Connectivist Learning Environments

The week started off with making my first GIF file ever.  I always found GIFs impressive and mystifying, however they are much easier to create than I thought.  I made one for my moodle using pictures American civil rights movement leaders.

The reading for this week was incredible.   Connectivist learning environments are coming and in my opinion not fast enough.  I like any tool that aids in the effective dispersion of knowledge and skills to as many potential learners as possible.  The other thing about them that I like is the student driven aspect where the student is largely charged with their own learning.  My response to the reading is here.

Vocaroo. Who Knew?

Not me. Vocaroo is an amazing audio recorder that also stores a recording online and allows it to be

No need for solid gold recordings any longer.

posted or embedded anywhere. Also, its free.  I love this tool and will use it frequently in the future. It allows for auditory learners to feel comfortable and could function as an accommodation for the visually impaired in a distance learning course.  It is a great way to get directions to an audience quickly.

I made some real progress with getting a working syllabus together for my moodle. It isn't quite there yet, but the process helped my organize my thinking and fill in some gaps that existed in what I wanted for my moodle design.

Bad Science

Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning.  This government sposored meta-study

was disappointing.  Not because it showed that on-line learning and in class learning have similar results but because the studies that were analyzed were so non-scientific that the results cannot be trusted.  I think it is time for the government to fund an unbiased, scientifically controlled study comparing face-to-face and distance learning.  The distance learning field is ever growing and educators need a clear, reliable study on distance learning validity and best practices.

Week Two

Wait, it will be animated and I wont have to draw 

ALL of it?

PowToons is awesome.  I finally got caught up and made my introduction video on powtoons.  The program appears overwhelming at first, but is really quite simple and powerful for a drag and drop application. I took me two hours to finish my project from start to finish and I was more than happy with the result.  I really appreciated the design and interface.  Adding a narrative to a presentation makes power points useless to me now, not that I ever had any love for them I can definitely see myself using this in the future in class or as an online resource for my students to get refreshers on course content or writing techniques.
Take a look at it here.

My Moodle is killing me.  I choose a topic that is important to me, but one I will need to build all of the content for from scratch.  I keep chipping away and it will get there.