From PhD ComicsIt's been a while since I've had the bandwidth to think about something other than my dissertation proposal.  When I started this process four years ago (starting with matriculation in March 2014) I thought I'd be the first or second person in my cohort to be done (ha!), but like most marathoners I guess I am part of the pack looking at the fast folks ahead of me 😏.  Being

Yet another post that started as a comment on something that Paul Prinsloo posted on facebook (I guess I should be blaming facebook and Paul for getting me to think of things other than my dissertation :p hahaha).Anyway,  Paul posted an IHE story about a research study which indicates that instructional designers (IDers) think that they would benefit from conducting research in their field (teaching

I came across an article on Campus Technology last week titled 7 Tips for Listing MOOCs on Your Résumé, and it was citing a CEO of an employer/employee matchmaking firm.  One piece of advice says to create a new section for MOOCs taken to list them there. This is not all that controversial since I do the same.  Not on my resume, but rather on my extended CV (which I don't share anyone),

This past weekend a story came across my slashdot feed titled Software Goes Through Beta Testing. Should Online College Courses? I don't often see educational news on slashdot so it piqued my interest. Slashdot links to an EdSurge article where Coursera courses are described as going through beta testing by volunteers (unpaid labor...)The beta tests cover things such as:... catching mistakes

The summer semester is over!  Well, it's been over for several weeks now and the fall semester is in full swing, but I am not teaching this semester (focusing more on projects that have been on the back-burner for a while). Taking a break from teaching actually makes me think more about teaching in an odd way (I guess out of sight, but not out of mind).One of the courses that I teach is an intro

A number of threads converged last week for me, and all of the threads exist in a continuum.  The first thread was one that began in the class that I am teaching this summer, INSDSG 601: Foundations of Instructional Design & Learning Technology. One of the things that we circle back to as a class (every couple of weeks) are the notions of instructor and designer.  Where does one end and

I am not sure why my Surface Pro 3 camera decided to hyper correct the lighting in my home office, but it seems that the only way for me to be properly lit was to look at my secondary monitor, which gives the appearance of sidetalking...  Oh well.  It was a good session nevertheless :)

A recent hangout I was on talking about online pedagogy with some really cool people :-)Note to self: Ouroboros as a pedagogical symbol...

The other day I got access to my summer course on Blackboard.  With just under 25 days left to go until the start of courses, it's time to look at my old syllabus (from last summer), see what sorts of innovations my colleague (Rebecca) has in her version of the course, and decide how to update my own course.  I had some ideas last summer, but since then the course has actually received an

Chugging along (hey I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!) with my review of Macro-Level Learning through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): Strategies and Predictions for the Future, which started some time last year.  Today under the microscope is chapter 10, which is titled Redefining the Classroom: Integration of Open and Classroom Learning in Higher Education.  The

This morning, while commuting, I was able to read through another chapter in the book titled Macro-Level Learning through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): Strategies and Predictions for the Future, which I started back in August of 2015 (or somewhere there about).  This time I am reviewing chapter 9, which is titled Deceptive Promises: The Meaning of MOOCs-Hype for Higher Education.  The

With the semester (almost) over it's the return of the crankypants reviewer (hmmm... maybe I should get that as a badge and use it for all of my article reviews ;-) ).  Anyway, my goal this month is to finish reading the edited collection titled Macro-Level Learning through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): Strategies and Predictions for the Future, which I started back in August

Alright, so here it is, week 6 of NRC01PL. Even though I am technically in the same week as everyone I guess I am still marching to the beat of my own drummer.  I wanted to join the live session on Tuesday, but other things intervened.  Oh well.The topic of this week is the personal learning assistant.  Hence my little callout to the four major virtual assistants (Siri for Apple,

A couple of weeks after the last session of 806 for this spring aired I had an opportunity to observe the proceedings from across time and space (aren't recordings grand?).  Looking at the (small) crowd that attended the live session maybe I should have attended!  Anyway! It does should like next fall, or perhaps next spring once I am formally in 806, there might be a ton of people attending,

Moving right along with #NRC01PL - this is a (hopefully) short post on Personal Learning Environments, which was the topic of week 4 of NRC01PL.  Maybe this week I can actually catch up to this week's discussion (although twitter has been surprisingly quiet in this cMOOC). In any case, I love discussing PLEs because in order to meaningfully discuss PLEs we need to discuss the context in

Moving along in NRC01PL, here are some reflections of what was presented in week 3 of the Personal Learning MOOC.  It's been rather busy at work, and at Athabasca as I am wrapping up my semester, so I haven't really gelled with anyone else in this cMOOC.  I think that the topic would be interesting to discuss in connectivist fashion, but I have not yet (satisfactorily) done any wayfinding.

