It’s not always easy to engage a large audience interactively in a learning session. Yet we know that active learning and engagement improves understanding, prompts reflection, provides feedback so that the tutor can tune the content of the session, and has many other positive effects on learning. Asking questions however,
Those of us who use Twitter as a Personal Learning Network tool (PLN) don’t need convincing that Twitter is useful for learning. There are innumerable resources discussing this, and even more describing and explaining how to use Twitter for personal learning and for social learning. Jane Hart covers the basics
At the OU Teaching and Learning Conference I was fascinated by a talk on SocialLearn by Simon Buckingham Shum. SocialLearn is the Open University’s social learning solution that is currently being developed. It aims to be a social learning space which can integrate existing tools in the OU and the
Sometimes it’s useful to compare your understanding of a term with the generally accepted definitions. Over time, too, words and phrases change their meanings or acquire new ones. Within different sectors of education, the same term can be understood differently. Here are some useful lists of techniques, definitions and terms
It’s amazing how much continuing professional development you can do for free. The web has always been a great place for sharing knowledge and expertise, and there are new ways to do this appearing all the time. It’s almost always the case that someone will have written a blog post
Ning has added two good features for helping your network avoid spammers. Better moderator tools are essential if Ning is to compete in the market for paid-for community platforms. I’m glad to see that they’re beginning to offer good value with their well-priced new services. The first new feature prevents
Donald Schön (1983) suggested that the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning was one of the defining characteristics of professional practice. He commented on the “Technical Rationality” type of model of professional training — which involves “charging students up” with knowledge
Can you help me compile the ultimate list of resources for using blogs in learning and teaching? A while ago I did a bit of a bibliography on the use of wikis in learning and teaching [Blog post August 2007]. Together with some practical action research with the use of
Now that Ning has announced that it is phasing out free services, it’s time to take another look at our Ning communities and to establish what might be a reasonable alternative to Ning. For my longest-running Ning network, ELESIG, we are prepared: a hard-working group from this community of practice
Sometimes I am accused of being a pessimist: I always treat technology, especially wonderful new inventions, services and applications, with a healthy pinch of salt. So I laughed a bit hollowly to read that Ning are phasing out their free social networks (as well as reducing the number of their