Category Archives: Teaching Notes

Skype and the Snow Day

In September 2009, we discussed how to plan a virtual class for a flu epidemic, but in Feb 2010, I realized the same concepts could be used for a snow day as well (and TLT thought it was a brilliant… More On: Skype and the Snow Day

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New Media Seminar Week 8 Rewind: Education and Top Chef

Way back in Week 8 of the recent New Media seminar, there was a reading on Learning Webs which discussed current structure of the K-12 educational system and whether it could be tweaked to a more personalized boutique system in… More On: New Media Seminar Week 8 Rewind: Education and Top Chef

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Tailgate: Considering Un-Narrated Media

It’s Monday after an excellent Media Commons Tailgate, and it’s time to contemplate any insights I’ve had. Where we are in the Story My first thought is that the Media Commons staff and faculty have come a long way in… More On: Tailgate: Considering Un-Narrated Media

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LDSC10: Can this Boring Course Be Saved?

The online Summer Camp survey I filled out asked for our takeaway points, and I admit that one thing I remembered was a discussion of how the lessons from Sam Richards class on race relations could be applied to an… More On: LDSC10: Can this Boring Course Be Saved?

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Online Learning: It’s Still All About the Learning Objective

Today’s presentation by Chris and Cole sparked a discussion on how they can be applied to online learning. One interesting comment I heard was that having defined learning objectives was constraining the design. But maybe the problem is that we… More On: Online Learning: It’s Still All About the Learning Objective

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Achiever vs. Explorer Learning

A recent gaming concept I became acquainted with was Bartle’s playing modes which include socializing, dominating, achieving and exploring. I was able to rule myself as a socializer (more solitaire please) and a dominator (as much as I like a… More On: Achiever vs. Explorer Learning

Posted in Authentic Games & PBL, Teaching Notes | 1 Comment

Wisdom from Our Graduate Students

One of the more interesting side projects I’ve been involved with Kim Winck has been interviewing some of the students who have gone through the TWT Certificate program. Of course, they’ve had some nice things to say about the program,… More On: Wisdom from Our Graduate Students

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Helping Students Separate Signal from Noise

An issue that I wrestle with a lot is how to help students transition from rote exercises with canned data to a real world problem in which data comes with minimal organization and the solution is really open ended. It’s… More On: Helping Students Separate Signal from Noise

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Why Can’t We Define “Instructional Design”

Every now and again, our instructional designer community has a discussion about how we define ourselves to world at large who haven’t had any courses in INSYS yet. There are a lot of reasons suggested including that we’re a relatively… More On: Why Can’t We Define “Instructional Design”

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Teaching Ideas for an Interactive Language Map

I found a good resource for language data in the U.S. based on data from the 2000 Census and an update from 2005. It’s a good resource, but how can we maximize it’s impact on students? By blogging or class… More On: Teaching Ideas for an Interactive Language Map

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