Hey!  It's week 2 in NRC01PL!  Well... no, it's not, it's probably like week 5 or something, but I am working at catching up ;-)  The second week of this MOOC (which I've only now joined the Google Group) is on the Content/practice dichotomy. It's interesting because this comes up quite a few times in discussions in academia. The pendulum seems to swing from extreme to extreme.  Too

The other day I came across this PhD Comics strip on grading rubrics. As a trained instructional designer (and having worked with instructional designers on and off since I started university as an undergraduate student) the concept of rubrics has really stuck with me.  That said,  I generally struggle with rubrics.In theory they are brilliant - a way to objectively measure how well someone

Yesterday evening I attended my second formal EDDE 806 session (formal in the sense that I am doing blog posts for it, as opposed to just attending and being a fly on the wall).  In any case, the session was pretty interesting, and Viviane Vladimirsky, a fellow EdD student, on her work on her dissertation.Just prior to Viviane's presentation, as we were going around introducing ourselves

Among the many streams of things happening these days is keeping tabs on some interesting things happening in my various internet circles.  I've resolved to just dip into my RSS stream and look at things periodically over a couple of days and not be as 'vigilant' as I have been in the past.  Too many things to focus on, not enough time for news.  That said, I came across an interesting

Even though this semester is relatively calm, compared to last semester, I still find myself not writing as much as I think I would like.  I've set aside, temporarily, the book I was meant to have finished reviewing last October, on MOOCs, until the semester ends and I can focus on them a little more. One reason for the refocus of energies is EDDE 804. We are focusing on leadership in education,

The other day I came across a post on ProfHacker written by Maha B. where she talked a bit about her own teaching experiences and whether one assesses the process of learning or the product of learning.  I was thinking about this question in light of my own experiences as a learner, as a designer, and as an instructor who now has had experiences in introductory courses, capstone courses, and intermediate

...and along with it the usual cast of characters and their zany antics (picture a 90s cartoon here).The debate and brainstorming currently happening is how to welcome new members in a new MOOC when we've all started developing connections, bonds, and rhizomes together over the past couple of years.  Will anonymity work? New Groups? Delete old groups? Tea & Biscuits to welcome new members?

...Schoool's out...until January...OK, OK,... maybe my take on Alice Cooper's "School's Out" isn't as catchy...but it is indicative of the situation right now :-)  EDDE 803 is over, and I am waiting for EDDE 804 to begin.  Well, technically the course is over tomorrow, however all assignments are done and submitted, and I am not in maintenance mode in the forums.The final assignment

One of the presentations this week in EDDE 803 was from a fellow classmate that talked a bit about simulations.  In the ensuing discussion I was reminded of a course I took as part of my MBA which used simulations.  I thought that this would be a worthwhile post for here (as well as class) - at the very least it's one chronicle of my learning journey prior to the EdD.Queue flashback visuals

It feels like it's been a long time since I've written here.  Well, still here, still alive, still cracking away at those books, and articles, and assignments for 803.  Initially, before this course started,I thought it would be a walk in the park given my background in instructional design.  Maybe that was my error.  While, content-wise, it is a walk in the park (given my background)

Time seems to be on fast forward these days.  Either that or I have too many things to do, and not enough time to do them in.  When did week 5 just end?  Time flies when you're having fun, and when you have a ton of your plate I guess.  The past couple of weeks on EDDE 803 have been relatively 'quiet'.  We haven't had discussion forums, and our live session was cancelled due

I think  my interactions with Autumm in virtual connecting made me want to create  a little trailer with dramatized highlights from my doctoral studies thus far.  Alas, no budget for extras, scripts, sets, and green screens, so I guess I'll leave it to plain text for now ;-)This week marks the beginning of my second year at Athabasca's EdD program (survived year 1!), and I just began

One of my resolutions, just before this new semester starts, is to not neglect periodicals that come in from time to time and at least thumb through them.  Don't let too much work, of any sort, detract from the professional development of looking through work related periodicals (sounds oxymoronic, doesn't it?).  Well, at least this way they won't pile up in the office ;-).Anyway, in keepting

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

The other day I came across a post on someone's blog on group work, and I saw this funny (but true, at least to most of my experiences) graphic on group work.  One of the soft skills required to graduate in the MEd program I teach in is to be able to demonstrate the ability to work with others on projects and joint efforts.  This is quite broad as it doesn't specify whether someone is cooperating

I know... I know... This is perhaps a tricky question to answer, but bear with me here, Perhaps the answer to this question of "how do we measure learning" is "well, d'uh! with some sort of test or assessment".  This might be true in one-off training, you visibly see employees either performing or not performing, but when it comes to a higher education context what does it mean to have been badged,

With Campus Technology behind us, I've got some free time to compose some thoughts on what I experienced this year in Boston.  I like going to Campus Tech each year as I have an opportunity to attend some sessions, see what the EdTech vendors are up to, and meet with new and existing colleagues.  One of the keynotes this year, by SNHU (Southern New Hampshire University) President was really

Continuing on my quest for 'inbox zero' for Pocket, here is another interesting post that deals with the personality of the instructor in the teaching and learning endeavor. There are actually two interesting strands here, one that deals with the instructor themselves, and one that deals with material creation.  I'll tackle the material creation first as I find that this is what piqued my initial

This month I decided that it was high time I started preparing for the fall semester.  Sure, my third class  -EDDE803-(and third semester) of my EdD program is 2 months away, however since I have the books (thank you Athabasca for planning ahead! :-) ), why not start now that I am a little more relaxed?  The first book that I just finished is by Diana Laurillard Teaching as a Design

"Instructional Designer" - by AK & Net Art Generator- for #CLMOOCContinuing on my quest to read through what I've accumulated in my Pocket account, I came across a blog with the title Learning Experience Design: A Better Title Than Instructional Design? The title was catchy enough for me to save it to pocket for later reading (which seemed to be forever ago).  In any case, Christy seems

