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Comment by Rich McCue on March 6, 2013 at 10:44

For the past four years I've taught the session on Knowledge Management tools for Law Students in an Advanced Legal Research a Writing class at UVic. In an effort to help the students get more out of the session, this year I "flipped" the class.  Instead of lecturing and demonstrating software for 80 minutes, the students watched the short instructional videos I prepared and installed software on their laptops in preparation for the class. This took them between 40 and 60 minutes depending on their technical ability.

http://richmccue.com/2012/12/13/a-flipped-class-knowledge-managemen...

Then in a shortened 40 minute class, I put the students together in groups of 2 or 3 and had them work on some exercises.  This allowed them to practice using the using the tools they learned about in situations approximating how they'd be used in legal research.  

The feedback from the students on the new class format was very positive.  83% of students preferred the blended class style to a traditional lecture, and 75% said that they felt more confident using the tools covered in class than they would have with a traditional lecture. At the end of both classes, most of the students stayed behind after the class was dismissed to continue playing with the new software tools.

I have licensed all the materials for the class under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License to encourage their use and re-use.

Comment by Tim Winkelmans on November 8, 2011 at 9:15

In this 12 minute TEDx presentation, although it’s college-centric, Sunddip touches on

-          Distributed learning in K12 with laddering into online college offerings

• Specific reference to international students and DL

-          Passion Projects

-          Flexible curriculum – take outcomes from 3 different math courses and blend into a new course with direct relevance to a laddered offering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7phLqKZ37F4

Comment by Clint Surry on November 1, 2011 at 11:27

Suggestions needed!

I am looking for a suggestion of a good video clip for the current moodlemeet specific to DL and mobile learning (and that has not been used already in the course)....suggestions?

Comment by Tim Winkelmans on July 12, 2011 at 15:50

Unfortunately, the educational policy and research communities have pretty much co-opted the term "virtual schooling" as a synonym for online learning.  It would have been too sensible to reserve it for the true virtual world learning environments.

Comment by Gordon Holden on July 12, 2011 at 15:33

Thanks Tim. An interesting article, but one that points out the divide that is emerging, even in the evolution of digital learning. It concerns me somewhat that a model of learning that uses Elluminate as it's main method of communicating would be referred to as a "Virtual School." It is perhaps a largely electronic school, or an internet school, but hardly a virtual school. At the very least, students in a virtual school enter a "virtual school" as avatars, able to see, hear, interact, and behave as they would in a school. While my grade 7 students do this, the school itself is surrounded by the ancient civilizations they are studying (and building). The curriculum (Socials, LA, Science) is integrated into their environment, rather than having them referring to books. The grade 6 students study space from the bridge of the SS Enterprise, and the grade 5s attend a one-room schoolhouse in Barkerville, complete with all the modern conveniences of being able to share video, PowerPoint, webpages, etc. THIS is virtual schooling. Getting ready for it means understanding what it is to begin with. I think it would be helpful if we in DL prepare for virtual schooling by agreeing on terminology that reflects the pedagogy.

 

By the way, schooling in a virtually immersive environment that is authentic and contextual, leverages the findings of Vygotsky, Montessori, Bruner, et al much, much more effectively than Elluminate, Skype, Adobe Connect, etc. It is available, just too 21st Century for some I guess, but certainly not for the students. They are there already, waiting for us to catch up.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2SaxCmef64&feature=related 

Comment by Tim Winkelmans on July 12, 2011 at 9:30

A new article on the experiences of students in Canadian virtual schools has just been published.  Inthis case, the students were in Newfoundland and Labrador schools.

Citation (open journal, no cost):

Barbour, M., & Hill, J. (2011). What are they doing and how are they doing it? Rural student experiences in virtual schooling. The Journal Of Distance Education / Revue De L'ÉDucation à Distance, 25(1). Retrieved July 12, 2011, from http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/725/1248