Distance Education

Distance education is my passion.  I have been an online student, teacher, and instructional designer, and I value the opportunities afforded to me during my time spent in each of these roles. I am interested in studying all aspects of online teaching and learning.  Some of my topics of interest include instructional design for online learning, student success factors in online education, and quality in online education. I have spent more than 20 years working in corporate america in technical writing, instructional design, and information technology. I am interested in instructional design and delivery of all types of corporate training and performance support solutions. My dream job would be a position that combines my corporate experience with my passion for academia. 

My short-term goals are to become more engaged in the professional organizations that have helped me in my career thus far. I'm also exploring new professional organizations that will help shape my future. 

Follow the Yellow Brick Road! Course Reflection #PLEK12

Hi everyone,

I am in the process of wrapping up a massively open online course. It has been a very interesting experience. I find now that I wish I could go back to the first week of class, because it would go soooo much more smoothly!  With my Wizard of Oz metaphor "follow the yellow brick road" - it seems so fitting to me because in the Wizard of Oz film - Dorothy is to follow the yellow brick road to Oz - only to find that the smoke and mirrors she was experiencing masked the fact that she always had the power within herself to find her way home.  I am graphically challenged, and I am not an early adopter of technology, but with some investigating of new tools and experiencing new things "following the yellow brick road", I have come to the ephiphany that I have it within myself to create a personal learning environment with the various tools and technologies out there. I need to learn to be less afraid of trying new things. The key is in experiencing it. You have to just try new things to experience them and figure out how they will fit in with your overall big picture.

If I could give anyone advice, it would be try something new...

As far as the personal learning environment, the course taught me that there are various aspects to a personal learning environment, including practiving digital responsibility, increasing (on an on going basis) personal digital literacy, organizing content, and synthesizing and creating content. I will look for ways to include all aspects of this in my own personal learning environment.

I created concept map trying to use a graphical device. But I ended up with symbaloo, which is an organized and graphical way to keep track of the bookmarks I use regularly.

Check back soon!! Though I'm wrapping up this course, I will continue to blog about my experiences.

Creativity #PLEK12

Creativity reigns supreme in the online environment – the components of the personal learning environments are unique and individual to each person. That is part of why a personal learning environment is “personal”. It should reflect your own interests and learning styles, as well as your tools and techniques.  Synthesis is how you incorporate what you are learning into your own research interests and knowledgebase. When you synthesize (for example literature reviews) into your own world, you are viewing that research within your own lens, that contains your own perspectives, life experiences, and thought processes. That is similar to creativity in that creativity is in the eye of the beholder. Your own unique perspectives, perceptions, thoughts, ideas, and expressions are part of your creativity. Creativity exhibits itself in what you write, post, and respond to. I have friends and relatives on facebook, and I often get surprised at the creativity that some of them exhibit in their short postings.

Creativity is important to learning because it enables you to have fun and enjoy the learning process. By integrating your own creativity – you get more out of the assignments. Synthesis is especially important to doctoral studies because the goal is to create new knowledge. By synthesizing existing research, you can potentially come up with new ways of thinking or doing, and potentially create new knowledge and add to the existing knowledgebase of your field.

I’ve been working with symbaloo to organize my world wide web content. It’s a work in progress, but it has my major responsibilities reflected. Check it out http://www.symbaloo.com/shared/AAAAAvmvX7sAA41_HBEivg====

Allison

UFAllie's Personal Learning Environment #PLEK12

Hi everyone,

I am working this week on creating an overall personal learning environment. To date, I have tested out new tools and new ways of networking with professionals and colleagues. I have started tracking my bookmarks, and I have investigated something new each week. I have been challenged in managing all of the links, user IDs, passwords, and connections. I am still trying to figure out how my "day in the life" will be in the online world of the personal learning environment.  I envision my personal learning environment being an extension of my work life. I envision it also as a means to keeping up with topics of interest to me.  My vision is far from being reached at this time.

My goal for this week is to create a personal learning environment that I use on a daily basis to keep up with people and topics of interest to me. I want to use it as a platform to move my topics forward, while keeping me in the loop with the latest in trends and technology.


Allison

Concept Mapping Tool Example (#plek12)

Organizing My Online World #PLEK12

Hi everyone,

I'm learning new things each week in my massively open online class. I'm still trying to figure out how to organize my new online world. Just keeping up with my logins and passwords to the many tools I've recently encountered is a challenge for someone like me who doesn't retain details in my brain very well.  I am working on a graphic depiction of my online network, and I'll be posting that soon. I hope you all check back to see it. It will be a living graphic, because I'm sure it will not remain the same as I continue to learn about more tools and refine what I use more frequently than others.

I am going to experiment with RSS feeds, to have information "pushed" to me that is of interest to me. That way I will get triggers on a daily basis about topics I am following.  I have both professional and personal interests that I am going to test out.

Brainstorming the various online worlds I frequent will be the fun part. Putting an organization to it will be the difficult part.

