Unit Overview
In this unit we’ll continue the work we were doing last week and will start to do a lot of thinking about how and what tools you use to create and convert course content in forms that are well suited for the digital environment. Your tasks this week are to keep working on the course planning work you were doing last week and to start thinking about new tools. Our group discussion this week will be a little more scaffolded to focus on discussing the new tools you have tried out.
Objectives
- Identify and begin to use tools for creating content in your course
- Understand the potential impact various tools have on student learning and success
- Begin to implement your course plan
Activity 1 – Identifying and learning new tools
I’ve posted a link below that has links to 1000’s of tools you might find useful in building your courses. Take some time to look through these and any other tools you might find, know about, hear about, etc. Try out a few of them and see if they might work for your course, if a tool is too difficult or doesn’t seem like it will be helpful feel free to stop using it and try another. If you find any great tools please post them to the dropbox directly below this section so we can all take a look at them!
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/
Discussion Activity
This week our discussion will take on a bit more of a scaffolded approach. We’ll split the conversation into 3 sections; Individual work, Group Conversation, and Large Group Conversation. Each of these 3 sections will have a “due date” where you should be turning your attention to the next section.
Individual Work (Friday 10/4-Monday 10/7 at Noon)
In this section of conversation you’ll need to identify 1-2 tools that you have used in the past and simply post them to your group discussion for others to see and look at. Please include a title, short description of what the tool is used for, and a link to the tool (e.g. Snagit, software for screencasting and image capture, http://www.techsmith.com/)
Group Conversation (Monday 10/7 – Wednesday 10/9 at 11:59pm)
In this section you’ll be discussing new tools with your group members. Opportunities for conversation might be:
- What general areas/categories did the tools your group suggested fall into? (e.g. were they discussion, interactive content presentation, assessment, etc.)
- Were there categories that were obviously missing? Were there categories where a majority of tools fell into?
- What are some other tools you have found as you continued to research?
- Are there needs for tools or types of tools that you have not found?
Large Group Conversation (Thursday 10/10 – Friday 10/11 at 11:59pm)
In this section you’ll select one (1) representative from your group to participate in a conversation between groups. In this part of the conversation we’ll use the “Unit 4” Channel in the teams conversation. Note that only the group representatives should engage in the conversation, this should allow for the conversation to be more focused and rich. Group representative discussion topics could be:
- What tools did each group find/discuss? Are there common tools across the groups? What tools are different or were there tools which only one group found?
- Looking across your groups conversations as a whole, are there areas of need for further conversation?
- What other similarities or differences did you note in your conversations?
Content Repositories
MERLOT
Online activities are the heart of your online course and are the vital component of your blended days, needless to say, they are quite important. We’ll spend the bulk of this module working on identifying course activities you might use in your course, finding existing activities and designing new activities as needed.
Content objects (often called learning objects of renewable learning objects) are self-contained “mini-modules” that cover topics. An example in a language class might be a self-contained mini-unit that covers vocabulary at the train station. This content object might allow students to hear the words, see the words and participate in a practice activity.
The first place that you might look for course activities is MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching). MERLOT is an online repository that is full of peer-reviewed content objects in a large variety of disciplines. Go to the MERLOT website at http://www.merlot.org/ and search for content objects in your area.