LearningTimes Green Room

In this special anniversary show, Susan and Dan celebrate one year of podcasting in the LT Green Room and are joined by some very special guests in a game show format. Don't miss it!

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Show Notes:

Susan and Dan’s special guests (and good sports) on the Anniversary Game Show included:

• Dr. Sivasailam “Thiagi” Thiagarajan, The Thiagi Group
• Matthew Richter, The Thiagi Group
• Cheri Toledo, Illinois State University
• Rodger Hergert, Rock Valley College and Illinois Online Network
• Jonathan Finkelstein, LearningTimes
• John Walber, LearningTimes

SPECIAL NOTE: All of the guests on this program received complimentary registration passes to the Jossey-Bass Online Teaching and Learning (OTL) Conference Online, a completely online conference connecting the authors of the best-selling OTL series of guidebooks with education professionals worldwide. Susan and Dan will be special guest speakers during the conference, conducting a practical how-to session on educational podcasting. Consider joining us October 17-18, 2007. All participants receive their choice of 3 guidebooks. Use discount code “LTGR10″ when registering for a $10 discount compliments of the LT Green Room.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this podcast, Susan and Dan take a serious look at the use of humor in online learning. What styles of humor work online, and what do not? Why can humor be controversial? Listen in and share your thoughts: this episode *is* a laughing matter.

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Show Notes:

Dan and Susan seriously look at why humor is controversial in online learning. Susan’s recent class took up the topic as a discussion about whether humor does, in fact have a place in online learning.

First, they clarify different styles of humor. For example, Susan doesn’t tell jokes, but she laughs a lot and sometimes her interpretations of why something is funny become funnier in and of themselves. Dan’s style is top crack a joke when no one expects it. Does that work online?

This leads to a discussion of the importance of letting one’s authenticity show when teaching online.

Making sure instructors know the boundaries: class, gender, race, (show an awareness of and sensitivity to) and sarcasm — probably never appropriate.

Dan looked into the pedagogical value of humor. Don’t just use it to be funny. Humor can help learners see something from a different perspective. It can help them relax.

You can ask students to find examples, with moderation.

Humor can also be a saying or proverb or images. Dan shares the example of a quote from Flannery O’Conner.

Dan references the research in this article, “Bringing Life to Online Instruction with Humor”.

Susan plays devils advocate and asks if students in a more humorous class learn more than those in a not-as-funny version. Dan thinks they do because they’re more engaged emotionally.

Dan and Susan would like to hear stories of successful use of humor — and a couple failures.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

Dan and Susan examine how people are using audio when teaching online, and ask listeners to share how voice figures into their own online courses.

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Show Notes:

Adding Audio to Your Online Course:

Topic is revisited from more than 2 years ago. Dan and Susan look at how universal voice is when teaching online. Are people using voice and if so, how?

At the time of recording, Susan was taking a class with Norm Garrett (former guest) on podcasting and the issue of voice came up for discussion, specifically the explaining voice as described in this article [PDF] by Gardner Campbell Susan gives her two cents. Well, she explains her point.

Not to get too tied to podcasting, you can have audio without subscription and RSS and have it in many form. Live chat could be one option. Giving feedback in audio is another form. It could be adding contextual information that supports what else is happening. It could be announcements or an introduction at the beginning of a unit or a summary at the dn. Lots of possibilities where you might introduce voice in place of text.

Dan asks is Susan hears other voices … a very funny moment.

The serious point is that Dan asks if there are different tones you would want to take depending on your purpose for using voice.

Is there a pedagogical reason to use a different voice depending on where you are in the course? Susan doesn’t have an answer. She goes on to say that putting one’s voice into the course personalizes the message in a way that the written word generally doesn’t.

Susan and Dan reference research done by Jeff Sommers on audio feedback.

Jeff Sommer’s webpage about audio commentary.

Research on student preferences for audio commentary on their papers done by Dr. Sue Sipple with Jeff Sommers

Jeff’s recommendations on tools for recording audio commentary.

What does it take to add audio? You could set up a microphone, use Audacity to record and encode and email the file. Or you can use a portable player like an iRiver mp3 player, which encodes automatically when you take the file off the little machine. Warning: check with your institution to see if emailing this feedback would violate FERPA.

You could even add voice comments to documents within Microsoft Word. Susan knows people who tried that and complained of huge file sizes, but are they bigger than a lengthy mp3?

Many of the newer course management systems support audio, too.

Dan and Susan would like to hear from people using voice in their courses. They’d also like to hear from those who are not … why not?

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this episode, Susan and Dan learn how the Smithsonian is using real-time online interaction to prepare for a new Ocean Portal exhibit, and get a first-hand account of the synchronous certification program offered by LearningTimes on leading effective online events.

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Show Notes:

Stephanie Eskins joins us from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History where she works as a consultant on the Ocean Portal, an upcoming online electronic outreach arm that will help the public learn about aspects of the ocean. This portal coincides with a new exhibit that will open in September 2008. You can learn more about this and increase your “ocean literacy” at http://ocean.si.edu/

Stephanie enrolled in the Certified Synchronous Training Program (CSTP) through LearningTimes based on the expertise of the instructor (Jonathan Finkelstein) and his book. We asked her about her experiences.

Great, practical advice came from the book! Through the learning community, Stephanie was able to see alternative approaches. Used real examples from work.

Stephanie took the most creative examples and created a personal toolkit for future use.

The team of Smithsonian staff, NOOA staff, and leading oceanographic institutions come together regularly via synchronous online meetings, so she has been able to incorporate at least one activity per meeting. Eventually this might be applied to real people, too, as the general public interacts with the site and experts.

