Cool Tools Presentation

At the recent eLearning Consortium of Colorado (eLcc) Conference, our own Beth Kitts and Brenda Perea presented a popular session on “cool tools” (that is, an expert list of the latest and greatest tools you might like to use as you teach online).  Here’s the link to their Prezi:
http://tinyurl.com/2013cooltools

Feel free to share your own favorite “cool tools” in the CCCOnline Community!

Inspired by a Conference Lately?

Have you been inspired lately by a good conference?

The eLearning Consortium of Colorado (eLcc) recently held their annual conference, and below are a few “food for thought” tidbits from some sessions.  In the CCCOnline Community, feel free to contribute anything you’ve learned recently from a good conference, f2f or online.

--Dunbar’s number = 150 (the number of people with whom a person can reasonably interact); relevant in social networking and perhaps eLearning/MOOCs

--Peer reviewers/mentors can help struggling online instructors

--Online student teams can work: need to have ground rules established right away

--Embedded librarians make a difference: students feel more connected to a course and comfortable with librarians

--Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) can be useful for faculty or students (a PLE can compile social-media networks, organizations, articles, courses, etc., around a specific learning goal)

--Multi-generational teaching: helpful to ask adults for their life experience (they need to feel their prior experience is valuable); youngest (Millennial) students respond well to structured assignments with tight deadlines

Helping Students Succeed Online

Click below for a post from Edudemic that includes an interesting infographic: “Adapting to Online Learning.” http://edudemic.com/2013/04/the-characteristics-of-a-successful-online-student/

(The infographic is based on the study from Columbia University’s Community College Research Center that was mentioned recently on this blog.)  

 Of course, the online classroom can be a challenging learning environment for students; have you found, within your own classes, any particular strategies that seem to help students "adapt" and succeed? Feel free to share with colleagues in the CCCOnline Community!

Professional Etiquette in Academic Settings

Good etiquette can smooth relationships between students, students and professors, and academics; this week, we offer a couple of related thoughts:

--To help everyone establish an appropriate environment for online learning, we do expect respectful, non-disruptive communications and netiquette from students, and these expectations are covered in CCCOnline’s Mutual Respect Policy.

--This recent Chronicle of Higher Ed article, “Profs Fail iEtiquette 101,” discusses that in professional settings such as meetings, professors sometimes offend the same etiquette sensibilities they would expect in their students.

What do you think -- how do you model “mutual respect” in your e-classroom?
What do you do to encourage good manners inside the classroom or in a professional setting?

Comments on (n)etiquette welcome in the CCCOnline Community!

Interested in Gaming in Your Classroom?

Below please find information about a free professional development opportunity; this popular Games MOOC, offered by Front Range Community College, was developed with funding from CCCS’s Immersive and Game-based Learning grant program:

http://ccconlinefacultynews.blogspot.com/2013/03/games-based-learning-mooc.html

A related piece of interest is from Learning Solutions magazine: “Once Again, Games Can and Do Teach!” (Karl Kapp, 3/4/13)

Your general comments on gaming in the online classroom are welcome in the CCCOnline Community!