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Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
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Sunday, October 10, 2010
Using Twitter to Transform the Classroom!
"Whereas people might spend a long time composing a comment to a blog post or engage in lengthy, in - depth conversation on a discussion board, Twitter invites more in - the - moment interactions. It provides an easy way to maintain connections, share thoughts, or ask for advice." - Jane Bozarth
BLOG BOOK TOUR
While I was on holiday with my family in Sabah, I got a wonderful surprise tweet message (above) from a famous author called Jane Bozarth. Interestingly, I was picture-tweeting my holiday during that period using TwitPic (on my IPhone). So, perhaps my interesting family or baby photos sparked her to invite me to be part of the blog book tour for her new book entitled 'Social Media for Trainers'. Or perhaps it was Karl Kapp who recommended me, as I was also part of his Blog Book Tour earlier this year with this post: Learning in 3D! Why? How?
Whatever sparked her to invite me; I surely didn't need any spark to accept the invitation :)
Whatever sparked her to invite me; I surely didn't need any spark to accept the invitation :)
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR TRAINERS
If you already don't know, Jane Bozarth is the author of several relevant and useful e-Learning related books. I have previously explored E-Learning Solutions on a Shoestring and Better than Bullet Points, and you can actually find them in our University library (IMU), too. In short, I was already familiar with her great work before exploring her latest master piece.
Her latest book, 'Social Media for Trainers' basically explores in depth the essential social media tools to facilitate sizzling (online) learning environments and experiences, using learning tools such as Twitter, blogs, wikis, Facebook, YouTube, Google Docs, SlideShare, Flickr, etc.
What makes her latest book so special (to me) is that it uses a non-jargonized conversational language style, meaning even my mum could understand and enjoy it. The book is not obsessed with showing us where to click, but instead explores how we can use these learning (or social media) tools to enhance and transform our personal and social learning environments. Not only do you get the 'WHY' and 'WHY NOT', you also get tons of excellent stories and tips on how to get started and sizzle your way to sizzling e-learning. Although, the book uses the word 'Trainers' in its title, this book is also a perfect read for anyone involved in education (Period!).
To find out more about Jane Bozarth's latest book, visit the Social Media for Trainers Facebook page and/or follow Twitter on @SoMe4Trainers.
Having said that, social media has its dark sides, too. But, like most things on planet earth; we can use it to transform, or destroy life. It is really up to us to make that choice (unless we are 'Under 13'). Right?
For this post, I am only going to focus on Twitter (Chapter 2), and explore how we can use it to transform our classroom or face-to-face learning. Sometimes you need to infuse learning tools into the classroom for stubborn educators to really see the variety of amazing possibilities such tools could bring to our learning and thinking.
Are you ready?
Her latest book, 'Social Media for Trainers' basically explores in depth the essential social media tools to facilitate sizzling (online) learning environments and experiences, using learning tools such as Twitter, blogs, wikis, Facebook, YouTube, Google Docs, SlideShare, Flickr, etc.
What makes her latest book so special (to me) is that it uses a non-jargonized conversational language style, meaning even my mum could understand and enjoy it. The book is not obsessed with showing us where to click, but instead explores how we can use these learning (or social media) tools to enhance and transform our personal and social learning environments. Not only do you get the 'WHY' and 'WHY NOT', you also get tons of excellent stories and tips on how to get started and sizzle your way to sizzling e-learning. Although, the book uses the word 'Trainers' in its title, this book is also a perfect read for anyone involved in education (Period!).
To find out more about Jane Bozarth's latest book, visit the Social Media for Trainers Facebook page and/or follow Twitter on @SoMe4Trainers.
Having said that, social media has its dark sides, too. But, like most things on planet earth; we can use it to transform, or destroy life. It is really up to us to make that choice (unless we are 'Under 13'). Right?
For this post, I am only going to focus on Twitter (Chapter 2), and explore how we can use it to transform our classroom or face-to-face learning. Sometimes you need to infuse learning tools into the classroom for stubborn educators to really see the variety of amazing possibilities such tools could bring to our learning and thinking.
Are you ready?
Actually, I should first thank Patricia Donaghy for inspiring me to take up Twitter as a learning tool. THANK YOU! Although, she didn't introduce me to Twitter, she did provide the initial spark needed for me to take this learning tool seriously. I mean seriously, who cares reading tweets where persons are pondering upon whether they should go to the toilet or not, or reading millions of tweets cursing Tiger Woods. Why should I bother reading what people are thinking now, such as reading Paris Hilton's struggle to patent 'That's hot!' It is ridiculous, and for sure a waste of time.
TRUE, using Twitter could be a waste of time, but it could also be used to connect and interact with educators and learners from all over the world. Imagine filtering 90 million daily tweets from 145+ million registered users down to who is talking about 'e-learning', or your specific research area. What a wonderful learning stream that would be. And did you know that 25% of the 90 million daily tweets contain links. Meaning people are not only talking crap, but also sharing juicy links, including articles and papers that sometimes even Google can't spot for you.
If you are interested to know dozens or even hundreds of ways to use Twitter to learn, teach and interact, these 55 great twitter articles should be a good starting point (I mean starting points!). Besides that, you might want explore my first three (3) journeys to explore Twitter for learning. Here we go:
TRUE, using Twitter could be a waste of time, but it could also be used to connect and interact with educators and learners from all over the world. Imagine filtering 90 million daily tweets from 145+ million registered users down to who is talking about 'e-learning', or your specific research area. What a wonderful learning stream that would be. And did you know that 25% of the 90 million daily tweets contain links. Meaning people are not only talking crap, but also sharing juicy links, including articles and papers that sometimes even Google can't spot for you.
If you are interested to know dozens or even hundreds of ways to use Twitter to learn, teach and interact, these 55 great twitter articles should be a good starting point (I mean starting points!). Besides that, you might want explore my first three (3) journeys to explore Twitter for learning. Here we go:
Fine, but how can we use Twitter to spice up classroom learning?
Let's focus on that now...
TWITTER FOR LEARNING
First, you need to make sure that all your students are using, or have a Twitter account. Most students should have little difficulty (especially X, Y and Z generations) with signing up for Twitter by themselves. To avoid any hassles, I would recommend that you specify in your course plan/guide that you will be using Twitter as one of the learning tools for the course.
As Twitter is a perfect communication tool for mobile devices (e.g. IPhones, Blackberries, Androids, IPads, smart phones, and notebooks), you only need to ensure a decent Wi-Fi enabled environment, and most, if not all students can participate during a face-to-face learning session. If not, let's imagine and be a bit futuristic, because in 2-3 years time, I believe most students will have some form of Wi-Fi enabled mobile device (Well, at least at Universities in Malaysia). No rocket science required to come that prediction.
As Twitter is a perfect communication tool for mobile devices (e.g. IPhones, Blackberries, Androids, IPads, smart phones, and notebooks), you only need to ensure a decent Wi-Fi enabled environment, and most, if not all students can participate during a face-to-face learning session. If not, let's imagine and be a bit futuristic, because in 2-3 years time, I believe most students will have some form of Wi-Fi enabled mobile device (Well, at least at Universities in Malaysia). No rocket science required to come that prediction.
Secondly, you need to establish a unique hashtag (#) for your course, which will make it easier for your students (and you) to follow and participate in the course conversation. If it becomes really active, it will evolve into one enriching and inspiring learning stream (e.g. #plenk2010). However, some students might prefer getting daily updates in the form of a sizzling self-organized online newspaper. paper.li could do that without you basically doing anything, except for signing up and feeding it your hashtag (e.g. PLENK2010). Awesome!
To promote the usage of Twitter and your unique course hashtag (e.g. #plenk2010), you might also want to create a video tutorial (e.g. using Screenr). Here is an example, where I promoted the usage of Twitter during the ICEL 2010 conference using the '#icel5' hashtag:
Besides starting and facilitating a Twitter learning stream, you will probably want to capture and archive the evolving learning conversation, which could sadly get lost over time (Done that, been there!). For that, you could for example use Twapper Keeper.
If you are too busy or quite IT illiterate, and still want to use Twitter for your course, ask someone from your University/College's e-learning (or educational technology) team to conduct a Twitter session with the students. If they are not capable of that (or lazy), they should (all) be fired on the spot! Learning has evolved since the Courseware development era!!!!
Here are a few tips on facilitating the use of Twitter for classroom learning:
Here are a few tips on facilitating the use of Twitter for classroom learning:
- BEFORE CLASSBefore every Face-to-face learning session you might want to encourage students to ask questions regarding the upcoming topic/module/lesson, or perhaps what kind of expectations they have, or even what they really want to learn, and suggest things to discuss. By doing so, you might get a clearer view of what really matters to students, and as a result your learning session might evolve into a sizzling learning experience. If students prefer sharing and discussing in private, you could use GroupTweet instead of a hashtag (which can be viewed by public). GroupTweet helps groups communicate privately via Twitter.
- DURING CLASSTwitter is an excellent venue for students to ask the lecturer questions during the learning session, especially if you are in a large lecture hall (200+ students), and the student is a bit shy. To keep track of the flow of questions visually (for everyone to see), you could use Monitter or Hootcourse (or even TweetDeck), which will update as soon as the tweet (question) has been posted.
Hootcourse's Classroom Mode feature allows course tweets to show up in real-time on a projected screen.
Besides using Twitter for questions, you could even conduct polls (use Twtpoll, Poll Everywhere, or SAP Web 2.0) during the class, and the results can even be displayed live in your PowerPoint presentation (or the web. Yes, even in Keynote, too!). Lecturer's love to ask students, "Do you understand? Is it clear?", and everyone says 'Yes' loudly (or silently with a nod). And the lecturer feels comforted with his masterful lecture. Sadly, the truth might indicate otherwise, and by using a poll, we could more easily gauge whether students understand or not, with some real stats to refer to. We could basically test them directly in class on something, and then if for example the majority is clueless of the right answer, we could revisit that component, and explore simpler ways to explain and inspire them to learn it. Now that is cool for learning!
- AFTER CLASSWe could ask them to tweet questions after class regarding what they have learned, or related things they would like to be clarified. Also, we should encourage students to answer other students questions, and by providing some incentive for the most active students (e.g. bonus marks, praise, or perhaps a Mars bar), should not be so hard to do. Also, you might want to ask students to provide short comments on how the learning session was, and how it can be improved further. If your ego is receptive to constructive (and destructive) feedback, you are going to win the next 'Best Lecturer Award', trust me! Anyway, we lecturers are noble people, and the reward of experiencing students' learn, or getting those 'AHA' moments are awesome rewards in themselves that even money can't buy (Well, it depends!).
These are just a few possibilities for using Twitter to enhance your face-to-face learning sessions, and of course sizzle it beyond the classroom. I hope you realize by now why Twitter is the number one ranked learning tool among learning professionals around the world (Facebook is number 10!).
Besides the Twitter apps mentioned above, click here for a comprehensive list of other learning possibilities.
THINKING BEYOND
However, Twitter alone is not going to transform the students' learning experience. If you ask me, we should also encourage students to continuously reflect (deep thinking) their learning in their own personal blog(s) (using Blogger or Wordpress).
They should work on course projects using wikis (or collaborative learning tools), such as Google Docs, Google Sites, Wikispaces or Wetpaint. They could use Facebook to set-up and establish learning/interest groups, and promote causes they strongly believe in.
All students (and lecturers' of course!) should know, or learn how to use RSS readers (e.g. Google Reader) to enable them to efficiently access relevant information (updates come to you, instead of you needing to visit the actual sites) about what is going on in the world, especially in their learning domains.
Besides these essential learning tools, there are many more possibilities to interact with and filter our learning world to be more efficient, effective, interactive and inspiring.
They should work on course projects using wikis (or collaborative learning tools), such as Google Docs, Google Sites, Wikispaces or Wetpaint. They could use Facebook to set-up and establish learning/interest groups, and promote causes they strongly believe in.
All students (and lecturers' of course!) should know, or learn how to use RSS readers (e.g. Google Reader) to enable them to efficiently access relevant information (updates come to you, instead of you needing to visit the actual sites) about what is going on in the world, especially in their learning domains.
Besides these essential learning tools, there are many more possibilities to interact with and filter our learning world to be more efficient, effective, interactive and inspiring.
Let's explore how we can use Social Media to transform the way we connect, learn, interact, share and facilitate. Today, we have amazing learning possibilities, we just need to (I would say 'MUST') find time to explore them :)
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Discover IMU E-Learning on Facebook!
WHAT?
Facebook will be one of the main tools that we (IMU E-Learning) use to connect and share our e-learning adventures and stories as we explore, learn, share, facilitate and reflect together with IMU (International Medical University) educators, staff, and students regarding the amazing learning possibilities we have today.
As we are in the early stages of exploring social media (social networking, wikis, blogs, podcasts, Twitter, etc.) for learning at IMU, we hope that by openly sharing our learning stories, we will increasingly encourage more to participate and share. More and more universities or educational institutions around the world are exploring social media for learning, and we hope that our experiences shared can benefit others out there, especially new comers. Also, we do hope that this sharing initiative will lead to more connections and discussions with educators and students at IMU and beyond.
We have so much to learn, and by sharing and connecting with great people like you, we can learn faster and more effectively using our collective intelligence, or wisdom of the crowds (Oops, a few big words!).
Some might argue that you lose your competitive (e-learning) edge by being open and willing to share. I would argue that if you want to be leader in any field, you have to share your work and efforts, and be open to feedback and criticism. If you reflect and act upon these nuggets of feedback and criticism, you are probably going to improve faster than sticking to the old paradigm emphasizing indirectly that 'Hoarding Learning (knowledge, competencies and skills) is Power!'.
