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Hello and welcome to Week 3 with Building Online Community with Social Media
This week you will engage in content about collaboration & facilitation, as well as create your very own collaborative learning activity
with VoiceThread.
I left feedback in the week 2 activity, so if you haven't already, please take a look. There's some
really great discussions and so many good ideas about how to use VoiceThread.
You may want to visit that activity again this week as it started building your own VoiceThread activity.
By the way you can visit all of our VoiceThreads later even after this course is over. Simply go to VoiceThread.com, click on MyVoice,
and your threads will be there.
Ning is shaping up great and I hope you're enjoying your experience there. This past week
I enjoyed getting to know you on a more personal note.
Especially after viewing your pictures of your beautiful familes, your amazing travels, I have an overall
sense now of who you are as well as what's important to you all as a group
All of these images you have chosen to share on Ning reflect something important about you. and when your peers view them, those images
foster personal connections that can play a role in motivating each other, motivating students to work together throughout the class.
Online education unfortunately is often a traditional correspondence course, like an independent study, just with videos.
Social media's given us the ability to unite students into a learning community where they can share and collaborat, as well as recognize
the instructor as an actual person. Sadly I have heard stories of students who finished an online chorus and were left with the
impression that the course was fully computerized.
These stories stick with me and say so much about the importance of being an active contributor in
online class as well as the value and significance of sharing who you are with your students.
I hope you'l keep that in mind as you move forward with your online teaching.
So this week to begin modulel 3 of our course and consider the role collaboration plays in Community Building.
For me, this is the topic that is the most transformative of all the topics we cover in our class.
Our society continues to move into a social experience that is deeply entrenched in participation
For students who don't recall life before the Internet this will continue in years to come to be even more crucial to their approaches to learning
Participatory learning is a process. It's a journey thru which an individual shares thoughts, reflects on others' ideas, and
continues a back and forth dialog resulting in learning, deep learning. In a collaborative environment, we're not consumers of information
but creators of collective ideas and solutions to problems. And this is quite distinct from a traditional lecture-based learning envoronment
The instructor' role in this new environment is as essential as it has ever been. You ensure that your students are on a path to meeting a
learning objective.
which may be reflecting, analyzing, creating
But you are there to redirect those who pull away from the momentum, or begin to get off-track, and you applaud those who are pushing the group in
new directions
This is the type of learning that occurs in Ning, or in Facebook or in VoiceThread, or in other participatory environments.
Keep in mind this week as you continue to experiment, the importance of this participatory interaction
Additionally this week you'll be exploring ideas that relate to online group development and online facilitation skills necessary for building
community
You'll also spend most of your time creating your own collaborative VoiceThread learning activity
Give yourself plenty of time for this activity. Don't get too stressed about it. Remember this is a learning opportunity
and I certainly understand that you're all venturing into new territory here
Give it your best shot and take a look early in the week at the assignment's criteria so you will have plenty of time to think about it.
also to be clear, you will not be submitting your VoiceThread until week four.
In week four you'll be creating your very own Google site. And you will embedd your VoiceThread into a page in your Google site.
which you will present to the class as your polished finished product
so have fun creating your VoiceThread!