Impact of interactive socializing processes in online courses

 many online courses and learning products lack options that allows students space to interact with other students or even with the instructor. discussion, along with other types of social interaction between students and instructors is a necessary component to learning according to many learning theories. it gives  students chances to engage in cognitive processing, it demands that they participate in making meaning out of content and it forces them to contextualise that meaning among a social group.

• Discussions requires students to articulate what they are learning 
• Discussions create active participation in meaning-making
• discussions generate social interaction

It is helpful to see that many students are genuinely interested in interacting with others online.

• encourage media responses from students
• discuss using role-playing or alternative perspectives
• engage in debates
• allow student-led or moderated discussions
  

Tips to keep your kids safe on social media

•  Educate yourself about social media-as a parent, familiarise yourself with social media sites and learn which ones are appropriate for your child.
• Establish an age limit for your child to start using social media- while you are familiarising yourself with social media sites,you should take a look at what the required minimum age is for each site.
• Regulary check your child's privacy settings- once your child has set up a social media account, its important to remain vigilant about keeping their privacy settings updated.
• Keep your child's private- most social media sites give you the option to make your account private and only people you've friended can see your content on the profile.
• make sure your child is not posting personal details,including phone numbers, address or check-ins.
• don't allow them to post photos or videos which jeopardise their safety or character.
• make sure they choose a strong password.
• never allow them to accept friend requests from people they don't know.
• Set guidelines/rules for their social media use
  

explore the use of new devices and products in education

Devices like Smartphones and tablets are changing how teachers and students learn. technology can help them reach new levels with access to real-time students data,longitudinal information, content,apps and more . educators can create blended learning environments and leverage digital tools for formative and summative assessment, bringing new models for learning and teaching to classrooms.

technology in education and the right devices in students' hands helps prepare them with the career and technical skills they need to be successful today and tomorrow in the workforce. students can gain skills such as coding,programming,physical computing,and computational thinking  to hone their problem-solving and critical thinking skills for the 21st century.

Videos& Photos

 Ways of displaying information through videos and  images in classroom

• New teachers often struggle to find ways to amplify their curriculum. Videos clips can be a great tool to assist students in gaining that deeper understanding of content. it is important to have a clear purpose of using that film, documentary.

Puproses of using videos

• building background knowledge on a topic- student learn best when they take in information  via multiple modalities such as reading,drawing,listening to the teacher's explanations and viewing visual media.
• Using visuals is the key for those acquiring a new language, such as the ELLs(English Language Learners) in schools.

Using Images In Teaching( Online and otherwise)

• Teachers can display materials for students in face-to-face classroom settings.e.g. holding up illustrations from a book or passing books, prints,maps or other hardcopy images around classroom
• Using traditional overheard projectors to display images.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Websites

 How do I introduce Educational Website to students

• Educational websites can include websites that have games,videos or related resources that act as tools to enhance learning and supplement classroomteaching.
• Websites help make the process of learning entertainng and attractive to the student, especially in today's age
• While there are many advantages of such websites, we also need to be aware of the negatives. students needs to be guided properly because they may find resources and contents that are not reliable or do not align with the direction of the teaching in the class.
• Choosing Websites- it is important that we carefully consider what websites to introduce to the students.
•  the activities on the website should align with what is taught in class and the academic level of the students.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Cyberbullying and safety

•  Cyberbullying -is bullying that takes place over digital devices like cellphones,computers and tablets.
• Cyberbullying can range from embarrasing or cruel online posts or digital pictures to online threats, harrassment and negative comments, to stalking through emails,websites,social media platforms and text messages.
• every age group is vulnerable to cyberbullying, but teenagers and young adults are common victims. cyberbullying is a growing problem in schools and has become an issue because internet is fairly anonymous,which is appealing to bullies because their intimidation is difficult to trace

Help protect kids against cyberbullying

• Limit where your children post personal information- be careful who can access contact information or details about your children's interests, habits or employment to reduce their exposure to bullies  that they do not know.
• Avoid escalating the situation- responding with hostility is likely to provoke the bully. depending on the circumstances, consider ignoring the issue.Often, bullies thrive on the reaction of their victims
• Document cyberbullyng- keep a record of any online activity(e.g. emails,web pages,social media posts), including relevant dates and times. keep both printed and electronic version of each document.
• Report Cyberbullying-report the cyberbullying activity to the local authorities such as  local police and FBI branches.Law enforcement officialsand prosecutors can helps sort out legal implications.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Social Networking, Bookmarking & Tags

Understand Social Networking and Social Bookmarking

• Social networking-is the use of Internet-based social media sites to stay connected with friends, family, colleagues,customers or clients. social networking can have a social purpose, a business purpose or both through sites such as Facebook,Twitter,LinkedIn and instagram.
  
• Social bookmarking- is the process of tagging a website with a browser-based tool so that you can easily visit it again later.Social bookmarking sites began as simple resources for social media and content marketers.
  

Social networking and its impact on instruction

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What is a Tag cloud

• it is a novelty visual representation of text data,typically used to depict keyword metadata(tags) on websites,or to visualise free form text. Tags are usually single words,and the importance of each tag is shown with font size or color.
  

