| EDG 957: Building Online Learning Communities
EDG 957 Weekly Work
Week 1 – 1/21/08 - Introduction – Ethical Issues Regarding the Use of Online Open Source Applications in Lutheran Education 1. Introduce yourself to the class. Post a response to the discussion board in WebCt answering the introductory questions.
2. Read p. vii-ix and p. 1-15 from Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.
3. Read Rules for the Social Web from the Summer 2007 issue of Threshold Magazine.
4. Post a 200-300 word response to the following questions: What do you think are the biggest ethical issues facing Lutheran educators today related to the use of technology in the classroom and for other professional activities? What are some of the ways Lutheran educators can address these issues?
5. Respond to at least two of the posts of your classmates.
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Week 2 – 1/28/08 - Examining Your School’s Policies
1. View the YouTube video The Machine is Using Us by Michael Wesch from Kansas State University at http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g.
2. Meet with the principal or technology coordinator of your school to discuss your school’s current Acceptable Use policy, firewall, and filtering software. Discuss any issues you perceive to using open source (free) online applications in your educational setting. You may want to first read "Digital Ethics: a Threshold Forum" from the Summer 2007 issue of Threshold at http://www.ciconline.org/thresholdsummer07 to get ideas for questions to discuss.
3. Post a 200-300 word summary of your discussion. Include any ethical and safety questions or issues you want to explore throughout the course regarding establishing online learning communities in your educational setting.
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Week 3 - 2/4/08 - Introduction to RSS Feeds and Social Bookmarking
1. Read p. 75-80 and p. 89-100 from Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.
2. View parts 1 and 3 of RSS- A Four Part Series by James Gates and Kurt Paccio.
3. Set up a Bloglines account at http://www.bloglines.com/ and either a Del.icio.us account at http://del.icio.us/ or Furl account at http://furl.net/. You will be using Furl or Del.icio.us to share good resources you find throughout the course with your classmates. Follow the directions in Furl or Del.icio.us to install a Furl or Del.icio.us button to the toolbar of your Internet browser. Select a few of your favorite education related sites and save in your Furl or Del.icio.us accounts using the key word BOLCS08 and any other key words you choose. (You may need to turn your Popup Blocker off each time you want to save something.) Be sure to use all capital letters BOLC stands for Building Online Learning Communities and S08 stands for spring 2008. Make sure you use the letter O after the B and the number zero after the S. If you do not use this exact keyword, the sites you save will show up in your account but will not be sent to anyone else’s Bloglines account. Using your Bloglines account subscribe to both the Furl and Del.icio.us tags for BOLCS08. See the Subscribing to Keywords file for more directions on how to do this.
4. You will also be using Bloglines to follow 2 or more blogs and any other online resources or search strings with RSS feeds.
You will be posting a reflection of your experiences later. Do not post your reflection now. You will be experimenting with these resources for a few weeks first. Post any questions you have related to RSS feeds or social bookmarking to the discussion board.
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Week 4 - 2/11/08 – Introduction to Blogs
1. Read p. 17-44 from Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.
2. Use the resources below to find at least two blogs of interest to you or explore any of the blogs recommended in the textbook. Subscribe to the two blogs using your Bloglines account.
3. Post a comment to the blog posts of at least two people. Be sure to be respectful in your comments.
4. Post a reflection of your experiences to the discussion board. Include the URL of the blogs you subscribed to and a short description of each blog.
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Week 5 – 2/18/08 – Educational Applications of Blogs
1. Read p. 45-58 from Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.
2. Post a 200-300 word analysis of the ways you could use blogs to improve student learning or in your own professional practice. Examine the benefits of blogging for students and as a connective tool for professionals. Explain how you would address the ethical and safety issues related to blogging.
3. Post a comment to the posts of at least two of your classmates.
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Week 6- 2/25/08 – Creating your own blog
*** You will be creating both a blog and a wiki. One should be created with the purpose of communicating/collaborating with parents or other professionals. The other should be created for use in the classroom to allow students to communicate and collaborate with others.
1. Utilizing any of the free blog-creating tools available on the Internet today (see below), create a blog for use in an educational environment. In the introduction to your blog, be sure to state your rationale for designing and using this blog, the audience for whom the blog is intended, and what you hope to accomplish through this blog. The blog may be for students, teachers, administrators, parents, or other individuals in the educational community.
2. Once your blog is created, be sure to invite others to read and respond to your blog. Copy and paste the URL of your blog to the discussion board. In your post, also write a reflective paragraph or two concerning the use of blogs in the educational environment. Also include your experiences/reflections concerning the creation of your own blog. Post in the discussion folder for your colleagues to view.
3. Visit and post a comment on the blogs of at least two of your colleagues. If the blog is intended to be a blog to establish connections between professionals, comment on the blog itself. If the blog is intended to communicate with parents or to be used with students, comment on the colleague’s discussion board post.
The tutorial Blogging in WordPress at http://www.teachinghacks.com/wiki/images/8/86/Wordpress.pdf is applicable to Wordpress and Edublogs.
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Week 7 – 3/3/08 – Introduction to Wikis
1. Read p. 59-74 in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.
2. View the video “Wikis in Plain English” at http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english.
3. Explore the examples below of wikis in educational settings below. You may also check out any of the wikis suggested in the text.
4. Post a reaction to the course readings and sample wikis to the discussion board.
5. Respond to the comments of at least two of your classmates.
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Week 8 - 3/10/08 Educational Applications of Wikis
1. Take the Wiki Walk at http://www.teachersfirst.com/getsource.cfm?id=7237.
2. Post a 200-300 word analysis of the ways you could use wikis to improve student learning or in your own professional practice. Compare and contrast blogs and wikis. Examine the benefits of wikis for students and as a collaborative tool for professionals. Explain how you would address the ethical and safety issues related to wikis.
