2009: The Year of Twitter

Global Language Monitor (GLM), a Texas-based company which analyzes and tracks language trends, said meanwhile that "Twitter" was the "Top Word of 2009."

Read more here.

MERLOT: Effective eLearning Design

Organizations have a need for effective training. Training designers have to be able to design effective eLearning to meet those needs. This is difficult because designing successful eLearning is part art and part science, involving the use of learning and training theory and an understanding of the knowledge and/or skills to be taught. The design also has to be completed within the constraints involved in all phases of the training design and implementation. Further complicating the process is the diversity of equipment, tools, and techniques involved. A final complication is the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the design of eLearning. Each course is unique. However, there is a general process whereby the designer balances the elements involved. If the designer does everything correctly, there is a greatly improved chance that the result will be effective eLearning.

Read more here (PDF).

100+ Ways To Use Social Media for Learning

Blogging, Collaborative Calendaring, Mind Mapping, Editing, Working, & Presentations, Podcasting, RSS, Microblogging, Photo, Screencast, & Presentation Sharing, Social Bookmarking, Social Networking, Personalized Start Pages... the list goes on with ways to use social media for learning.

Trillions

Storyboarding Strategies for Effective eLearning

Comments from Martin Dougiamas, the Guy Who Started Moodle

Moodle itself is actually activity-centric. Facilitators using Moodle start with an empty course container and use a handy collection of tools/apps/modules to build a collection or series of focussed collaborative activities for a group of people. Through roles, these same capabilities can be provided to any user (eg students) in the system. Moodle itself is fairly neutral pedagogically – most things are possible.

(Moodle 2.0 is fully exposed via web services and adds even more opportunites for all participants to integrate external sites and affect the content of the Moodle site itself. And Moodle 3.0 is already being designed … :) )

However, I strongly agree that a large proportion of Moodle administrators and teachers don’t necessarily understand all this, and end up USING the system in a very didactic and locked-down way, reducing write capabilities and focussing on “dump and pump” learning designs (resources and quizzes). I do understand some of the reasons – many of them have never had the exciting online learning experiences we know are possible, or are constrained by very outdated brick-and-mortar policies at their institutions.

A core focus for the Moodle project is to help change these factors. Our community hub plans are basically social networking and course sharing for teachers, focussed very specifically on particular subjects and how they can be taught/learned.

Cheers!

Martin Dougiamas

Google Docs a Viable Alternative to Office

Many people seem to think that Google Docs is a viable alternative to Microsoft Office.

28 Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom

28 Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom

Intro to Moodle

Discussion Management Tips for Online Educators

1. Ground the Learning in Real Experiences.
When the instructor and all the learners are remote, and all the interaction between them is "virtual" (electronic), it's more important than ever to connect the material to the real world.

2. Motivate Through Discussion.
The beginning of a class always generates excitement. Students might reply to everyone's posts. By the end of class, some students will have withdrawn. For other students, time devoted to reading assignments, researching papers, and posting comments will be shared with commitments for work and family. Keep your students motivated to keep reading, researching, and posting throughout the class.

Read more here.