Final Report - Learning Objects

For the final report, prof Morten suggested that we compile, refine and expand our learning objects into a learning module.
I tried to build LOs that allowed its use in various courses, that could be transported to others platforms. I used new tools in each one and I chose them taking in account that I could use with my students on my teaching practice.
The LO made at unit1 was made alone but the others two (unit 2 and unit 3) were made with two colleagues.
According to colleagues and professor suggestions I improved my first LO and added personal commnets, in the others LOs the group decided not to change them but add some reflections about the LO’s development.
We decided to make these reflections in an original way and use the "readthewords” tool.
The three videos presented (unit 2 and unit 3) are not intended to show the personal opinion of each one but show the steps that were taken in group. These videos also represent the way we worked: respecting individual flexibility and working together in order to accomplish a specific end or goal.

Final Report - Unit3 - Activity2 - LO

This is the LO made by me, Maria de Lurdes and Marco at unit3: Transparency in online education and we decided not to change it.

Group reasons and comments:




If you prefer to read the full text, please let me know. I'll be pleased to send you by email.

Final Report - Unit3 - Activity1 - AB

For this activity I had some difficulties in finding new articles or papers so I just include in the same post the original AB and the personal comments that I posted after Helena’s suggestion “Perhaps at the end , as a kind of conclusion, she could add some comments of her own”.

Final Report - Unit2 - Activity2 - LO

This is the LO made by me, Maria de Lurdes and Marco at unit2, and we decided not to change it.

Group reasons and comments:


If you prefer to read the full text, please let me know. I'll be pleased to send you by email.

Final Report - Unit1 - Activity2 - LO

In this LO I tried to explain the concepts of cooperation and freedom of the Cooperation Freedom Theory.




Personal comments:
Toonlet it´s a very intersting tool and like Marco said in his review "bring to practice several theoretical concepts in a comics way." Enable to transmit the basic ideas of Cooperative Freedom in a simple and attractive way.

Final Report - Unit2 - Activity1 - AB

This annotated bibliography aims to compile, refine and expand the annotated bibliography made in unit 2: Online Teaching Techniques.
•The original Annotated Bibliography – Unit 2: Online Teaching Techniques

•PAULSEN, M. (1998) “Online Education: Pedagogical, Administrative, and Technological Opportunities and Limitations”. Retrieved February 18, 2010, from http://lsm.dei.uc.pt/ribie/docfiles/txt20034231950003_MORTEN.PDF

“This paper establishes a theoretical framework for online teaching systems that identifies elements of importance to the online teaching process and explains how they are related.”
In the model of an online teaching system presented in this paper the students are central and have at their disposal learning resources, course content, and teachers. The teachers have to their disposal teaching methods, teaching techniques, and teaching devices.
This paper discusses about System Environment Constraints and Opportunities; Learners and their Experiences; Course Content and Study Material; Online Learning Resources; CMC Teachers, Their Functions and Experiences; Teaching Methods; Teaching Techniques and Teaching Devices


•“Web 2.0 Teaching Tools”. Retrieved February 17, 2010, from http://hubpages.com/hub/Education20
This site gives a list of websites and tools that are either completely free or have a free version that can be used with small groups of students (VIRTUAL OFFICES, WORD PROCESSING / TEXT / WIKIS, SPREADSHEETS, DATABASES, MAPPING, PICTURE TOOLS, BLOGS, VOICE / AUDIO / PODCASTING, ONLINE MEETINGS, ACADEMIC SEARCH, CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT)

---------------------------
Personal comments

This search allowed me to know several new web 2.0 teaching tools and several online teaching techniques.
These tools brought into teaching and learning more creativity, more interaction and more support.
Foruns, blogs, wikis, facebook, twitter, chats… enable the interaction needed in the cooperative learning. With debates, thematic discussions, chats, work groups, case studies, simulations… the teacher can promote discussions and debates so that students can construct their knowledge in a motivated way, by discovering, searching, sharing, questioning, involving with problems and activities.

