Cons

• I think it could be more like a game. I don’t know how long this would keep the interest of a student. Additionally, I would like students to be able to use screen captures to show progress. Without some sort of levelling/score, I can’t track progress over time.
• It would be nice if I could move the manipulatives around.
• I would like to see regrouping incorporated into this application.

May 11th 4:00-5:00 pm

Featured Presenter: Michelle Pacansky-Brock “Can You Feel It? Building Online Community with VoiceThread”

Special Guest: Eric Lehew, AB 2027 Presentation/Discussion

Click on the link to join the meeting. http://tinyurl.com/CUEeLSig
If the link does not work, please copy/paste the following into your browser: http://tinyurl.com/CUEeLSig

FUTURE VIRTUAL MEETINGS

June 8th 4:00-5:00 pm:
Featured Presenter: Nori Murphy

Look forward to seeing you online!

Chris Bell & Jenith Mishne
Co-Chairs, eLSIG

http://elsighome.ning.com/

http://www.cue.org/

The following online seminars are provided to educators at no cost by the @ONE Project with funding from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office:

• Building an Online Writing Center Wed, 04/28/2010 – 12:00pm
• Current Issues in Distance Education Thu, 04/29/2010 – 12:00pm
• Windows 7 for IT Professionals Part 1: Security and Control Tue, 05/04/2010 – 12:00pm
• Sneak Peek: See What’s New in Microsoft Office 2010 Wed, 05/05/2010 – 12:00pm

For more information, head on over to @ONE http://onefortraining.org/

Don’t miss out on the Early Bird Registration for the ETLO/SREB/ISTE Online Learning Institute! Early Bird registration ends Friday, May 1! To reserve your seat at the $99 early bird price, register today to join your colleagues for an outstanding agenda including:

• engaging presentations by Chris Lehmann, Principal of the Science Leadership Academy, and Chris Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• panel presentation by online learning leaders

• roundtable discussions with colleagues led by knowledgeable and informed practitioners and mangers of online learning programs

The Online Learning Institute, a special event at the ISTE 2010 conference, is co-sponsored by ETLO, SREB and ISTE. Please join us Wednesday, June 30, from 8:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Denver, CO. Breakfast and lunch are included in the registration fee.

You can view the full agenda, which is updated regularly, at http://onlinelearninginstitute.wikispaces.com
and we invite you to register now at http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/pr…sionid=43757806.
On the registration page, click Register Now for This Event, click either “register now” or “reaccess your registration” to add the event. Look for and add the Online Learning Institute, listed as a special
event on Wednesday. Registration is $125 which includes breakfast, lunch, session notes and audio. Early bird registration, available until May 1, is $99.

For more information, contact Barbara Treacy, ETLO, btreacy@edc.org, Leinda Peterman, ETLO, lpeterman@edc.org, or Jamie Sachs, SREB, jamie.sachs@sreb.org

• New in Labs: Nested Labels and Message Sneak Peek –
• April 13 eLSIG Webinar “Communication Tools For The 21st Century Online Class” Presented by Bob Hiles –
• In a World of Openness, Doors to Higher Ed Close –
• The elements of online communication 1: text –
• Live Training on Your Phone? A Closer Look at Adobe Connect Pro Mobile by Paul Clothier : Learning Solutions Magazine – I was very excited when Adobe released this last week. While it's not a perfect solution, I see this as a step in right direction for learning anywhere. Mobile synchronous learning has the capacity to be a game changer in higher ed, but I don't know if K-12 will see a direct impact for quite some time.

Clarity by Jon Wiley

After reading Mark Bethelemy’s post Online learning: how not do it, I was inspired to write a post on how to absolutely fail at K-12 online learning. Some of these examples are real and, well, some are contrived, but I think we can learn from them all. As I often say, I learned more about teaching online from having bad instructors than I did from any book or blog post I have ever read.

