Week 7: Old (Education) Dogs Can Learn New Tricks

In “Understanding the Power of the PLNS,” Pam hits it right on the spot. Education is completely changing, or at least the way the students we are teaching are learning differently than before.  Students today can take notes without paper! Crazy!  I also loved that the article pointed out that mobile technology provides a huge opportunity (and challenge! Yes!) to our classrooms.  When we think about online learning, I think all teachers get scared when they hear the idea that “teachers and knowledge” are not scarce anymore.  I was little frightened up until the article mentioned that we need to teach our students how to effectively learn online. And I love the line, “education is something that we create for ourselves.”  As teachers, we must teach students how to create an education for themselves – helping them solve any problem they encounter using the technology at their finger tips.

The three conversations for parents article was not what I had expected.  These are three great things that parents need to discuss with their kids… and not just parents, teachers too. We need to start developing these thoughts early – hoping to teach children that they aren’t invisible (on invincible) online.

Procedural learning is being taught in the podcast about screen recordings.  I use these in my classroom all of the time, especially with my ONLINE class. Students often ask the same questions over and over when it comes to creating something online.  I find it easier to simply record myself giving the directions, allowing advanced students to move along and slower students the ability to watch/rewatch me teach the lesson. Formal learning would have been to teach them step-by-step in front of me. But this works informally allowing students to work at their own paces!

And the Anthropology students…. I need to seek out this professor.  Talk about teaching empathy and compassion in real world situations to students, this is the crème de la crème.  And the World Situation uses real life examples for students to engage themselves in learning. This simulation said it took 75-100 minutes, but the learning that goes on through student inquisition is everlasting.  I may try and copy this in some way with my Sociology students when we discuss social stratification/classes around the world!

4 thoughts on “Week 7: Old (Education) Dogs Can Learn New Tricks

  1. Pingback: Group 1-Curator Post for Week 7 “Learning Networks” | Emerging Learning Technologies

  2. jaf378

    I really enjoyed reading about how you’re applying this information into your own classes. As the other comments noted, your use of recordings of assignment directions is a great application. It saves you time, but it also creates consistency in the directives given to students. I had a professor who would create brief (3-5 minute) videos that outline the upcoming week’s readings. He wouldn’t give anything away (so the student still had to read!), but he would say things like “Pay attention to the author when they discuss…” or “This was written at a time when…” It provided a bit more context to the articles and allowed me to synthesize the information more easily. It seems similar to what you are already doing and I know as a student it really helped me!

  3. Melissa Glenn

    I was just wondering about your description of making a podcast of instructions. Is this audio or video? Do you use screen recording with audio? I have many colleagues who use Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html) to do screen recordings, especially for online labs where the students need to do complicated steps in an online environment. It has helped many of my colleagues improve their online courses and they receive great student feedback about it. I know that for me personally, listening or reading instructions is often not enough. My daughter agrees—she learned to tie her shoes while watching a youtube video! It reminds me of the commercial with the guy learning on the spot how to swaddle his baby by watching a video on his phone!

  4. Shelby Nelson

    I enjoyed reading about your strategy for using video recordings in your classes by allowing students to work at their own pace and re-watch the directions as necessary. This is something that you will be able to save and use over the years and will drastically cut out time that was once used for answering the same questions over and over again individually. This will also benefit students who work at a slower pace. Students will feel comfortable with that set up- as opposed to asking questions for clarity. This will also help you reflect on your lessons by going back through the videos you have created. You could create an archive of the videos you have made- organizing them by class, topic, grade, etc. Another idea would be to post these videos on a blog or website so that students will have access to the videos outside of class. Students who miss a day would be able to go in to watch the lesson or assignment that was taught.

    Thank you for your thoughts regarding the World Simulation project! As I have said multiple times, learning happens when experiences are made meaningful to students- what a way to find such real-life examples for students. As you pointed out, even though the simulation was around 100 minutes, that is the last thing those students thought about. The learning that happened throughout the project these students will take with them as they grow. You should absolutely try to re-create this type of a project in your sociology course! Good luck!

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