Final Report - Unit1 - Activity1 - AB

This annotated bibliography aims to compile, refine and expand the annotated bibliography made in unit 1.
•The original Annotated Bibliography – Unit 1: Cooperative freedom

•BALKCOM, S. (1992); “Cooperative learning”. Retrieved February 11, 2010, from http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/cooplear.html

This article from “Education Research CONSUMER GUIDE” defines Cooperative Learning as “a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject”. It also give us some examples of strategies that can be used: Group Investigations, STAD (Student Teams-Achievement Divisions) and Jigsaw II; and some examples of specific programs: Team Accelerated Instruction (TAI) in Mathematics, Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC), Success for All and Finding Out/Descubrimiento.

•Gokhale, A. (1995); “Collaborative Learning Enhances Critical Thinking”. Retrieved February 12, 2010, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/jte-v7n1/gokhale.jte-v7n1.html

This article describes a study that intends to examine the effectiveness of individual learning versus collaborative learning in enhancing drill-and-practice skills and critical-thinking skills.
It concludes that collaborative learning facilitates the development of critical thinking through discussion, clarification of ideas, and evaluation of others' ideas.
It’s very important to clarify the instructor's role, as a facilitator for learning and not just to transmit information. In order to develop and enhance students' ability to learn, the instructor must create and manage meaningful learning experiences and stimulating students' thinking through real world problems.


---------------------------
Personal comments

I must confess that I had some difficulties on distinguish between the two concepts “Cooperative Learning” and “Collaborative Learning” and so my research focused in clarifying that.
Learning can be individual, collaborative or cooperative.
Although the individual learning provides individual flexibility, doesn´t permit to develop affinity to a learning community. The collaborative learning limits individual flexibility because it requires that students “sink or swim together” by participating in a learning community. The cooperative learning enables the affinity to a learning community and at the same time encourages individual flexibility. The cooperative learning get benefits from individual freedom and benefits from cooperation. The distance students need cooperation as much as individual freedom and by taking place in network and by having the web 2.0 tools it´s possible to collaborate, store, display the work done and allow to share, organize, add annotations and learn from and with others, as well as they can learn from and with us.

Final Report

In this unit, we are expected to improve and finalize all our annotated bibliographies (ABs) and learning objects (LOs).
I will organize this unit as follows:
Each post corresponds to an improved AB or improved LO. The title of the post indicates the actual unit (Final report), if is an AB or an LO and the correspondent unit.
Each improved AB includes a link to the original AB, new entries and personal comments.
Each improved LO includes a link to the refined LO version and personal comments.

Reviews: Learning Object + Annotated Bibliography

For the activity 3 - Reviews, professor Morten suggest that we consider to review one annotated bibliography and one learning object (instead of two learning objects). So I'll review the Learning Object made by Helena and the Annotated Bibliography shared by Sonia valente.

Helena made an LO very interesting and appealing.
If anyone had doubts about getting or becoming a learning partner, after watching this LO will change his/her mind.
With a personal presentation, students can show the personal side (within limits defined by themselves), and this can be a factor for promoting transparency and consequently cooperation.
In this LO Helena shows the advantages of becoming or getting a learning partner. From my point of view one of the most important is the possibility of having someone, chosen by us, and with whom we can share doubts, thoughts, knowledge, ...
The incorporation of the video gives a special touch.
I also liked the suggestions for possible readings to deepen knowledge.

----------------------------

I'll review the annotated bibliography that Sónia Valente posted on her blog.

Sonia’s annotated bibliography is a list of sites, documents and papers concerned with “Transparency in online Education”.

In each of these items is presented a citation from the text. Since the purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance and accuracy of the sources cited, I think Sonia should have explored these texts, presenting the author's point of view and adding some comments of her own.

The author, date and paper’s title are identified and the title it’s linked to the site of the paper. However, Sonia doesn’t indicate the retrieved date.

I also suggest that sonia organize the annotated bibliography alphabetically or by other criteria explained in the introduction.

Learning object - Transparency in online education

This Learning Object was made in collaboration with two master´s colleagues and focuses on how transparency support some learning activities on the credit unit PPEL.