"Fractured Spock" - by me and Net Art Generator, for #clmoocOver the past couple of years, since the silly acronym "SPOC" was invented to denote a course that was the antithesis to the MOOC, a Small Private Online Course, I've had issues with the acronym, and took exception to this new discovery on the part of schools that newly invented this form of education, considering that there are

Image from Flickriver, Brian HillegasA few days ago, and totally by stroke of chance, I happened upon a twitter discussion between @HybridPed,  @otterscotter, @actualham, and a few others.  I am not sure what the original topic was but I came in when they were discussing assessment. Do we assess learning or competency? Some regarded learning as transcending competency and some saw competency

I wrote (a few days ago) that I am re-designing  an introductory course in instructional design (see syllabus here).  In my assessment activities I've decided to go with a pass/not pass model.  There will still be something approximating traditional rubrics and categories for different things that learners need to address in each activity, but I am toying with the idea of doing away

A few things happened this week which seemed to point to a nexus on grading, grades, and a throwback to Week 3 of Rhizo15 on what counts. The three thing that came together for me were Whitney's post from Week 3, My own grades from EDDE 802, and me designing (or rather re-designing) the introductory course in instructional design which I will teach/facilitate/rhizolead this summer.  All these

I was going for a News show feel with that title. I don't think it came across.  The more I think about it the more I am thinking that video might satiate my dramatic tendencies - but that would take more acting talent and more time.  It's just text for now! If you have an idea for a name for a Mock News Show (like the Daily Show but for EdTech, drop a comment ;-) )So, week 5 Rhizo15 - this

Dave is really HAL, who is emulating DaveBusy week!  Just finished grading my current class, and finished the syllabus for my summer class.  Now the next stage in the course development is to create some instructions of the assessments, supporting materials, videos... oh my! I guess this is making me a bit late to this week's Rhizo Party on #rhizo15.  I have not read responses of other

I originally intended to do this over the weekend as part of RhizoRadio, but other "to-do" items kicked in and we're back to good-ol' text. I am hitting the rewind  button (and you can't stop me), to go back to Week 1 of Rhizo15.  The topic of Week 1 (as we are about to enter Week 4) is Learning Subjectives.  When the topic came out my head was so steeped in EDDE802 that the topic didn't

This week in Rhizo15 we are talking about content.  RhizoDave (I think I've decided that's Dave Cormier's new nickname - or his superhero name) has asked us to stretch and pull the word "content" and see what we come up with.  The phrase "content is king" has already come up somewhere in Rhizo15 - it may have been on twitter or Facebook, but I guess that's just one of those phrases that

This is my mind at the momentI must admit, my attempt at a witty post title probably fell really flat.  Oh well, that's why I am not a comedian :-).  Out of the fire (EDDE 802) and into the Rhizome! This is technically week 2 (or is it week 3?) of Rhizo15.  Normally a cMOOC (or as others in the Rhizo14 gang have named Rhizo - an rMOOC),  there is a little disorientation to be expected,

Captain Data (an android)End of another week.  Sometimes when I reach cognitive overload I feel like a stranded sailor - what days is it? where am I?  what did I do this week?  Did I learn this thing this week or last week?  Anyway,  I've taken some notes throughout the week so that I can discuss and summarize a bit things that made me think. So, I had discovered a MOOC,

Recently I read an article on Your Training Edge which aims to correct misconceptions surrounding MOOCs. The title of this particular post, and I guess myth that they tried to correct, was "MOOCs Aren’t Interactive, So There’s No Real Learning Taking Place". The basic idea in this misconception is really preposterous.  I don't know when interactive became synonymous with learning, but it is

[warning: lengthier post than usual] Before I left for December my mini vacation I had a holiday themed catch-up with a number of friends and colleagues on campus. With the semester winding down, and with the holidays as an excuse it was a good opportunity for people to get together and share some news about what had transpired over the past semester, share notes, best practices, and so on. One of

Wow, hard to believe, but we've reached the final module of Connected Courses (and boy is my brain tired!).  I found out last week that there may be a slim chance of me being able to teach Introduction to Instructional Design (INSDSG 601, a graduate course) at some point in the new future. This is something that was offered to me a couple of summers ago, but being away on vacation at the time

On the web, not one knows you are a ____________ (fill in the blank).  Connecting with the previous elements of trust, I am continuing my opening exploration of this module's second topic: Network Fluency.  The introductory chat is available as a YouTube video, and the discussion is on the topic of Social Capital and Personal Learning Networks.This subject of Network Fluency (or Network Literacy

Back in September Maha Bali's post on Critical Pedagogy: Intentions and Realities hit the interwebs on the Hybrid Pedagogy site. It's something I've been thinking about writing an Online Edition from my own experiences teaching in an online environment.  It seems to be a bit slow on Connected Courses this week (at least as compared to last week, measured in blog posts), so this seems like a good

Wow, it's not even Wednesday noon (half-way through week 1 of module 1) in Connected Courses and the feed is buzzing with the title (and/or #whyiteach).  Quite interesting.  Lots of things saved to pocket.  I will most likely read through them this weekend ;-)  In any case, I joked on twitter earlier that I should write a post on why I don't teach (who knows, this post may evolve

This is an eventful week!  Online classes begin at my institution.  This is my first semester not teaching in a few years, so I will be pouring my time into the course I am taking, as well as any MOOCs I have time for. This week #whyopen ends, my course on Negotiation on NovoEd ends, and Connected Courses begins.  I thought I would write a few thoughts on the end of WhyOpen

