The Catch: Issue #8

This 7-day period in technology-enabled learning…

“Lots of Bears in the far pool (NPS/M. Fitz)” Flickr photo by KatmaiNPS shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license.

Network Connectivity 

The Catch is a place to share any of the open and technology-enabled learning “things” we, the eCampusOntario Program Managers, come across. Ideas are found or shared with us and we write a little something about it. Sometimes we are so very lucky to have a lovely, shary person to write the blurb for us! This week, Helen DeWaard from Lakehead University has shared two little bits for us. Thanks Helen! Here’s her first little blurb about a cool little open practice called One Word:

“One word to rule them all – pick one word and make it count. Make that word your mission for the next year. Revisit it, take it out of your pocket and examine its shiny spots. Don’t throw it away or lose it cause it’s yours for the year….. Read more about the OneWordONT community from those who are on this intrepid journey – see links to Julie Balen’s blog site, Jenni Hayman’s Tweet, my post (Helen), as well as Terry Greene’s.

There will be a word cloud of all the ‘one word’ contributions after Jan 20th.

The Cutting/Trailing Edge

“lunch at the Mandarin Oriental LV” flickr photo by Deidre Woollard shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license.

If you’re lucky, you will have approximately 31 lunches in January. eCampusOntario is offering a value add service for 6.5% (n=2) of those lunches in the form of two Bento Box webinars!

At 12:15 on January 18, Joanne Kehoe and Terry Greene serve up a sequel to their “Tool Talk” Bento Box from last fall. We don’t want to spoil the surprise, but we may or may not be able to GIF each other making timelines by the end of it. And just sneaking right on in to the end of the month, Claire Coulter the intrepid Open Ranger from the Wilds of Guelph, take us through the world of online annotation tools and techniques on January 29th.

See this page for all the who, what, where, when, why, and how info you’ll need to join in.

Now and Next

Here is the second blurb Helen DeWaard shared with us; a wiki devoted to the wonderful concept of connectivism.

“2020 vision – wish you could see into the future of education? This does not include infrared or laser lenses but will help you see where your teaching and learning may be leading. No, it’s not The Matrix, (or is it?) but we are all connected in some way. Take a look especially at the sample assignments to reframe your lens on learning. There are some great ideas in there.”

Open Treasure

Sometimes, when developing an online course, it’s nice to add a running example or two of what to do and what not to do with the content that you’re covering. A fun way to present these examples is through the use of a recurring character or two in your course. Characters who can act as “students” in class and have little discussions about their burgeoning understanding of course concepts and skills. Maybe in the form a comic strip! Oh and guess what? There are a whole bunch of open source Public Domain Super Heroes from which you can freely use the artwork and back stories! Who wouldn’t want to learn alongside Kid Cthulhu or Cindy Ashmore aka Cinder? If you like the idea of using characters in your courses and are not sure how to begin, email us at thecatch@www.ecampusontario.ca and we’d be happy to chat about it.

Adoption Announcements

George Boland from Queens is saving his winter semester accounting students almost $15000. Instead of purchasing course resources for $135, they will now use an open textbook from eCampusOntario’s Open Library. I am sure his students will spend their savings more wisely than the top item on eBay in the $130-135 range.

If you’re interested in seeing some chatter about the importance of the adoption of open textbooks, follow the #textbookbroke campaign run by the Ontario Undergraduate Students Association.

The Catch is a weekly blog post on ecampusontario.ca curated, created, and collaborated on by the eCampusOntario Program Managers: Terry Greene, Peg French, Joanne Kehoe, and Jenni Hayman. Other contributors include… you? Let us know if you have something that you think would fit nicely in here by emailing thecatch@ecampusontario.ca with the subject heading “Catch This!” or whichever subject heading you want to use, really.