eLearning eVolution

I recently attended an online webinar along with approximately 349 other people distributed throughout the world. There may have been even more attendees than this, as some attend as a single online participant but have a room full of people behind it. Even though seated here all by myself in my home office, I left at the end believing that I had a more intimate experience than if this had been a seminar in a physical conference room.

Why? Many reasons, but I will describe one – I was able to interact and actually influence the presentation by nature of the feedback I contributed. I did this through chat. I did this by adding my thoughts in text to the whiteboard. And we were all encouraged to do this by the brave presenter willing to take on the challenge of making this a true educational experience, not just a one-way push of information.

The bottom line is that I doubt I would have had the opportunity to do this if seated in row 50 of a dark conference room with a PowerPoint presentation on the big screen at the front. So an intimate, engaging experience no longer means small class sizes in the online world. I’m not entirely sure that means big is better, but it can be pretty darn good.

To see for yourself, view the interactive recording of “5 Games in 50 Minutes” with Lou Russell.

- Donna Christopher, Elluminate Marketing Director

Gary here. Giving Beth a break today.

For those of you that don’t know, Seth Godin, marketing guru, has a blog. And he also answers all his e-mail. In fact, in one of them, he turned down the opportunity to use Elluminate gratis for some of his web interaction with his clients.

I got the feeling from his reply to me and from reading his posts and his books (and this is my feeling, not a quote or paraphrase from Seth) that Seth doesn’t like the “webinar format” because of some of the plaque surrounding the typical “bad” webinar:

• bad powerpoint
• no interactivity
• bad powerpoint
• and bad powerpoint

So when I saw this post by him, I was intrigued.

Has Seth begun to come around? Does he not realize that chat, sychronized with audio, is the beginning of true collaboration on the web? That web collaboration NEEDN’T BE ABOUT POWERPOINT?

It is kind of hard to get across that my product is really useful since I am vendor scum and people assume I will lie, but I and my peers live ALL DAY on Elluminate Live! and an as yet unannounced new product from Elluminate (ahem…) and I really HATE the phone. If I am on the phone with somebody doing work or teaching or even just shooting the breeze – I want to draw! I want to take notes! I want to see their notes! I want to make snide comments from the peanut gallery (when appropriate)! I want to show my desktop or a web page or an application I am working on!

Not to mention, that with my cool Yamaha PJP-25UR echo cancelling mic and speaker, I get better audio quality across VoIP on my PC than I do on my standard phone. (I feel like Liz Lemon on 30 Rock pitching Snapple.)

So Seth, the door is still open. Redefine the word webinar to yourself. In fact, throw it out! Use Elluminate (or, G-d forbid, another tool) on your Mac or your PC and truly collaborate in real time beyond your phone and text chat. Think the phone and text chat are great for creative thinkers and teachers? Wait til you take the next step.

Cheers,

Gary Dietz

According to a recent article in eSchool News, this was the message of FETC keynote speaker James Brazell, who makes some interesting points:
- Video gaming is not just for entertainment
- There are new models of playing, learning, socializing
- You can get more data into a video game than any other education area
- Learning is embedded in play
- Consider gaming part of a blended learning approach

But the key take away is that gaming is not an end in itself. Rather, instructors must decide what they want to teach and determine if gaming is the right vehicle.

At Elluminate, we learned that online gaming was indeed a popular topic when hundreds of attendees participated an our recent webinar, “Teaching with Online Games,” with Dr. David Gibson, who also wrote the book, “Digital Simulations to Improve Education.” Click here to view the interactive recording.

As Dr. Gibson says, we’re all on the learning curve about using gaming in education. Time to start the conversation!and stimulate some thinking! Are you using online gaming in your F2F or virtual classroom? If so, tell us more.

Keep on Elluminating!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

According to Bill Phillips of the University of Central Florida, it’s the three Cs: clarity, creativity, and compassion. Not surprisingly, Phillips says that successful online instructors have many of the same characteristics of their counterparts in the traditional classroom. Read the entire article in eSchool News.

Online learning is all about the experience, and the instructor, or moderator, plays a key role in ensuring all participants have a great experience, one that encourages students to engage, discuss, interact, and collaborate. And isn’t that what makes any teacher successful?

Here are Elluminate’s “Top Ten Habits of Highly Effective Moderators.” We hope they help you to be more clear, creative, and compassionate in your online classroon.