3. Respond to the posts of at least two of your classmates.
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Week 9 - 3/24/08 – Creating Your Own Wiki
** You will be creating both a blog and a wiki. One should be created with the purpose of communicating/collaborating with parents or other professionals. The other should be created for use in the classroom to allow students to communicate and collaborate with others.
1. Utilizing any of the free wiki-creating tools available on the Internet today (see below for suggestions), create a wiki for use in an educational environment. In the introduction to your wiki, be sure to state your rationale for designing and using this wiki, the audience for whom the wiki is intended, and what you hope to accomplish through this wiki. The wiki may be for students, teachers, administrators, parents, or other individuals in the educational community.
2. Once your wiki is created, be sure to invite others to read and respond to your wiki. Copy and paste the URL of your wiki to the discussion board. In your post, also write a reflective paragraph or two concerning the use of wikis in the educational environment. Also include your experiences/reflections concerning the creation of your own wiki. Post in the discussion folder for your colleagues to view.
3. Visit and post a comment to the discussion board about the wikis of at least two of your colleagues.
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Week 10 – 3/31/08 – Evaluating Your Classmates Blogs and Wikis
At the end of week 9, you will be assigned two classmates' blogs to evaluate and two classmates' wikis to evaluate. Fill out the evaluation including constructive feedback. Remember to be respectful in your feedback, but do provide suggestions for improving the content, layout, or usability of the blog or wiki. Use the evaluation rubric found in the link in the course module. Type your name in for Evaluator and the name of the person’s blog/wiki you are evaluating in for Author. Enter the score for each category into the text box at the end of the row and type your comments in the text box at the bottom. You may also use the highlight tool under the review/comment menu to highlight descriptors to support your scores. Save the file once you complete the form and e-mail a copy of your evaluation to your instructor and to your classmate. You will also be receiving evaluation forms from your instructor this week.
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Week 11 - 4/7/08 – Educational Applications of RSS Feeds and Social Bookmarking
1. Read p. 80-87 in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.
2. Post a 200-300 word reflection of your experiences with RSS feeds and social bookmarking tools. Give some examples of how you could use these tools in your classroom or for your own professional activities. Explain the ethical and safety issues of using these tools and how you would address these issues in your classroom.
3. Respond to the posts of at least two of your classmates.
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Week 12 - 4/14/08 - Course Projects
Online discussion between group members - select a topic, assign individual responsibilities, set a timeline for the completion of work, and begin to research the chosen topic. *** See complete directions and rubric for the course project in the link on the course module.
A chat room will be set up for your group in WebCt if you wish to use this feature, or you may use any other online tools you choose.
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Week 13 - 4/21/08 - Course Projects
Discuss the format you will use to share your topic with your classmates and if you choose the online world. Continue individual work. Begin sharing your progress, reflecting on the work of your group members, and give constructive feedback.
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Week 14 – 4/28/08 – Course Projects
Continue working on course project.
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Week 15 - 5/5/08 - Course Projects
Collaborative assembling and evaluation of group work. Determine where revisions or additions need to be made and delegate responsibility to complete any needed revisions or additions. Final Projects must be posted online in an accessible format by Friday 5/9/08 at midnight. Directions for how and where to access your project must be posted to WebCt. Review of course projects will begin 5/10/08.
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Week 16 - 5/12/08 - Course Projects
Review each of the projects of other groups and provide constructive feedback. Remember to be respectful in your feedback, but do include suggestions for future exploration or improvement. Use the evaluation rubric found in the link in the course module. Type your name in for Evaluator and the name of the person’s blog/wiki you are evaluating in for Author. Enter the score for each category into the text box at the end of the row and type your comments in the text box at the bottom. You may also use the highlight tool under the review/comment menu to highlight descriptors to support your scores. Save the file once you complete the form and e-mail a copy of your evaluation to your instructor and to your classmate. You will also be receiving evaluation forms from your instructor this week. All evaluations must be received 5/16/08.
Collaborative Course Project: You will be assigned to a group of 3-4. I will ask you to email me if you have a specific area you know you wish to research for this group project and will attempt to match students who want to research the same area first, but I do not guarantee you will be in a group that chooses that topic. You will be constructing a group project in which you will research other tools not covered in class which may be used to “build online learning communities.” Some suggestions are listed below, but you may choose other tools not on the list with prior approval. You project should include:
• A description of the application, examples of current online applications of this type comparing and contrasting their features.
• Ways this type of application could be used for connecting with and collaborating with other professionals
• Uses for the classroom – create at least 3 specific ideas for different ages/subjects; include a plan for grading or evaluating student performance like a rubric.
• Ethical/safety issues and ways to address these issues
Your group must decide on a format to share your work with the rest of the class. You may use any of the tools discussed in class or listed below or any other formats of your choice. For example, you could create a podcast about podcasting. However your project must be in a format which is accessible to all classmates. Your group must post a brief description of your project and directions for your classmates to access it to the discussion board.
Suggestions
- Video Sharing such as YouTube, TeacherTube, or GodTube.
- Online video editing software such as Jumpcut (http://www.jumpcut.com/)
- Podcasting/Screencasting.
- Photosharing such as Flickr, ShutterFly, or SnapFish.
- Online wordprocessing, spreadsheet, database software such as Google Docs.
- Other tools from Google for Educators see http://www.google.com/educators/index.html.
- Social Networking sites such as Ning (http://education.ning.com/) or imbee (http://www.imbee.com/)
- Communication tools such as Skype and Twitter.
- Feel free to add your own ideas to the list!!!
- Lutheran Schools IMBEE
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