Well, in a week I will be in Edmonton starting off my EdD in distance education at Athabasca University.  I know that most North American doctoral students probably don't think of their dissertation topic this early (I haven't even completed my first course), but I want to be pro-active and work on the thing while taking courses.  So, Rebecca's post on Educational Design Research (EDR) was

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

Well, It's week 9 of Rhizo14 (or week 3 of the after party of rhizo14, depending on how you look at it.)  Last week we had a discussion on de-mobing teachers (I guess enabling teachers to not teach to the test?). To be honest I lurked a bit last week on facebook since the day job, the other work obligations, the DML conference (which was awesome!) and subsequent weekend food poisoning

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

Note: An MS Word or PDF version of this can be found here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/205135659/What-MOOCs-can-do-for-the-Traditional-Online-Classroom-Part-II Introduction2014 is upon us! We are now a couple of years from the big MOOC “explosion” in the news, and since we’ve gone to both extremes, too much optimism and too much pessimism, about what MOOCs can and can’t do, it’s now time to

Cookie cutters: detriment to creativity, or fuel to the creative fire?Last week, while I was updating something on LinkedIn, I saw one of my colleagues post a link to a post by the eLearning Brothers called The Top 10 Best eLearning Game Templates. I am generally not a fan of such list-posts, but every now and again I come across something really interesting.  I usually don't teach courses on

I came across this in an article talking about the Stanford Remote Lab. Pretty nifty!  I wonder what this might mean for online education (of various sorts) ten years down the road.

Just before the spring semester starts and I start getting really busy with the day-job, teaching my class, working on a couple of conference presentations and working on the FutureLearn course on Corpus Linguistcs, and P2PU course with Dave Cormier, I thought I should really jump into a couple of Udacity course offerings to give the platform a real try out. In years past I stayed away, as a learner,

Man, it's been a crazy week.  I've been jotting down notes for this post from the various viewings, readings, fellow blogger posts, and discussion forums.  This was meant to be several posts over the week, but it all wrapped up into one big thing. Oh well.  Such is life ;-) This week I'm creating some category headers to make things easier to read.From the week 2 synchronous sessionThe

Angry Spock (Star Trek reboot)OK, OK... the title was easy pickings but this article is quite serious.  I've chosen to ignore, for the most part, the whole idiocy of the term SPOC (small private online course).  SPOCs are really just "regular" online courses, as I've written in my one other post about SPOCs. It bothers me that there is so much revisionist history around the topic of "traditional"

Seems like Week 1 of #edcmooc is now done, and I've read (or in some cases reviewed) the readings and videos that they had posted as resources for Week 1. During the Week 1 live session recap and discussion there was an indication that there were 20,000 registrants for the MOOC.  I'd be interested in seeing how many of those 20,000 follow through and "complete" the MOOC, whatever "completion"

A while back, when #EDCMOOC was getting setup for the first time, a fellow colleague, co-author, and member of the MobiMOOC research team, recommended the E-Learning and Digital Cultures MOOC offered by the University of Edinburgh. I think the school was his alma matter and he had good words to say about the organizers. This is always a plus.Well, first time around I was too busy - I think I was actually

Quite a few topics have been twirling in my mind these days but nothing was really solidifying until I read the following three blog posts in my pocket account in at the same time:It’s Time to Redirect the Conversation about MOOCs - by David CillayMOOCs make waves in higher education worldwide - by Karen MacGregorMOOCs and Online Learning #wweopen13 - by Rebecca HogueThey are all interesting reads,

With three MOOCs done (only undertaking one now), I have a little more time to go through and read what has been piling up in my Pocket account.  Now, over the past couple of years there have been a number of articles on building your own MOOC, from a variety of people.  Some in publications like Learning Solutions Magazine, some in eBook form, some in in Blog form.One of the blog-form posts

Online Games & Narrative Course LogoLast summer, when I signed up for these things, I really didn't  keep proper timing of the courses I signed up for, because I was signed up for three concurrent MOOCs, while working a full time job, and messing around with other interesting things (MOOC related).  In any case, after several PACKED weeks, three MOOCs are done, and I have some thoughts

Trust Network BadgeWell, this is it!  We are in the final week of  the #OpenBadgesMOOC, and this is the last post (for badge purposes anyway) from Mozilla's #OpenBadgesMOOC. As with previous blog posts in this series I am brainstorming about including badges in an #ESLMOOC that I am thinking of designing, developing, implementing and them studying for a potential PhD.  With this week's

I wish I could find a caricature of a personification of a MOOC as a super hero. It would fit really well in this post :)  I was recently reading a news item on the washington post titled The Tuition is Too Damn High, Part IX: Will MOOCs save us?I have to say that it's amazing to me that Khan Academy is still included in the MOOC category even though Khan Academy isn't really about MOOCs.

