Japanese University Bloggers

Well, I finally managed to get my students at Ryukoku University signed up with weblogs at Livejournal. 
They all seem pretty excited at the idea of being able to communicate
with people from different parts of the globe.  It was quite a
chore getting them to sign up though.  More than half the students
in both classes didn’t have [...]

Liberating Structure

I just furled a fine freestyle from James about the importance of structure in the success of online learning events.  He writes:
…the structure of a learning environment is, in a
significant way, a driver of its constitution…it is NOT a neutral
technical aspect…without a structure that allows for effective teacher
presence (and, if you will, controlled autonomy and [...]

Week 13 - The End of the Beginning

Our final f2f meeting is this week.  The semester ends May
14th.  For most of us, the end of this semester is just the
beginning of a long-term project fueled on self-initiative and genuine
interest.  So, the semester was the beginning of the true
beginning.
Our Goals for the Week 13:

Have a final discussion session about the course;
Clear up any [...]

It’s not the blogging or the writing

It’s not the blogging or the writing, it’s the feeling.  As Anne writes:
So,
will she still feel the same enthusiasm for writing in high school as
she does now writing on a weblog? Will she continue to write and
experience the joy? Will she continue to develop her own voice and
style in writing? I believe weblogs are a [...]

Clearer definitions needed

All the terms listed below are of great interest to me.  I use
them without a clear knowledge of what exactly they mean and how others
have defined and used them.  I want to understand all these terms
better and how they relate to one another, especially in the research
literature.  I also want to know what role these [...]

Final Evaluation Criteria

Website Achievement:

What is the purpose of my website? Am I achieving the goals that were agreed earlier with my peers?

Have I made an effort to build on the comments and help received by my peers?
Have
I made an effort to build a Personal Learning Community (PLC) by
linking to and commenting on sites outside the confines of [...]

IWP Week 12 - The Journey of Learning: Attention to Change

Our Goals for Week 12:

Discuss draft #1 of the Guidelines for Posting and make suggestions for draft #2;
Continue sharing narrative accounts of our learning journeys this
semester with our weblogs and reflect as a group on possible meanings;
Examine criteria for self, peer, and tutor final evaluations and make suggestions for changing them if necessary;
Raise questions for [...]

IWP - Week 11 - Ethics in Interactive Webpublishing, Revisited

In response to a recent post by a member of the community that was
considered libelous, the main purpose of our f2f meeting this week is
to construct a list of guidelines for what should constitute acceptable
content and conduct in our online community and what the consequences
of breaching that agreement should be. 
Our Goals for Week 11:

Discuss [...]

IWP - Course Notes 10.2 - The Ethics of Freedom

In Interactive Webpublishing, our triangulated midterm evaluations (self, peer, and tutor - see suggested criteria)
sparked a process of online self inquiry for one of our learners. 
As a result, he began posting intimate details about his past, things
that most people would only share with a close friend or
counselor.   I know from our f2f talks that the [...]

Wikibooks Project for EFL Writers

John just pointed me to Wikibooks,
which gave me an idea for a semester-long project in the fall: putting
the EFL students in groups of 4 to 8 and having them work
collaboratively on writing short stories for possible publication on
the internet, such as in a magazine like Topics, or on their own website.  I’ll see how they [...]

Articles on Teaching and Learning

Here’s a nice resource of free online articles on teaching and learning from Indiana University.
via Tim Denny at KansaiLCT
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IWP - Class notes 10.1

We spent most of our session reviewing Week 9: RSS and aggregators and how to use tools like Feedster, Waypath, and Technorati
to find feeds relevant to our learning needs.   One learner
said he was having trouble finding good blogs to subscribe to.  It
was agreed that he should try different search terms in addition to
subscribing to the [...]