Practice Session

Welcome to EDC922---"eBooks and Digital Content"


Throughout these 10 weeks we will be covering a vast amount of information (but don't be too intimidated). Information and new developments about this content are exploding exponentially, so it's a challenge for even me to stay current.


New sessions will be posted once a week (by the end of business on Tuesday), but this week only,  the first session won't go up until Saturday night to give everyone enough time  to try this practice session and work out any technological trouble). 


***Also, b/c this weekend is a holiday weekend for those of us in the States, there will be some flexibility on the deadlines for next week, so don't stress about this if you have plans to climb the White Mountains this weekend (if you do, you may see me up there).

Please keep in mind that there are new developments and trends in online information every day, therefore we may have to be flexible when interpreting the syllabus. This may mean some modifications, changes and condensing of information. I've already made changes to our first session's content.  

To ensure that we are covering the most current skills and content, I will be assimilating and collating information right up until the moment I post a session. This means that each session's link (over in the left-hand margin) will not be accessible until its respective Tuesday. Even so, there may be times during a session when a cited link is dead. If that is the case, I will try to keep saved copies of all the information. Just email me (davefontaine1@gmail.com) and I will forward the data to you.

During the first few sessions we will be covering foundational skills. This is to ensure that we all have the basic essentials ‘down pat’. Once this is covered, we will pick up the pace and begin to delve into the mechanics, nuances, and meat of our course.

To ensure continuous accessibility to the information within these presentations I suggest you immediately download, and save the sessions, to your computer.  Not every session will be downloadable, but many will be. I cannot emphasize this enough. Along the left-hand margin, there will be a link for each session. When you click on this link you may be prompted to 'save' or 'open' the session.

Always ‘save’ it to your desktop (or in a folder somewhere on your computer). Previous class participants have found it easiest to organize if they create a folder and store all the sessions in one place. Another option would be to right-click on the link and choose, 'save target as.'

‘Saving’ the sessions will decrease problems relating to your bandwidth. Also, although it may take a while for a presentation to download (up to 10 min. or more depending upon the speed of your connection) it will be much easier to toggle between a PowerPoint and the Internet if you have it saved to your hard drive. Weekly sessions will also become portable if you save them to a thumb drive, so if you want to take them from home to work, or vice-versa that will be easiest.

Additionally, you will need to have access to a computer that has PowerPoint version ’97 or above to view the presentations. (As a last resort I will also upload a copy each week's session to an online service where you can stream it live. You will find that link at the bottom of each weekly posting.) If you cannot hear the sound on them it is possible that the “wave” element of your volume is either on ‘mute’ or not turned up enough. 

Some of you may have already noticed that I teach this course completely from a blog.  This will help those of you who have little, to no, experience with blogs.  You get to practice, participate, and maybe even create your own after this class is finished. I'll give you all 24 hours to practice with this a little and contact you Sat. night with our first official weekly session, so look for an email from me.

Please remember that we are all educators, and that this is a collaborative course. So, as you post your reflections and comments we will all be responding to you. Therefore, timely responses are imperative. After you have posted your weekly assignment, make an effort to return again later to read and comment about other participants’ assignments.

Once again remember that we are all perpetual learners; constantly growing. I hope to learn as much from you---as you will from me.

Now I would like you to try a practice download. Saturday evening I will update this page with information about our first session. Along the left-hand margin you will see the words "PRACTICE SESSION." Please try to download this session to your computer, strictly following the directions above.

Once you have been successful with this process, you may also download the syllabus, but truthfully, I will be updating it weekly, so it might be a better idea if you just save a shortcut to the live version.   There isn't a required, purchasable text, but for those of you that want to more depth on blogs and wikis then I recommend Will Richardson's book.  Don't worry if it takes a week to arrive.

You may order it from most online book sellers. Until then you may want to read it online (not ideal and you usually can't access the entire text), but here is the link: Wikis, Blogs, and Podcasts

You could also check your local library here.

If you run into problems, please review the directions again. It is not uncommon for participants to 'stumble' a little getting used to this forum.


If you run into any trouble after that, then please feel free to email me or call.


You'll hear from me again on Saturday.

Thank you and please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have along the way.

Dave Fontaine
eBook, eLearning, and Digital Content Specialist, NBCT
DaveFontaine1@gmail.com
401-835-3782

Final Projects

Your Final Projects are due by midnight on 4/13 est.  You are asked to upload all of your material to Curriki then post a small description below this entry while including a url to your Curriki product.  Please double check all links to ensure that they are working.  Once I review your Final Projects, I will send you a confirmation and grade.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.  I've been fielding the questions when they come in.  One recent issue was with the formatting being lost in Curriki.  Please see my response below:

"Try typing everything in MS Word and then uploading it.  I believe that way it will retain the formatting. Another alternative is to type it into a Google Doc and then 'share' it with everyone.  This option will give your document its own url which you can then paste into Curriki with an explanation."

922-Session 7--Creating an OER from Scratch

I thought that we'd start with an inspirational, opening 'comment from Angela, (a teacher from last summer's class):

Angela Tarr said...

