I just came across this article on Teresa Dove, who was recently awarded America’s first-ever K-12 Online Teacher of the Year. I won’t go into what I actually think of such an award… Dove listed what she felt were the 5 most important things for online education and Ithought I would list them here given as a compare/contrast with Chikering and Gamson’s Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.

For my digital story I decided to use the web2.0 tool xtranormal. The context for this story is a type of introduction/overview on nuclear energy. It could be used in a Physics 11 class as part of a unit on nuclear energy. Have a look: This story could be used to feed into a research/critical analysis project on the pros/cons of nuclear power. Alternatively, it could be used as the beginnings for a debate on nuclear power.

I think the order of the standards is no coincidence. My initial impression is that “facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity” and “design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessment” are the most important and unique aspects of the standards. The last two standards are almost generic in nature and can be applied to many different disciplines with a few changes in words. I suppose that I’ve been dabbling aspects that deal with the 2nd standard for a year or so.

My Digital Story is the story of nuclear energy in the 21st Century. It would be used as an introduction to a unit on Nuclear Energy in Physics 11, as part of the required curriculum in British Columbia. An even better use of the digital story would be mid-unit, used as hook prior to assigning a critical research paper on the pros and cons of nuclear energy. The pedagogical rationale behind is encompassed by the nature of the dialogue.

I’m always interested in ways that technology can be expanded, and one of the big areas for all types of tech is the expansion of mobile computing; therefore, I set out to see what options are available for a mobile Moodle. A few google searches didn’t reveal a lot. There seemed to be a couple of apps that were aimed at making a mobile moodle solution but it wasn’t clear as to the maturity of these solutions of if they were even being actively developed.

This week in ETEC 565 our class did an activity where we were to collaborate on a wiki entry. The topic was geared in using social media for learning and collaborating, with an eye towards identifying key challenges and strategies when dealing with social media. This was the first time that I have ever participated in using a Wiki, so the whole setting and editing environment was a bit strange. Furthermore, it became clear that the unwritten rules of how a person navigates and collaborates within a Wiki were also very foreign to me.

I was livid after hearing Peter Cowley in today’s broadcast of Grading Teachers on The Current. There are so many problems with his argument it is difficult to know where to begin. Standardized tests are universally panned in research, and in fact they are not “better than nothing.” Standardized tests, amongst other things, leads to “teaching to the test.” The UK had massive problems with this in the nineties, where up to a month or more of classtime was spent solely in prepping students for a standardized test.