What can E-learning be???
Before plunging into Amazon best seller “The Golden Climate in Distance Learning” by Dr. M. Kostina and Dr. W. LaGanza and “Teach Online!” guide by M.Kostina, I wanted to summarize a few thoughts on what e-learning is all about.
E-learning can be
- Synchronous
- Asynchronous
- Online
- Offline
- A whole set of modules, resources on any given LMS
- Animated presentations
- A video
- A task simulation
- A webinar
- A collaboration platform
- A wiki
- Social media and PLNs
- Digital learning resources repositories
- Video conferencing
What does it take to become an e-learning specialist?
Apart from E-learning, instructional design, educational psychology graduate and postgraduate qualifications, an e-learning professional should
- Have Solid computer skills
- Be technology enthusiast
- Have good organizational skills
- Be communicative, social media savvy
- Be patient, perseverant, flexible, resourceful and intuitive
- Be a dedicated researcher and content curator
- Be a life long learner
I’m sure that by the time I finish reading both books, there will be a lot of new bullet points added to 
the above lists. For now, don’t forget to download your copies.
Once upon a time …| Flipped Classroom reminiscence
Going through two very interesting posts on flipped classroom strategies the other day, I couldn’t help recalling my high school years and, as I tried retracing my daily schedule at that time, I discovered, to my utmost surprise, some incredible facts on how teachers and young learners even then perceived innovation, flexibility and customization and were able to readjust any learning experience to fit their interests, goals and aspirations even within the most rigid education frameworks. 
It was an era of absolute
- Teacher authority
- Lecture predominance
- Passive learning
- Zero tolerance of initiative
Even so, with the “accord tacite” (silent agreement) of a couple of “progre” professors (radical change influencers), there had started a small scale unofficial flipped classroom experiment that I often regret not having documented.
We were all highly encouraged to read quickly through or have a peek to the next chapters that we were to discuss during class, giving us this way more time to
- focus on the most important or difficult topics
- conduct classroom drills (flipped homework)
- discuss, share, collaborate
Instead of dozing off to the teacher’s sweet lecture lullaby, we were engaged in constructive debates waitlisting dozens of intriguingly motivating discussion questions. Those illuminated SME in the role of moderators were truly trying their best to help their students’ oppressed creativity unfold having foreseen the eminent knowledge society radical transformation. Their intuition and perseverance against a static educational world, our receptiveness and determination were CRITICAL THINKING AND SELF-MOTIVATION MILESTONES HALFWAY TO SUCCESS!!
Developing Mobile Learning Tools
Featuring one more Edudemic article on Challenges, Strategies, Features and Apps associated with effective and engaging Mobile Learning Design.
Typical school experience vs. 21st century world
Read Dr. Bluestein’s comprehensive side-by-side comparison of Industrial-Age vs. Information-Age guide and learn how rethinking educators’ action steps can better prepare students for success in a 21st century world.
San Francisco University High School 2012 1:1 iPad Initiative
At San Francisco University High School, they embarked on an exciting step forward in their academic and technological growth, through the introduction last fall of a 1:1 iPad program. Through this program, every student received an iPad during the opening days of the 2011–2012 school year. With such great strides come a lot of questions. Still wondering how certain aspects of this program could work for your own institution? A read-through the iPad Initiative Implementation Team Answers to FAQs will provide you with all the necessary guidance through the entire process…
Muhammed Chaudhry (SVEF) describes Lessonopoly
See on Scoop.it – SchooL-i-Tecs 101
Lessonopoly is an open educational resource aiming to make life a little easier for busy educators like you.
Developed by Silicon Valley Education Foundation, this site was created with constant input from teachers to deliver a set of effective and easy to use tools, even for teachers who do not have time to learn new technologies, empowering them to organize activities inside and outside the classroom, create and share lesson plans, and connect to other teachers by building online communities.
In this short videocast, Muhammed Chaudhry, CEO of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, describes the Lessonopoly concept…
See on www.youtube.com
The Unquiet Educator Part 2
No one could have ever predicted the recent revolutionary outburst of educational technology and certainly nothing in the HigherEd curriculum could have prepared us all to the new sharing, networking and collaborating realities.
These past few years had indeed been a true revelation. For most of those educators that hadn’t taken the time to go beyond the Microsoft Office Suite, loyal to Web 1.0 frame and Education 1.0 principles where personal computers were just for web browsing and word/excel/email necessities, they found themselves soon forced to follow the generations Z and generation C high speed connection channels.
It’s true that teaching the old masters new tips and tricks can become a time consuming and arduous task especially when alongside with professional and family obligations.
However, after having already mastered the basics, a careful preselection of the right apps and delivery methods for your target audience’s learning needs is a good start to finding your way through the edtech maze.
LiveBinders for teachers could be a good place to begin with.
There are also a lot of exceptional educational blogs out there that provide listings of Web 2.0 tools and online/offline applications along with their administrators’ professional opinions and evaluations that a teacher/learning enhancement advisor/personal learning facilitator can highly benefit from, some of my own favourites being The Innovative Educator, A Media Specialist’s Guide to the Internet, CristinaSkyBox and Free Technology for Teachers.
The Edubloggers directory, the Edublog awards, the Immersive Education Initiative and CODiE awards can undoubtedly give you an idea of what is currently available in the edreform, edtech, transforming instructional design and practice areas.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with student connecting and collaborating tools,(Livebinders-twiddla), take mlearning seriously because it’s here to stay, subscribe to edtech magazines and organisations, never miss an opportunity to take part in workshops and seminars, stay tuned to scivee, youTube channels for the latest videocasts in your fields and
keep on following , connecting, integrating!!!
The Personal Learning Environment- Beyond the VLE
Via Scoop.it – SchooL-i-Tecs 101
Over the last decade we have seen an enormous growth in use of technology within education. From the use of laptops and digital projectors to smartboards and VLE’s all of which have been aimed at improving learning.
The question is whether educator adoption of replicative technologies eventually will lead to more transformative, student-centered uses of digital learning tools or whether the current wave of educator tool usage simply will be replaced by whatever is the next generation of replicative technologies….
8 Ways Teachers and Students Can Use Google+
Via Scoop.it – SchooL-i-Tecs 101
A reminder of some great Google+ features for classroom use…
5 Ways Education Could Be Revolutionized Over the Next 20 Years | Edudemic
Via Scoop.it – SchooL-i-Tecs 101
Over the next twenty years, within an increasingly global economy, better technology, less public funding for schools, and more diversity, education will change dramatically. In this post, Sofia Rasmussen explores five areas in education that will be altered in the next two decades…
Lia Sant edufolio 