Here’s something else that may interest you. Want to know more about how digital games and simulations can make you a better instructor? Check out this upcoming Elluminate webinar on 12/11 at 1PM ET, “Teaching with Online Games,” with Dr. David Gibson. Seats are going fast, so register now.

Keep on Elluminating!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

Wikis are a pretty hot topic these days, and many teachers and students are using them. At Elluminate, we have a couple of internal wikis to help us manage projects, store files, and post resources. And you may have noticed that I’ve included some links to helpful resources on this blog, some of which have wikis associated with them.

So the question is: Do you wiki? And if you don’t, how do you get started? Here are some resources for you.

- The Teacher Teacher blog recently had an entry that’s kind of a blog FAQ. Read the post.

- Wikispaces is a site for creating simple web pages with a goal of “wikis for everyone.” It has 1,300,000 members, so I think we are on to something here!

- Recently, Steve Hargadon and of Adam Frey of Wikispaces held a Classroom 2.0 discussion via Elluminate Live! on wikis in education. Access the session recording.

So if your answer to ‘Do you wiki?’ is no, there’s no time like the present to dip your toe into the wonderful world of wikis.

Keep on Elluminating!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

Talk about a great resource! If you don’t know about CIDER (Canadian Institute of Distance Education Research), be sure to check out their upcoming webinars.

And here’s the best part: there’s also a library of more than 40 recorded sessions on just about any topic you could think of, including:

- Online teaching in international contexts
- Use of whiteboards in synchronous online drop-in tutorials
- Using 3D virtual networks
- Problem-based learning in distance education
- Supporting collaboration and community development online
- Engagement through simulation

Take a look. I’m sure you’ll find something that interests you.

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

I was just perusing the CR 2.0 wiki. This site is devoted to building resources for the classroom and professional-development use of Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies.

Their event series is called CR 2.0 Live Conversations and the sessions are amazing! Plus there are recordings of past sessions. Topics include: educational blogging, Ning, reinventing project-based learning, living with learning disabilities, and much more!

This is another resource you’ll want to check out!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

To continue on from my previous post about celebrating enabling learning technology, it’s important to remember that the technology should be transparent, allowing users to focus on communicating, collaborating, educating, and more. It’s a means to an end, not an end in itself.

That said, I’d like to introduce you to Alison Hancox, an award-winning distance education teacher at the Argyll Centre in Canada. She recently presented at one of our webinars, showing us how she and her students create learning spaces and e-portfolios using Elluminate Live!

I was blown away by how Alison’s students embraced the technology to build social presence, collaborate virtually, and build visual literacy skills. Check out the interactive session recording. I think you’ll be impressed and inspired!

Keep on Elluminating!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

If you didn’t attend the second annual Elluminati Community Conference on October 22 (just prior to EDUCAUSE), you missed some thought-provoking presentations from speakers like Stephen Laster of Harvard, Susan Patrick of NACOL, Blaine Morrow of CCC Confer, Ben Rogers of Duke, Raven McElman of Florida Virtual School, and many more. The session recordings are available now. Take a look.

If you were there, what did you learn? Did you have an aha moment you want to share? We’d love to hear from you!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

Online learning is growing rapidly across the US at all levels of education. Why? One reason is that this generation is shopping for the learning experiences they want. And more and more often, they are turning to the virtual classroom for opportunities to develop 21st Century skills.

According to NACOL’s Susan Patrick, online learning expands options for all learners, is effective, and improves teaching. What’s more, statistics show that there is no significant difference in achievement between online and face-to-face learning. In fact, in some cases, online learners are out performing those in the traditional classroom

Today, Susan moderated a panel of virtual school administrators and teachers, including:

- Julie Young, Florida Virtual School
- Kristie Clements, Georgia Virtual School
- Roger Hanley, Insights Schools
- Dana Koch, Virtual High School Global Consortium

I think you’ll want to hear what they have to say. Here are the links for the webinar, part one (the panel discussion) and part two (some great examples of how Elluminate Live! and Elluminate vRoom are helping virtual schools change the education equation).

And if you have administrators, parents, students, and others who are just not sure what online learning is all about, here’s a great resource from the NACOL site, “A National Primer on K-12 Online Learning.”

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication