Designing digital learning

Athabasca University, Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, Sept. 2015

Strategies for designing student-centered, social, open, and engaging

digital learning experiences

George Veletsianos, PhD Canada Research Chair, Associate Professor

School of Education & Technology Royal Roads University

Who am I?

Researcher Designer Educator

A worldwide economic downturn

Globalization and competition à internationalization policies

Increased demand for education

Curtailment of public funding

Calls for accountability

Impact of emerging technologies

Automation à Work?

Privatization

Higher Education Pressures

Goal #1: To explore student-centered course design and learn from one

another.

Goal #2: To facilitate the expansion of your techno-pedagogical toolkit

A

B

C D

E

Introductions Adjective Circle (Amazing Anna)

A

B

C D

E It’s easy to do this in a f2f class.

What would it look like in an online course?

Introductions Adjective Circle (Amazing Anna)

What are some other ways that you ask students to introduce themselves in online

courses?

•  Tell us about yourself using 7 adjectives •  Tell us about yourself using 7 nouns

•  As above, but also use photos •  As above, but use the 7 adjectives to

write a story.

•  Superhero Students

You are to create a drawing of yourself to share with the rest of the class. Your drawing should portray you as a superhero and include your superhero name

Use your creativity to create a representation of yourself so that we learn more about each other.

You can use pen/pencils/crayons and paper, or a graphics program to do this. –  Adapted from Dunlap & Lowenthal:

http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/CUOnline/FacultyResources/additionalResources/Handbook/cuonlinehandbook2011/Documents/chapter10.pdf

What are some other ways that you ask students to introduce themselves?

•  Mine looks like this.

•  Why?

•  Music videos

Locate a music video on youtube.com that describes you and post it below, along with a message for the rest of the class explaining why this music video describes you.

Caution: A lot of music videos contain

language and imagery which may be offensive. Please review the lyrics & watch the whole video prior to posting it to ensure that it is appropriate.


•  Music videos


What image do you have of a student-

centered online course?

What does such a course look like?

What image do you have of a student-

centered online course?

What does such a course look like?

Enter adjectives here: http://tinyurl.com/audoc2

Foundations

Organized and Sequenced

–  Deadline calendar

–  Establishing a rhythm: Standardized sequence à familiarity

–  Check-ins (e.g., 1-1 phone/skype chat)

–  Discussion flow (post by? Respond by?)

–  Clear expectations

–  Diverse activities (more on this later)

Organized and Sequenced: Course example

Using a diverse array of activities…

– Discussions – Videos – Debates – Digital stories – Concept mapping – Professional communities - socialization – Case studies – Solving problems

Strategies for designing

student-centered, social, and engaging digital learning experiences

Stories & digital storytelling •  Instructors telling stories •  Students creating stories – screencasts, comics, audio narration tools

Jing

Stories & digital storytelling


Voicethread


Weekly video updates: Social presence - Teaching presence

Embedding your personality? Another example: Memes & Funny 1-liners

By Royce Kimmons Introduction to online learning course: http://courses.doceocenter.org/theoretical_foundations_online_learning

Discussions/debates driven by real-world data - Twitter

https://twitter.com/search-home

Discussions/debates driven by real-world data - Newspapers

Discussions/debates driven by real-world data – Comments

Discussions/debates driven by real-world data – Blogs posts

Co-designing with students


Think-Pair-Share:

Explore the use of one of these activities with your own area.

Give an example, describe how you would use this, and explain

how you would improve this strategy.


Video updates

Discussions driven by real-world data


Concept Mapping: Keeping up-to-date and connecting all the pieces




Video-related activities •  Content delivery (reusing video) or

examining video artifacts – Youtube, Vimeo, TED, Amazon, iTunes

Video-related activities

•  Additional ideas – Record an elevator speech – Find, share, and comment –  Identify misconceptions in existing videos – Film and share roleplays

Introduce learners to professional communities - The case of Twitter

Introduce learners to professional communities - Others

– Professional listservs e.g., Tomorrow’s Professor

– Blogging communities – Social Networking Sites (e.g., LinkedIn

discussion groups, Facebook groups) – Ask students to attend a virtual

conference and do X (reflect/summarize/etc)

Authoring Open E-books and Open Textbooks

•  Create worthwhile digital artifacts as a class (&make available to others) à Replacing disposable assignments with those that add

value to the Word (David Wiley)

Authoring Open E-books and Open Textbooks

•  Work with your instructional designer to figure out the best platform for creating the e-book (Wiki? A dedicated website? A collection of Google documents?)

Course book clubs •  As a class, select a few books that are of interest •  (allow choice in reading/listening the books to

accommodate student preferences/life)

•  Task teams with analyzing and presenting

Audio + Video Feedback •  Back to instructor presence and diversity

Concept Mapping

Vide-related activities

Professional communities

E-books, open books, open textbooks

Book Clubs

Audio and video feedback

Think-Pair-Share:

Explore the use of one of these activities with your own area.

Give an example, describe how you would use this, and explain

how you would improve this strategy.

What are some activities/strategies that weren’t

discussed today but have worked well for you

and your students?

How do our conversations affirm or refine the image that you have of a

student-centered online course?

What does such a course look like now?

Questions and open discussion

Thank you!

www.veletsianos.com

www.veletsianos.com/publications

@veletsianos on Twitter

[email protected]

These slides: www.slideshare.com/veletsianos

Image Attribution

https://flic.kr/p/vjJ4cd

https://flic.kr/p/omuFWN

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Teacher-writing-on-blackboard564.jpg

https://flic.kr/p/fhRZKU

http://courses.doceocenter.org/

theoretical_foundations_online_learning