This was indeed one of the LO more difficult but also more challenging that I realized.

First it was necessary to develop the idea of what was intended: objectives, which was intended to show, the tool to use, request authorization to use the profile of colleagues,...

After going for a video was necessary to obtain records about how transparency support some learning activities on the credit unit PPEL and prepare a script of the video while a script for the voice.

And then the most difficult stage: balancing the image with the voice. Ufa!

In the end there was a problem: the image quality. While on our PC the quality was good when put on youtube the video lose quality.

But I admit that was a very positive experience, because although I had made videos, was the first time I did this in collaboration with two colleagues and ... many meetings were marked, many messages were exchanged, many videos were sent by mail, until we reach the final product.

I hope you enjoy.

Transparency in online education - my point of view

From my point of view we just have to gain in being a transparent learner.

When we put our work, our doubts, our suggestions in a transparent way, in blogs, twitter and other social networking sites, we have two roles: student and teacher.

First, we can learn and evolve through feedback and criticism from others and, second, we transmit knowledge by sharing our ideas and thoughts. Thus, social networking sites have pedagogical potential.

By exposing our work, thoughts, ideas, ... requires us to be more careful with our contributions, and thus transparency promotes quality.

Also personal presentations enable transparency and cooperation, in the sense that by showing our personal side (within the limits set by us) we allow others to be more available to cooperate.

But transparency can also be seen from the perspective of the institution and is important that a student can access to the results and feedback in order to make informed decisions about his education.

It is therefore important that all the pillars of online education: institution, students and teachers collaborate in order to build learning as transparent as possible.

Transparency in online education - Annotated Bibliography

This annotated bibliography aims to bring together a set of ideas that result from a survey about "Transparency in Online Education”, conducted in the UC Processos Pedagógicos em e-learning.
It is alphabetically organized.


• Dalsgaard, C. (2008); "Social networking sites: Transparency in online education”. Retrieved December 28, 2009, from http://eunis.dk/papers/p41.pdf

The aim of this paper is to discuss the question: “What are the pedagogical potentials of social networking sites?”
The author argues that a central feature of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Ning, is a combination of personalization and socialization, which facilitates the transparency between the students. This transparency refers to the ability to observe "the work of each other's thoughts and productions, though working on distance and individually.
The author compares the social networking sites with discussion forums, while in the first 'actions within a social networking site are clear" since the starting point is a personal page and profile of the individual in its own develops and changes, in the seconds " in which communication always takes place in a shared fórum”.
Thus, in this type of social interaction the point of departure is the work of students and their personal pages that are shared on a social network.
Social networking sites has a pedagogical potential and should be considered a supplement to other tools.


• Dalsgaard, C. & Paulsen, M. (2009); “Transparency in Cooperative Online Education”. Retrieved December 28, 2009, from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/671/1267

The article discusses the following question: “What is the potential of social networking within cooperative online education?”.
It´s explained the concepts of Social Networking and Cooperative Learning related with learning theories. In this point it´s presented the theory of cooperative freedom.
The authors argue that transparency is a unique feature of social networking services and would not necessarily involve communication, dialogue, and collaboration.
Transparency “enable students and teachers to see and follow the work of fellow students and teachers within a learning environment and in that sense to make participants available to each other as resources for their learning activities.”
This article demonstrates how cooperative learning can be supported by transparency, “It may further include work students and teachers provide in online notebooks, blogs, and discussion forums as well as results from quizzes, surveys, and assignments”.
Discusses how social networking and transparency can be used in cooperative education online and gives “examples of social software that are relevant for online education are blogs, wikis, social networking sites, RSS, and social bookmarking”.
The authors defend that “communication within social networks, to a large extent, is a matter of awareness and transparency”.


