TIPS AND TRICKS

feb 22 2006 -- happy birthday george (washington, not the other guy...)!

SUMMING-UP:

We've talked about:  

1. Online pedagogy and use of web materials for teaching - similar to offline in that it's the quality of t he teaching that counts more than the technical wonders.  [Q: What makes a good online teacher?  What makes a good online student? What makes a good online class?]

That said, the technical tools obviously help or hamper the teaching. In some ways they allow the teacher to to the same things as work in a regular classrom (exercises, lectures, discussion), in some ways the regular classroom can't be recreated (physical presence), and in some ways new things can be done that couldn't be done in the regular classroom (learning across time and space, connecting with remote teachers and students, computerbased techniques like text to speech).  our online students can attest to the value of that.

2. We heard about various types of blended learning and techniques used therein and linked to each other for maximum effect, such as students producing podcasts in groups, commenting on them, self-evaluating, etc.  Or linked blogs whereby students can write their personal blog yet know that it's readily available to other students.  We heard about RSS syndication whereby all sorts of materials and submissions will come automatically to the students' desktop, without him or her having to go looking for those materials on the web.

3.  We discussed what's on the horizon: greater use of video, use of NS and NNS teachers in the same class, more subtle forms of blending such as some RW ss, some online, or RW students-OL teacher, One OL, one Offline teacher for a RW class, or an online one, two teachers with two RW classses joining together online -- the combinations are many and can be adjusted to the situation. [Q: Any thoughts on those topics?]

4. Perhaps most interesting to me, we mixed asynch means of communication (the TipsTricks YG, the recorded sessions, teachers' podcasts) with live discussions, sometimes incorporating the asynch into the live sessions, sometimes not.  Flexibility!  [Q: Would it have been better to make the whole workshop only live or only asynch?]

5. We found out from our survey that there is almost no pure online ESL going on  -- yet there are abundant and wonderful ESL resources online.  [Q: Does the internet work better as a casual learning tool than a formal one?  Do ESL students need to be in a RW classroom for learning to take place? Clearly for other disciplines they don't.]

6. Going forward: one regret I have is that you didn't have a chance to see a live online class in action.  I will upload a recording of one, but if you really want to get the feeling of it, come sit in on one of our classes at StudyCom (www.study.com/schedule) or even teach a short segment there -- hands-on is always the best!