It should be 'Sharing Learning is Power'. Not much can be done alone, but it is amazing what we can do together collectively.
INGREDIENTS
We are using the Facebook Page feature to share our e-learning adventures and stories. Here you will find the following tabs (sections):
IMU E-Learning Facebook Page is still very much under construction, so you can probably expect some interesting surprises as we explore and discover further.
As we are in the early stages of exploring social media (social networking, wikis, blogs, podcasts, Twitter, etc.) for learning at IMU, we hope that by openly sharing our learning stories, we will increasingly encourage more to participate and share. More and more universities or educational institutions around the world are exploring social media for learning, and we hope that our experiences shared can benefit others out there, especially new comers. Also, we do hope that this sharing initiative will lead to more connections and discussions with educators and students at IMU and beyond.
We have so much to learn, and by sharing and connecting with great people like you, we can learn faster and more effectively using our collective intelligence, or wisdom of the crowds (Oops, a few big words!).
Some might argue that you lose your competitive (e-learning) edge by being open and willing to share. I would argue that if you want to be leader in any field, you have to share your work and efforts, and be open to feedback and criticism. If you reflect and act upon these nuggets of feedback and criticism, you are probably going to improve faster than sticking to the old paradigm emphasizing indirectly that 'Hoarding Learning (knowledge, competencies and skills) is Power!'.
It should be 'Sharing Learning is Power'. Not much can be done alone, but it is amazing what we can do together collectively.
INGREDIENTS
We are using the Facebook Page feature to share our e-learning adventures and stories. Here you will find the following tabs (sections):
- The Wall
Enjoy the learning stream, and please share your ideas, feedback (Like!) and comments, too. - Blog
Here you can get easily access all the learning stories and resources explored on IMU E-Learning blog. - Discussions
Here you can participate and share your thoughts and ideas on how we can improve learning at IMU, or anything related to learning, facilitation, creativity, innovation, etc. - Video
For now we will mostly upload screencasts exploring the different learning tools explored during the workshops, and discuss how we could use them for developing more sizzling learning environments or content. - Pictures
Pictures from all e-learning related events and workshops. So, if you have attended one, we might have caught a nice picture of you learning, or perhaps ______ :) - Links
Resource links (URL) to amazing learning resources from around the world. Most of these amazing learning resource links are shared through IMU E-Learning blog, which collects and tries to make sense of them via refreshing resource collections.
IMU E-Learning Facebook Page is still very much under construction, so you can probably expect some interesting surprises as we explore and discover further.
MOVING ON!
Currently, most of the learning stories and resources shared on the Facebook Page are from the e-learning team, but we are working with several lecturers to share their learning stories, and will soon be encouraging several students to share their learning stories, too.
We are also working on a website (using Google Sites) entitled the 'Learning Innovation Lab', which will enable...(still under construction). For this social media learning sharing initiative we will be mostly using technology that is free and reasonably easy-to-use, meaning that anyone interested in doing something similar (or better!) to what we are doing, can do that without needing worry too much about hardware, software and hosting budgets (big zero!). Though, you would require time to do it, but if you see the value and have the passion, you will most likely find the time.
The good thing today, is that we have so many learning tools and possibilities to potentially use to facilitate learning. The sad thing is that due to that fact, many of us are obviously facing information (and tools) overload, and are clueless where to start.
We are also working on a website (using Google Sites) entitled the 'Learning Innovation Lab', which will enable...(still under construction). For this social media learning sharing initiative we will be mostly using technology that is free and reasonably easy-to-use, meaning that anyone interested in doing something similar (or better!) to what we are doing, can do that without needing worry too much about hardware, software and hosting budgets (big zero!). Though, you would require time to do it, but if you see the value and have the passion, you will most likely find the time.
The good thing today, is that we have so many learning tools and possibilities to potentially use to facilitate learning. The sad thing is that due to that fact, many of us are obviously facing information (and tools) overload, and are clueless where to start.
In a learning shell, how do we use emerging (and old) learning tools to facilitate sizzling learning environments? How do we use learning tools and open educational resources to nurture students to ask deeper and more reflective questions, master their learning areas, think more creatively and innovatively, discover their passion, and eventually inspire them to become, or achieve their ultimate dreams (even the impossible)?
Let's explore the possibilities together :)
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Facebook for Learning? Boleh!
LEARNING SESSION
This week's learning session explored Facebook and how we can use it to facilitate learning. As expected, thanks to the juicy topic 'Facebook', we had a full house (e-learning lab, I mean!). Only 25 were allowed to register, but we ended up with 32 participants, which just illustrates that Facebook is an interesting topic.
