The EdTech Bach

I’m just starting up a new session of my Online Facilitation course and came across this resource I created over a year ago. Thought I’d share it with you all.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Online Discussion Participants

1. Use the subject line
2. Quote the other participants
3. Check in (nearly) every day
4. Use highlighting & lists for easy reading
5. Use links
6. Use Right Mouse Click
7. Post in the right place

1. Use the subject line
Be descriptive in your subject line. It should be an accurate summary of your post. If you are replying to someone else’s post, also adjust the subject line. “Re: Topic 1” tells others nothing new, but “Re: Topic 1 / My thought” does.

2. Quote the other participants
Quote the particular phrase or part of the post that you are responding to by saying for example: John posted: “Bla-di-blah” and I agree with him because…
By saying only “I agree with John”, you will make the other participants browse through 50 of John’s posts to find out what you are agreeing with.

3. Check in (nearly) every day
It is a good habit to check into the online discussion on a regular basis, particularly if a discussion is only designed to run for a couple of days. For instance, at the beginning and end of a working day, 15 minutes each time. This will help you keep up with what’s happening online. Log in only once a week and you may end up with a MMM (Multiple Message Mountain).

4. Use highlighting & lists for easy reading
You’ve probably experienced that reading from a screen is more tiring and difficult than reading from paper. Spare yourself and your fellow participants the headache, and highlight key phrases & keywords by making them bold. If you are making a number of points, then order them in a list. This will make it easier for others to scan your messages.

5. Use links
You will undoubtedly run across a web page, blog post or article that you want to share with others. Avoid copying and pasting entire sections into your post. Quite apart from the copyright issues, it seems unfair to add to your fellow participants reading load. Instead quote or paraphrase the pertinent parts, relate why you think it is significant or useful and include a link to the original resource.

6. Use Right Mouse Click
If someone has included a link in their post, click on the link with your right mouse button and select the option Open Link in New Window. This will open the link in a new browser window and give you continued access to the discussion forum in the existing window. In newer internet browsers, you can choose to Open Link in New Tab.

7. Post in the right place
Make sure that the forum or discussion thread you are posting to, is the correct place for your post. If it is a social enquiry, it should go in the Social Forum, if it is a request for help, the Help Forum. If it is a reply but the messages have gone a bit off-topic, you may want to start a new topic.

Am making an intention statement (Procrastination tip no. 4) that I will start a weekly themed post about stuff I learned that week. For two reasons really.

Connected learning

First, I want to make visible how much I’m learning from being connected. The last 24 hours is a prime example. Twitter’s replies function is still down, so last night I went on Plurk and in a few hours playing with the other eduTwitter immigrants, we learned its technicalities but also began thinking about its limitations, variations in microblogging and how interface differences changed our interactions. This morning I’ve spent one hour creating, editing and embedding our institution’s Wikipedia page and had to learn to create pages, create categories, learn a different wiki syntax. I can’t get over how many skills and insights you pick up and how fast, when you’re a connected learner.

Inspiration

My second reason is the blogging blues which hit me earlier this year. For me it’s easier to blog about the simple things like my Moodle Wishlists. Listing what I’ve learned in a week will be straightforward, easy and motivating. Hopefully it’ll give me the inspiration to tackle the other edu-balls-of-yarn in my head.

My blog is built around the metaphor of the kiwi bach which sits between the stable land and the changing sea. Educational technologists (technology intgrators, e-learning advisors, whatever the term) seem to fulfill much the same role, sitting on the boundary between the stable field of education and the tempestuous  technology. So in that vein, I guess this is the start of my beachcombing.

First beachcombings already in draft.

Some of the lecturers I work with have started using wikis in their courses this semester. Students and staff have reacted largely positively. They appreciate the collaborative work they can now do but don’t enjoy the usability. After doing some wiki introduction sessions, seeing the Moodle wiki in action over the semester and also supporting staff in their use of other wikis (Wetpaint, PBWiki), I have a few additions to my Moodle Wishlist, to do with the Moodle Wikis. Here’s what I wish for:

• On Edit automatically open the enlarged version of the editor. Very rarely is a wiki page short enough to be comfortably edited in the small editor version. And it is the nature of wiki pages to grow so why not open straight into the larger editor?
• Threads or comments function associated with a page. The current workaround is to set up a discussion forum to go alongside the wiki. But this leads to posts like: “if you go to the second page in the Tools category you can see the work I’ve done…”
• Improve the internal linking. Add a drop down menu or button (Insert Wiki Link) with list of pages to choose from. The current  process has too many steps:

1. Find the exact page name,
2. Then copy its name
3. Then find page you want to put the link on
4. Go to Edit mode
5. And paste the name between square brackets.

• Improve the picture upload. The Binary File option is clunky and using it is unlike any other action students take in Moodle.
• Allow creation of Userpage. Having your own wiki space can be motivating and a way of creating buy-in. (Could this perhaps also show overview of user’s actions in the wiki?)
• Allow creation of template pages. Being able to set up templates would allow staff to guide students better in what is expected of them.
• Add an Add page button. Creating a page by giving it a name in square brackets is a simple action but an unfamiliar concept that is difficult to explain.

Friday evening, Project Runway on tv, lappie on the couch. Time to play.

Had some fun with Wordle. After playing with TweetStats yesterday, wanted to get those tags and use them in Wordle. Unfortunately they weren’t weighted. So result is a bit bland but still fun.

