

You are going to establish your own online social learning platform for your teaching environment.  You can use any platform. Edmodo is highly recommended, but NINGs, Mightbell, Facebook for Schools, Moodle, Wikis, and PB Works are options, too.  Please complete the following for this assignment:

1. Establish accounts.
2. Describe your learning audience.
3. Establish procedures for learners to join the platform.
4. Establish some general acceptable use guidelines for your social learning platform.
5. Describe some potential uses of this social learning network or online community for your content area and grade level.

Student Examples

• Outcast Genre Writers Group
• Welcome to Open Chemistry

The final project for the course is for the established groups to develop a MOOC inspired course using the theories, strategies, and tools developed throughout the courses.  This project will be discussed in a separate blog post.