TravelinEdMan: 10 Tests Phases or Requirements for Online Instructors: Do U Qualify?

TravelinEdMan: 10 Tests Phases or Requirements for Online Instructors: Do U Qualify?

Congrats to Curt on a very funny post (from someone who has taught those courses).

He gives a list of 10 qualifications that qualified online instructors should be able to pass. I particularly like #7. I think that I've had some of these test-takers in my classes.

Future of the Internet 3

Future of the Internet 3

Another futures report.

One of the first ideas is that the mobile phone will be the main, if not only, access to the Internet for most people. This is one of those duh! forecasts in many ways. There are problems with this type of prediction: (1) the mobile phone will likely be unidentifiable as a mobile phone by 2020 (just think what it looked like in 1996); and (2) our phones now are hardly only phones, they are computers, media players, cameras, video recorders, calendars, messaging systems, gaming systems, and more. For these reasons, saying that mobile phones will be the primary access device for Internet use is both true and false. It's true that we will likely access the Internet from small, portable devices, but to say that these are "mobile phones is just silly.

ALAK 2008, Seoul National University

Today was a busy day.  I participated in a rather long CALL Fair and gave a paper presentation.  I think that the CALL Fair went well, but the paper....not so much :)  However, I'll post some of the materials here just in case you'd like to take a look.

CALL Fair

My CALL Fair presentation was titled, "Online social networks for specialized language learning environments."  It was mainly focused on using Ning to quickly and easily set up an online social network and demonstrating the functions built into Ning sites.  I also spent a little time (more with some than others) discussing other options.

Here is the proposal (.doc)

Here is the presentation that I put together, but didn't really use. 

Online Social Networks For Specialized Language Learning Communities

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: alak korea)

I chose, instead, to take them directly to sites to see for themselves.  I put together a quick and dirty site at ALAK 2008 Test Site that you are free to play with.  I'll leave it up for a least a little while.  I also showed them my class Ning site, which is closed to the public, LiveMocha (a language learning online social network), and Teach the People (Facebook application), as well as a few other sample sites (see notes sheet for collection of sites).

Paper Presentation

I don't think my paper presentation went nearly as well.  In "Changing Learning Theories," I really bit off more than I could chew for this one.  I have an ambitious goal of doing an overview of Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism, and Connectivism as well a potential applications of Connectivism to language learning teaching and learning.  Did I mention that I had 20 minutes to do this in?  I had to rush through too much and I didn't explain the newest theory on the block, Connectivism, well enough for the majority who had never heard of it.  I should have just cut out the other learning theories (assuming that the audience had some knowledge of them) and focused on Connectivism and language learning.  Oh well, take a look at the presentation for yourself.  I put quite a bit in the notes, so be sure to check those out.

Paper (.doc)

Learning Theories

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: learningtheory theory)

Feel free to chime in with any comments, suggestions, criticisms, or just to say hi.