Digital Literacy Lesson Plan #PLEK12

UFAllie’s Digital Literacy Lesson Plan

This lesson plan is for anyone interested in learning more about navigating the digital world online.

Introduction

Digital literacy can be seen as a continuum rather than a start/finish. As technology grows and changes, so will your opportunity to stay up with the resources out there available for digital literacy. Everyone has to start somewhere. Evaluate where you are now and where you want to be. That is the first step in analyzing your level of digital literacy in the online world.

Objectives

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

·         Define digital literacy and explain its importance

·         Evaluate your own level of digital literacy

·         Develop a plan to increase your level of digital literacy

·         Participate in an online community

Resources to Get Started

Based on your own interests and studies, look for opportunities to join social networks in your areas of interest. This can include professional development sites, social networking sites, educational institutions, and hobby sites.  You might visit Twitter, Google, Yahoo, or Facebook to get started. The only way to navigate online is to start somewhere. (If you are under age 18, please get permission from your parents/guardian before participating in any online site).  

Example

My interest is in performance support systems (including online communities) that support fitness, nutrition, and weight loss. I found a website that is supportive of my research area, which is finding websites that help support weight loss and fitness. I reviewed and commented on this blog: http://lowcarbcompatible.com/

I have also joined other social communities, such as Weight Watchers. http://www.weightwatchers.com/plan/index.aspx. I have used this site for their community discussion, as well as intermittently for their tools (based on membership).

Additionally, I have several professional interests. I am a member of several professional organizations, and I frequent these sites on an ongoing basis. I check for recent job postings and conference information.

http://www.ispi.org/

www.stc.org

Lesson Activities

By the end of this self-paced lesson, students should post the following deliverables:

·        Brainstorming list of what digital literacy is, what it means, and what topics are related

·        Blog reflection on the importance of digital literacy

·        Goal statement – include where you are currently and what improvement you’d like to achieve in increasing your own digital literacy

·        Action plan for learning new tools and techniques to reach your goal

Activity 1 - Brainstorming

·        Using a diagramming tool or just pencil and paper, think of any topic you can think of related to digital literacy.

·        Respond with as many reasons as you can think of as to why digital literacy is important. If it helps, answer why five times… This will help you think of many reasons.

·        Include as many related topics as you can.

·        Upload your document or scan your notes and upload that.  (Example purposes only – no upload location).

Activity 2 – Blog reflection

·        If you haven’t already (and with the persission of a parent/guardian for those under age 18), join a blogging community and post a blog with a reflection on the importance of digital literacy.

·        Use your brainstorming notes to refine your thoughts and create a short outline (3-5 topics)

·        For each topic, add your reflective notes and any references you might have.

·        Post the link to your blog. (Example purposes only – no link location).

Activity 3 – Goal statement

·        Goal statement – include where you are currently and what improvement you’d like to achieve in increasing your own digital literacy

·        Define where you currently are in the continuum of digital literacy. Tell me is you believe you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced and why

·        Describe your goal for improving your level of digital literacy. What specific things would you like to achieve to improve your goal?

·        Upload your document.  (Example purposes only – no upload location).

Activity 4 – Action plan

·        Action plan for learning new tools and techniques to reach your goal

·        Provide a statement for how you plan to achieve your goal. Include specific timelines and specific activities you will do on your own time to achieve your goal.

·        Upload your document.  (Example purposes only – no upload location).

·        Share your experiences with a friend and a relative.

Resources

Here are some resources to help get you started.  I will add to this list as I identify more resources. Please check often.

Bloggers beginners guide - http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/14/blogging-for-beginners-2/

The TEACH Toolkit: An Online Resource for Understanding Copyright and Distance Education http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheTEACHToolkitAnOnlineResourc/155597

Duffy, P. & Bruns, A. (2006) The Use of Blogs, Wikis and RSS in Education: A Conversation of Possibilities. In: Online Learning and Teaching Conference 2006, 26 Sep. 2006, Brisbane.  http://eprints.qut.edu.au/5398/

Microsoft’s site that provides information on basic computer skills -http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/citizenship/giving/programs/up/digitalliteracy/default.mspx

Top websites for citation application tools -  http://instructify.com/2009/07/16/top-5-citation-applications/

http://www.ergobservatory.info/ejdirectory.html - Directory of Open Access Scholarly Journals in Education from the Education Research Global Observatory

Directory of Open Access Journals - http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpid=127

ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) - http://www.eric.ed.gov

Google Scholar - http://scholar.google.com

Digital Literacy and Social Networks

This week, I'm learning about digital literacy. It is an important topic for educators, and we study it. However, most computer savvy people develop digital literacy maybe without even giving it a name or thinking about it. It encompasses a great deal of technological advances and usage of that.  My son is very digitally literate, and he is quite advanced is finding and viewing youtube topics he is interested in, such as Legos and hamsters. He records reviews of Legos on a camera, and then uploads them to Youtube with my husband's supervision.  Digitally literacy comes from experience. However, there are many ways to increase your digital literacy. I suggest you search for resources that are out there on the web.