Since I returned from vacation I've been catching up on news that happened while I was away, and listening to podcasts from May that I had downloaded to take with me to listen to, but due to the hustle and bustle of vacation, I ended up not listening to anything I downloaded.  I was listening to a podcast from NPR's education feed when they were reporting on MOOCs and certain school's apprehension

So I am back from vacation, and onto the MOOC path again. I am not sure if vacationing has made me a little less interested in MOOCs (and more interested in things like sitting on my deck, drinking coffee and reading a good book), or if the glut of xMOOCs, the commercial rush for people to make LMSs for them, and the elitism of certain providers as to which institutions can join their club. All of

This past week, crazy events in Boston aside, two new MOOCs began: LTMOOC, on Blended Language Teaching, and the Phonetics and Phonology MOOC from the Virtual Linguistics Campus at the University of Marburg.  The Edx course on the Ancient Greek Hero took a hiatus week to allow people to catch up.  I am still sticking to the Ancient Greek Hero course, and I did try to catch up with the scrolls,

I was looking over edX for a course that I could take out of interest, but also something that I could use to evaluate the pedagogy employed, as well as the platform (LMS) itself.I came across the Ancient Greek Hero, and since I never really did any classics in college, and the last time I read the Iliad was in 7th grade when I was in Greece, I thought that this would be a good chance to kill

Hey! Another MOOC is done! The MOOC I am referring to is OLDSMOOC, and it will go down as one of the better MOOCs I've attended ;-)  When I signed up for the MOOC, I did so for two reasons:I wanted to learn more about Learning Design (seemed like Instructional Design going by another name).I wanted a cMOOC, damn it! :-)Don't get me wrong, there are some interesting courses on coursera but I don't

It's week 6 of 9 in OLDSMOOC† and the topic is Curation of content, and one of the major areas is Open Educational Resources (or OER).  I had to go back to last summer, when I was working on the #ioe12 MOOC, and the week that was specifically tackling the topic of OER to see what I wrote then on the topic.I think my main "complain" about OER is that it, in addition to spending time to find OER

Last fall, when I was on an xMOOC-binge, I decided to sign up for a MOOC called Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application (#foemooc). I knew the subject matter, but I decided to participate so I can compare notes. After all, I am teaching what is the same course online this semester in a non-MOOC format. I was also curious how it would be done in a MOOC format because I've been thinking

This week I was messing around with the pedagogical patterns collector (see here) to see what the predefined patterns were in the system (and applied some to my Blended Intro to mLearning course. I didn't think that the Patterns would be good for a MOOC environment, but I also didn't have much time to mess around in creating a MOOC-appropriate Patterns and associated TLA (teaching learning activities). 

Wow, this MOOC seems to be going by pretty quickly! We are already at the midpoint!This week I feel my participation in the MOOC was a bit more muted. I did want to participate more in the in the discussions but I got side-lined with start-of-the-semester things I needed for my day-job ;-)  I did get through my stated activities (1, 2, 3, 4,  10) and I did do one of my optional ones (5);

Week 2 of OLDS MOOC done, six more to go - escaped this week relatively unscathed ;-) For a more complete overview of my comings and goings during week 2 of the MOOC check out my cloud (and scroll down).  Cloudworks isn't bad, I actually like it! But I haven't completely pinned down my workflow yet. I think Cloudworks would make a great electronic portfolio platform because I can see how clouds

Alright! This week I will make some goals for myself for my participation in OLDS MOOC! This week (titled "inquire") focuses on context.  The introductory video for the week is at the end of this post. For those of you familiar with the Dick & Carey model, we are firmly in the "Analysis" Stages.As far as reading goes, I plan on getting acclimated to the Force Map, and exploring the Ecology

Up until yesterday I was in the course "Think Again: How to Reason and Argue" on coursera. I decided to drop the course (more on this in a subsequent post), but my decision to drop the course was partly based on my free time to devote to this course, and the assessment factors currently available for math and science (and logic is a Math course for me ;-)  ). I was conversing with one of my colleagues

It's week 4 of #cfhe12 so it must be time for Big Data and Analytics as the topic of discussion. It's interesting coming back to this topic of discussion because it was the topic of the first MOOC I took part in, LAK11, and it's a topic I've been thinking (or at least keeping on the back burner) since I was in business school. On of th things to keep in mind when talking about Analytics is that there

**sigh**The mobile client ate my post! I will try to reconstitute as much of it as I remember ;-)In this blog post I am continuing the train of though started by thinking about different levels of participation, and my blog post on MOOC registration.  Since MOOCs are generally not taken for credit, and since they generally don't need to conform to some sort of departmental outcomes standard (i.e.

It seems like Rebecca and I were on the same wavelength yesterday when we were composing our blog posts and reflecting on various aspects of MOOCs.  Rebecca wonders why there is only one level of participation in xMOOCs, and I have to say, having started my 3rd coursera MOOC yesterday (same one as Rebecca, the Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society on coursera), I can see that (from my limited

Here it is! The final week of BlendKit2012! I know it is only a 5 week MOOC, but it seems to have gone by pretty quickly! The topic of this week, as with any well designed course, is evaluation - or: how do you know that your learning intervention (in this case designing a blended course) has worked and your learners walked away with the knowledge they need to be successful. The reading this week centered

Yesterday morning I was catching up on some #cfhe12 blog posts by Bryan Alexander (who I have not seen in a MOOC in ages), a blog post about defining MOOCs  by Rolin Moe,  and my colleague Rebecca who writes about the ease and usefulness in MOOCs†. First, let me respond to Rolin's points (since I happened to read his blog post first).There are lots of people looking at the future of academic

