George Veletsianos

Learning from your students

// March 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // sharing

This post lists 5 resources that in, one way or another, will be or have been helpful to me. These resources were discovered by my students and I am posting them here to serve 4 purposes: First, this post celebrates the fact that students have as much to add to the learning experience as instructors/professors (all of you out there who think that your work is about giving out knowledge, pay attention). Second, this is a way for me to acknowledge some of the things that my students have brought to my attention this semester without spending time in class to talk about them (after all, most of my students are subscribed to my blog). Third, I can model how social technologies can be used in educational contexts. And finally, the post serves as an example of how networked technologies and filtering information through tags can empower relevant learning.  So, here we go:

Practical Advice from Working Researchers… (From Chris: http://delicious.com/c_costello)
“4researchers is an NIH supported project that disseminates practical information to help you conduct research. Get advice from experienced researchers through our catalog of quick tips, Q&As, and presentations. Or, sign up for advanced online training courses. Currently, there are more than 1000 articles posted by over 200 contributors.”

A Don Norman talk at TED: The three ways that good design makes you happy (from Woonhee: http://delicious.com/swhee03)

The Online Course Evaluation Project (OCEP) “identifies and evaluates existing online courses in higher education, Advanced Placement© and high school. The goal of OCEP is to provide the academic community with a criteria-based evaluation tool to assess and compare the quality of online courses.” (From Renata: http://delicious.com/rgeurtz).

Apture “gives content creators the power to find and incorporate relevant multimedia items directly into their pages. Readers can then access these items without ever leaving the page, providing them with a deeper and more meaningful web experience.” 3 years ago, we developed a similar system in our endeavors to scaffold learners who were learning geography. This application opens lots of possibilities for effortless implementation in other areas. (From Yin Li: http://delicious.com/moonchild100).

River City project “is an interactive computer simulation for middle grades science students to learn scientific inquiry and 21st century skills. River City has the look and feel of a videogame but contains content developed from National Science Education Standards, National Educational Technology Standards, and 21st Century Skills” (from Royce: http://delicious.com/roycekimmons).

Help choose a book cover

// February 20th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // open, papers, sharing, work

[Update Feb 22, 2010: Thank you for the comments on the form below! I already have 70 bright ideas to improve the covers!!!]

Emerging Technologies in Distance Education is getting closer to completion. Now, we need to select a cover. Can you help?  The amazingly talented Natalie Olsen created the four cover concepts appearing below and I am having trouble selecting one! If you can help by completing the form below, we would greatly appreciate it! I’ll post the result by the end of next week (Feb 28).

The four designs are:

Cover 1: Pencils. Cover 2: Wordle.

Cover 3: Chalkboard. Cover 4: Tin Cans.

Learners as theorists

// February 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // sharing

Last week, my students and I explored readings relating to “theories of learning in the digital age.” Specifically, we explored connectivism, rhizomatic education, and social network knowledge construction (links to readings appear below). To tie the readings with our experiences as learners/educators, to contemporary developments in the field, and to our shared understanding of what these really mean, we formed groups and designed our own learning theories. (and, hey, why not, everyone’s creating theories/models/approaches/frameworks so why not do it within a matter of an hour to demonstrate that the “theory development” part is the easy part of the process )

I was glad to see deep reflection on the readings and questioning of these approaches to education. While both myself (and most of my students) seem to espouse a socio-constructivist view to learning, I was happy to see a true engagement with the readings in an attempt to understand what they are offering, while at the same time rejecting the pie-in-the-sky view of learning, as evidenced by this post for example.

References
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age, International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, 2(1): http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm
Kop, R., & Hill, A. (2008). Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past?. The International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 9(3). Retrieved November 7, 2009, from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/523/1103
Cormier, D. (2008). Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum. Innovate 4 (5). http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=550 (free sign-up required)
Dawley, L. (2009). Social network knowledge construction: Emerging virtual world pedadogy. On The Horizon 17(2), 109-121. http://edtech.boisestate.edu/ldawley/SNKC_pdf.pdf

E-journals and readership

// February 3rd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // sharing

The image below comes from IRRODL and relates to a paper one of my students and I published a month ago: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/author/submission/755 (Veletsianos, G., & Kleanthous, I. (2009). A review of adventure learning. The International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 10(6), 84-105)

Even though numerous other metrics could be added to gauge readership, impact, and interest of an academic paper (e.g. pdf downloads, # repeat visitors,  citation counts, and social media references) this is a step towards the right direction. Making such data publicly available would further benefit the academic community

Collection of Open Access Books

// January 25th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // open

This semester, I am teaching a class focusing on online learning in the context of participatory culture and media. Links to the following open access e-books were provided within my syllabus – I thought these might also be of value to individuals not registered in my class. Enjoy!

