II. APPLIED ONLINE PEDAGOGY

A. Principle #1: Let the students do (most of) the work.

B. Principle #2: Interactivity is the heart and soul of effective asynchronous learning.

the reason most teachers forgo blogging in large classrooms is that reading
and grading and responding to hundreds of blog posts every week seems impossibly
time consuming and counterproductive. Students are accustomed to the idea that
their written assignments are graded on a timely basis, and despite the size of
the course, may expect that if they spend the time writing, they should be
getting a response.

One of the reasons that blogging is pedagogically such a nice tool is that it
takes the focus off of the instructor, and your evaluation policy should reflect
this. Like all writers, students want feedback on their work, and indeed, that
sort of feedback is often what motivates bloggers outside of the class context.
In each of my courses, I require students to comment on each others blogs as
well as write in their own.

One of the advantages to the single course blog is that it provides another place for students to ask questions, and those questions remain public. One alternative is to ask students to comment each week in the comments of the course blog. At first, this may seem as onerous as allowing them to post, but that is not necessarily the case. If you look for large-audience blogs outside of education, it is not unusual for some posts to attract hundreds of comments. If a large number of comments are expected, one of the various Slashdot-style plugins that allow viewers to rank up or down comments on the page can be an interesting and useful addition.

Just as with smaller classes, there are a number of ways in which blogs may be deployed to help with the learning process in a large class. The most obvious example is the single teaching blog, something of a replacement for other forms of course management software. In this form, the blog acts as the central communications organ of the course, with links to the syllabus and schedule, and posts for assignments, handouts, news items, and course discussions.

This is, naturally, a fairly “low-intensity” use of blogging in a course. For small courses, instructors often make the students authors of the blog as well. This can work for large courses, but it can lead to a bit of a mess if you have students writing on a regular basis. If only a subset of the students write posts each week (and the remainder post comments), then things become a bit more manageable, but this sort of participation may lead to more administrative overhead than it is worth.

Voice over Internet Protocol: VoIP

The best use of VoIP is when you want to connect and communicate with your personal learning network on a personal level.

Features of VOIP

• Audio/video e-mail
• Audio/video chat
• Recording discussions

Ideas for VoIP:

• connecting with a primary source
• real-time communication with a partner class
• developing personal connections on a one-on-one basis

Collaborative Multimedia:

The best use of collaborative multimedia is to allow for creative representation of ideas. When a blog is too text driven, or a social network is too complex for your needs, or your students would benefit from video or audio presentation, you might want to try a multimedia format. Collaborative multimedia lets you bring together voice, audio, and video into one product and allows others to comment and add on to your work.

Features of multimedia tools

• Integration of multiple media
• Subscription service (podcasts)
• Collaboration on digital storytelling (VoiceThread)

Ideas for collaborative multimedia:

• to add a new dimension to digital storytelling
• to start asynchronous voice conversations around learning topics
• to engage the more creative learners in your class

Social Networking:

The best use of social networking is for connecting students (and teachers and parents). A social network allows for a variety of tools to be directly embedded within your network (like blogs, podcasts, groups and forums) so it is a great venue for bringing people together and allowing them to select the tool that suits their learning style. Social networks allow users to communicate with all members in a variety of formats.

Features of Social Networks

• Create groups of learners
• Facilitate forum discussions
• Personal reflection space within a community
• Members take ownership of their learning
• Easily upload multimedia

Ideas for classroom social networks:

• to begin a dialogue with differentiated groups of learners
• to private space to connect students
• to help develop independence in leading discussions or planning projects

Wikis:

The best use of a wiki is for collaborative knowledge building. A wiki allows for shared ownership for all members, meaning that together the authors of a wiki determine what information is posted online. Because a wiki is a great place to share and document information, it can be thought of as an easy-to-create collaborative website.

Features of a wiki:

• Easy to create website
• Easy collaboration beyond classroom
• Extend discussion beyond the classroom
• Trackable page edits

Ideas for classroom wikis:

• a resource for all assignments, rubrics, deadlines and resources to increase home-school communication
• a “home-base” for bringing multiple tools together
• a presentation format to demonstrate student learning