Student 2.0 -- Teaching a Wired Generation

The New York Times recently published an interesting set of articles and videos on teaching the wired generation.

A brief blurb (read the full article):

On the eve of a pivotal academic year in Vishal Singh’s life, he faces a stark choice on his bedroom desk: book or computer?

By all rights, Vishal, a bright 17-year-old, should already have finished the book, Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle,” his summer reading assignment. But he has managed 43 pages in two months.

He typically favors Facebook,YouTube and making digital videos. That is the case this August afternoon. Bypassing Vonnegut, he clicks over to YouTube, meaning that tomorrow he will enter his senior year of high school hoping to see an improvement in his grades, but without having completed his only summer homework.

Personalized Learning

According to a Brandon Hall report on Blended Learning:

"Design and development of blended learning requires a holistic approach involving modern pedagogy, learner needs and expectations, and technology.... A key design aspect of blended learning should be aimed at personalized learning with a human or virtual guide to direct and support the individual learner."

Citing research by Sharpe ("Success Factors for Blended Learning"), the following design factors were highlighted:

1. Analysis of successful and successful features of the course content (including learner feedback)
2. Undertaking the design as a team, ensuring staff members have the time to properly integrate face to face and online material
3. Designs that make explicit their underlying principles -- these could be established pedagogical principles, active learning, repetition and elaboration, prompt and frequent feedback, or course outcomes
4. Developing the course iteratively over a number of years
5. Help students develop conceptions of the learning process
6. Disseminate and communicate the results of evaluations.
7. 
   

So how does your blended course stack up? Comments please:)

48 Ways to Use Wordle in the Classroom

Props to Tech Learning for this one:

If you have never heard of Worlde, it's a great way to summarize lectures, speeches, articles, poetry... almost anything text based.