 It's week 3 of 5 in BlendKit2012, and this week's readings are on the topic of assessment (a pretty important topic if you ask me!). Thus far the contributions of my fellow participants have been pretty interesting to read as well (keep it up! :-)  ). In any case, this week's readings give the reader a quick overview of the testing types that an online environment affords, talks (briefly)

BlendKit, prepare to have your mind blown!OK, I am a exaggerating a bit, but I am going to come to this MOOC from a non-traditional approach. I've been thinking about the DIY activities, and I have to say that the DYI tools (4th column, DIY project deliverables) are pretty nifty; not just for blended learning, but also for instructional design purposes in general. Now, I don't think I will have a ton

Last year, for me anyway, the major pondering point of the year was MOOC pedagogy. Between cMOOCs and xMOOCs I've seen, and I am now still experiencing a lot of different deliveries, technologies, interactions, and I've been pondering their underlying pedagogies, and what makes them work!While I am still thinking about MOOC pedagogies, I have out that pot on thwack burner to slowly simmer and I've

It's quite interesting, but the topic of MOOCs and accreditation keeps coming up :-)The post that prompted this blog post came from a post I saw on MobiMOOC today regarding information assessment and recognition of success.  In MobiMOOC 2012 one of the new things that is baked into the course is the awarding of badges, with an eye toward Mozilla's Open Badges. There are currently three types of

OK, It's Friday, one more day of  MOOCMOOC, and today's topic is about creating our own MOOCs.  I've written about my own MOOC creation plans (centering around teaching of language).  I had hoped that I would be able to do this as part of a dissertation, but since a potential dissertation is way way way out there in terms of timing, I think I may have to move on this sooner, rather than

OK, so I did say that I would probably lurk in this MOOC, but I think I will upgrade my status to be that guy who yells from the stands at the people playing LOL :-)  If I have time, I will do my best to  come down to the green and kick the ball a bit myself ;-)The readings for today (and the general intro and topic outline available here) are things that I've encountered before in my almost-two-year

Well, MOOCMOOC starts today, and while #change11 was an experiment in the massiveness of a MOOC both in terms of registered users and in terms of length (36 weeks), MOOCMOOC seems to be an experiment in how small a MOOC can be.I heard about the MOOC from the usual suspects, and while I do have my doubts about MOOCMOOC, I signed up (a glutton for punishment? Or curious soul? You decide). The point of

Here it is! The final week of FSLT12, and the topic is evaluation! A topic near and dear to me, especially considering that it's the final step in th ID process before iterating :-) Here are two parts of this weeks lecture presentation.   

This week I started a 2-week (online) workshop from the Sloan Consortium on Implementing the Quality Scorecard for the Administration of Online Education Programs. So far it's a pretty interesting course, and I've read through the reading materials supplied by the workshop facilitator.  One of the things that stands out, and this makes sense, is that an academic department can't go at it alone.

This week I am taking part in a Quality Matters workshop on Applying the Quality Matters Rubric.  One of the videos that we're given was this pretty funny video on alignment and assessment.I think anyone who is interested in teaching, or anyone who wants to be an instructional designer, should view this first and use it as a mini case to point out what's wrong :-)

This is my final AAAL wrap up post, this time focusing on Computer Assisted Langauge Learning (CALL). There were a few interesting presentations (I guess for more CALL stuff I need to go to the CALICO conference) at AAAL on computer assisted language learning. One presentation (from a colleague at UMass Amherst if I am not mistaken) focused on using WIMBA to teach Japanese completely online. David

I was reading a post on change11 the other day and this video was talked about. The essence of th video is that in education these days we've gone crazy with assessments and we forget about th learner. Fair enough, I believe that this is indeed true in some states and school systems, especially with things like no child left behind. The problem comes in (for me at least) when the people start talking

A few years ago, when I was still a student in Instructional Design, the then program director of the instructional design program had an idea for a new course for our program: a course on learning management systems. Her conception for the course was that students in the course would get hands on with many different learning management systems, so that when they graduated they would be conversant

I came across this video on Universal Course Design at my University over the weekend. Pretty nifty, despite the dated look :-)I couldn't get the flash file to play on this blog, so here's the original link to the video.Here is a Quicktime version of this movie (50MB) file. It is a better quality video for viewing on a large screen.

This week's Change11 topic on Slow Learning reminds me of discussions I've had with friends and colleagues about Instructional Design in general.  When I started my instructional design career officially and went to school to learn about ID, my university taught the Dick and Carey model. As part of the course my instructor, Mary Hopper, has us examining other models as well for our group projects

This week on Change11 our host facilitator is Clark Quinn author of Designing mLearning and of Mobile Academy. It's interesting. My initial exposure to Clark has been through twitter and through these two books.  I read Designing of mLearning as a potential text for a college level mLearning course (I like it for what it's worth) and I currently have the Mobile Academy on to

Αυτή την εβδομάδα στο Change MOOC, ο προσκεκλημένος εμπειρογνώμων είναι ο Clark Quinn, o συγγραφέας του Designing mLearning και του Mobile Academy και το θέμα της εβδομάδος είναι η Αργή Μάθηση.Ο Clark έρχεται από τον εταιρικό κόσμο και βλέπει την μάθηση

Life and Death ScreenshotThis week is gaming and simulation week (if you haven't guessed from the posts that I've been posting and responding to) on Change11 with guest Clark Aldrich. As usual, I've skipped the live session since there is more than enough content on the blogs and what's been provided by the guest facilitators. The reading matter for this week is a short book by Clark titled Designing