Theory and Practice of Online Learning (2nd edition) edited by Terry Anderson http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120146

Accessible Elements:  Teaching Science Online and at a Distance edited by Dietmar Kennepohl and Lawton Shaw at http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120162

Mobile Learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training edited by Mohamed Ally at http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120155

A Designer’s Log: Case Studies in Instructional Design by Michael Power at http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120161

Herrington, Herrington, Mantei, Olney & Ferry (Eds), New technologies, new pedagogies: Mobile learning in higher education, Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, 2009: http://ro.uow.edu.au/newtech/

CU Online Handbook from the University of Colorado at Denver (Edited by Patrick R. Lowenthal, David Thomas, Anna Thai, & Brian Yuhnke), via http://www.cudenver.edu/Academics/CUOnline/FacultyResources/Handbook/Pages/Handbook2009.aspx

George Siemen’s Knowing knowledge via http://www.elearnspace.org/

Open Educational Resources Handbook for Educators
http://www.lulu.com/product/download/open-educational-resources-handbook-for-educators-version-10/3396518

Ito et al’s Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. Kids Living and Learning with New Media from: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/full_pdfs/Hanging_Out.pdf)

Arrived in Austin, TX

// January 13th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // sharing

This blog has been quiet for a bit…. and the reason is because I was moving. I have finally arrived in Austin, Texas and this is the required “I have moved” blog post. Starting next week, I will be joining the Instructional Technology program at the University of Texas at Austin as an Assistant Professor (part of the Curriculum and Instruction department). This blog’s regular program will commence again soon

P.S. Here is the University president’s blog and the newly-launched U of Texas iPhone app – happy to see both of these of course!

2010/365 Project

// January 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // sharing

This year I decided to participate in one of the “take a photo every day” projects. I am doing this partly to improve my photography skills through practice, partly to learn from others, and partly to force myself to pause and enjoy the daily beauty of life that usually escapes undocumented. I commit to taking a picture every single day, but don’t commit to be uploading the photos on a daily basis. I will be posting my photos at my flickr set entitled 2010/365 and at the 2010/365photos group. Pictures from the first four days of January are embedded below. If you’d like to follow, you can add me as a contact on flickr or subscribe to my set’s RSS feed (none of that “RSS is dead” conviction here!)…

A Review of the Adventure Learning Literature

// January 3rd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // papers

The latest issue of The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning has been published and in it there’s an article I wrote with Irene, who’s one of the many talented PhD students I work with. The paper provides an up-to-date analysis and description of Adventure Learning and is intended to be a must-read for researchers and practitioners interested on the topic. Specifically, we are providing a metasynthesis of Adventure Learning identify current research and knowledge on the topic as well as research gaps. I’m very excited about this publication because it was very fun to write, it is my second paper with a PhD student, and it is published in an open access journal. If you are interested, here is the reference, link, and abstract. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it:

Veletsianos, G., & Kleanthous, I. (2009). A review of adventure learning. The International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 10(6). Retrieved December 27, 2009, from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/755

Adventure Learning (AL) is an approach for the design of digitally-enhanced teaching and learning environments driven by a framework of guidelines grounded on experiential and inquiry-based education. The purpose of this paper is to review the Adventure Learning literature and to describe the status quo of the practice by identifying the current knowledge, misconceptions, and future opportunities in Adventure Learning. Specifically, the authors present an integrative analysis of the Adventure Learning literature, identify knowledge gaps, present future research directions, and discuss research methods and approaches that may improve the AL approach.

Authors engaged in a systematic search strategy to identify Adventure Learning studies and then applied a set of criteria to decide whether to include or exclude each study. Results from the systematic review were combined, analyzed, and critiqued inductively using the constant comparative method and weaved together using the qualitative metasynthesis approach.

Results indicate the appeal and promise of the Adventure Learning approach. Nevertheless, the authors recommend further investigation of the approach. Along with studies that investigate learning outcomes, engaging aspects of the AL approach, and the nature of expert-learner collaboration, future Adventure Learning projects that focus on higher education and are (a) small and (b) diverse, can yield significant knowledge into Adventure Learning. Research and design in this area will benefit by taking an activity theory and design-based research perspective.