One of my favorite OER resources is the Norton Field Guide to Writing. For some awesome reason, Norton has decided to put their entire $80 textbook online for anyone to use. If all of my students had iPads, this is the text I would choose to use. I created my OER WR95 Hybrid course around this resource along with Charles Darling's Guide to Grammar and Writing.
One of my favorite parts of the Field Guide is the handbook section, which contains many short quizzes on a variety of topics such as prepositions, sentence structure and verb tense. I use these for practices in preparation for in class quizzes. Just one example of how I use OERs to differentiate how I deliver curriculum and help my students to vary the way in which they encode and study the curriculum.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Post #3: A mini MERLOT in ALS
About three years ago I got the idea to create an online repository to collect all the great teaching ideas in the ALS department. Since face to face sharing time is limited, as is inservice, I thought it would be a good place to post and exchange ideas. It fed in nicely with my ambitions to create a comprehensive hybrid/online curriculum, and it could be used to get new instructors up and running with tried and true syllabi, lesson plans and resources.
Many people contributed lessons and resources to the site, but I fear that it languishes. Why is it difficult to maintain such a community? Is it because there simply aren't enough of us to make it viable, or perhaps we already know what we like to use in the classroom? Maybe I was not a fervent enough cheerleader for the fledgling site and it has suffered because of it.
I do not cry over its stagnation, or even think about it much. It serves as a good lesson in understanding how and why ideas pass between professionals and whether or not such an exchange is needed. I joined the Digital Co-Lab this term because I get the restless feeling of wanting to improve and break out, to be held accountable to others in order to improve myself. I think it is this kind of sharing and conversing that makes us redefine for ourselves what works and what needs to be improved. I don't want to be one of those instructors like my undergrad European lit instructor who came into class with notes about Madame Bovary that he wrote thirty years prior. We get older and our students stay the same age. To improve in our ability to reach them and to instruct, we don't have to fill our classes with technology that adds no educational value, that distracts and entertains; instead, we need to see what new ideas and technology we can use to improve the possibility that our students will meet the objectives of the class and be prepared for what is next.
I have a link to that little wiki I started a few years ago in the side bar, but if you would like to take a tour, you can also click HERE.
Many people contributed lessons and resources to the site, but I fear that it languishes. Why is it difficult to maintain such a community? Is it because there simply aren't enough of us to make it viable, or perhaps we already know what we like to use in the classroom? Maybe I was not a fervent enough cheerleader for the fledgling site and it has suffered because of it.
I do not cry over its stagnation, or even think about it much. It serves as a good lesson in understanding how and why ideas pass between professionals and whether or not such an exchange is needed. I joined the Digital Co-Lab this term because I get the restless feeling of wanting to improve and break out, to be held accountable to others in order to improve myself. I think it is this kind of sharing and conversing that makes us redefine for ourselves what works and what needs to be improved. I don't want to be one of those instructors like my undergrad European lit instructor who came into class with notes about Madame Bovary that he wrote thirty years prior. We get older and our students stay the same age. To improve in our ability to reach them and to instruct, we don't have to fill our classes with technology that adds no educational value, that distracts and entertains; instead, we need to see what new ideas and technology we can use to improve the possibility that our students will meet the objectives of the class and be prepared for what is next.
I have a link to that little wiki I started a few years ago in the side bar, but if you would like to take a tour, you can also click HERE.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Friday, March 30, 2012
Post #1: Introduction
Welcome to Writing 95-Hybrid! We will be using blogs to keep our journals this term. Your journal will be available for anyone in the class to read, so make sure you create journal entries that you feel comfortable sharing. In addition to posting your journal entries, you will be required to comment on other classmate's journal entries. Links to every student's blog will be on the moodle home page once all the blogs are created. After you have set up your blog, email me the web address so I can add it to the list of blogs on the moodle. My email address is westoverj@lanecc.edu
Start blogging and have some fun!
Start blogging and have some fun!
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