I have been taking and teaching/facilitating online courses since 2000 and working virtually since 2006. So one would think that I would have a handle on making the most of a virtual environment. This past month I participated in a virtual support system/game related to setting and achieving goals.  It was an amazing experience with participants from all over the US.  Through this virtual collaborative experience I was reminded that the key to virtual success is communication.  Communication has come a long way in the past 10 years. The constant contact and interactions with others reminded me of all the tools that are available to support virtual communication. Read more...

While reading Thor Prichard's post – Envisioning the Future of Mobile Learning I started thinking about what classrooms of the future would look like and did some web browsing.  Along the way I stumbled upon:Read more...

For me, preparing to take a trip is more fun than the actual trip. And it’s a good thing since my trips only last about a week, and I can plan for months! I just returned from a trip to Dublin, Ireland, and I discovered a great way to share my trip through iPhoto without making people listen to me drone on and on about what I saw and did! It’s easy to see how the tool could be used in the classroom to share presentations.

I often travel by myself, and I don’t much like to go out in the evenings. I like to relax by going over my photos, deleting duplicates, sharpening them up, and posting a select few to Facebook for my friends and family. I love using iPhoto but needed a way to get photos onto my iPad so I could play with them. And I did not want to use my iPad as a camera. It’s too big and heavy to carry around, not to mention it would look weird.Read more...

Sometimes I’m really shocked by the ideas that people have about teaching, and, sometimes, I’m not surprised at all. The latest idea to not surprise me is mind-reading robot teachers! 

Evidently, the problem these robots are designed to solve is that students don’t pay attention to their teachers like they should. Their little minds wander. Robots can detect these wandering minds and perform some kind of cue to get kids to focus on the teacher. Maybe they drop a book or whistle a tune. Anyway, the point is to get these unengaged students to keep their eyes and brains on what the teacher is saying.

So what assumption does this educational practice make about what causes students to learn? Good teachers know how to make students pay attention to what they are saying.Read more...