• Hill, C. (2009); “Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality”. Retrieved January 4, 2010, from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/distance-learning/principles-for-improving-online-transparency-quality/

This post describes an initiative "Transparency by Design" which is based on the premise that a well informed student is a benefit. It is intended that the student has access to the results in order to make informed decisions about his education.
Merle Harris, president of Charter Oaks State College, and her associates concluded that there were a few basic principles for institutions that really want to be transparent. They are:
1. Make distance education a central element of your mission
2. Accountability to stakeholders
3. Responsiveness
4. Faculty competence
5. Institutional integrity
6. Excellence in student services
7. Integrity in marketing
8. Curricular quality


• Paulsen, M. (2009); “Transparency in Cooperative Online Education”. Retrieved December 28, 2009, from http://home.nki.no/morten/index.php/component/content/article/3-artikler-uten-kommentarer/86-transparency-in-cooperative-online-education.html

Paulsen argues that transparency has the following three positive effects on quality: Preventive quality improvement, Constructive quality improvement and Reactive quality improvement.
Transparency improves quality in the way it could reduce the amount of low quality contributions and make high quality work more accessible as paragons for others.
The author also argues that transparency promotes cooperation in online education, if people see information about each other they are more likely to cooperate.


• Tanimoto, S. (2005); “Dimensions of Transparency in Open Learner Models”. Retrieved January 3, 2010, from http://www.cs.washington.edu/ole/111tanimoto.pdf

The article discuss the advantages of open learner models in the way they may encourage valuable metacognitive activity and thereby help a learner to learn more effectively and permit modelling errors to be detected more readily so that they can then be corrected.
It´s discussed Transparency and Validity in Learner Models.
There are three dimensions where “the designers of a learner model may strive, through an appropriate mechanism, to achieve a balance between the needs of individual students and the need for consistent, reliable systems”: quantitative dimension, interpretive dimension and validation dimension.


• Richardson, W. (2009); “Transparency = Leadership”. Posted in Weblogg-ed. Retrieved January 5, 2010, from http://weblogg-ed.com/2009/leadership-transparency/

The author calls upon educational leaders to build a "learning as transparent as possible for those around you."


• “Teaching as transparent learning”. Retrieved December 28, 2009, from http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=122

The author of this post claims to have won in being a transparent learner. Through blogs, wikis, Twitter, by expressing his ideas received constructive criticism, feedback, and then he can evolve.
The work we put in blogs, articles, manuals, ... are not an announcement of he knows but one way of sharing and proposed to participate in the discussion.
"When someone decides to share their thoughts and ideas in a transparent manner, they become a teacher to those who are observing."
The author refers to some names that somehow contributed to his learning "by being willing to share how they develop and advance ideas."


• Michael, S. (2009); “An Interview with Morten Flate Paulsen: Transparency in Online Education”. Retrieved January 4, 2010, from http://www.educationnews.org/michael-f-shaughnessy/8076.html

In this interview Paulsen argues that transparency has the following three positive effects on quality: Preventive quality improvement, Constructive quality improvement and Reactive quality improvement.

Transparency improves quality in the way it could reduce the amount of low quality contributions and make high quality work more accessible as paragons for others.

Paulsen also argue that transparency promotes cooperation in online education, if people see information about each other they are more likely to cooperate.

Activity 4 - one question interview

My one-question-interview with Dr Graeme Salter
Head of Program - Bachelor of Information and Communications Technology
Head of Program - Bachelor of Computing (Information Systems)

University of Western Sydney - Australia

Question

data: 10 de Dezembro de 2009 21:15
assunto: online discussion groups

Dear Dr. Graeme Salter
My name is Teresa Fernandes. I’m a Portuguese teacher and an eLearning
student taking a master on Pedagogy of eLearning.
During one of the activities proposed “finding, studying and sharing
materials related to online teaching techniques”, I read some of your
papers “Modeling new skills for online teaching” and “Online
discussion groups: Strategies to enhance participation and
collaboration”.
I considered especially interesting this last one, because I also
consider online discussion groups a powerful many-to-many technique to
increase interaction, reflection and collaboration.
But I have some questions related to online discussion groups that I
would like to share with you and maybe you could give me your point of
view.
As an online teacher what I must think before I start an online
discussion groups? What makes a good online discussion? How can I
evaluate an online discussion?

