This post to serve as Weekly Writing #8 (Unit 5 Week 1) In order to summarize--and reflect in a purpose-driven manner--on my curriculum plan it was essential to spend time doing the reading, writing up notes, drinking tea and thinking. I had a hard time focusing on how I might respond to the weekly writing prompt. Every time I thought I'd make notes for my submission my mind wandered to items like "how are you going to change your course to engage the student more, to ask the…

https://mm.tt/439491301?t=ZDuWyXoNjb Your browser is not able to display frames. Please visit the mind map: CITS 222 Designing for a client on Mind Mapping - MindMeister. I've thought (for the last two semesters) that jQuery was just too advanced. Asking a student to download a library--minified or not--and then to upload that library, link to it, and properly perform function calls... it's a bit tricky. So, I do think that I can take the 20 point assignment that was jQuery tabs or accordion and replace that with a…

Originally posted 7/25/2014 Weekly Writing for Online Pedagogy I'm stealing the fifth article review to go over an Open Source text resource: Flatworld. I have a new instructor who is not tied to the existing syllabus or old, very expensive, textbook that has been in use for this course. We've looked at a variety of resources to replace the text. I came across the following in the second chapter of an online text, Exploring Business, the BA 151 instructor will use for fall 2014: I've encouraged faculty to…

Originally posted 5/29/2014 You can look on something anew, but it would not be with the eyes of a child. You can try to put yourself in someone's shoes, but ultimately when it comes to a teacher being taught, I'd say it depends on how long she's been teaching. I agree with Benander, "taking a class as a novice learner can be a valuable form of reflection on the teaching and learning interaction." (Benander, 2009, p. 36) However, seasoned faculty would find it difficult to take on…

Originally posted 6/10/2014 As an instructional designer I help faculty with their courses. The faculty member is the content expert; I'm a support person. I want to help them make the course easy to navigate, engaging to the student--learning can be fun--and, whenever possible, inspire or remind the teacher why he or she loves doing this. This last week, in part due to recent reading, I asked a faculty member to remember his favorite assignment from when he was in school. His face lit up immediately; he…

Originally posted 7/11/2014 I know much more about the Khan Academy {history, samples, growth} than I do peer instruction. However, I took the opportunity to sign up and log in versus just searching for one or two examples inside of the Khan Academy collection of resources. By doing so, I found that a few days later I was receiving emails that included inviting images. I pretty much felt compelled to follow the link provided in the email. Very welcoming. It was fun spending 5-10 minutes doing a…