IBIA online learning

I am currently doing an online IBIA course. Some good things and some not so good. Today I will share the experience with the department. Here are my notes for the meeting. If I post them here I can add coments later to represent responses:

Show the moodle (SMEC)

Mention tech requirements – microphone not needed

Describe tasks:

Week 0 – familiarization and jikoushokai

Week 1 – overview of requirements and group 4 project

Week 2 – Review the IA criteria

Week 3- Assessment of investigations

Week 4 – more assessment of investigations

Handy research library – share checklist

Each has tasks and discussion groups

Lots of use of objectives and outcomes in materials

Some of the tasks – using wikis – were pointless and supported no engagement

Most participants didn’t post – barely any interaction

Half an Hour: An Operating System for the Mind

This gives one side of a skills/content discussion couched in terms of 21st century learning. Instinctively I don’t like the title, though I am not sure why. Also I am not sure this hasn’t fallen into an either/or approach, but I think this provides some thoughtful discussion.

The core of the opposition to what are being called “21st century skills” is contained in the following argument: “Cognitive science teaches us that skills and knowledge are interdependent and that possessing a base of knowledge is necessary to the acquisition not only of more knowledge, but also of skills. Skills can neither be taught nor applied effectively without prior knowledge of a wide array of subjects.”

In response, I pose this question to the defenders of this 'base of knowledge', “why is a common core necessary for the teaching of skills, and why is testing of that core necessary.” And specifically, “the question isn't whether skills can be taught in isolation, but rather whether they must be taught in the context of some common base of knowledge and whether students ought to be tested on the basis of that knowledge.

via Half an Hour: An Operating System for the Mind.

File sharing for BTG

Having prepared a presentation for BTG, it would be useful to spend some time sharing this in a useful way.

Options for this are:

• posting the ppt in googledocs – easy and includes presenter notes, but doesn’t play vids
• posting the .doc in googledocs – easy and retains enough of the formatting
• posting the ppt in slideshare – easy to do but loose the video elements and the presenter notes. This allows a soundtrack mp3 file to be added, and presumably then synced. This would be nice to try as it might have further application. How easy is the mp3 recording? This would make the lack of presenter notes redundant.
• putting it in keynote and adding commentary – not sure I want to embark on this as there would need to be a few steps after that before sharing
• Putting into voicethread and commenting – videos wouldn’t translate and the audio might be messy
• videoing – more trouble than it is worth. This would require someone else to do this during the show
• Adding to blog – this would be an addition to other steps

From this list it looks like the audio commentary for slideshare would be best as I would like to learn how this works – seems to have potential for student use. Will put in a tech request for this.

Can also publish the paper on docs and link both in this blog