Useful Resources for continued Learning

Well, this is my final blog related to this PIDP 3240 course.  In some respects I am greatly relieved as I can get back to my own life once again and in other respects I am a little sad to be stepping away from such an onslaught of learning opportunity.

I plan to continue to engage in learning and research the best learning techniques that I can use to better my classroom experience for my learners.

One of my favorite links that I found in this course is http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-guides/pedagogies-and-strategies/ from Vanderbilt University.  It is an excellent website providing information on everything to do with learning, Bloom’s Taxonomy, Learning Styles, Metacognition, visual learning, pedagogies, challenges, etc.  I have even forwarded this link to co-workers who have found the information contained on this site pertinent and useful in their work.

Another useful reference, http://elearnmag.acm.org/emerging-technologies.cfm, eLearn magazine, has articles on emerging technologies, instructor development and corporate learning to name a few.

A very useful YouTube video,   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAhRf3U50lM#t=245 can be given to your Learners at the beginning of a course to help them with note taking.  I am definitely sharing this with my next class.  In grade school I took horrid notes and basically memorized everything.  It wasn’t until I went to university in my mid 20’s that I finally learned how to take notes and study.  I am betting many of my Learners and yours have not yet learned how to take effective notes.

And one of my favorite YouTube videos, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcZg51Il9no.  This one can blow your mind and I plan to show it to my daughter who will no doubt be working in a profession that currently does not exist for a company that does not yet exist using technology that does not yet exist.  Amazing!

Finally, one of the most powerful speakers that I found on YouTube talking about education is Rita Pierson.  I found her to be very inspirational and what every teacher can only hope to aspire to become. Here is a link to several of her YouTube video’s for your viewing pleasure,   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bndCdOeMO3Y&list=PLWS4rXaQ-ZcHhzAjTbGChoWVdtQ03-nfm.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Until next time …. keep looking for silver.

Sharlene’s Educational Insights by Sharlene Ford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to keep everyone involved in the classroom

An interesting dilemma, how do you teach so that everyone can learn?  Introverts and Extroverts and everyone flowing in between.

By the time students get to my classroom they have been around the block a few times and range in age from late 20’s to early 60’s.  I have found that my students are polite, cooperative, helpful and eager to learn and practice.

I have been reading a lot on Introverts in the classroom lately and most articles are directed to grade school learning.  Seems that by the time students hit college or other forms of adult learning that they have learned to adapt to the group activities thrust upon them by the educators.  Although, you ask most adult learners and they will say they hate group activities, so why do we still do them?

Group activities are strongly encouraged in every training course I have ever attended.  A collective groan goes up but then everyone participates and it is not so bad.  However, it really depends on the people in the group.  Occasionally, someone comes in and takes over the group and the rest sit around in mutiny refusing to participate.  But what can we do about this situation?  How do we get a cohesive group together and how do we ensure everyone in the group learns the material being taught?

This article by in the Ted Ideas form, What should we do with the quiet kids? A conversation with Susan Cain on the future of classroom education, offers some great ideas.  (Read it here: http://ideas.ted.com/how-to-teach-a-young-introvert ). One suggestion is to offer choice. How can you give choice when the learning activity is set up as a group activity? Can you still allow individualism?   I would suggest offering a variety of activities throughout the day so that learners are able to work on some activities on their own interspersed with group activities. When it is time for individual activities offer learners the option to work individually, in pairs, or in small groups as long as they are not disruptive. Don’t banish all your group activity but also don’t forget to have some individual learning activities as well to balance your day. Another great way to do this is the think-pair-share which is mentioned in the article and that pretty much every educator has learned how to do. This gives everyone the opportunity to process before discussing thereby including everyone.

There are lots of ideas out there and we are learning more and more to be inclusive and not just let the loudest voice win. But this is a work in progress and will likely take many more years before the introvert is valued as much as the extrovert in the classroom and in business and life in general. I look forward to the day when introverts balance out the extroverts and everyone can work towards a common goal in their own individual, separate, grouped way.

Until next time …. keep looking for silver.

Sharlene’s Educational Insights by Sharlene Ford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Consistency vs. Fairness

This is an interesting concept that many people do not understand.  Here is a great quote from Mark Twain,

I am persuaded that the world has been tricked into adopting some false and most pernicious notions about consistency – and to such a degree that the average man has turned the rights and wrongs of things entirely around and is proud to be “consistent,” unchanging, immovable, fossilized, where it should be his humiliation.