How to create a Tag Cloud

• join Infogram to make your own tag cloud design
• select a word cloud chart type
• upload or copy and paste your data
• customize colors,fonts,and text orientation
• download your word cloud or embed it on your website
  

Examples of uses for teachers and students

• it helps students , particularly visual learners engage with reading. word clouds can turn boring reading assignments or learning keywords into stimulating visuals to help increasestudent engegement.
• teachers can incorporate Word clouds into curriculum by putting the course outline into a Woed cloud and use it at the beginning of a course.
• place vocabulary words into a Word Cloud.
• have the entire class create a Word Cloud to review as an end-day activity
• Students can create their own personal Word Clouds in reflection from a discussion, an idea,a reading or video.
  
  
  
  

Forums

  Creating and Writing Forums,forum Administration 

Moderator Notes

• The Akismet Queue- working the akismet queue is pretty straight-forward. it is helpful when every moderator checks the queue each time they stop by the forums. the more eyes on it, the less effort for each of us.
• to reach it, log in and then click the "admin" link next to your name. Click on "Manage"and then click on "Akismet Spam"

The Modlook Tag

• used to mark questionable topics. if you use a news or a feed reader it may be helpful to subscribe to the modlook tag feed at http://wordpress.org/support/rss/tags/modlook.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Webcasts

 Explore various websites applications such as Skype.How are they used in classroom?

• Evernote- can be used to record workshops conferences and small and small group work in the classroom. For latter, it allows a teacher to create a folder for each student.
• Prodigy- students can study how to create equivalent fractions and the teacher can track specific problems each student encounter.
• Seesaw- is an accessible app on mobile an ddesktop and it can be used as a bridge between schools and home as parents can use it to view student's work.
• Epson iProjection- lets a teacher to take photos of student work with their phones and cast it directly onto the projector.
• Kahoot-you can create an interactive quiz on any subject that student s fill out on their individual devices.
• Digital Readworks- wonderful reading comprehension website that gives students  levelled passages to read and corresponding multiple choice and short answer questions to answer

WebQuest

Defining and detailing the importance of webquest for developing interactive web based learning and research

• Quality WebQuest provides a scaffolded learning structure that uses links to essential resources on the World Wide Web and an authentic task to motivate students' investigation of open ended question,development of individual  expertise, and participation in a group production that transforms newly acquired information into more sophiscated understanding.
• Students can experience both individual and team learning. This is done by encouraging them to produce an authentic end product that is creative and applicable to real, rich and relevant.
• Teamwork and collaboration should be incorporated into a webquest and making decisions is an important aspect of teamwork.
• A quality WebQuest  should clearly state in the process how the team members will be divided and their roles
  

Designing simple webquests

•  The topic- decide on a topic related to current events or to an area of the curriculum that is inadequately covered in available texts.
• The Task- provides different types of tasks,mystery,persuasion,and judgement tasks
• The Process-include the roles students will assume and the steps they will follow to complete the activity.
• The Resources- identify the online resources available on your topic by brainstorming a list of related words and using the list to search for relevant sites.
• The evaluation- individual evaluation rubrics should be developed that follow curriculum objectives and are easy for students to understand.
  

Read/Write Web- Wikis

 Using wikis as a collaborative tool

• Wiki is a collaborative tool that allows students to contribute and modify one or more pages of course related materials 
• one of the primary reasons to use wikis is because they help your students reach Bloom's higher order skills, things like creating and evaluating
• Wikis achieve many teaching practices including cooperation between students,active learning,prompt feedback from peers, time on task, the articulation of high expectations and support for diverse talents.
  

 

Challenges of wikis in schools

• common concerns among instructors new to wikis (as with blogs) is how to evaluate student's work  
• Students respond poorly to badly designed assignments as their knowledge around this is still growing.
• Assignment requires participation as all input and contributions are captured and owned by the person who contributed the work
• the assignment is moving and not closed,it cannot be completed without full participation from everyone and cannot stand alone outside the wiki.
  

Using wikis for classroom instruction 

• Set clear rules and expectations
• Let the students know what you expect and how students work will be evaluated 
• include detailed instructions
• give authentic assignments
• clearly define students' role and activities
• Closely monitor students' activities
• ask students to review and comment on each other's entries
  

Podcasts

 

 What is a podcast?

• it is simply an audio or video transcription of information that can be downloaded and played anywhere and anytime. It's kind of like satellite radio,but in pre-packaged,time -limited formats.
  

 Using podcasts for classroom learning.

• Podcasts can be used to provide information in a fun and entertaining way( thus increasing student engagement)
• extend student learning with critical links between content areas
• synthesize student learning through podcast creation 
• communicate with parents and the community
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

 Developing podcasts(software,editing,production)

• choose a topic and name
• show and episode format 
• cover art creation
• intro & outro music
• equipment selection
• audio recording &editing
• submission to Apples Podcasts
• promotion tips 
  
  
   
  

BLOGS

 Blogs

 1.1 blogs pedagogy and practice

• Digital pedagogy- is an engaged and reflexive practice and scholarship of teaching and learning through digital technologies.OR
  
• Pedagogy- is  most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, refers to the theory and influences, and how this process influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. pedagogy is often described as the act of teaching.
  
  
  
  

1.2 Blogs as resources and learning tools.

• Blog as a communication skill.
• It creates a social interaction between you and your students to become comfortable in their learning environment, leading to the student success.
• It helps students create better writing skills and encourages students to collaborate about these topics.
  
  
  
  

1.3 RSS feeds

• These are web feeds that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardised, computer-readable format. these feeds can, for example, allow a user to keep track of many different websites in a single news aggregator.
• The news aggregator will automatically check the RSS  feed for new content,allowing the list to be automatically passed from website to website or from website to user. This passing of content is called web syndication.