Thank you and if possible I would like to post this questions and your
answer in the class forum so that the other students may benefit from
it.
Teresa Fernandes

Answer

data 11 de Dezembro de 2009 02:26
assunto RE: online discussion groups

Teresa,

I could write an essay in relation to the questions, but I will keep my answers brief.

1. Before starting an online discussion
a. pedagogy
What is the purpose of the discussion? Is it aimed to help student achieve the learning outcomes of the unit?
b. logisitics
How will I structure the discussion? (eg. starting date, end date, moderated or not, assessible or not, will students be required to respond to others etc).

2. What makes a good online discussion
A topic that is relevant and interesting. If it would motivate lots of students to participate without being assessed then it is a good topic. Sometimes this involves setting a controversial topic (although the rules of netiquette must be made clear). Another pointer to a good discussion is where students actually get involved in online conversations (rather than making a single post).

It can be difficult to find such topics and often we need to include an assessible component to encourage students to participate fully.

3. Evaluating a discussion
Can use standard data collection methods (eg. survey, interview, focus groups). Can also use the discussion data itself. Measurements can be qualitative (eg. what is the level of critique in the discussions?) or quantitative (eg. how many posts/responses are there).

Qualitative can be time-consuming so may want to sample (or get students to self-select their best posts).

A number of researchers are developing tools to analyse the quantitive side in more detail (eg. who are the leaders, who are the followers) - for more information you could contact Dr Shane Dawson at the University of Wollongong http://www.uow.edu.au/gsm/staff/UOW049821.html. He has developed software which graphs the interactions in a visual way.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Graeme

Activity 3 - Reviews of learning objects (Sandra & Mónica)

Sandra and Mónica created a group on Facebook "online teaching".

Facebook is a social network. It's a site where everyone can have their profile, this means that we can have personal information, photos, videos, links, notes, etc…

The members can interact with each other by visiting the profiles, making friends, establishing contacts, leaving comments, sending messages to each other, …

So, by having the online teaching group on Facebook we have another way to communicate.

Activity 3 - Reviews of learning objects (Paulo & José)

Paulo Simões & José Carlos Figueiredo developed, in the social bookmarking website Diigo, a social bookmark group “ Mestrado Pedagogia do E-Learning” which allows to bookmark and tag web pages.
It’s very interesting because it allows users to share, with a group within Diigo, special links, and for instance attach notes to specific highlights of a part of a web page or to a whole page.
With a social bookmarking website it’s:
• possible to access these bookmarks from any computer connected to the Internet
• possible to organize the bookmarks by tags (one or more)
• possible to share bookmarks with friends
• easier to find similar sites to a particular site
• allowed to access to the most popular sites / most of the added time

Activity 2 - Learning object

Developed by: Teresa, Marco & Maria de Lurdes, using ISSUU

Role Play Weakenesses

Role play strengths

Online Teaching Techniques - Annotated bibliography

This annotated bibliography aims to bring together a set of ideas that result from a survey about "online teaching techniques”, conducted in the UC Processos Pedagógicos em e-learning.
It isn’t alphabetically organized.


Paulsen, M.; “Teaching methods and techniques for computer-mediated communication”. Retrieved November 17, 2009, from http://www.nettskolen.com/forskning/22/icdepenn.htm

“Teaching takes place in a system that defines opportunities and constraints and within a system environment that influences the teaching process. The system could be more or less flexible with regard to the teaching methods and techniques that could be applied.”
It’s described the Paulsen’s Theory that argues that "adult students will seek individual flexibility and freedom. At the same time, they need group collaboration and social unity. Computer conferencing, when integrated with other media, can be the means of joining freedom and unity into truly flexible, cooperative distance education programs."
The author refers that “there are no quick, definite, or ready-made answers to the question of how much flexibility a course or program should provide. Nevertheless, teachers and program planners who address the issue of system flexibility are likely to provide better teachingsystems.”

Are referred three components constituting the process of adult education, discussed by Verner(1964, 35): "There are three basic components inherentin the establishment of [a relationship for learning between an educational agent and a learner]: organizing people for learning,helping the participants to learn, and selecting from the multitude of devices available ... to facilitate the operation of the first two. These three components are identified as methods, techniques,and devices."

