Workshop delivered to Athabasca University's Faculty of Health Disciplines (Edmonton, Feb 2014). Focuses on online learning strategies, emerging technologies, the current status of higher education and online online education, open scholarship, social media, and what the future of higher education may hold. Part 1: Active, Social, and Engaging Online Learning Strategies

1. Active, Social, and Engaging Online
Learning Strategies
George Veletsianos, PhD
Canada Research Chair
Associate Professor
School of Education and Technology
Athabasca University, Faculty of Health Disciplines, Edmonton, Feb 2014

2. Active, Social, and Engaging Online
Learning Strategies
Foundations

3. Be involved and organized
– Deadline calendar
– Check-ins (e.g., 1-1 phone/skype chat)
– Discussion flow (post by? Respond by?)
– Ongoing participation
– Clear expectations

4. Be involved and organized

5. Using a diverse array of
activities…
– Discussions
– Videos
– Debates
– Digital stories
– Concept mapping
– Professional communities
– Case studies
– Solving problems

6. Active, Social, and Engaging Online
Learning Strategies
“We are all designers”

7. Create a list of adjectives describing ideal
learning experiences
www.tinyurl.com/audoc1

8. Our challenge/imperative
To design [online] learning experiences
and opportunities that are effective,
fulfilling, inspiring, meaningful, caring,
empowering, and democratic.

9. What are some activities/strategies that have
worked well for you and your students?

10. What are some of the challenges that you
faced? How did you solve them?

11. Active, Social, and Engaging Online
Learning Strategies
A list of suggestions

12. