Teaching Online

Sometimes online teachers who are putting together classes may need backup sources for their information, ideas to keep their content flow going, or have a section of their class which deals with a subject that falls within a weaker spot in their expertise. Where would this information or source material come from?

This post will outline two of my favorite sources that offer content that meet academic standards and point out a few links to professional content available from the business world. Content that meets academic criterion are not the easiest material to come by for online teachers that are not affiliated with a major university or otherwise outfitted with high dollar subscriptions to content repositories or other consortiums that offer material for institutional use.

Merlot is a website that provides a place where teachers of many disciplines may come together to share content and materials that are peer reviewed and rated. The materials may be anything from full classes to learning object modules. It also offers teachers and content providers with a social environment where they can discuss or collaborate, build personal profiles, create personal content collections, contribute their own content, recognize colleague achievements, be recognized for their own achievements, and even provides an educational journal–all for free. It is free to join, free to participate, free to browse and free to use. One word of caution, while the site itself is licensed under the Creative Commons the content it provides links to may be copyrighted. If you need relevant material fast, this is your go to site. Click the banner above to check it out.

What makes MIT’s OpenCourseWare site so impressive is that they were the first to share their class content to the whole world in an open source format while other campuses jealously hoard their content as “proprietary,” they provide almost everything a student or teacher could want in order to take the class as if they were there, and the material is the same super high quality you would expect from one of the most prestigious universities in the US. Clicking the banner above will take you to the site.

While the above sites are my favorite content sites there are, of course, many more. I won’t list all their links in this post, but if you are looking for content try bringing up Google in your browser and entering the following terms: learning content, learning object, open courseware, instructional material, instructional content, or content object. From there you should be able to find most everything you need in academic content.

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On the other side of learning is professional learning (usually known as training) or learning content created by the private sector as opposed to the academic world. Ever wonder if the content they create can live up to academic standards?The two sites I am about to show you may not meet the rigorous accessability or reference standards that academia is held to, but the quality of the material is just as high all the same. Let me introduce to you Authenticity Consulting and Carnegie Endowment.

Authenticity Consulting is a privately owned business that provides free Micro-eMBA’s for both non-profit and for-profit student interests. Neither program offers degrees or certificates of completion, but they guarantee that if a student finishes a program the student will have all of the knowledge of a regular MBA graduate. To help with the programs, the company also provides a very comprehensive free Management Library that my own experienced mind finds complete along with a suggested Peer Learning group program to help students learn (also free). Where these folks make money is by organizations paying to have the programs customized to fit their particular companies. Clicking the banner above will take you to their home page. Enjoy the brainfood on that one.

As explained on their website, “The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States.” These folks are a think tank for global politics and policies that provide publications as well as fund learning content sites such as Globalization101 which I personally have used in an online class that I teach. Click on the banner above to peruse the Carnegie site.

Solving the Immigration Problem in America

"How to solve Illegal Immigration" The Pinky Show, found on YouTube November 17, 2007.

Besides Creating a second nation on top of the first, I wonder what might happen if we considered the opposite: What if we struck down the immigration laws that make these classes of people illegal? What if we could all suddenly be allowed to come and go across state or international borders at will? Why, that would mean becoming a free and open country. Wait, free?

Anybody remember the meaning of freedom? As it was explained to me as a child, freedom means being allowed to do anything I like so long as I do not hinder someone else from doing the same.

I am beginning to feel real "secure" in my homeland, I don't think it feels all that free anymore though. Didn't someone say once that "those who trade liberty for security, deserve neither?" Isn't this exact trade the ones the populations of Germany and the USSR gave in exchange for the now proven failed autocratic social systems when they got started? Will we fall down that same slippery slope with a capitalist federal democracy only to find its system added to the list of inevitable failures?

Doesn't anyone see the probable outcomes of this serious string of dangerous precedents we have been setting lately? Attacking foreign nations preemptively, Bill of Rights guarantees suspended by presidential decree (Patriot Act), and the monitoring of the domestic citizenry. These are actions our nations founder's specifically designed our system to protect against. It is the point behind separation of church and state as well as the separation of powers into  three branches.

I feel like we, as a nation, are sliding down the police state path too quickly and easily. We need to watch what we are doing and think about the reality we are rapidly creating. In diversity lies strength and if we centralize and homogonize ourselves, we will lose that advantage.

One of the things that propelled the US into its powerful status is the mixing of thoughts, cultures, traditions, and ideas born of a bunch of survivalist immigrants that just did what they had to do to survive.

I ask only that we all stop a moment and think about the long term consequences of our actions. Look for innovative solutions that may be against the current train of thought, but just might work. Then do that. It starts by opening our eyes and working out the true facts behind the events around us today.

This issue is one of those that are being over-dramatised to inflate patriotic ferver in an effort to gain public support for actions that would not otherwise be tolerated by the people of the United States. What is being gained? By whom? I ask that we think critically about all things in these unusual times and take great care in our decisions.

Enjoy the brain food.

Let’s start with a post about my very favorite open source CMS, Moodle. You will find the link to it in my blogroll under Open Source Tools. What I like about this platform is that it follows the social constructivist learning theory in its functionality, is free to download and use, allows you to customize your platform any way you want to, has a host of features that rivals any commercial software on the market, once used to the system it is easy to use for teachers to build classes with (very inuitive interfaces), and provides most everything a teacher could want right out of the box.

The brain child of Martin Dougiamas, Moodle is one of the most popular educational CMS platforms in cyberspace. It is updated on a constant basis and provides support through both a comprehensive set of documentation as well as a forum where developers and users alike gather to ask and get their questions answered.  The platform is written in PHP and uses MYSQL and when downloading, even has fully functional installation packages for whatever operating system you may be using.

Just to give you an idea of its popularity, according to the Moodle.org website, there are 32120 sites in cyberspace registered. Some of the names of schools you might recognize are: Anaheim University, California State University, Drew University, Iowa State University, Minnesota State University, Purdue, the Sloan Consortium, UCLA, and Yale just to name a few of the thousands.

Some of the features of the platform include the ability to write HTML pages, podcasting, streaming video, webquests, wiki, forums, SCORM packages, chat, surveys, workshops, gradebook, RSS feeds syndication, audioconferencing, and much more. And, of course, the list continues to grow with each new version.

I have a copy of the platform on my PC that I use to build class content with and I even have a class built on a friend’s installation under the Business section at www.globaleschool.com called Business in the Global Marketplace. Feel free to log in as a guest and check it out.

Really the best thing about this platform, to my mind, is that it can be used by an individual teacher or used to create an entire online school. All you pay for is the hosting and domain. I encourage everyone to take a look at this application and judge for yourself. Enjoy the brain food.

This blog will discuss teaching adults online. I will keep you up to date on all the elements that it takes to teach classes to adults online using the most contemporary learning theories and computing technologies. I will also provide links and resources to content websites and teaching tools that can help any online teacher deliver their content smoothly and efficiently.

I welcome comments and requests for information and or resources that you feel you need

or would like to know more about. This is as much your page as it is mine, so don’t be afraid

to speak up and share your thoughts, opinions, and needs.