1. Make sure you rush to throw your program together In fact, make sure that you don’t have any of the pieces in place until after the semester begins and then roll it out mid-semester.
2. Don’t bother to train your staff Teaching K-12 online is just like teaching in a K-12 classroom, right? Also, make sure that you don’t allocate any time throughout the year for follow up professional development whether face-to-face or online.
3. Make sure you maintain high student-to-staff ratios Something on order of 100:1 in a course ensures that your students will be able to cruise through the course will minimal interaction with the teacher. Teachers that like tons of email and just grading student work will love these ratios.
4. Design your curriculum and activities with the least amount of interaction possible You should really make sure that the students don’t have to interact with the teacher or other students in the course. This will help with student retention–which you want to be as low as possible
5. Don’t provide a way for students to build community We know that students are too social and will never learn if they’re chatting about nonsense in a discussion forum. It’s better to not provide any place for this in your online course than take the chance they will learn informally from one another. After all, you’re the expert and they should only be learning from you, right?
6. Don’t recognize individual student needs This is easily accomplished by delivering a one-size-fits-all curriculum to all students.
7. Select an LMS that is fraught with problems This is critical in your mission to fail at implementing an online learning program. The more problems the better. Also, it’s good to make sure that the user interface (UI) is as complex and user unfriendly as possible.
8. Don’t provide parents and students with any technical support This is a no-brainer. It’s 2010 and everyone should already know how to use a computer/mobile device, etc.

This tongue-in-cheek list is definitely a work in progress and certainly has applications well beyond K-12 online learning. If you would like to add to it, then please leave me a comment.

• Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro goes Mobile. – This is awesome. What's not so awesome is that we chose to go with Elluminate. When is Elluminate going to have an iPhone/Android/mobile app? If it's not in development, then they are seriously going to lose some market share on this one.
• Making something easy hard by trying to make it easy. –
• VoiceThread: Effective Design Strategies and Student Perspectives – Michelle has done an excellent job of demonstrating reasons for using Voicethread in online courses for (1) formative assessments and (2) community building.
• Google’s Liquid Galaxy Will Blow Your Mind – This looks really interesting and I like the fact that it's being done with "off the shelf" products.
• Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs: iPod Touch/iPhone App Round Up for Users with Significant Disabilities and Those who Teach Them – The iPod touch is becoming the swiss army knife of resource teachers and SPED departments. Isn't it amazing what can be done with this small, sophisticated device? Apple calls the iPad "magical", but I think they really nailed it with the touch & iPhone.

• Summarizing concepts in 5 or 6 images –
• I am really liking the integration of Buzz with Reader. I now –
• Blogger in Middle-earth: Elearning in Second Life – I think the author touches on some great points regarding e-learning components in Second Life. I would add that the biggest attraction for me to MUVEs is the added component of students being able to construct objects, buildings, and environments. This is not possible in Second Life unless you own land and allow them to build upon it. However, in OpenSim you can set up an environment for constructive knowledge for very little money.
• A thumbnail is worth about one hundred words – This is why it's fun to do professional development on Google stuff. I constantly am revising my training materials to incorporate these little tweaks
• Search is getting more social (The Official Google Blog) –

• Virtual Worlds – Best Practices in Education – I am looking forward to this online conference. I have been spending a lot of time researching MUVEs and playing/building in them lately. I think that MUVEs have the power to transform online learning as part of a synergistic relationship with traditional asynchronous and synchronous online learning modalities. More to come on this topic for sure.
• Horton Hears a Tweet (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE – This is an excellent analysis of using Twitter to model building a PLN for students & other educators.
• Comparing 12 Free Screencasting Tools – This is a pretty good comparison. I prefer Screenflow or Camtasia for anything I want to create with some longevity, but the free stuff works in a pinch as well.
• Coping With Too Much Wisdom – Rod's tips are very spot on. I've been struggling with this of late and really trying to determine (1) what I am specifically passionate about with regards to education and (2) where my time is best spent. It's hard. I love learning about anything and everything. However, the time has come where I need to set aside my desire to learn something about everything and focus on what I believe is the future of education/online learning = MUVEs and virtual worlds.
• The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Wants You to Punish Your Kids for Gaming –