21st Century Learning Skills

Designing Online Learning

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When I am designing an online course, I use lots of check lists and charts to help guide me. Then,  when reading an articles on Three Keys That Make Good Interaction Design Great, these words stood out to me:

  • Optimizing: Making daily activities more efficient
  • Engaging: Capturing attention, creating delight and delivering meaning
  • Empowering: Enabling people to go beyond their limits
  • Expressing: Encouraging self expression and/or creativity
  • Connecting: Facilitating communication between people and communities
  • Disrupting: Re-imagining completely an existing product or service by creating new behaviors, usages or markets.

Hello, this list can be used to double check an online course.  Are these being represented in the course I’m designing? Why can’t a check list, like this one, be used to help create some dynamic online design?  I say “Yes it can!”

MassCUE: Connecting the Dots

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Connecgtng the Dots

I spent the day in Marlborough, Massachusetts Connecting the Dots with others investigating some of the hot issues in education.  We rotated through 35 minute discussions and shared challenges, information, ideas and best practices with our peers from around the region.

This event also featured a special keynote, Ron Crouch, who with his amazing ability with numbers helped us better understand the demographics of our region and how that information will shape the needs of the area education organizations in the months and years to come.

 Ron’s presentation was fascinating and I am still absorbing the pages of information and data he shared.

More than just a briefing, this fast paced planning session brought together K-12 district and Department of Education staff to discuss, reflect, and prepare for what is to come.  

I participated in roundtable group discussions on topics such as:

•   Classroom Technologies
•   Funding Challenges and Opportunities
•   Professional Development
•   Social Media
•   Online Learning and Digital Content

It was a day well worth the foggy drive out east.

I am looking forward to presenting at the Massachusetts Computer Using Educators’ [MassCUE’s] 2011 Annual Technology Conference, This 2-day event-October 26 & 27th, 2011- is co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Computer Using Educators and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents [M.A.S.S.].

MassCUE 2011

MasterMind Meetups

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I’ve been working with the members of my own Mastermind Group: two women with whom I have been meeting with-virtually- now for over a year.  We just launched our own website  MasterMind Meetups which is built to support you as you grow your business by integrating technology with networking.

Here, you no longer are limited physically when networking. We give you the opportunity to share, create and look into new mastermind formats, which enable you to create new alliances and accelerate your business.

We will assist you in connecting with others by:

  • Guiding you in choosing a Focus Level best suited to you.
  • Offering Group Forums for chatting, document storage, emails and an Interactive Community.
  • Pushing physical limitations and providing access to experts and information you might not otherwise encounter.
  • Sharing cutting-edge technology and tools to enable you to thrive within your mastermind network.

Allow us show you how-to use technology to connect virtually.

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Are you using technology to grow your business network?  Would you like the ability to connect with other like-minded business people so you can create new alliances and explore fresh business concepts -on a global scale? 

If so, join us today and sign up for a free trail subscription!


PodCamp Boston 2010

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What a whirlwind conference!

Jam packed with fabulous people and information….going to conferences reminds me how much I love to learn. Add that to the MIT Microsoft NERD building and the view over the Charles River and it all adds up to a great weekend.

PCB5

In fact, much of the PodCampBoston 2010 was about social media.  Unlike PodCampBoston 2007 which focused on the production of podcasts, this year it was all about the application of podcasting, videocasting, blogging and all the social media and the applications of those media.

PCB5B

One very wonderful presentation [amongst so many] was given by Tamsen McMahon on Social Media. I liked this because it really pulls out the hype of social media and brings us back to the real reasons of ‘why’ to engage in social media.

Scientific method for social media

Playing with BuddyPress

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With the upcoming WordCampNYC 2010 and some other projects I have been playing around with BuddyPress again.

ACoterie

Coterie is a French word for a group of people who associate closely, a clique or inner circle.  Seems a fitting name for an online community….@ least at this stage and until we get the final kinks worked out of the functionality of this type of community site and what we want to do with it.  I must say, Steve Bruner does great job explaining the installation of both WordPress and BuddyPress in this video.

The Gig Economy

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Gig_Economy

Richard Greenwald says we are now, “living at the dawn of the freelance world, as more and more people find themselves working as consultants, contract workers or freelancers. This change in the way we work is as profound as the shift that occurred during the Industrial Revolution.”

Having been an on and off freelancer, since 1985….I of course, side with the freelancers and have to say….this is not just the dawn of the freelancers….it IS the Dawning of the Age of the Freelancers.