Instructional Design at the U of R

a place to reflect on professional theory and practice in online course design

Tlt Conference 2008

May 20th, 2008 by · 2 Comments · Tlt2008

Here are a few things I learned from the 2008 Tlt conference held in Saskatoon, SK May 14-16.

Games created with Respondus Study Mate-U Alberta

  • http://www.uvsc.edu/disted/playstation/
    • contains free games that can test different cognitive domains and subject matter. Respondus questions can be used to create your own questions in the game.

Alan November - www.novemberlearning.com

  1. AltaVista search techniques (better than Google)
  • host: ac.uk would restrict searches to academic institutions in the UK
    Ex: “Louis Riel” host: ac.uk
  1. Easywhois.com-find out who owns a website

To see how many websites link sites have information about the 2 sites use

  • link:www.martinlutherking.org host:edu link:www.stormfront.org
  1. www.archive.org
  • See every version of a website from inception

Google.com

  • (Create a Custom Search Engine)
  • Advanced image search-search only for free or CC images.

Jing-free screen recording software for instructors and students to easily create tutorials

SIAST

Saskatoon Cyber School (www.scs.sk.ca/cyber.cif)

  • Possible activities to add fun to course- Icebreaker discussions activities
    • 2 real statements, one false about myself. Students have to guess which one is false by replying.
    • Start a story and get students to continue by adding 2 lines and on and on.

www.oercommons.org

  • open free educational resources.

“Live” Web Conferencing

September 20th, 2007 by · 1 Comment · Sample Learning Activities

Use of web conferencing software like Adobe Connect for group presentations, virtual office hours, offer tutorials or help to students.

Other Asynchronous Ideas

September 20th, 2007 by · 1 Comment · Sample Learning Activities

  • Learning Partners (teams of 2) – sharing common organizational policy issues.
  • Individual students or teams could post section-by-section summaries for comment by other students – could be posted by students or TA or both.
  • How can we get students to share experiences on current issues that are regional in nature, or specific to a geographic region or population demographic?
  • Instructor and/or TA to share their experiences or comments about a topic. This develops a presence in the course. This could be done using the Discussion Forum or Chat.

Ask an Expert

September 20th, 2007 by · 2 Comments · Sample Learning Activities

Guest panelists, speakers, conference presenters, policy and decision makers could be invited by the instructor and/or facilitator to have a presence in the class for a short time – say a week or a few days. They could participate as follows:

  • If available online, a presentation that the guest participate gave at a conference could be linked to the course site. Students could react to the presentation in light of their own organizational/regional issues. In this scenario, the presenter does not even have to be available to participate.
  • A guest or panel of guests could react to questions from students in the Discussion Forum, requiring their presence in the course for a set time period.

Reaction to Readings/Videos

September 20th, 2007 by · 1 Comment · Sample Learning Activities

Students, in turn, could post a reaction to one of the required readings and videos in the course, focusing on their own organizational experiences, rather than posting an academic critique or analysis.

  • If there are 7 modules, and an average of 3 readings plus at least one required video per module, with 20 students enrolled, each student will have the opportunity to complete this task.
  • The assigned student(s) would post their reaction near the end of the module, rather than at the beginning. Therefore other students would still have to read the materials in order to complete the briefing assignments.
  • It would be unnecessary for the instructor or TA to moderate this activity unless they wished to.
  • Students could take turns posting or even moderating the discussion.