Reference copy of some thoughts about engaging students in online learning, slides for a professional development workshop. first time talking about this so there's lots in these that I would now adapt/ develop further

1. Engaging
Students Online
John Robertson, Learning Technologies UW Oshkosh,
Presentation at College of Education Professional
Development Day,
22 January 2013

2. Just like face to face classes, sort of
Why am I here?
What is the value of this?
What do I get from this?
Why do I care?
Who owns this?

3. The internet has cats
https://i.chzbgr.
com/maxW500/6952760064/h4061
45DD/

4. The internet has cats in boxes
https://i.chzbgr.
com/maxW500/695275673
6/hD0403B03/

5. The internet has lots of cats
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6975174912/h8F5EC6A7/

6. and a billion other things
Twitter, Facebook, Ebay, Amazon, Farmville,
more cat videos, facts and theories about
everything, that song / music video/ tv episode,
...

7. The challenge of mediated presence
In a classroom your presence and personality
play a big part in communicating your passion
and engaging students. Structure, resources,
and environments play a role.
In an online environment the balance shifts.

8. The medium is the message (a)
types of engagement
speed of engagement
nature of engagement
How do expectations change?
Facebook, Twitter, D2L, email, phone, text chat

9. Mediated environments?
three kinds of experimentation
● a safe space
● a space to try, explore, and fail
● a space to find a voice

10. The medium is the message (b)
what activities are you doing, why are you
doing them this way?
eg forum discussions
substance/ style/ spelling/ citations/ evidence/
Do you grade them as a forum discussion or as
an essay? is there a difference?

11. Everyone likes free stuff
● course outline
● lecture notes
● lecture recordings
● bibliography (annotated/ linked)
there are good reasons why you might not want
to provide these for your students but it's
straightforward to do so have you articulated
why you haven't

12. Attendance or learning
both obviously but...
what are you assessing in your course?
eg all notes online and podcasts might mean
students don't need to turn up; there are lots of
reasons why this is not good, but if they're
engaged online does that count - and why?

13. If you own the server, you make the
rules, but with consequences
An example:
● Graduate course
● Students given forums
● Some specific subforums for particular
courses but for general use
● Post politely critical of lack of course
feedback appears
● Extensive discussion ensues
● ...and the thread is deleted by Faculty mod
● Forum use vanishes

14. Badges, levels, experience, roles
Online community profiles and digital badges
Much of this is about identity and feedback
● capture something specific about
themselves / create context
● make some aspect of the digital tangible
● describe / award others
● get feedback

15. e-Learning and Digital Cultures
https://www.coursera.org/course/edc

16. P2PU - School of Ed
https://p2pu.org/en/schools/school-of-ed-pilot/
What are they doing right?
How can you do it?

17. Saylor
Educational Psychology Course http://www.
saylor.org/courses/psych303/

18. Make art - ds106
http://assignments.ds106.us/