For my own interests, I like to use social networks for research interests and keeping up with friends and family. I use facebook for friends and family (and I especially like to use it for sharing and reviewing photos). For other social networks, such as twitter, I use that for professional topics.

I found a website that is supportive of my research area, which is finding websites that help support weight loss and fitness. I reviewed and commented on this blog: http://lowcarbcompatible.com/

I have also joined other social communities, such as Weight Watchers. http://www.weightwatchers.com/plan/index.aspx

I encourage you to find a social network and get started if you haven't already.  If you are reading my blog, you are probably already advanced beyond this, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

The Road Less Traveled - Not Always a Good Thing...

Hi all #PLEK12 followers,

I am having a very good moment.  A lightbulb went off for me tonight about my personal learning environment (PLE), and I am looking forward to the next several weeks of investigating the many tools and opportunities for organizing information in my new PLE world.

This week I am learning how to organize my world.  I have been on the "road less traveled" here in the PLE environment - not really having things click for me and feeling like I am on a scavenger hunt or a treasure hunt (scavenger hunt is probably more appropriate - trying to find a list of specified things for an ultimate prize - I just recently heard this definition on "The Office" television show).  My scavenger hunt included tweeting, blogging, Diigoing, discussing, writing and trying to figure out where I was going while I was going. I had a frustrated feeling along the way, and I felt lost and in the dark. I really can't explain why - because I am normally very comfortable online. But this entire process of using various tools and communication options has been so wide open and free, that I was uneasy that everything I was doing wasn't tied up neatly in one location.  It turns out I had failed to correctly bookmark our classroom link to the googledocs area. While this seems like a minor issue, it caused me a good bit of strife, and it taught me that the road less traveled is not always good.  I'm back on the right path now, and I'm really feeling great about all the things I am learning.

This week, I am making an effort to explore all of the tools available to us, and I look forward to figuring out how I can use these tools for creating an ongoing personal learning environment related to health and fitness. Forward and onward.

Allie

#PLEK12 Week 2 Update and Topic for Inquiry

Hi everyone,

I just signed up for the netvibes site, so I'm twittered, blogged, and net vibed now... I think I'm connected in all of the various places to which I was guided by our MOOC.  I would normally describe myself as someone very familiar and comfortable with the online learning environments, but I'm very challenged with the personal learning environment idea. My past experience was with "contained" learning tools, such as blackboard, eCollege, and Moodle. I have never used blogging, twitter, or netvibes for any classes in the past, so it's a learning experience for sure.  I am at the same time excited and filled with anxiety. I have the feeling of wanting to draw a line around the various tools and pooling them together into one area. I feel like I'm missing something. #PLEK12. Just put the hash tag here so this paragraph will be picked up, but where is it being picked up? Twitter? Netvibes? Not really sure, but I think those two areas will pick up my blog.

For those of us new to social networking and personal learning environments, I wish we had a map that would provide the jump off points to the various tools we can and should be using. How do we know that we are addressing all of the areas we should be? This is not an environment for "checklisting" if you are a checklister - making a list of tasks and wanting to check them off. It is an environment for freedom, and freedom and networking can lead to great things. I'm embracing the concepts and ideas of our class, I'm just not "feeling it" yet. Hopefully that will come with more experience.

As far as a topic for inquiry, I'd like to focus on the following:

I aim to study electronic performance support systems for weight loss programs, including online communities and tools.  I am interested in how online tools might help with the overall behavioral success of a person following a weight loss program beyond just diet and exercise. Electronic tools are becoming more and more part of every day life. With the personal learning environments and growing dependence on PDAs for constant communication, I am wondering how these types of tools (performance support for weight loss such as food journaling, exercise tracking, and motivational tools) help overall success in weight loss programs beyond diet and exercise. I am especially interested in how these programs might intertwine with childhood obesity programs.

Allison

#PLEK12 And Other Thoughts

Hello world,

I am involved in a massively online open class, and I'm learning to view blogs, twitter, and other electronic communication tools as a personal learning environment of sorts. I am very new to this, and I am feeling a little anxious about being "out there" on the internet in a more open way than I have ever been in the past.

I titled my blog site "blogging, and tweeting, and diets oh my" (even though I really don't know what grammar/punctuation to use for that phrase) as an obvious reference to The Wizard of Oz.  First, I was trying to be clever.  But that line in the film is also at a point where Dorothy and her friends were entering a scary world, and they didn't know what they would find. I am in that situation as we speak... Though I have used email and facebook for a long time, I have never been very open in the online world. (I rarely even post statuses in facebook).  As to the topics, I included blogging and tweeting because that is what I'm learning about. I included diets because that has been a main area of online community usage that I have experienced in the past. I have joined many online discussion groups focused on diets and losing weight.... So it's fitting that I include that topic because it has been a major point of reference for me in posting online.

I am using the #PLEK12 tag because I think it will be useful in tying to my twitter account posts. Though I'm really not sure of the interlinking between all these online avenues. I guess I will learn more about that soon.

Allison