By asking students to introduce themselves at the beginning of a course, you promote social interaction and communication between students that helps pave the way for increased participation and engagement later in the course. Although you ...

Ecco la penultima mappa delle lezioni sul cyberspazio dedicata a  Trasparenza-Open Data.

Non avendo provveduto a suo tempo a scaricare il podcast della trasmissione, e ora non più disponibile, nell’ elaborare la mappa ho utilizzato gli appunti presi durante l’ascolto della puntata e alcune risorse reperite in rete che, in parte, rimandano agli esperti interpellati nel corso della trasmissione.

Instructor-created videos foster a social presence with students and visually communicate curriculum-specific information, often more effectively than third-party videos. Animoto is a fun, easy-to-use tool that lets you create dynamic, professional videos that promote a ...

School Counsellors often have to assist students with the grief process. Over the years I have seen students who have lost parents, siblings, friends, classmates and family members some due to a completed suicide which is the most tragic of all.

Below listen to a young man’s story that begins to tell the story of the impact on family and friends. I am not sure that there are any words to descibe the impact that this tragedy truly has,but his words I am hopeful will help other students.

As school counsellors our role is to be helpful in anyway that we can by infusing HOPE in as many ways as possible.

When a school experiences the loss of a student everyone feels the loss as expressed here by a note left to a student who died.

Dear_____,

Even though we haven’t formally met, I look at your spot in English class and I am deeply saddened that you are not here with us…

It is never easy seeing a student in deep pain especially if the loss was tragic or sudden. Often times school counsellors need to ensure that they have dealt with their own issues surrounding grief so that they can best help others. School Counsellors need to be aware of vicarious trauma or counsellor burnout when assisting students who have experienced traumatic events.

Here are my livebinders on Suicide Prevention and HOPE:

Suicide Prevention and HOPE

Mental Health resources

I know school counsellors save lives everyday and I want to thank you for the important work you do that no one else sees. I know because I have been a school counsellor for a long time. So keep doing what you are doing even though it can be extremely difficult at times.

There are students who you will make a difference for… of that I am sure! Take care of yourself so that you can continue to help others.

What if it isn’t OER that are being squished my the MOOC steamroller, what if it’s Open Access. Consider this as a comparison – is there a Uni which has hosted it’s own xMOOC? Several cMOOCs are University-affiliated, but the big numbers seem to gravitate towards the larger externally hosted platforms. So the “green” option of self-hosting is being ignored – it would appear completely – instead for centralised hosting systems – something slightly more “gold”. So people aren’t paying for this “gold” option, but I would assume that material and budgets are made available for this process – so while it is isn’t pay to be publised, it is definitely pay to play. Without a significant budget (Duke offers 10,000 per course), most of the xMOOC courses would only be a repurposing of existing materials. If this did happen however, then might it be possible to instead allow access to existing courses using LMS / VLE settings. You could also, in theory, repurpose all your teaching content into an “open” form anyways in several different approaches. Multiplatform repurposing would seem more “green” – in contrast to the fact few xMOOCs have as of yet gone cross platform.

This “gold” approach also ties into the people creating MOOCs. Future Learn and Coursera both have Universities drawn from “the world’s best” – much like the Universities the gold standard seems to prefer. The gold standard also uses a non-academic corporate provider as the platform for distribution, whereas “green” is more of a University Press idea.

Which leads on to “white” – the brandless, rare MOOC tied to no institution at all – a space anyone can use. Taking say – the “openness” element of the MOOC definition – would this not be more apt?

I have been caught in the craziness of June and haven’t been able to participate in any of the live events yet, so I really am looking forward to participating in Hybrid Pedagogy’s 24 hour Moocathon this Saturday. It should be very busy, and a lot of fun.

Hybrid Pedagogy is preparing a Special Collection of articles about K-12 Education: “We have not been thinking enough — or perhaps at all — about what we’re doing wrong at the post-secondary level and how the demand to “prepare” learners for “higher” ed might be hindering the ability of our K-12 colleagues to do their jobs as educators. ” If you are interested in contributing, check out their call for proposals.

Our next live event will be a Google+ Hangout on-air with Jesse Strommel (@jessifer) and Sean Morris (@slamteacher) which I will be hosting on June 26th at 9am MST. I am looking forward to it. I have have some catching up to do this weekend to get ready. I’ll be checking out the archives of the hangout and chats from earlier in the month, and digging more deeply into the content on Hybrid Pedagogy.

On June 4th Christina Hendricks hosted a Hangout with Jesse Strommel (@jessifer) and Pete Rorabough (@allistelling) who talked about why they started Hybrid Pedagogy and how it works. It was the first one that we have broadcast live, you can view the archive here. On June 5th Karen Young hosted an #etmchat with Hybrid Pedagogy as featured guests to continue the conversation started in the hangout the night before. Here is her Storify archive of the event.

Karen hosted another #etmchat this Wednesday June 12th about what K-12 educators can bring to the table. The conversation was lively (despite taking place during the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals) and it continues in the chat. Here is her Storify archive of the chat.

Here are the questions if you would like to participate:
1) Do you believe there are barriers between elementary, secondary and higher ed communication? If so what are they?
2) What aspects of elementary practice could you see introducing into your teaching? Play? Management techniques? Chunking?
3) What aspects of secondary practice could you see introducing into your teaching? Allowing students to design their own courses?
4) What aspects of higher ed practice could you see introducing into your teaching?

We are going to be taking a break from featured topics and bloggers over the summer, but we will be encouraging discussions about whatever we are reading.

In September our topic will be Connected Learning. I hope you can join the conversation at one of our live events, or in the Post #etmooc Blog Reading Group Community.