R2D2 - Empowering Online Learning: July 21 - August 3, 2008

I'm a former faculty member at a liberal arts college in upstate New York. I assisted in teaching the online part of a blended graduate course some years ago. I'm mostly self-taught in using Web 2.0 tools (with the help of my young adult children).

I'm in this seminar because I'm very interested in the variety of activities that faculty can use to make their classes more interesting, relevant, and learner-centered. I'm particularly interested in finding specific examples of the application of the suggestions in R2D2 in liberal arts college classrooms.

I've worked in the area of organizational change for a number of years. Part of my personal learning beyond this seminar is wanting to understand the leverage points in academe that would make the needed changes more attainable.

I'm also a voracious learner and will be learning from the perspectives of all of you.

Hello:

To respond to Nancy's question:

"Why are you participating in this seminar?"

I'm participating because...

-I'd like to understand a lot more about on-line learning from "experts"

-I'd like to explore on-line learning "issues" from three viewpoints: learner, facilitator, instructional designer.

-I have an opportunity to take care of my professional development needs.

Who am I? I am the Curriculum Co-ordinator in a large service department in a Canadian technical college (SAIT Polytechnic, Calgary, Alberta).

As we are designing or updating courses, we are developing for blended and fully on-line delivery. My interest is connected to how I--as curriculum co-ordinator/project manager--help SMEs and instructional designers meet the needs of our learners and facilitators (on-line instructors).

I hope to be an active participant; however, I expect I'll end up being an active lurker instead.

Looking forward to the discussion.

Cheers, Christine (Chris) Horgan

Hi Nancy and others,
This is my 3rd Scope Seminar.

I am a Registered Psychologist, Academy of American Dance/Movement Therapist Registered, and a Registered Canadian Art therapist who has been involved in learning and teaching online since 2003. I am presently teaching on contract with U of Lethbridge online in Health Psychology.

I'm also about to take my last course in the Graduate Diploma in Distance Education and Technology with Athabasca University -- in September -- and have been reading in this area in preparation for the course.

I like these seminars -- as I am learning with community. I am also very busy and I'm really wanting to stay more grounded in do-able ideas for online teaching and communications of all kinds.

Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers

Nancy, I love your taking initiative!

I am Jeffrey Keefer, and I live and work in New York City as an instructional designer at Visiting Nurse Service of New York, as well as an adjunct instructor at New York University in Human Resource Management / Development, Training, and Management Communication.

I am participating in this seminar for two reasons:

1. My organization is increasingly looking for ways to encourage and successfully use technology enhanced learning, and anything that will assist in this process is useful for me.
2. I expect to begin teaching some online classes soon, and am looking for some tips to help me get started.

As an aside, I am finding that more of my professional and personal colleagues I get to know via online courses such as this one, and with limited time and resources to speak with people in the purely F2F world, the more I have started to recognize colleagues who are online are every bit as real and even more available than a traditional in-person-only relationship. The online world does tend to expand possibilities, and that is some of my learning I am bringing to this learning experience itself! 

My name is Kyla Bates and I am the Distance Learning Manager at Spokane Falls Community College in Washington State.  My job is to train faculty how to teach online and aid students in thier process of learning online.  I am always looking for information to pass on to the faculty to help them do their job better.

Hi, all. I'm the associate director of Instructional Technology Services at San Diego State. As an institution we're somewhat behind the curve in terms of online offerings, but we have a growing cadre of faculty who have been part of a fellowship program focused on enhancing teaching and learning with technology. In the past couple of years this program has become more tightly focused on course redesign for blended learning. This summer, we are offering a handful of high-demand undergraduate courses online through the regular enrollment process (not extended studies) for the first time, and most of the faculty involved have been through the fellowship program and have been designing/teaching hybrid courses.

So, we are always on the lookout for helpful models and ideas which we can share with faculty to help them understand what it means to be designers of effective learning experiences and environments.

Thank you Nancy for getting us started with some introductions! And good suggestion to remind everyone to just say hello even if you're planning read along for the next couple of weeks. At SCoPE we fully expect and encourage people to participate on the periphery, and it's always nice to know you're here.

I picked up my copy of the book yesterday afternoon. I live about 40 minutes from the post office and had my fingers crossed that the little parcel notice I received in the mail would be the book. To celebrate I treated myself to a big ice cream cone while I was in town.

Why am I participating in this seminar?
1) I participate in all SCoPE seminars, even if it's just to read along.
2) I have followed and admired Curt's work for many years, and I look forward to getting to know Ke. I wrote a bit about that on my blog.
3) I'm always looking for new ideas for learning and teaching online. I have found books like this, with practical and well organized descriptions of activities, to be so useful for keeping things fresh but also for getting the creative juices flowing for thinking differently about instruction.
4) This will be a great set of resources and tools to add to my stash when helping others.

Now to get reading...so I can do the reflecting, displaying, and doing part!

Hello everybody! This is my first Scope Seminar and I like the idea of participating in this Professional Reading Group and being part of a collaborative community. I am from Argentina and I don’t have the book but I am reading Dr. Curt Bonk’s website. At the moment I am doing research in educational technology and I am sure I will learn from you all.

Silvia

My name is Marsha West. I have been working in online learning for many years now. I was a member of the faculty of The Virtual High School for several years. I developed and taught an AP level English Literature and Humanities course for VHS, worked as the Site Coordinator for my high school, and helped to train new VHS teachers as they came on board in writing and delivering netcourses.

After I retired from my secondary school position, I started my own consulting business, M.West Consulting, Inc. I have worked for PBS TeacherLine for several years, training others to facilitate the TeacherLine professional development courses for K12 teachers. I have also worked for some other entities like the Jason Foundation, Metacourse, and a project where Concord Consortium and PBS partnered in developing math courses for secondary Algebra teachers.

I participate in seminars here in SCoPE (and its predecessor, Global Educators Network (GEN), KnowPlace, etc. and occasional do presentations at conferences like ELearn, NECC, UCCP, etc. I base my work on the pedagogy I learned through Concord Consortium, as expressed in the Concord eLearning Model.

I'm here because I always want to know more about how to effectively teach and facilitate online. I'm glad to see so many familiar names here so far.

~~marsha

Hi Nancy and Scope members,

I am very much a lurker in these SCoPE seminars but I enjoy reading and learning. I am a computer educator in an elementary school in Port Elizabeth, South Africa where I teach grades 1 to 3 to use the computer as a tool for learning.

I am also an online tutor for teachers doing an Advanced Certificate in Education, Integrating ICT's into the curriculum. This course is run by email because many of the distributed group have slow dial-up connections in their rural schools.

Another cap I wear is Intel Teach course facilitator. This is usually done f2f but I am about to go on training as an online facilitator for the course.

Bandwidth is a huge issue in SA but I am interested in learning all I can about online tools. I look forward to learning from this seminar.

hi all,
I am so happy to being a participant in a Scope seminar again. I am a research assistant in Instructional Technologies Department In Ege Uni (www.ege.edu.tr) in Turkey.
I have a master degree in the same department. I am studying about Online Collaborative learning and Social Skills.
It is good to see Dr.Bonk and Dr.Zhang.
Best Wishes

Firat
www.firatsarsar.com

Hi All,

I'll be trying to keep up with lurking along with this discussion. I work mainly in the ELT / ESL / EFL field. I'm a freelance consultant, writer, trainer , content designer etc etc.

I've worked in classrooms all over the world teaching English / EFL and as a teacher trainer and ICT trainer. I'm currently working on a number of projects which include the BBC / British Council's site for teachers of English http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/ , I'm also working with a group of trainer trainers here in Morocco on dveloping their ICT skills and their ability to deliver blended solutions for teacher development.

When I have some free time I work on two blogs:
A learning technology blog aimed at supporting and giving models for teachers of languages interested in using technology
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/
And another for teachers in more general education which focuses more on short reviews of new web based resources
http://quickshout.blogspot.com/

I'm here on this list to read and learn and develop my knowledge of how technology is being applied in other fields.

Best

Nik Peachey

Hello all

I too am a reader of posts and a lurker. I am the Instructional Designer for Saint Francis Xavier University's Continuing & Distance Education department in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. I am also a doctoral student, investigating the motivations and expectations of teachers new to the distance/on-line courses in their Master of Education degree.

I look forward to this discussion!

Wendy

Hello to everyone

My name is Anne Marie McEwan. I have multiple, inter-related areas of knowledge and expertise. I suppose they can be catagorised into 'what' and 'how'.

The 'what', broadly, is how organisational management systems influence organisation behaviour. Recently, this has evolved into monitoring how workplaces are changing globally (or not) in response to technological, economic and demographic developments.

The 'how' is action learning. I work with senior executives to help them evaluate and implement new business strategies, increasingly focusing on making the transition to new working practices. Rather than executives joining a pre-designed Master's course, my colleagues and I design Master's programmes around a practical strategic challenge the executives bring to us. After scoping the problem, we build a customised programme of work. The executives are awarded academic credit for what they learn from what they do.

My work to date has been exclusively face-to-face. In my own business, since leaving academia, I have routinely been learning, sharing and collaborating online.

I know that there is great scope to take online elements of what I do face-to-face, and I am currently working with developers to build a learning platform.

Why am I here? To share whatever might be useful or interesting, and to learn from all the deep expertise in this community.

Looking forward to it