Thursday, April 7, 2011

Lunch n Learn Webinar - Instructio​nal Design for Live, Online Learning


Corporate personhood by Truthout.org

Yesterday I attended a one hour mini-workshop - a Lunch and Learn webinar, conducted via Citrix online by GoToTraining. I am not sure how I got my name on the list of subscribers but I have been receiving invites to these sessions for a few months and have been keen to try them out. I did have to register but I only registered moments before the session as I knew I would be available then.

Speakers during the session were Roger Courville, author of The Virtual Presenter's Handbook and Karen Moloney (moderator) from LearnX Foundation. The session was obviously targetting a 'corporate' audience. The look and feel was more 'corporate' than any of the other OER sessions that I attend.

I really enjoyed Roger's style, he was clear and moved through the concepts at pace but allowed several opportunities for participants to interact. He used several techniques to encourage participation. The first was very clever, he assumed that participants were taking notes and directed them on how to set out a diagram to follow the diagram that was being completed by him throughout the session. Being a visual learner this enticed me to neaten up my notes and I quickly transferred from pen to pencil and grabbed a ruler, interesting human behaviour. I am going to try this one in the training room, because everytime I suggest participants take notes I get a blank stare as if to say "but You are the one doing the work, I'll just get a copy of that later". Roger also enticed participants to answer questions using their mic's, he used a copy of his book as the incentive.

Throughout the session Karen acted as the moderator and fed questions that were coming in via the chatroll. It was not clear how many participants were in the session and I could not see the questions coming through, but I could see messages sent 'To All' from Karen, so I can only assume that participants were directing their questions directly to the facilitators, rather than 'To All' in the group.

The topic of the webinar was considerations when designing online learning, in particular taking existing modules into an online environment.
In the email brief they explaint that ...The challenge is to move beyond 'talking over PowerPoint' to designing an interactive learning experience that engages and educates learners. Courville offers some very practical steps to adapt exercises for a virtual classroom.

GoToTraining offer the use of their webinar (GoToWebinar) service (at a cost), they also have GoToMeeting and GoToTraining but offer a free 30 day trial on these services. I found the Citrix online platform very user friendly, it did not cut out during the session and the images and audio were very clear. The follow up emails sent to me offer a recorded copy of the session, which will come in handy as there were several interruptions during the session - baby waking and husband coming home.

Overall I really enjoyed the session and will be keen to involve myself in more of these sessions and perhaps delve into Roger's written work when I come to sit down and transfer material into an online format.






Sunday, April 3, 2011

Joining mobiMOOC to share m-learning hints and techniques

Silver spring by Katmere
So here I go again, into another MOOC.

PLENK raised my awareness about my learning journey, CCK11 sent my head into a spin, but I think mobiMOOC will be a platform for sharing ideas about m-learning.

Why am I keen to be involved?
I am most recently the proud owner of an iphone 4. I was uncertain (for months) about making the 'financial' commitment but when my 'old' (very old) phone failed me several times over, I had no choice but to move into the future, and I have been surprised by the convenience that the iphone offers. Linking to my google calendar (one calendar in my hand!!!), reading and deleting emails while waiting for my son to come out of his Taekwondo grading.


Now I find out that I can take photos and have the immediately upload to flickr, I need to get me some more of these m-learning hints....and I have found where I can source this wealth of knowledge...Mobimooc.

In researching which phone to purchase (ie. asking everybody I know, who has a mobile phone, what they like about their phone) I was surprised to find that there is an 'in-balance' of information, if this is the right way to express it.

Let me explain...

I particularly targetted the Gen Y'ers, thinking they would know so much more than me about all things 'online', but some did not know what an RSS feed or an Android was, I was bamboozling them with my technical knowledge. It reinforced yet again (how many times do I need to learn this lesson) everybody else does not neccessarily know more than me but everybody knows many things that I do not know. That is why learning online is about sharing information and that is what I hope get and give in this course.

I am an avid podcast listener, previously I was maxed out on my 1Gb Ipod (which I still cannot part with) but now I am armed with a 32Gb Iphone - the possibilities are endless.

Angry bird coaching by Nick Chill
 I am developing my skills as an online facilitator but in my own online learning journey I am keen to develop techniques to work smarter as an online learner so that I can pass these on.