For those of you who missed the learning session, here is the slidecast version from SlideShare:
This week's learning session explored Facebook and how we can use it to facilitate learning. As expected, thanks to the juicy topic 'Facebook', we had a full house (e-learning lab, I mean!). Only 25 were allowed to register, but we ended up with 32 participants, which just illustrates that Facebook is an interesting topic.
For those of you who missed the learning session, here is the slidecast version from SlideShare:
Facebook For Learning? Boleh!
View more presentations from Zaid Alsagoff.
LET'S DO IT!
Based on our recent poll the majority of both Academic staff (66.7) and students (67.8) that participated think that IMU should use Facebook for e-learning.
But, where to start?
To get your Facebook social learning space moving, why not for starters create a 'Facebook Group' (especially if you want to have a closed group)?
STEP-BY-STEP
Here are two screencast tutorials exploring how to create a Facebook Group and how we could use it to facilitate learning:
Part 1 - Creating a 'Facebook Group'
Part 2 - Exploring Facebook Group Features
But...
Why not combine Moodle (E-learning Portal) and Facebook to facilitate online learning environments that sizzles :)
REFLECTION
If you are wondering how long it took to record the narration (audio) for the 'Facebook for Learning? Boleh!' presentation (41 min) and the two (2) screencast tutorials (5 x 2 min = 10 min), it took actually a whole day. I started 9.30 am in the morning, and completed all recordings by 7.30 pm in the evening. If we minus the lunch break and prayers, I probably spent 7.5 working hours to record the above.
The toughest part was recording the 2 screencasts, because I initially had no clue of what to record or say, and I didn't finish them before 4 pm. I used Screenr (a free tool) to develop the two screencasts, and it is a very user-friendly tool to record anything happening on your screen (other screencasting tools).
Though, Screenr has three (3) major minus points. One, is that you are limited to recording 5 minute sessions (perhaps positive in terms of instructional design and forcing you to be more precise and concise), and that can get annoying if you are recording and just cannot make the 5 minute time-line. If you listen carefully, you will notice this on both the screencasts I recorded. I had to also re-record twice, because I just missed the time line. I suppose I need to chunk it up more in the future, and perhaps use an audio script.
Now, that leads us to the 2nd minus point, which is that you cannot edit what you have recorded. Meaning basically that you have to perfect your recording, or keep on recording until you are satisfied. Post-editing, ability to zoom, adding annotations, and desktop version (offline) would be great, but I suspect Articulate is saving that for the commercial version in the near future. Let's hope I am wrong :)
Thirdly, you cannot record another screencast, while you are uploading and publishing the first one (please correct me if I am wrong!). And if you have a slow connection, now that gets annoying! There should be a feature allowing you to record another screencast, while waiting for the first one to be uploaded. Now that would be useful!
But, besides that Screenr is great. Alright, let's move on! As for recording audio for the presentation slides used during our Facebook workshop, I used Articulate. Since the slides were ready, and I had some idea what to say (no audio script though, which is obvious!), so I managed to record the narration for the presentation (including adding animations and annotations) in roughly three (3) hours. Meaning, it took roughly 4.4 times longer to record, compared to the presentation's actual length (41 min). Not bad, but certainly I would love to do it faster. Practice, Reflect, Improve, Practice, Practice...
Besides publishing the Articulate version, I published the podcast version, and extracted the audio, which was uploaded and synchronized to the SlideShare version, to create a screencast. Finally, I uploaded both the MP3 and Articulate version (Zip format) to the Internet Archive enabling anyone to download both formats and explore them further offline.
A quicker approach would be to simply video record the workshop and dump the recording on the web. The approach I took was certainly more exhaustive than simply video recording the workshop, but in the long run this approach could perhaps add more value (learning) and spark more interest to whoever is exploring.
What do you think? :)
Based on our recent poll the majority of both Academic staff (66.7) and students (67.8) that participated think that IMU should use Facebook for e-learning.
But, where to start?
To get your Facebook social learning space moving, why not for starters create a 'Facebook Group' (especially if you want to have a closed group)?
STEP-BY-STEP
Here are two screencast tutorials exploring how to create a Facebook Group and how we could use it to facilitate learning:
Part 1 - Creating a 'Facebook Group'
Part 2 - Exploring Facebook Group Features
But...