Methods
Verner (1964, 36) distinguished between individual methods and group methods. This paper suggest that the methods are related to the four communication paradigms often used in CMC. The paradigms are information retrieval, electronic mail, bulletin boards, and computer conferencing. And so the framework comprises the four methods: one-alone , one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many.
Techniques
“A pedagogical technique is a manner of accomplishing teaching objectives. The techniques introduced here are organized according to the four communication paradigms used in computer-mediated communication.”
The techniques classified as one-alone are characterized by retrieval of information from online resources and the fact that a student can perform the learning task without communication with the teacher or other students.
The techniques classified as one-to-one can be conducted via e-mail applications.
The techniques discussed as one-to-many will typically be conducted via World Wide Web, bulletin boards or distribution lists for e-mail.
The techniques presented as many-to-many can be organized within computer conferencing systems, bulletin board systems, or distribution lists for e-mail.

Devices
Using the CMC-classification derived from Rapaport (1991), there are four major CMC-devices: information retrieval systems, electronic mail systems, bulletin board systems, and computer conferencing systems. These four CMC-devices correspond primary to the four methods: one-alone, one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many.

The System Environment
Teaching takes place in a system environment that influences the teaching process. Focusing on adult education, Donaldson discussed the environment in view of constraints, demands, and choices.



Paulsen, M. (1995); “The Online Report on Pedagogical Techniques for Computer-Mediated Communication”. Retrieved November 17, 2009, from http://www.nettskolen.com/forskning/19/cmcped.html#g

In this online report are given the definitions of Computer-Mediated Communication (Cmc) and Pedagogical Technique.
It’s made a brief review of the literature describing techniques that can be used to facilitate adult learning and an overview of possible pedagogical CMC techniques:
McCreary and Van Duren (1987)
1.The notice board
2.The public tutorial
3.The individual project
4.Free flow discussion
5.The structured seminar
6.Peer counselling
7.Collective database
8.Group product
9.Community decision making
10.Inter-community networking
Harasim (1991 and 1992)
1.Seminars
2.Small group discussions
3.Learning partnerships and dyads
4.Small working groups
5.Team presentations/moderating by the learners
6.Simulations or role plays
7.Debating teams
8.Peer learning groups
9.Informal socializing: the online cafe
10.Mutual assist for help
11.Access to additional educational resources
Rekkedal and Paulsen (1989)
1.Distribution of information
2.Two-way communication between tutor/counsellor/administration and student
3.An alternative to face-to-face teaching, introduction of group discussion and
4.project work
5.The public tutorial
6.Peer counselling
7.Free flow discussion
8.The library
Kaye (1992)
1.The virtual seminar
2.The online classroom
3.Online games and simulations
4.Computer-supported writing and language learning
5.Multi-media distance education adjunct
6.Lecture-room adjunct
7.The education utility

A pedagogical technique is a manner of accomplishing teaching objectives. The techniques are organized according to the four communication paradigms used in computer-mediated communication: The Online Resource Paradigm, The E-mail Paradigm, The Bulletin Board Paradigm and The Conferencing Paradigm. And each
paradigm correspond to one the four methods: one-online, one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many.
So, in this article the techniques are organized according to the four communication paradigms used in CMC

1.One-alone Techniques: The Online Resource Paradigm
Online journals, online databases, interviews, online interest groups.
2.One-to-one Techniques: The E-mail Paradigm
Learning contracts, internships, apprenticeships.
3.One-to-many Techniques: The Bulletin Board Paradigm
Lectures, symposiums, skits.
4.Many-to-many Techniques: The Conferencing Paradigm
Debates, simulations, games, case studies, discussion groups, brainstorming, Delphi techniques, nominal group process, forums, group projects.


“Quizz on Online Teaching Techniques”. Retrieved November 17, 2009, from http://www.studymentor.com/Quizzes/Online_Teaching_Techniques.htm

In this quiz we can associate the Teaching Techniques to the four techniques by dragging and dropping the 24 Teaching Techniques under the correct categories.