Wordle is set up to link with del.icio.us and because it does weight those tags, the result is much more impressive!

Embedding in a blog post requires a little editing of embed code - need to take out all the spaces.

Could be used to introduce a topic in class? As result of a discussion thread?

As an instructional designer some days you are more creative than others. I’m afraid that after a day of project planning or strategic meetings, teachers who meet with me about their online or blended course design run a particular risk of getting short-changed.

Coffee helps, but what you really want is a menu - a range of options to get you started. I’ve found that Exploratree and the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods are two inspirational sites which can help me break through ‘designer’s block’. Each provides a list of visualisation methods, which can provide the basis for a learning activity at any cognitive level from remembering through creating.

The Periodic Table created by Ralph Lengler and Martin Eppler, is a listing of 100 methods, including methods like the Cycle Diagram, the Evocative Knowledge Map or Mintzberg Organigraph (and that’s not the only one I’ve never heard of). On hovering over the method, an example appears in a pop-up. Chris Wallace has created an accompanying page which links each method to its Wikipedia page and a stand-alone version of its example.

Exploratree goes a little further. Although you can certainly use the ‘thinking guides’ just to spark ideas, with a free account educators and/or students can create, edit and save the thinking guides online. Users can share guides and so collaborate on projects.

The two sites above contain many methods that can help a teacher and students explore, critically examine, fully map or actively discuss almost any topic. And provide a kick-start for an instructional designer with designer’s block. Usually once I’ve created the first activity, it’s all downhill from there.

One my objectives for 2008 is to provide the conditions for a community of practice around e-learning to grow on our campus. We have many excellent examples of e-learning in the classroom and online, but so far haven’t really had a platform for sharing that knowledge & experience.

First things first, obviously sharing “knowledge, methods, stories, cases, tools, documents” as described by Wenger is impossible if staff members don’t even know about each other’s existence. So we’ve set about establishing the needed connections. Monthly e-Learning Lunches began in the middle of 2007 and have a growing and loyal attendance (yay!). I’m also trying to introduce practitioners to each other just-in-time. Recently I invited one of our Business & Computing lecturers, to demonstrate her online course to a group of lecturers who are just making the first steps in putting their courses online. I say demonstrate, but what I really wanted was for her to show off, because she & her colleague really challenged themselves, always focusing on keeping the course flexible, project-based and learner-centred. The course looks great, and the demonstration was much appreciated by the lecturers.

Unfortunately, I got so busy that shock, horror, I forgot to thank Kim properly. About to send her a thank-you note, I reconsidered, a. it’s kinda lo-tech and b. doesn’t match my tactics this year. I’ve been getting excited about the concept of viral professional development as described by Jennifer Jones (aka injenuity) as I see VPD as a factor in the creation & maintenance of our community of practice. So starting today instead of notes, e-cards or chocolate fish (very popular in New Zealand) to say thank you, I will instead undertake a little hidden VPD and share a cool tool, neat resource or activity idea that I know matches what they are working on.

Here’s my thank-you for Kim, created in Sketchcast explaining my limited understanding of the concept of a critical path. (Note: a little glitch, I could only get Sketchcast to record audio in Internet Explorer, not Firefox.)

JoMcLeay just blogged about our Trans-Tasman collaboration this evening. Much happier experience for the Aussies than for Amanda S and myself on the Kiwi side. By Twitter invitation from Sue Tap aka sujokat, we played with Tokbox, a free online videoconferencing system, which doesn’t require an account for those invited, just gives you a url to share. Should be easy-peasy.

Unfortunately it kept echoing, even with echo regulation on, sometimes hearing yourself back a minute and a half later. And the others’ volumes kept alternating between crystal clear and deathly whispers. Predictably bad when people were talking at the same time. We concurred that Tokbox could really use a chat function, to exchange advice about improving settings when sound is off. Now we were polluting the twitter-stream (sorry tweets). As the Aussies were chatting happily, Amanda and I left early.

Simon B said”different - random strangers on a video call”. To me being on Tokbox tonight was reminiscent of when you were 11 and your parents took you to an acquaintance’s house on a Saturday evening. You’d be introduced to their children and expected to just get on with it. Like then, there were some initial moments of just staring at each other. Then a little bit of shy laughter, followed by more staring. But once you discovered your shared interest (Lego back then, now Ed Tech - still playing with toys) the ice was broken and you felt totally comfortable with the others, to the point that you were happy to make a fool of yourself.

Very lo-tech communication

I’d be up for trying out some more tools across the Tasman. Tools Tuesday anyone?

Only just found out (start of the academic year down under and swamped with course requests & staff support, I’ve been blocking out blogosphere and the twitterverse) but absolutely thrilled to be named Twitku champ. Twitku is one of my favourite Twitter projects and aching to show it to our teachers as I think it could be a neat in-class project for our ESOL students.

All that is a long-winded way of saying:

thanx/@twitku/575 xj

Although I follow the blogs of Will Richardson, Alec Couros and D’Arcy Norman with great frequency (much better than my gym attendance), their perspectives don’t necessarily match the state of educational technology in our New Zealand context. This wiki site is a listing of all known Kiwi educators who have blogs and/or podcasts and one way of discovering new Kiwi edubloggers. Feel free to add your edublog. Open to Kiwi edubloggers living abroad or edubloggers living in New Zealand.