Why not combine Moodle (E-learning Portal) and Facebook to facilitate online learning environments that sizzles :)
REFLECTION
If you are wondering how long it took to record the narration (audio) for the 'Facebook for Learning? Boleh!' presentation (41 min) and the two (2) screencast tutorials (5 x 2 min = 10 min), it took actually a whole day. I started 9.30 am in the morning, and completed all recordings by 7.30 pm in the evening. If we minus the lunch break and prayers, I probably spent 7.5 working hours to record the above.
The toughest part was recording the 2 screencasts, because I initially had no clue of what to record or say, and I didn't finish them before 4 pm. I used Screenr (a free tool) to develop the two screencasts, and it is a very user-friendly tool to record anything happening on your screen (other screencasting tools).
Though, Screenr has three (3) major minus points. One, is that you are limited to recording 5 minute sessions (perhaps positive in terms of instructional design and forcing you to be more precise and concise), and that can get annoying if you are recording and just cannot make the 5 minute time-line. If you listen carefully, you will notice this on both the screencasts I recorded. I had to also re-record twice, because I just missed the time line. I suppose I need to chunk it up more in the future, and perhaps use an audio script.
Now, that leads us to the 2nd minus point, which is that you cannot edit what you have recorded. Meaning basically that you have to perfect your recording, or keep on recording until you are satisfied. Post-editing, ability to zoom, adding annotations, and desktop version (offline) would be great, but I suspect Articulate is saving that for the commercial version in the near future. Let's hope I am wrong :)
Thirdly, you cannot record another screencast, while you are uploading and publishing the first one (please correct me if I am wrong!). And if you have a slow connection, now that gets annoying! There should be a feature allowing you to record another screencast, while waiting for the first one to be uploaded. Now that would be useful!
But, besides that Screenr is great. Alright, let's move on! As for recording audio for the presentation slides used during our Facebook workshop, I used Articulate. Since the slides were ready, and I had some idea what to say (no audio script though, which is obvious!), so I managed to record the narration for the presentation (including adding animations and annotations) in roughly three (3) hours. Meaning, it took roughly 4.4 times longer to record, compared to the presentation's actual length (41 min). Not bad, but certainly I would love to do it faster. Practice, Reflect, Improve, Practice, Practice...
Besides publishing the Articulate version, I published the podcast version, and extracted the audio, which was uploaded and synchronized to the SlideShare version, to create a screencast. Finally, I uploaded both the MP3 and Articulate version (Zip format) to the Internet Archive enabling anyone to download both formats and explore them further offline.
A quicker approach would be to simply video record the workshop and dump the recording on the web. The approach I took was certainly more exhaustive than simply video recording the workshop, but in the long run this approach could perhaps add more value (learning) and spark more interest to whoever is exploring.
What do you think? :)
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Should We Use Facebook for E-Learning at IMU?
Next Wednesday (14/4/2010), we will be conducting a workshop for faculty and students (only 25 participants) exploring how we could use Facebook for learning (or e-learning). For example, lecturers could use Facebook (Groups or Pages) to facilitate online discussions, sharing links and resources, conducting Q&A sessions, uploading field trip/project photos and videos, and much more. Using Facebook for e-learning, is not about replacing existing e-learning platforms at IMU (e.g. Moodle), but about empowering educators and students with more tools to engage, interact, share and learn.
But, before exploring the possibilities (discussed in the next post), it would be great to know (in general) how academic staff and students at IMU feel about using Facebook for e-learning. So, to get some idea, we have created two polls below asking the same question (check below), one for students to answer, and the other for academic staff to answer.
If you answer yes or no (only options), it would be great (if time permits) if you could also add your reflections and reasons for your opinion in the comments section below.
STUDENTS
Please answer this poll:But, before exploring the possibilities (discussed in the next post), it would be great to know (in general) how academic staff and students at IMU feel about using Facebook for e-learning. So, to get some idea, we have created two polls below asking the same question (check below), one for students to answer, and the other for academic staff to answer.
If you answer yes or no (only options), it would be great (if time permits) if you could also add your reflections and reasons for your opinion in the comments section below.
STUDENTS
ACADEMIC STAFF
Please answer this poll:
Hopefully, this poll and discussion (in the comments section) will provide some insights into how people at IMU feel about using Facebook for e-learning.
The next stage, would be to do a more scientific research regarding using Facebook for formal learning (at IMU). What do you think? Anyone interested :)
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
MedTutor - Learning to Think!
"No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated and disciplined."
~Harry E. Fosdick
~Harry E. Fosdick
MEDTUTOR?
MedTutor is an online tutoring site for medical students and young doctors in Internal Medicine. The mastermind behind the MedTutor is Dr. Vela Menon, MD (Faculty of Medicine, International Medical University, Malaysia).