... I feel the need to share. I just had an aha moment. To explain to my staff the basic idea of what OER is all about, I’ll give my own experience as a new teacher for an example. When I started teaching at 22, I had no clue what I was doing. I was assigned a mentor, who said, “I’m down at the end of the hall; holler if you need me.” That was my mentor program. (It’s now much more specific in the requirements of the mentor and mentee.) The only other teacher who taught the same courses I did would not share. A-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. He wouldn’t give me anything other than generic advice. (Don’t smile until Christmas. Don’t let them walk all over you.)
Somehow I managed to survive. I was not a very good teacher those first few years; I struggled. After ten years of teaching, I asked to switch to another grade level when a teacher in my department quit. (Not retired, quit.) The other teacher who taught this grade level in my department shared everything. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. She said she had already done the work, why should I start from scratch? She and I had very different styles, so I wasn’t totally comfortable using her exact plans and assignments. (Since I was working on a master’s and had two young children at the time, she suggested that.) I adapted most of her materials to suit my teaching (and learning) style. Her gift of a place to start other than ground zero was huge for me. I could go to her and ask questions, observe her in the classroom, get help.
When I moved into the library five years ago, I handed fifteen years of materials over to my 22 year old replacement. I volunteered to do anything she needed me to do to get her off on the right foot. I answered questions, came to her classroom a couple of times to present introductions to units, anything she needed. In her first year she was better than I was at five or six years of experience in the classroom. I’m not taking the credit for her success; she works hard. I will pat myself on the back for giving her some tools to work with to get rolling. She’s the classroom teacher I wish I could have been.
Isn’t this what OER is all about? Sharing? Learning from the experience of others? Why should we start from scratch? (Unless we want to, or the learning situation is better served by doing so.) Granted, I didn’t have the internet when I started teaching. I could only share locally. Now we can share globally. We have amazing tools to work with. We need to use them. Our districts need to let us.

 You can read the rest of class's comments from last year, here.

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This week we'll be covering how to create an OER from scratch.  Once again we'll be accessing Curriki's "Open Educational Resources Integration" project.  For this session we'll be accessing the module created by Dr. Michael Searson, the Executive Director for the School for Global Education and Innovation.  You may read more about him here.

Mike created a CC licensed module aimed at both pre-service and in-service teachers.  His module will be particularly useful to you b/c you may very easily use it to guide yourself when you are training, or educating, others on OER's.  I've just gone through his module again and updated any dead links that I could find, but please let me know if you can't access something.  You may find all of the links in our syllabus under the Session 7's details.

Good luck and have fun!
DF

PS--Please also place your brief description of your midterm assignment under this entry's comments section.  There is a word limit, so if it is long you may have to break it up into two or more 'comments.'
Details and requirements are in the syllabus. (If you have a suggestion for modifying this to better suit your setting, then please pass your idea by me first.)


PPS--Next week is URI's Spring Break (3/11-3/18), so there won't be any class. This is good news for those of you that want a little extra time to work on the midterm.  Please complete it before Session 8 (3/20).

922-Session 2-The Ultimate Tool for Collaboration

Welcome to Session 2-Where we'll get an great overview of wikis and their connection to our course curriculum and get a small taste of Open Educational Resources.

Most of you are getting the hang of using this forum and are becoming more adept at posting and downloading. Remember to post your insights and comments in the 'comment' section and also remember to return regularly to read your peers comments.

In order to facilitate a truly collaborative setting (one in which we can begin to foster an environment where we can benefit from the 'Collective Knowledge' of all the participants here) I am asking that you make a special, concerted effort to try to respond or comment upon, at least, one other posting from w/i each session starting with Session 2. This may mean going back and revisiting the blog after you have posted, because you may be the first or second person to post your thoughts. This is not a requirement, but it is a request---one that will help benefit all of us and truly foster a collaborative network of learners and educators!  The most efficient method for this is to make sure that you have signed up for a Blogger account.  If you already have a Google account with any of G's other services like gmail or Google Docs, then you may use that.  After you post your comment to our blog and before you hit the publish button, you'll see an option to have future comments emailed to you.  Choose that.  There is a tremendous font of knowledge among this group.  Don't miss out on the insights and experiences of your peers.

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This session will find us broadening the scope of our view of wikis. This information is pertinent to our discussions on digital content because as the semester unfolds we'll see our definition of user-created content evolve.  The merging and integration of e-books with additional multimedia (screencasts, interactive simulations, podcasts, videos,...) is changing so rapidly that no one can predict what our students will be using in just a few short years.  Some surveys predict eBook penetration w/i school libraries to increase 14 fold by 2016.

We will begin this session by taking a look at the benefits of wikis, and other Web 2.0 tools, for students, teachers, and the entire educational community. We'll view some screencasts and videos that give us students' perspectives, as well as hear from teachers from across the K-12 spectrum.  Each and every one will be focused upon how Web 2.0 tools have changed the way they teach and learn. And also demonstrate how teachers are becoming the authors of Digital Content shared with the world freely under an "Open" philosophy.

And lastly, we'll end by discussing the fluid definition of the word, "literacy" and try to pin it down in a 21st century classroom---a classroom where the walls have come down and the world is flat. There are lots of different interpretations out there.  And as I stated above--prior definitions are changing quickly.  Under the subject heading of Wikis there are an increasing number of sub-headings.  Google Docs has evolved to be a very wiki-like tool.

Before you download this week's session:

• Please read this article from SLJ called, "Things are Changing Fast."  It reminds us that those of us that run into technology-roadblocks are not alone (unfortunately). When you are finished reading that article, also read, "Not Just the Lucky Ones."
• Then visit: http://www.edweb.net/ebooks  and join the community if you haven't already.

Lastly, you may access and read past participants' comments about the educational uses of wikis here and here.

Good luck and I look forward to reading your comments, insights, and reflections.

DF
PS--You may find a back-up copy of this week's presentation here. Just search for the term: "edc922" and then choose the appropriate session to view and listen to.

PPS--Here is an online copy of this week's session as well:

922-2

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