This week's Change topic was a nice break for me, allowed me to take a moment, catch up with other people's blogs, and the weekly session (which I made an attempt to visit while it was live, but I somehow missed it) was loose enough to allow for this break.In any case, the topic of this week was "Triangulating, weaving and connecting our learning." I've written before about disconnected knowledge (although

'Tis the season to be thinking about which courses you will be registering for spring courses; unless you're graduating this December, in which case let me be the first to congratulate you! :-)  The spring course list is now out, check it out on our discussion board.  When I was a student I always liked to have a syllabus for the courses I was thinking about registering for so that I could

I viewed this week's live session yesterday afternoon (I really wish there were an export to MP3 function, I know WIMBA, one of the products going into Blackboard Collaborate allows this...but anyway - this isn't the MOOC facilitator's fault). In any case, I don't have much to say this week about the topic, so I will be catching up with things that other people write.I was brainstorming the other

This morning while commuting to work I had the opportunity to the last of this week's reading from David Wiley and Erin Edwards (Change MOOC) on Online Self-Organizing Social Systems. I have to say that this really piqued my interested. While reading the document I was transported back to my MBA days when I first started learning more about the topic of Knowledge Management and the work of Etienne

Thanks to Rebecca and her "Does a MOOC need a Needs Analysis?" post I was reminded that I needed to subscribe to George Siemens' blog :-)  George has a recent post titled "Who are MOOCs for? Confused Personal Thoughts" in which he admits that previous MOOCs haven't been user needs driven, but rather driven by the facilitators themselves. His description reminded me a little of BarCamps or

I've posted a new blog post over at the UMassOnline blog with some thoughts about the net gen and teachers knowing their learners. Check it out: click here

One of the articles lingering in my Google Reader for a while has been this blog post. The topic piqued my interest since I've written (or talked a lot about) the role of research in practice in the ID field over the past few years while I was a student in ID (graduation today - yay!).One of my criticisms has been that professionals in the field (based on my observations) don't pay much attention

Happy Friday to all!I came across this presentation a while back and it presents a brief history of instructional design. Pretty interesting! I came across some familiar names (Skinner and Mager for instance), and I was introduced to a few historical factoids that I didn't get as part of my ID training. It's interesting that there isn't much mention of ID models (a la Dick & Carey and ADDIE). I

This week I received the good news that my capstone had been viewed and evaluated by the powers that be, so since they know that I've done my work, I've decided to post my capstone on Scribd to share it with the community.Truth be told, I am not really sure when I will be able to capitalize on my capstone (actually building the course which I have designed) so I've released the work under a Creative

Well, that's it folks! The capstone is completely done!I've proof-read the thing at least 6 times, made edits, added stuff, removed stuff, and kept myself from going overboard with the appendices! I printed it out, bound it, and submitted it! Woohoo!Of course school isn't over for the semester, there are still projects for other classes that will keep me busy until May, but at least there is one

Response to a colleague on sister campus, via our campus technology Google Group -- check out Carrie's original post here:Carrie,I was debating whether to leave a comment on your blog (as well as post on the Google group) or whether to post on my blog and the Google Group. Since this seemed like a rather lengthy topic I opted to post on my EdBlog :-) Speaking of Blackboard...all I can say about that

I think that Thursday might be my Instructional Design day and Monday will be Linguistics Monday - at least for now. It seems like I am devoting a lot of days on ID and not enough on linguistics ;-)Anyway, a while back there seems to be this big broo-ha-ha over the culture clash between MBAs and Learning Professionals (instructional designers). One post was at Gina's blog - there were many others but

OK, so in the last post I covered the model to be used in an introduction to instructional design class. Now the model should not be the focus of the course. The model should be an overarching theme that can be used to tie other elements together, and to be used in producing a final project in the course.In an intro class I could expect the following:Introduction to some learning theories: Theories

In the past couple of months I've had some interesting discussions with colleagues and classmates about the introduction to instructional design class that we've taken in our instructional design program. It's interesting that people generally tend to fall into one of two camps: the anti-Dick & Carey camp, and the for-Dick & Carey camp.Before I go on, let me just say that our program uses the Dick

I love SlideShare! You can find some pretty exciting presentations on there :-)Here is a primer on cognitive overload:Chris Atherton at TCUK09View more documents from Chris Atherton.

File this under random thoughts...So, we've been talking about textbooks in my linguistics classes for the last couple of semesters and how most of them suck when it comes to language learning. My classmates who do teach languages for their day jobs constantly find creative ways of working through the deficiencies of the texts that they are saddled with. On the other side of the fence, in instructional

In these past couple of weeks I've seen a number of articles where people talk about Instructional Design as something a laySME (layman subject matter expert) can (or can't) do.First I saw Gina's post about whether someone should be doing ID even though they can. Gina makes some pretty interesting points about whether people should do instructional design even though they think they can. This lead

I was reading an article on Science Direct on Librarianship Education. I am surprised that there is such a fuss over a name - however in a profession that only accepts individuals who received their degree from an ALA-accredited institution, it makes sense.Personally I think that librarianship, for the purposes of working in a public or academic library, is something that you don't need a Masters degree