This project is still very much a work-in-progress, but then again that should not stop us from exploring it and providing some constructive feedback.
EXPLORATION
This project is still very much a work-in-progress, but then again that should not stop us from exploring it and providing some constructive feedback.
EXPLORATION
The first time I visited the MedTutor site, it was kind of refreshing, because the homepage is light-and-easy, and not overloaded with all sorts of links, text and images. One image, a sizzling quote, latest reflections from Dr. Vela Menon, and of course a site menu with links to other site resources and activities.
MedTutor is built using Wikidot (free and commercial version), which is a decent wiki tool that allows you easily to create web pages and invite others to participate in the development.
If you are thinking of embarking on creating a website together with a group, there are several other tools you might also want to consider, including Google Sites (cool!), Wikispaces, and Wetpaint.
Alright, let's get back to MedTutor and explore some of the site menu links. In the "Materia Non Medica" (Does this mean 'Non-medical material?) section, you will find a small collection of links to sites and articles that explore all sorts of stuff (e.g. The secret of doing a great job. Need that!). My favorite section is the 'Learning Bytes' one, where you will find some short and mind boggling case studies and Q&A activities (check out the Cardiac Arrest activity to get a taste). In the 'Journal Club" section, clinically relevant questions are asked based on publications in journals.
Interestingly, Dr. Vela is using MedTutor to facilitate learning activities (Renal and Diabetes modules) with his students. He invites (not forces!) them to register and participate, and for conducting online quizzes, he is using QuizStar. QuizStar enables you to create online quizzes for your students, disseminate quizzes to students, automatically grade quizzes, and view the quiz results online (here are 12 more free tools to create online quizzes).
In the 'IMU 10 semester' section, Dr. Vela has creatively used MedTutor (a wiki) for students to submit their case summaries about patients seen in the ward, clinic or during your on-call hours. Also, please check out the Learning Issues area, where he reviews students' submission and provides constructive feedback. If you look carefully, you will notice that he does not use the 'YOU ARE RIGHT/WRONG' approach, but instead triggers relevant questions for the students to reflect deeper on their findings and actions. In short, his approach is inline with MedTutor's slogan: 'LEARNING TO THINK'.
Finally, he has created a MedTutor Facebook Page, which he uses to share, interact, and keep students (and fans) updated with the latest happenings in MedTutor and beyond (96 fans! Oops, 97! Just became one!).
MOVING FORWARD
Dr. Vela was not born with an IPhone or IPad in his hand, and is a self-professed digital immigrant. Also, he was not instructed by the top management to develop MedTutor. I suppose his passion for education, and exploring ways to facilitate more effective and convenient learning drove him to conceptualize and build MedTutor. It is a great start, and a remarkable effort taking into consideration his background. Also, it just shows that today's (mostly free) learning tools available online (start here!) can empower anyone to create online learning environments, as long as one is willing to invest some exploration time to make it happen. Yes, he did struggle a lot initially building MedTutor, but can learning and building online learning environments be exciting without some form of struggle?
Having said that, what could Dr. Vela do to enhance MedTutor further?
If you are thinking of embarking on creating a website together with a group, there are several other tools you might also want to consider, including Google Sites (cool!), Wikispaces, and Wetpaint.
Alright, let's get back to MedTutor and explore some of the site menu links. In the "Materia Non Medica" (Does this mean 'Non-medical material?) section, you will find a small collection of links to sites and articles that explore all sorts of stuff (e.g. The secret of doing a great job. Need that!). My favorite section is the 'Learning Bytes' one, where you will find some short and mind boggling case studies and Q&A activities (check out the Cardiac Arrest activity to get a taste). In the 'Journal Club" section, clinically relevant questions are asked based on publications in journals.
Interestingly, Dr. Vela is using MedTutor to facilitate learning activities (Renal and Diabetes modules) with his students. He invites (not forces!) them to register and participate, and for conducting online quizzes, he is using QuizStar. QuizStar enables you to create online quizzes for your students, disseminate quizzes to students, automatically grade quizzes, and view the quiz results online (here are 12 more free tools to create online quizzes).
In the 'IMU 10 semester' section, Dr. Vela has creatively used MedTutor (a wiki) for students to submit their case summaries about patients seen in the ward, clinic or during your on-call hours. Also, please check out the Learning Issues area, where he reviews students' submission and provides constructive feedback. If you look carefully, you will notice that he does not use the 'YOU ARE RIGHT/WRONG' approach, but instead triggers relevant questions for the students to reflect deeper on their findings and actions. In short, his approach is inline with MedTutor's slogan: 'LEARNING TO THINK'.
