Tips and Tools for Fostering a Creative e-Learning Class

Comments

• Sun, 15 Nov 2009
  Post by Laraine Hofmann

  Your thoughts on engaging online learners is very true when you are working with folks who are long distance or offsite. Many of your suggestions I've used in classroom environments. It is difficult to engage online learners if there isn't much interaction and doodling going on. I like to play games to warm up the class before it begins and I have used the Jeopardy game to do this as an example. I have also used Jeopardy in my web-based training that I have developed in Captivate. I found the game on the Captivate Exchange on the Adobe sight. I think my learners enjoyed it as both a pre-assessment and assessment. I have to admit I never thought of having a spinning top or mood ring type of visual stimuli to display during the class, but it is certainly a thought. I really enjoyed your eLearner's Bill of Right especially number VIII. Thank you for a wonderful article.

• Mon, 21 Sep 2009
  Post by Jill Duffy

  Author Susan Doctoroff Landay has posted a list of new resources in response comments left on her article "Tips and Tools for Fostering a Creative e-Learning Class." Please see the Addendum on the article. Thanks!

• Thu, 17 Sep 2009
  Post by Susan Knoer

  I taught a reference class through Blackboard for a college, with their assurance that BB was accessible, but they couldn't say how. I made my "lectures" available on BB, downloadable as RTF files, and the intro lecture downloadable as a WAV file (with sound effects), which I would have loved to do for all of them, but server space was strictly limited. By the last year I taught, we worked out of BB as much as possible - watch this You Tube video, read a story (your pick) and then watch the movie and write about it (the popcorn week), post your answers to this wiki/webpage. It gave me more accessible options and a chance to use more graphics/movies and screenreader-friendly sites, asz well as offering everything in text files.

  I've heard good things about Moodle, a free LMS. I haven't tried it yet, though. I'm looking at whether there's enough functionality in Google Sites and G Documents to do a workshop - no bells and whistles, but lots of space!

  I'd love to have more tips, too.

• Tue, 15 Sep 2009
  Post by Becky

  I love this article. It has given me some ideas for future training programs. However, many of our staff, including myself, have visual disabilities. I have difficulty figuring out how to make online and e-learning fun and interactive, but still accessible for all of our trainees. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

• Tue, 15 Sep 2009
  Post by Robin Coury

  LOVE this article - but need help finding more online learning platforms or software to use to create online courses. Does anyone know of any?

• Tue, 25 Mar 2008
  Post by Kevin Handy

  I''m a student in the College of Education at Walden University. Seems like the teachers I talk to seem to get this glazed look that falls over them when we talk about e-Learning. Some of it is driven by the fact that e-Learning has been tall on promises and short on delivery. I share my own predictions: the impact of Web 2.0, how roles will be broken out: content authoring, instructional design, facilitation, graphics design, multimedia design and development - and it is as if I am speaking Greek. The fact is that 2008 is going to be seen as a big yawn for e-Learning - but will serve as a foundation for the work we will all do towards 2018. Web 2.0 will be succeeded by Web 3.0 and e-Learning will take that ride. Instituations: K-12, universities, corporations - will need effective ways to manage learning - and whether folks like that or not some kind of web-based application is going to house all that. We may deploy learning through the classroom, through M-learning or other delivery mechanisms but keeping it all straight - managing it - making sense of it will require simple applications to help people manage it all. Whether that''s a virtual school or university or whether it''s a corporate human resource information management system - reality is the e-Learning world will move faster not slower and this year and the next several are going to be spent teaching people to adapt. Luckily we have a generation of people who are in opposition to change who will soon retire - what remains - I hope are folks like us who believe in the future and want to be part of it now - rather than rejecting it - and trying to maintain the status quo.

• Tue, 29 Jan 2008
  Post by Christie Mason

  Hopefully this is NOT the “Year of Video/VR/M-Learning/Blog/Wiki/Next Big Idea that the rest of the world has already been doing for a long time or has already stopped doing/etc". Hopefully, this is the year that trainers/teachers begin to LEARN, experience, and explore what technology tools are available from outside the confining, barrier erecting, less functional, more expensive, non-compliant training/educational specific applications and "standards" that are being accepted today. Hopefully, this is the year that trainers/teachers learn how to judge vendor and application quality, instead of selecting the Flashiest presentation. Hopefully, this is the year that trainers/teachers learn how to blend different tools and techniques to support fluid communities of learners.

• Sun, 27 Jan 2008
  Post by Peter Fadde

  2008 should be a breakout year for video in e-learning. Technology breakthroughs in distributing video along with the breakdown of gatekeeping "broadcast quality" aesthetics through YouTube should embolden teachers, trainers and instructional designers to make, use and share instructional videos. After many years of working around video, e-learning can now embrace it. Key is to avoid the professionalized model of client/producer (which often results in "paint by numbers" educational and training videos) and take charge of the video production process. The 2008 challenge is to learn how to make and use video most effectively.

• Sun, 27 Jan 2008
  Post by Jeremy Hall

  The first prediction from Richard Mayer resonates. Having designed computer business simulations for nearly 40 years. And, most importantly, in the early days run them in the classroom, I find an understanding of participant and group behaviour and learning process a key part of my design process. A process that I view as a systems dynamics process where codnition, affection and workload are interacting dynamics that can lead to good learning with satisfied learners or bad learning with dissatisfied learners.

• Sat, 26 Jan 2008
  Post by Vicki Davis

  I think it is very important to include classroom teachers in these discussions. I was bothered that no "experts" of that nature were included. So, here is my prediction. The grassroots movement of teachers to connect will become more pronounced in 2008 with administrators, researchers, and consultants having to take notice. Teachers will wonder why they need "facilitators" when it is more efficiently done themselves and districts will realize that teachers need time to be "teacherpreneurs" as they create and collaborate on projects with their colleagues around the world. E-Learning will become an integral part of the face to face classroom with students learning to collaborate not only with their seatmate but with teammates from around the world. Please, when you talk about elearning, remember the K-12 teachers on the front lines.

• Wed, 23 Jan 2008
  Post by Tony Karrer

  More predictions can be found from various bloggers at: http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/2007/12/predictions-for-learning-in-2008.html

• Wed, 23 Jan 2008
  Post by Brent Schlenker

  In 2008 the fallout of web2.0 tools and technologies within corporate walls will begin to hit. By this I mean old school management will freak out and blame the tools for causing chaos. As Jay Cross states it, the hierachies will continue to crumble. This will throw clueless middle management into a tailspin as they lose control and watch employees get work done around and without them. Its the human issues that will surface in 2008 more so than the tools themselves. Security concerns, legal concerns, and other issues will become more imortant than the tools. Some organizations will adapt and others will fall apart in an attempt to maintain control. ALL tools and applications specifically devoted to learning/elearning will begin to see a decline. With YouTube, why do we need a TeacherTube? Isn''t it possible to simply tag a youtube video a certain way, or embed the youtube file for display somewhere else? I don''t see the need to continually copy successful webapps and change the name to something more "academic". God help us if someone is currently creating TeacherBook, or Fleacher, or LinkedTeacher. While 2006 was the year of YOU, 2008 will be the year of US and how the empowerment of the individual impacts the collective whole.