In an effort to be consistent people don’t seem to understand the harm that they are doing to their students and to their own reputation.  Is it better to be seen as a consistent instructor or a fair instructor?  Does anyone really understand the difference?  When we are talking about consistency – are we talking about consistently reliable or consistently providing the learning opportunities?

This idea of consistency vs. fairness hit a sore spot for me.  I aim to be consistent in my teaching the material but I prefer to treat the learners with fairness.  Do they get special treatment from me? No.  They do however believe that I treat them fairly.

But how do I stack up against the other instructors? We all have different styles, some more favored by the learners than others.  There has been a call for us all to teach the material consistently and exactly the same way.  What does that mean exactly?  I understand that to mean that the material delivered should be the same.  No matter who is teaching class on any particular day there are a set of learning objectives and the instructor needs to ensure that these are met during the lesson.  How they teach is an individual style.  Should all the instructors be forced to adopt the same style?

The thing is, not all learners are the same either.  Some will appreciate a more lecture style of teaching, others will enjoy a more laid back approach and individual study and still others will prefer to get their hands dirty and focus on the practical aspects of learning.  It is important to have a variety of tools available and know how to use them to get the most out of the learners to achieve the learning objectives.  I am reminded of a recent discussion in a prior course I took a few months back that praise and criticism should be dealt in private.  No one in class wants to be singled out as the favoured child nor do they want to be singled out as the troubled one.

This article by Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden in Reliable Plant, http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/9661/consistency-fairness  is about how Consistency does not equal fairness.   Although this is written for business owners the principles outlined can easily be applied in the classroom.  Just because you are applying fairness to your treatment of your learners does not necessarily mean you are giving up consistency of teaching content to those learners.

Food for thought.

Until next time …. keep looking for silver.

Sharlene’s Educational Insights by Sharlene Ford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

WEBINARS as a training tool

Have you ever attended a Webinar?  Or perhaps you have given one yourself?

I have attended a few online training sessions referred to as Webinars.  They have been interesting and yet somewhat challenging to follow.  I find that you can either listen to the Instructor while viewing their presentation or you can watch the commentary going back and forth in the chat room.

Much as I like to think of myself as a very capable multi-tasker I cannot do it while participating as a learner in a Webinar.  I find myself caught up in the back and forth commentary and completely shut down my listening skills.  Fortunately, these webinars are usually recorded and you can watch them at a later time to catch all the bits you missed.  However, this does make the time commitment double which defeats the purpose of having short information sessions.

I have also provided Webinars at work to staff in various locations around the Province and this seems to be a very effective and efficient way to deliver material.  I avoid the scrolling commentary on the side by stopping frequently for questions and I try to use a variety of formats such as whiteboard, polls, power point, etc. during the webinar.

I have a second person with me while doing the Webinar so that they can answer any simple questions or troubleshoot if people are having difficulties connecting.  This definitely alleviates a lot of distraction from the topic at hand.  I have noted that Webinars I have attended also do this which is great.  I am not sure how they can control the back and forth though between the participants especially when their participants number in the 100’s.  The ones I provide are usually no greater than 12 participants so much easier to keep tabs on what is happening.

The side benefit of Webinars is getting participants in touch with technology that they may never have used before in their work.  They are simple to set up and easy to use and even those without much computer experience can either run one or participate in one without much effort.

The long and short of it is that Webinars are a great format for training short snippets of information to an audience that no longer have to fly long distances away from their families to attend.

Until next time …. keep looking for silver.

Sharlene’s Educational Insights by Sharlene Ford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Is technology affordable for everyone?

I reviewed a YouTube video posted by Jos Gosier about what he refers to as trickle-down techonomics. Here is the link for your viewing pleasure.  http://www.ted.com/talks/jon_gosier_the_problem_with_trickle_down_techonomics

Jos Gosier brings up some really interesting points about those who have a lower income. Are we making assumptions that everyone can afford the basics in technology to keep up with the majority?

Some would say we have more access to free wifi now than we have ever had in the past and this is mostly true. You can access free wifi at your local library and for the price of a cup of coffee you can access free wifi at most coffee shops. But this assumes you can afford a device. In the library they still supply computers free of charge and mostly the long line-ups of the past have vanished so access is easier. However, you are still confined to working only within the library hours. There is no free access to computers in coffee shops.