Finally, he has created a MedTutor Facebook Page, which he uses to share, interact, and keep students (and fans) updated with the latest happenings in MedTutor and beyond (96 fans! Oops, 97! Just became one!).
MOVING FORWARD
Dr. Vela was not born with an IPhone or IPad in his hand, and is a self-professed digital immigrant. Also, he was not instructed by the top management to develop MedTutor. I suppose his passion for education, and exploring ways to facilitate more effective and convenient learning drove him to conceptualize and build MedTutor. It is a great start, and a remarkable effort taking into consideration his background. Also, it just shows that today's (mostly free) learning tools available online (start here!) can empower anyone to create online learning environments, as long as one is willing to invest some exploration time to make it happen. Yes, he did struggle a lot initially building MedTutor, but can learning and building online learning environments be exciting without some form of struggle?
Having said that, what could Dr. Vela do to enhance MedTutor further?
Firstly, for case summary submissions and online quizzes, IMU E-Learning Portal (Moodle) could perhaps handle these two learning activities more efficiently. For case summary submissions, Moodle Assignment module could do a pretty good job, although the e-mail notification function might not always work the way we want. One could always post a selection of case summaries (with your comments for learning purposes) in MedTutor later (instead of all), if the students permit. As for online quizzes, Moodle's Quiz module is quite solid, especially in terms of features (e.g. Item analysis). Also, you can create questions quite efficiently using Notepad (add pictures and mathematical jumbo after upload, if any). Moodle is not perfect, but if used wisely it could solve some of our needs to conduct online learning activities in an organized and efficient manner.
Secondly, I would strongly recommend adding a blog to MedTutor to keep students updated with his reflections and things going on in the medical world. While the wiki is excellent for creating web pages and collaborative activities, it might not be the best tool for sharing explorations and discoveries as we learn. Instead, we could perhaps use a blog to provide an space for sharing and exploring experiences, knowledge, skills, ideas and resources with the readers. For such things, blogs are ideal (self-organizing: latest first, tagging, categories, etc.).
If you ask me, I would argue that blogging is one of the best ways to facilitate personal learning and reflection. Also, if we think on a larger scale, blogging when used for educational or learning purposes, is an ideal e-portfolio tool. It provides you with an excellent environment to integrate and reflect what you have discovered, experienced, created and learned. Also, it enables anyone to provide feedback in the comments section (unless disabled) on your own thoughts and reflections (peer-review). And if categories and tagging is used appropriately, one will have little trouble navigating and finding relevant information as the blog evolves.
As for which blogging tool to use, I would personally recommend Blogger, because it is user-friendly and feature rich. WordPress fans are going to disagree, but now that Blogger allows you to create 'Pages', too, why would you want to use WordPress (especially the free version)? Anyway, it is a personal choice, and if you start off with Blogger and then decide to switch to WordPress later, you can always import whatever you have done in Blogger with just a few clicks (So, no worries there!).
Beside a blog, I would also recommend to add a Twitter stream to share your quick thoughts, questions, ideas, and resources as you learn. While you might only have time to blog a few times a month, you could use Twitter more often to connect, update, share, engage and facilitate learning conversations on a more regular basis without too much effort (short 140 character messages). Of course, one could just update using the Facebook page (Wall), but with Twitter you will have many more possibilities to facilitate interactive social learning environments with those micro-messages (Looking for a starting point? Click here).
These are just two examples (or tools) on how one could connect and engage more students to learn and interact with MedTutor on a regular basis. In addition, it would be great if there were more resource links on the site, especially to relevant medical videos found on the web, and (bla,bla,bla)...
So...
Today, educators are empowered with so many possibilities to build online content and activities (where to start?). Besides building content and learning environments, we should not be afraid to use Open Educational Resources to reuse/remix/mash-up/adapt learning content. If the content is already out there and meets most of the learning requirements and is free-to-use (please use me!), we should not hesitate to use it to enhance the learning environment (though, selling the content would be a problem). Instead, we can then focus more on building interactive learning environments, connecting with students, creating content that does not exist (instead of the imaginary paraphrasing of existing content to avoid plagiarism, which strictly speaking is plagiarism!), and having more time to do research. Then again, it takes time to discover gems in this growing galaxy of learning resources (e.g. medical resources).
It is a challenge we all have to face sooner or later. Dr. Vela has managed with MedTutor to blend a bit of both, and it will be interesting to see how it evolves.
If you are interested in contacting Dr. Vela regarding MedTutor, use this e-mail address: medtutorwikidot@gmail.com
Lets' support and promote MedTutor! Why not build our own website exploring our learning area of interest? Yes, why not! Just give us a buzz :)
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