e-Show n Tell 2007

Jonathon Finkelstein shared some great tips and strategies for engaging learners using Elluminate during the keynote this morning. Lots of fun had by all! Participants engaged in a range of engaging activities including:

Choosing Our Own Adventure:

Collaborative Poetry Writing and Reading

This included a great reading from Carole McCulloch reads as the Jabberwocky: Tremendous dibblefink raspberry pool! Beautiful, Sleepy Scruffle.

A Team Activity

Which allowed us all to come up with some very interesting sentences about the Bobolink!

• Lynn Huguenin: We found a boblink and it didn’t work!
• Marlene Manto: Last night I worked out how to BOBOLINK my Facebook to my Twitter account.
• Cathy Baxter: I’m often going to bobolinks on the web!
• Howard Errey: We will have to bobolink this to your blog, Jo!
• Joel Woods: A bobolink is a large extinct bird with very large eyes
• Jo Hart: The bobolinks are nesting early this year
• Michael Coghlan: The timetable for Bobolink will be available later this week.

This was a fantastic session.. which included lots of participation and interaction. The hour flew by. Jonathon even shared some crazy Elluminate camera techniques. Nice hat there!!

Definitely worth following up the recording of this one on the Conference website! Coming soon!

with Jonathon Finkelstein
11:00am - 12:00pm

Join Jonathan Finkelstein, founder of LearningTimes, author of Learning in Real Time, and host of the Real Time Minute for an exploration of unique, real-time online group activities for the live virtual classroom. We’ll look at innovative learning activities and facilitation approaches that harness a group’s collective energy to achieve a learning objective in a social, meaningful way.

Whether you are currently working in the synchronous realm of learning or not, this keynote promises to open eyes and take online learning to the next level of engagement.

Janine Bowes has shared her top 10 tips from the keynote session today. Thanks Janine!! Compare her list with yours! Do you have anything to add?

1. Be a lifelong learner – formally, informally and incidentally.
2. Be intergenerational in your professional life– look for opportunities to work and learn with colleagues at the opposite end of the age spectrum – both have much to contribute to the other
3. Keep expanding your digital world-view by trying new things, playing, reading widely, experimenting. Do this in your personal and professional lives and remember that a little bit often is usually better than occasional binges.
4. Periodically take an online course or other e-learning event to put yourself in the learner’s seat. Sometimes choose subject areas outside your usual domain. Do the course with two purposes in mind – the new knowledge or skills you acquire and reflection on the process. Sometimes you learn most from the worst experiences!
5. When thinking about using technology for learning, always ask “what does this add to the learning or what new possibilities does it open up?”
6. Add to your e-learning repertoire over time – with tools and processes. Approach this like a musician – practice makes perfect and observing others’ performance interpretations helps.
7. Think “genres of tool” rather than individual tools – understand the commonalities. Focus on the core function rather than peripheral features
8. Play with many new tools but be considered in adding to your repertoire - add them to your main repertoire only when you have played, achieved mastery and have a clear idea about what learning benefit is offered.
9. Stay up to date with a balanced diet that contains lots of variety – people and networks are the key eg actively participate in at least 2 online networks directly relevant to your core business, subscribe to regular news feeds, some blogs, read books!
10. Share what you learn by contributing back to networks, writing publicly – you will reap the rewards many times over.

Janine Bowes
jbowes.edublogs.org

The Keynote session today was fantastic and included lots of areas for discussion and consideration… if only Janine had had more time!

I was particularly interested in her slides on Digital World View - as it’s an area I have been thinking about quite alot. As someone who has interacted with the digital world for pretty much my whole life, my digital world view is closely aligned with my world view in general. But what about educators and learners who are new to e-Learning and online tools?

How does your digital world view inform your teaching practice?

Janine has offered us an intersting definition:

World View: refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts in it. (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view )

• How we interact with the world and individuals is influenced by our world view
• In education we seek to expand a learner’s world view so that they have a broader outlook, are (hopefully) more tolerant, and better able to deal with change

What about a “digital world-view”?

Possible definition….. refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the digital world and interacts in it

• Digital world – digital media, devices and environments with which humans interact?
• Is a digital world-view just a digital lens through which your general world view is passed?
• Can one be disconnected from the other?

Check out Janine’s Slides - No 12 - 21. What do you reckon? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Janine Bowes GREAT slides from the keynote session - Everything old is new again…or is it?

[slideshare id=159017&doc=everything-old-is-new-againor-is-it-119448116743467-3&w=425]

Thanks Janine!