As schools, many of the kids have smart phones, tables, laptops and alike but I would argue this is not the case at all schools, especially in those poorer areas. Sure most of the kids will have access but not all of the kids. This is what I am referring to, those kids already marginalized due to their families income levels and unable to participate in many activities also being held back from participating in knowledge and learning activities due to lack of access.

I recall a time a few years back when I was in high school (this is back before the time of computers!) and I was taking Typing 8. The teacher failed me after the first term for not completing the homework assignments. My mother stormed off to the school to find out what was going on and was advised that it was expected that we have a typewriter at home so that I could do my homework assignments. Access to the typing lab was only during school hours. My mother was not impressed and demanded that the teacher change their rules as we could not afford a typewriter. The teacher backed down and I managed to pass Typing.

How are you going to ensure that everyone has equal access to the technology required for your courses? Are you going to provide tablets on a loaner system? Teach your students the rudiments of computer use if they have never used one (although it may be difficult to believe in today’s age of computers, but there are still people out there who do not have smart phones, tablets or computers and have no interest). Are they then prevented from taking your courses? How can you access them? Or do you just shrug it off and say tough luck, let me know when you join the rest of the 21^st century.

Until next time …. keep looking for silver!

Sharlene’s Educational Insights by Sharlene Ford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Tweeting (Twittering)

I have used Twitter briefly in my personal life more as a way to keep track of my teenager.  I found that teenagers use Twitter way more than Facebook to update their status and comment on what they are doing, at least my teenager does.

I have also found Twitter to be a useful tool for receiving snippets of current affairs, breaking news and my favorite, new book releases.

I was intrigued to do some research on Twitter on how it could be used successfully in the classroom.  It seems that there are several sites out there for the use of Twitter in the classroom for K-12 such as, Top 5 Ways to Use Twitter in Education by SmartTutor Education program http://thinkonline.smarttutor.com/top-5-ways-to-use-twitter-in-education/ .

There was also 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom by Samantha Miller http://www.teachhub.com/50-ways-use-twitter-classroom . This article covered everything from creative writing to math to creating art.

The most enlightening article was called The Complete Twitter Guide by Mark O’Neill.  http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-guide-twitter/.  This article literally included everything and then some.

I read about apps and bots that can be used with your Twitter account to do all kinds of things such as, checking the weather (Forecast), looking for stock quotes (Stock quotes), setting up e-mail alerts (Twilert), gathering most listened to music tweets (Twisten), a dictionary of Twitter words or phrases (Twittonary), reminders (Timer), whats the most popular pages on Twitter (Tweetmeme) and an interesting one to post your innermost darkest secrets (Secret Tweet).  Not really sure why anyone would want to post their innermost darket secrets, my guess is many are simply made up for reactions.

If you can imagine it there is a Twitter App or Bot for that.  If this is your first foray into Tweeting or Twittering as some refer to it I highly recommend doing your research and determining what is the best use of Twitter for your purposes.

For my class, setting up a Twitter account to ask questions outside of the classroom when Learners are not at their work computer seemed like a good use.  In this way, they could tweet their questions to the Twitter account and the Instructor could then bring all the questions to class each morning as a review of the prior days work as well as adding any questions Learners felt comfortable asking themselves in class.  Unfortunately, due to the nature of my business, I am unable to use this format at this time, perhaps in the future.

Until next time …. keep looking for silver!

Sharlene’s Educational Insights by Sharlene Ford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Education as an ongoing process

It is fascinating to me to learn of individuals out there who believe that as soon as you complete high school your education is done.  There are even those individuals who believe that if you go on for higher learning then you learn everything you could possible want to learn in the period that it takes to obtain your degree and then you are finished.  Education is not stagnate, just like the world is not stagnate nor is life!

In order to simply keep up with the constant shift and progress that goes on in the world around us we are forced to always be in a learning mode.  Perhaps those who believe learning is finished with institutional learning have remained back in the 20th century? or more likely they do not recognize that even they are continuing to evolve and learn as the world continues to move forward.

At what age do you stop learning? “When you die.” is my response.  To stop moving forward is to stop living.

This blog is going to focus on different types of technology that can be used in the ongoing learning process whether in the classroom or outside of the classroom.  My goal is to explore a minimum of 4 – 5 different technologies and how they can enhance learning over the next few weeks.

Until next time … keep looking for silver!

Sharlene’s Educational Insights by Sharlene Ford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Hello world!

Happy blogging! about to begin …