Good point Sylvia: what is "easy"? And, the business of creating accounts does open a can of worms and frankly, can be a deterrent, especially for one-off use.
I think "easy" might mean something I can do with my existing skillset (e.g., I don't need to go and learn a whole bunch more). If I do need to know something more, "easy" would involve clear, step by step instructions for accomplishing the task.
One of the tools we looked at in the session was Bubble Joy - I would classify it as easy. It does require a web cam and mic (which may not be easy for some users), but if you have these things, it requires little more than clicking "record'.
I noticed the quality today wasn't as good as other times I've used it, so maybe their servers are slow for some reason.
Here's an example: http://www.bubblejoy.com/card.php?id=kvyu6
Tracy Roberts
Posts made by Tracy Roberts
Tools
- Big Huge Labs: http://bighugelabs.com
- Voice Over PowerPoint: http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/powerpoint/CH063500681033.aspx Help/troubleshooting if you have trouble: http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/ppnarration.html
- BubbleJoy: http://www.bubblejoy.com/
- YouTube: http//www.youtube.com
- VoiceThread: http://voicethread.com
- Video Conferencing: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/Tools/conferencing.html
Learning Styles, Inventories...
- Jung Typology Test (similar to MBTI) http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm
- Learning Styles Inventories http://www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/
- Gardner Multiple Intelligences: http://www.ldrc.ca/projects/miinventory/miinventory.php#form
Some Research
Baker, C. (2010). The Impact of Instructor Immediacy and Presence for Online Student Affective Learning, Cognition, and Motivation. The Journal of Educators Online, Volume 7, Number 1, January 2010 http://www.thejeo.com/Archives/Volume7Number1/BakerPaper.pdfLam, W., Chua, A., Williams, J.B. & Lee, C. (2005). Virtual teams: Surviving or thriving? Proceedings of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education Annual Conference. Brisbane, Australia.
Mandernach, Gonzales, Garrett (2006). An Examination of Online Instructor Presence via Threaded Discussion Participation. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching Vol. 2, No. 4, December 2006 http://jolt.merlot.org/vol2no4/mandernach.htm
Palloff, Rena M., and Keith Pratt. Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom, San Francisco: Josey-Bass Publishers, 1999.
- What have you liked about SCoPE?
timely, relevant topics ranging from the philosophical to the practical, and guest moderators I'm keen to work with. A community much larger/broader than I would otherwise have access to. Sylvia's relentless pursuit of all of the above - What would you change?
I would like more participation on my part :( That's about all I can think of honestly - What are your ideas for future activities?
Personally/professionally, the things I'm most interested in right now are: open courses/courseware, PLEs and what I'm calling "instructional un-design" in these situations, mobile learning, and figuring out excellent active strategies/best practices for facilitating synchronous sessions/web conferences
I've worked in online/distance education since about 1998 - how times have changed! Teachers and learners in our courses now (online/distance and "regular") are much more involved and connected and supported by technology to build and sustain communities. I'm always looking for effective, innovative, or just neato ways to help them do this.
I'm currently an instructional designer for Royal Roads University, and an active member in the steering committee for educational technology users group (scetug/etug) with Leva and Sylvia.
Lately, the importance of online communities has increased for me, personally and professionally. Last fall, I moved from Victoria to the toolies in the Okanagan. This means I now stay connected and work on projects entirely at a distance. I have gone from being under-whelmed by wikis to being a huge fan of them.
One thing I struggle with is staying on top of it all - wikis here, forums there, tweets and blogs and feeds and emails, etc, etc...my current best practice is iGoogle with a whack of subscriptions, organized in tabs. I'm interested to know how others manage.
Another thing I struggle with is being primarily a lurker vs. active participant. I think it's related to the above :)
Very much looking forward to seeing you all on Friday!
I'm currently an instructional designer for Royal Roads University, and an active member in the steering committee for educational technology users group (scetug/etug) with Leva and Sylvia.
Lately, the importance of online communities has increased for me, personally and professionally. Last fall, I moved from Victoria to the toolies in the Okanagan. This means I now stay connected and work on projects entirely at a distance. I have gone from being under-whelmed by wikis to being a huge fan of them.
One thing I struggle with is staying on top of it all - wikis here, forums there, tweets and blogs and feeds and emails, etc, etc...my current best practice is iGoogle with a whack of subscriptions, organized in tabs. I'm interested to know how others manage.
Another thing I struggle with is being primarily a lurker vs. active participant. I think it's related to the above :)
Very much looking forward to seeing you all on Friday!
Hi Nancy,
It seemed to me that there was a split in the crowd: those who were still interested by this issue/topic, and those who were kind of getting tired of it.
I think the perception of this as a barrier/boundary comes more directly to us from institutions and cultures/attitudes/policies there. though I guess ultimately inspired by larger bodies - gov't/law/legal responsibilities.
and then a subtext to the discussion that i heard more than once was this idea: data travels to/through the states no matter what. so maybe we're kidding ourselves in thinking we keep it all in canada by avoiding services hosted in the US. true? I don't know.
personally, I am torn. I am a play-by-the-rules kind of gal, but at the same time, i do grow weary of this:
"Oh hey, here's a cool tool we could use in our courses...!"
"No. We can't: Patriot Act"
It seemed to me that there was a split in the crowd: those who were still interested by this issue/topic, and those who were kind of getting tired of it.
I think the perception of this as a barrier/boundary comes more directly to us from institutions and cultures/attitudes/policies there. though I guess ultimately inspired by larger bodies - gov't/law/legal responsibilities.
and then a subtext to the discussion that i heard more than once was this idea: data travels to/through the states no matter what. so maybe we're kidding ourselves in thinking we keep it all in canada by avoiding services hosted in the US. true? I don't know.
personally, I am torn. I am a play-by-the-rules kind of gal, but at the same time, i do grow weary of this:
"Oh hey, here's a cool tool we could use in our courses...!"
"No. We can't: Patriot Act"