It is easy to think that Learning Management Systems (LMS) are only useful for fully online courses or those specifically designed to be “hybrid.” If you teach a class that regularly meets in person, why would you consider using an LMS? The answer is that online tools available in an LMS like Desire2Learn offer a one-stop solution for the the out-of-class support students are expecting.

A 2009 survey conducted by Michigan State University’s Virtual University Design and Technology (VuDAT) group suggests that student expectations about what makes a good “in-person” course have changed with the increasing availability of online tools:

SNL Online is in full mobilization mode preparing for the migration of eighty-eight online courses from Blackboard to Desire2Learn. A lot of experienced, well-educated, and well-intentioned folks have argued for a university-wide switch, and so we will have it.

Like all real change, the migration is and will continue to be disruptive; old ways of producing, teaching, and taking online courses will necessarily be uprooted and swept away with new theories and practices. Already there have been revelations and lessons learned; here are a few thoughts:

Hope for the best; plan for the worst.

Sharon’s recent post about encouraging student creativity got me thinking about assignments that foster innovation and originality. As someone who spent a lot of money to obtain an M.F.A., I have a vested interest in anything that promotes the value of creative education, which is why I’m a fan of Daniel Pink’s work. Pink is perhaps best known for his bestselling 2006 book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. In the book, Pink proposes that we’re experiencing a shift from the information age, which valued knowledge and logical, left-brain thinking, to what he calls the conceptual age, which values innovation and six key “senses.” These senses include:

“A critical part of becoming creative is being able to play—to play with ideas, with tools, and with pedagogical techniques.” This is a point made by Dr. Punya Mishra at the preconference workshop (Creative Teaching with (and without) Technology) for this year’s DePaul Annual Faculty Conference, and it is a point that I try to practice whenever I get to wear my professor hat.

As the instructor of a beginner-level Chinese-language class, I design various kinds of TPACK games and events that combine pedagogy (P), technology (T), and content knowledge of Chinese (CK). The activities I’ve designed range from celebrity-gossip sessions in Chinese (yes, I learned a lot about Jersey Shore in class), to an interactive lecture session with PowerPoint, to an online character-writing assignment on Wimba, to an all-about-my-family talk on Voicethread.

A friend of mine from high school recently posted a study of his 2.5-year-old using the iPad and then wrote a blog entry about it called “What My 2.5-Year-Old’s First Encounter with an iPad Can Teach the Tech Industry.” One of the points he makes is that consistency matters. He makes the point that simple things like uniform standards for buttons and sliders are very important. This is something that has broad applications in everything from street signs to Web navigation to course-design elements. While many will argue that standardizing these things eliminates creativity, one can argue, successfully I believe, that consistency in the design means better usability.

A couple years ago, a colleague and I posited an instructional-design approach to improving learning and performance when utilizing Web 2.0 technologies. This approach was built upon the socio-constructivist philosophies of learning and emphasizes three dimensions in designing learning for the Web 2.0 environment—social/collaborative elements, user-generated design, and knowledge management. The motivation for this approach stemmed from the recent emergence of approaches to learning that are based on self-determination and networked contexts such as heutagogy (Phelps, Hase, & Ellis, 2005) and connectivism (Siemens, 2005), which help us understand learning as making connections with ideas, facts, people, and communities.

I just had an interesting experience related to a pure distance-learning class I am teaching. I’m relating this to broach a subject near and dear to my instructor heart. As I was getting the same old take-out sandwich at the same old Subway today, a student came up to me and said with a big smile that he was taking his first online course and that he liked it. It took a minute for things to register for me since I was right in the middle of figuring out if I wanted mustard or mayo or both . The student was talking about the course I am teaching! And it hit me that he recognized me from the short videos I make and post to establish a rapport with my students. What warmed the cockles of my heart was the fact that I was succeeding in my attempt to establish a connection with my distance-learning students with video.

Having recently done some cleaning and maintenance on several wikis to ready them for the spring quarter, I thought I’d pass on what I’ve learned. Bear in mind these thoughts represent what I’ve learned building and administering premium workspaces in PBworks; other wikis may have different features and protocols.

Take a look at the list of finalists in the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Competition. Each entry listing includes a description of the project entry, and some have an explanatory video. Public commenting ends April 22 and public voting will be held in early May.

"But why write about this K–12 competition in a university blog!" IDDBlog readers may exclaim. First, there actually are some college-level entries.

But the main reason is simple: We look to the K–12 experience because these students will be our students very soon.