Welcome to the longest semester of your career!
As this series was intended to do, today’s blog (vlog) should provide you with some very practical teaching tips, especially if this is your first foray into eLearning. In fact, I’m going to share a framework (or several) that can “up” your classroom discussion game, seeing the discussion area become a place for genuine knowledge exploration, learning, etc.
But rather than belabor the point or draw it all out here, I’m going to get right to it. (Note – I will paste the ‘discussion directional text’ below the video so you can copy and paste if you’d like.) I’m doing that so we can spend our time judiciously. I realize many of you are getting a bit stir crazy and perhaps even bored, but that doesn’t mean you want to feel like you are wasting time! So, let’s get to it.
One last disclaimer – last week I provided a video (#2 in the series) that resulted in some questions. The questions weren’t about how, but about why. And while the questions I received were all solid, creating some nice conversations with faculty across the country (and Canada!), I thought I would try to save us all some time by adding more “why” to this video. You want more context in the videos, you’ll get more context! But of course that also means each video will be a bit longer. Oh, the irony….
However, I have good news. For those of you who don’t want more context, don’t worry! I have you covered.
Click on the right or left side of the screen to jump forward or backward 10 seconds.
Let me give you a cool little YouTube option that you may not be familiar with. If you double click on the right (or left) side of a video (on your computer), or double tap on a tablet or phone, the video will jump forward (right) or backward (left) about 10 seconds. (It even works on Apple TV by clicking the remote one time on the right or left of the pad….I’m sorry, but I don’t know if that works for Roku, Chromecast, or Firestick, but you might try it!) That means you can choose to listen to any context (or “why”) elements as I go through things, OR you can fast forward from point to point. If you don’t care about the reasoning for the suggestion, then by all means click ahead! And of course, if you want to hear it / see it again, click back 10 or 20 seconds, etc. In other words, my 16 minute video can be (easily) viewed in 8 minutes…
OK, that should do it. Enjoy this week’s video which I’m calling a “Quarantinshop” because it comes from an eLearning workshop I have delivered hundreds of times over 20 years.
Stay safe everyone. Keep the comments and questions coming. And as always, good luck and good learning.
If you would like to copy part or all of the Discussion Directions, here you go:
Please post a minimum of 5 responses as a conversation this week. Your posts should follow these guidelines:
–All posts must be grammatically correct, with proper spelling, capitalization, punctuation, paragraphs, etc. Please follow all rules for netiquette.
–Posts must occur on multiple days, beginning no later than Wednesday of the week and be completed by Sunday night at midnight.
–Opening Post: should be a response to the question(s) or topic(s) I have asked you to speak about. Your post should leverage citations (textbook, in-class reference, external / credible sources, etc.)
–Conversational Posts: should respond to your peers (especially anyone who has responded directly to you) in a critical and/or supportive fashion. This means you can compliment or praise the post, but you should also provide a critical element. What did the poster not consider, not address, or possibly misinterpret from their own research? What “red flags” does the post suggest might be at work? Again, cite appropriate sources as you help your peers work through our problems and topics each week.
–Final Post: should be a revision of your opening post. This post should illustrate how you have ingested and practically applied the information provided by 1) my comments, recommendations, and critical analysis to YOU and to YOUR PEERS about the posts and 2) your peers cited comments recommending changes or updates to thinking, format, etc.
–In addition to any post directed to you, all students are expected to read ALL of the professor’s posts / comments to ALL students. There is every likelihood that most comments will apply to you, your thinking, and/or your posts. Therefore, it is important that you look for problems and solutions given to your peers and then apply them to your own work at the end of the week.