What was it like to return to the learner’s chair? Stephanie reflected on how enjoyable Jonathan and the other learners made the program. The two key points she took from the course: 1) Focus on active learning and not just presenting; and 2) learning to adjust the complexity or level of the material on the fly. Great skills!

We’d like to know from listeners whether they’d go to an online portal and how do they interact with natural history museums?

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this show, Dan and Susan review an article from Training Magazine entitled, “Seven Revelations about E-learning.”

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Show Notes:

Dan and Susan review an article from April 2006 Training Magazine: Seven Revelations about E-learning.

Article discusses Tweeter’s shift from classroom training to e-learning.

1. There’s no funeral yet for the classroom. Use the classroom to your advantage; simulations, role plays, etc. that you can best do face to face.
2. Designers need to curb course overload. Hunk things into smaller units. We don’t always need a full blown course.
3. Wham bam thank you mam works. Rapid instructional design. There are tools to help designers build courses quickly.
4. Somethings never change. You still have to find a way to engage the learner.
5. Some elements get lost in translation. Learning objects have not been as popular as we thought they’d be.
6. Designers need to understand learning styles. This also speaks to mindsets that come with certain professions.
7. E-learning is more effective to the work it supports. This spoke more to serendipitous problem solving that came from developing e-learning. Very fuzzy for both Dan and Susan.

This was a short article that puts forth basic ideas. We would like to hear from listeners about their own revelations through the past 5 years or so related to e-learning.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this show, Susan and Dan are thinking about vacations and take on the theme of technology and leisure. They look at travel, connectivity and learning.

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Show Notes:

Susan and Dan are thinking about vacations and take on the theme of technology and leisure. They look at travel, connectivity and learning.

Technology and travel: Mapquest, searching accommodations, making reservations, flight arrangements, and so on. Susan tried to book a cruise online and had to call to talk to a customer service representative.

Reviews of other people are helpful, comparing prices.

GPS systems in cars or handheld models. Susan’s story of camping brother-in-law and his gadgets.

When you go on vacation, do you stay connected? Dan considers whether he’ll take the laptop.

Dan’s research: 26% of Americans still check into work when on vacation. Comparison of UK and American colleagues and the differences in how they handle vacations.

Susan goes technology-free for 3 weeks in August. She goes to a place with NO connectivity.

But she picks her campgrounds based on wifi, but that’s because she’s still teaching online.

Dan says 14% of workers who don’t check in still feel guilty. They discuss setting up realistic expectations for students and faculty and the importance of having backup plans.

This transitions to Fun Fridays, Susan’s kids’ project online. They are blogging about their Friday experiences. Interestingly, they were not interested in podcasting.

Technology and entertainment: Dan recently went to Disneyland, to the Small World exhibit. The moving puppets are dated technologically. How do they compare to virtual reality experiences? What would children say? How do “edutainment” places keep up with rapidly changing technology?

Susan suggests we all step back and enjoy what leisure time we have and asks listeners to share their plans and technology gadgets for travel.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this epsiode, Susan and Dan reflect on the recent online conference on The Future of Education.

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Show Notes:

Susan and Dan review the Future of Education online conference, June 4-8, organized by George Siemens and hosted by the University of Manitoba’s Learning Technologies Centre. The conference site and information can be found here.

It’s never too late to benefit since the discussions and presentations are archived!

As Dan and Susan discuss they key points they got from the conference, keep in mind that they participated in distinctly different ways. Susan attended the live sessions, and Dan followed the asynchronous discussions.

Where do you think education will be 10 years from now? Most active discussion. Emerging theme on home schooling. This became an international issue. Another point was visible community learning, having one place for learning in a community. In general, moving education away from formalized structure into less formal means.

Susan reflected on a point she hadn’t thought about before, brought out in the keynote by Sugata Mitra. It’s the people without money and resources that need the technology, not those of us who have the money and the technology. He gave several examples she enjoyed (especially as an ESL teacher).

Dan recommends we follow this link to read more about a program in Bangalore he read about in the discussions. The term was “slow learning.”

Virginia Yonkers’ good question: How can we prepare students without using technology how to live in a technological world?

Susan also attended a session by Cheri Toledo and her colleagues on preparing future teachers to use technology. How do we teach students to use technology and then what do we do to support them once they graduate? Several different models were shared. Key points: focus more on pedagogy and move away from teacher-centered practice.

Much discussion about technology in emerging or developing countries and what pedagogical models might work.

Future of education map by Knowledge Works foundation. What are the forces that will affect the future of education? This led to quite a discussion about the “end of cyberspace” The physical and emotional component of learning will not be artificially separated between the physical and virtual worlds.

That supports the idea of the personal side of learning, which was another key theme.

Jay Cross raised the question of why we’re continuing to do more research and not just acting (as business does). Also, preparation of students and the skills needed in the workplace.

The cross-continental discussions and clarification of vocabulary were interesting reads.

Interesting parallel between education in the web 2.0 world and the medieval world. Blogs are like common places (not like commons). Susan’s observations of what’s happening in online learning supports the idea of students seeking out teachers and not just going to a classroom.

Susan learned the phrase “the third place” and hopes listeners will come back to share their ideas about the future of education.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this brief program, hosts Susan and Dan ask listeners to share ways they make their own classrooms more learner-centered. Whether you are teaching three year-olds or third year law students, and whether your instruction is face-to-face or online, Susan and Dan want to hear from you and will feature your ideas on a future show.

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You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!