Yesterday another faculty member took on the role and responsibilities of department chair.  This is quite exciting for a variety of reasons, but one of them that comes to mind is that I get to experience things anew.  "Training" a new department chair, even though my colleague and I report to them, provides an opportunity to explain to someone new what the operating rules of the university

I am back home, and with vacation behind me I guess it's time to get back to work.  I've got the day-job for which I've already created a list of tasks to undertake; the teaching of my newly renumbered course INSDSG 684 (formerly 619) and the updates I want to make to the course materials as well as gearing up for my #altcred experiment, version 2.0; and finally the Great Big MOOC Book which I

Well,  we are in Week 9 (or 13) in the course I am teaching this semester, and the badges experiment is continuing!  This weekend, as I was reading assignment submissions, I saw that some students, in their design documents, have started incorporating Web 2.0 tools (should we just call them "web tools" now?) that encourage the use, formation, or exploration of personal learning environments

I am attending, and presenting, at NERCOMP 2014 today. As I was checking Blackboard over the past couple of days and "grading" feedback pieces submitted by my students, I noticed an interesting trend in the feedback (and some emails sent by students) that reminded me of #Rhizo14 (week 2?): encouraging independence.We are now in week 8 (of 13) in this course and students are put into groups of three

Well, it seems one more week has passed by in INSDSG619, and one more badge had been earned by some learners, and therefore revealed to everyone! Last week the Discussion Initiator was revealed, and this week, the Discussion Kinder has come out!Discussion KindlerDescription:This badge is awarded to students who have made an effort to keep the discussion going by responding to peers and helping to tease

We are now in the middle of Week 7 (of 13) of the course I am teaching (INSDSG 619: The Design and Instruction of Online Courses) and one more of the secret badge is revealed!Discussion InitiatorCriteria:  Must hit all elements of the discussion board grading rubric,Must be the first to respond in any given week, Must be a post that encourages other to respond and engage in discussion (i.e. have

Alright, so I guess we are entering the final frontier of #rhizo14 here, with week 11.  Perhaps I should stop counting weeks and call this series of posts "This Week in Rhizo14" ;-)  Last week I missed some discussions on P2PU, which I've gone back and answered some questions directed to me, but I think this ends my formal mingling in P2PU for Rhizo14 and I will focus more one the PLE aspect

Well, Week 4 has begun in the graduate course I am teaching, and it was time to tally up some numbers to see if any secret badges needed to be released and awarded to students in the course.  Of the 8 secret badges I designed for this course, four of them have been discovered by students one-quarter of the way through the course! This is actually pretty nifty!  So what are the secret badges

Well, last week of #rhizo14 and we're all pondering where to go from here, planning the next steps I guess.  Although I am getting the distinct feeling that participants are going through the stages of grief ;-)  In any case, the topic of this last week ties into enabling student independence, which was the topic of week 3, except that this week it feels more like kicking the birds out of

The medium is the message...The medium is the curriculum... The community is the medium...The community is the curriculum!Well, we've made it to Week 5 of Rhizomatic Learning, and this week's topic shares it's title with the course itself!  The Community is The Curriculum.  Odd, to me this would have made a perfect final week (you know every end is a new beginning, circle of life learning

When I signed up for this class, I knew what to expect, up to a certain point, because I had already taken a hybrid class a couple of years ago that relied heavily on Prometheus (the system that was in place before Blackboard). The one concern was that I wasn't sure how the whole assignment creation, submission, grading aspect would work. My hybrid class was big on actual deliverables, and did not

1) Anderson cites studies that claim that effective instruction is learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered. Given these dimensions, what impact does technology mediation have on instruction?I would say that technology mediation positively affects instruction in these areas, for both hybrid and purely online courses.Through

Is there any validity to the arguments of David Noble, Hubert Dreyus, and Mark Bauerline or are they just curmedgeony Luddites?I can't really lump everyone in the same category so I will break this down:Bauerline:I don't thin he is a Luddite because, as he said, he does indeed use technology. I was left with my jaw hanging after listening to the interview. From what he said, I think that

In Foundations of Educational Theory for Online Learning, Mohamed Ally argues that no one school of thought on learning is used exclusively in online design, and that an online developer must know the different approaches to learning in order to select the appropriate

The inaugural post for INS DSG 619: Design and Instruction of Online Courses1. What made you want to take this course?I thought that this course looked pretty interesting. I believe that I can use what I learn in the class for both current work requirements and for hobbies. I think I will be able to use the material at work to create online classes that deal with library related training - this is