Engaging Learners with New Strategies and Tools

Durrington, V. A., Berryhill, A., & Swafford, J. (2006). Strategies for enhancing student interactivity in an online environment. College Teaching, 54(1), 190−193.

Siemens, G. (2008, January). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators and designers. ITForum.

Text: Anderson, T. (Ed.). (2008). The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.). Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press.

Project Story Board

Story Board PP

Project Outline

This is going to be very general at this point. I am one of those people who has to see the big picture before I can put it in small pieces. I still have a few articles to read. I have read quit a few already and the information is interesting, new, and intriguing. There are so many facets to virtual worlds in education. Limiting my information to 5-6 minutes will be difficult. However, 5-6 minutes of good video is a little intimidating :) I am going to develop the information around my mock speaker who is on of the creators of AET, which is a university that takes place in a virtual world. All of the students go to school as avatars. So I am still developing a plan, but this is an idea of the sequence.

I. Virtual Worlds in Higher Education
A. Where they started and where they are today
II. Bringing a physical sense through teaming
A. Harvard (Second Life)
B. Experiments and Projects
III. Developing Professionally
A. MIT (Second Life)
B. SLED
C. List Serves and Professional Organizations
IV. Online classrooms
A. AET Active World
B. What does it look like
C. What do the students have to say
D. Challenges of on-line learning
V. Background and Introduction of Guest Speaker

Assessing Collaborative Efforts

In my opinion, participants in a collaborative learning community should be assessed on both their individual contributions and their contribution to the group. These two scores should be added together to get a final grade. Of course, this depends on if the project shows individual contributions along with the group contributions. If it is only a combined effort that shows up on the final project, peer evaluations would be a key factor in determining the grade.

As Siemens (2008) pointed out, a "balanced diet" is a focus for collaborative work. There needs to be a balance between individual work and group work. It ties back to learning styles. Some participants will prefer individual work where as others will prefer group work. However, it is important to grow student's week areas as well, so it it is a balanced approach, then not only will the individuals strenghts show, but their area of weakness will grow.

If students do not want ot work in a learning community, then the members in that community should first try to break things down into assignments and build a relationship with that student. They may just need encouragment. If that does not work, then the instructor should become involved. Ultimately, if a student does not participate in the project and this is varified, then it should hurt only the individuals grade and not the groups. Expectations and how grading will be handled in all situations should be set at the very beginning. Contracts and group goals should be set before the project begins (Palloff & Pratt, 2005).

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Principles of Distance Education. Baltimore: Siemens

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.