I was reading this article a week or so ago on the role that theory plays in instructional design. Even though the study was very limited (only 7 participants, and in several different industries), I've seen similar results when working with my classmates (I should point out that this post is not meant to criticize my classmates, but to point out observations in the instructional design field as a

I was reading about the deadly online seminar (or death by webinar as I call it) on the cogdogbloy recently. I couldn't help but smile because it reminded me of a Death by PowerPoint presentation that I had created a couple of years ago.I have to say that I echo all of the author's gripes about these types of webinars and it is the reason I generally hate Wimba sessions when we have them. Most Wimba

Well here's some near-the-end-of-the-month humor for you.One of the things that I remember doing in my Introduction to Instructional Design class was looking at products (mostly toys) and without instructions figuring out what they do, and designing instruction for them. We would design instruction that would let the parent know in simple terms how to operate the toy so that they could show their kid.This

I came across this presentation a while back - pretty interesting.If you've never taken any instructional design courses before, it's work the attention. If you have, it's a nice review :-)Theories Of Instructional DesignView more Microsoft Word documents from Jordan .

I was reading though my feed reader the other day and I came across this post. The author and I agree on many points, and I have elaborated more with my face to face colleagues on this issue.I had brought up the issue of blogs, wikis, bookmark-sharing and other potentially useful. The response I got was similar to this:Well, the new release of Blackboard now includes the ability to do Blogs, wikis,

I was recently reading through the post titled IDs - It's time for some seriously tough love when I came across the following closing statement:When you look at the job titles, you see things like content analyst, technical writer, screen writer, video producer, project manager, budget manager, evaluator, test-writer, statistician, graphic artist, web designer, content author, scripter, coder, analyst.

I came across a blog post entitled The Great ID Debate the other day. I actually found it quite interesting to read.I found the last three paragraphs quite poignant:Think about it - these days a good ID needs to be able to write instructional objective. Conduct a content analysis. And an audience analysis. Measure job/performance outcomes. Write a criterion referenced test Create a shared collaborative

Here's and interesting (short) animated documentary on the history of the internet.For most geeks among us this is common knowledge, but it's a good video to get those among us who don't know much about the origins of the internet up to speed :-)I think this would have been useful as an instructional video at the beginning of our class on business networking (a class for MBA student to understand the

Do you know what cloud computing is?If not, Check this out (even if you do, check it out anyway. Common Craft make awesome videos):

I came across this easy to use guide regarding which chart type to use depending on your data type and amount.It's in Spanish, but it's not that difficult to decipher (or shouldn't be anyway).Download the PDF here

Recently, while clearing out my Google Starred Items, I ran across this article on the Linguist that I meant to read - but it slipped through my radar.I do have to agree with Steve on some points. If you are strictly a linguist, the teaching terminology is jargon that just doesn't make sense. This is one of the reasons I decided to do a dual master's degree in Instructional Design and Applied Linguistics.

I've been a graduate student now longer than I was an undergraduate. One of the hallmarks of graduate education are presentations, many, many presentations.Granted my first presentations stunk royally, but I've made it my personal goal to be a good presenter by the time I am out of grad school. Blogs like Presentation Zen and classes like Visual Literacy do help, but there is also an element of posture,

I read this study on the Journal of Online Teaching and Learning recently and it brought back memories of my two online classes last summer, and of the courses that friends of mine had to take online at other colleges and universities.Based on this input, I know what my preferences are for online learning:1. The class needs to be asynchronous. If I have to be in Wimba (or other teleconferencing tool)

It's really hard to determine how well a presentation was from a simple powerpoint file. Nonetheless, here's an educause presentation on Teaching in Virtual Worlds.From my ventures into second life, I have to say that it is interesting, but trying to shoehorn it into the curriculum (just like shoehorning an LMS into the curriculum) won't work. A virtual world is a unique pedagogical environment (and

I saw this article over at the NEA journal. (click here for the full PDF)Having recently visited my dad, a person who is very intelligent but, who like the dad in the article, didn't go to college (heck my dad didn't even go to middle school). This story reminded me of a conversation I had with him about his work and salary versus mine (i.e. being the same) despite my education.I've heard a lot of

This is a repost from FastCompanyOriginal Article: click hereIt's pretty interesting.GPS is nice, but I think Data Portability will be the major issue. No one likes their data to be held captive by a company.8 Experts Predict How Web 2.0 Will Evolve In 2009| posted by Allyson Kapin2008 was the year that Web 2.0 became more mainstream. More ad agencies, businesses, and non-profits used Web 2.0 tools

here's an interesting read by by Ken BuckmanIn recent years,there has been an ocean of ink poured over page upon page concerning the topic of assessment. I’m a philosophy professor in Texas where assessment seems to have its epicenter, so I think I have a unique perspective on the topic. Not only is assessment on the march due to misguided Texas legislative initiatives, not only is the Governor

This is partly a rant, and partly a reference to an interesting blog piece I read earlier today.I was reading this blog article about the anatomy of an unworkshop. Now the content within the blog post is pretty interested, what I take issue with is the naming convention: the unworkshop.Sometimes I feel like academics have nothing better to do than come up with silly names to describe a slightly different

Back to instructional & educational technology during the winter break.Over the past few months a number of things have happened:1. We've seen IT departments bitten by the budget shortfall bug, and IT departments are looking at how they can be lean and mean.2. We've seen colleges contemplating stopping services like email that students can get for free and often have prior to entering college.3. Boston