Posts Tagged 'e-learning'

Well, it has been a while, hasn’t it?  Again.  Apparently, I have had a busy fall …

I gave a presentation at the 8th Hawaii International Conference on Education a couple of days ago, and it was called “Putting a Face on E-Learning: A Strategy to Integrate Faculty Videos into YouTube, iTunes U and a Virtual Learning Environment.”  The primary focus of my talk was to help provide some “big picture” thoughts on how faculty can work with the rest of the university (administration, marketing, etc) to help ensure long-term success.  If you are interested, you can download my presentation here.

Well, believe it or not, I am now on iTunes U!  Crazy.  As part of our ongoing e-learning initiatives at AMU, I have been creating and incorporating video summaries into some of my online classes.  Within the classes, the target group has been current students.  As a next step, the university is expanding its reach outside of its digital “walls”, and has now started to provide a selection of course videos as free podcasts through iTunes U.

So … if you are interested in watching some of my weekly Introduction to the Bible video summaries, you can subscribe to this video podcast.  Let me know what you think!

There is a recent article at EmailWire.com that states that the model of “distance education” is over 100 years old.  Which is true.  Unfortunately, however, the article also links modern online education with older distance education.  And that, in my opinion anyway, is a faulty comparison.

What is the difference, you ask?  Good question.  :-)  

Working in a field that is “cutting edge” (relatively speaking) such as online education, e-learning, etc can sometimes feel like playing with a double-edged sword.  Not that I have actually used such a sword in real-life (and I haven’t used a light sabre either, unfortunately).  But my point is this – in any field that is characterized by innovation and growth, it is sometimes tempting to use a “new tool” simply because it is there.  There is something cool about being one of the first to do something (eg, first to use YouTube, Facebook, Digg, Twitter, etc).  However, there is also a downside to leading the way – sometimes we choose tools, resources, etc that do not work out as advertised, partly because no one else has field-tested them yet.

So … to help you navigate this process, I recommend that you read this brief article called “Web 2.0 Selection Criteria: Save Time Choosing an Appropriate Tool“, that lists five specific criteria that are relevant to online education.  Also, go over to Go2Web20 and browse their list of resources – it is quite informative and helpful.

Have fun being innovative!