Salter, G. & .Hansen, S., “MODELLING NEW SKILLS FOR ONLINE TEACHING”. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/brisbane99/papers/salterhansen.pdf

This article considered important to model the new teaching strategies and skills required for teaching successfully in an online environment
It’s listed the following Methods for teaching online:
• Asynchronous Computer Mediated Communication (eg. email, discussion groups)
• Synchronous Computer Mediated Communication (eg.chats, desktop videoconferencing, groupware)
• Online Assessment
• Learning Resources
• Documents (eg. lecture notes, readings)
• Multimedia (interactive or otherwise)
• Links to external resources
• Student Prepared Material
And the following Methods to structure online activities:
• Requiring a deliverable (eg. plans, designs, papers, portfolios etc)
• Limiting the scope of activities in terms of size and/or time
• Providing closure to activities
• Actively moderating discussions
• Conducting collaborative projects
• Interacting with guest speakers
• Debates & role plays
• Surveys & polls
• Formation of learning teams
• Brainstorming


“List of online databases”. Retrieved November 20, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_databases

This is a list of online databases accessible via the internet


Brogan , C. (2008); “50 Online Applications and Sites to Consider”, posted in the blog “Community and Social Media”. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-online-applications-and-sites-to-consider/

This is a list of things that we might check out a little bit at a time to see what appeals, what fits into our workflow, and what we can dismiss as unnecessary for our needs.


“Software libraries” posted in the site “Free Software Directory”. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://directory.fsf.org/category/libs/

In this post we can check the Categories within Software libraries and Projects within Software libraries.


“Online Interest Groups” article posted in the site “Infopool by computer Partners”. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://www.compar.com/infopool/Online-Interest-Groups/

Give a list of articles and information about specific interest topics and groups that we can find online.


Gangel, K.;” 24 Ways to Improve Your Teaching” , posted in “Bible.org” site. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://bible.org/series/24-ways-improve-your-teaching

Provide the links to several teaching techniques.


Gangel, K.;“The Interview as a Teaching Technique”, posted in “Bible.org” site. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://bible.org/seriespage/interview-teaching-technique

“The objective of the interview is to solicit information about a specific topic so that the class may have the opportunity of responding to this information.”
This article highlights the positive points of the interview:
• Student’s participation: “the student who interviews must be involved right from the point of assignment, through the securing of the information, to the presentation, discussion, and evaluation in the class.”
• Opportunity to plug in a vast amount of information to the classroom setting
It also clarifies that are Problems in Interview Teaching like the need to motivate the students or the student’s incompetence to formulate satisfactory interview questions; and the principles for effective interview teaching.


Gangel, K.;“Teaching with Case Studies” , posted in “Bible.org” site. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://bible.org/seriespage/teaching-case-studies

“We can bring case studies into class in printed form and use them as the content of a discussion, or we can actually send our students out to do the field work of observation, analysis, and reporting on the thoughts and behavior of real, live people.”
Values of the Case Study Approach:
• confront the student with a real life situation
• of great interest to students
• it’s geared to teach problem-solving methods
• by using live case studies instead of printed ones, we take a big step forward in the development of maturity on the part of our students.
Problems with Case Study Teaching
• “If we fail to present meaningful contemporary cases for our students to deal with, we have diminished the value of the approach”
• Immaturity of the students
• The teacher’s inability to write satisfactory cases
Are also listed the principles for effective case study teaching



“Learning Contracts”, posted in the site “Best Practice: Pieces of the Puzzle”. “Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://www.centralischool.ca/~bestpractice/contract/index.html

Gives a description of a learning contract


Erdogan, F.;“What is an Internship? “, posted in “The International Educational Site”. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://www.intstudy.com/articles/nusinter.htm



DeRosa, T. (2009); “Creating skits to teach Math and Science”, posted in blog “I want to teach forever”. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from
http://www.teachforever.com/2009/09/creating-skits-to-teach-math-and.html

This post suggests that a skit should be:
1.Brief
2.Humorous
3.Written in a conversational tone
It’s given an example for a math´s skit.
And suggest that is positive to have the students writing skits.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009

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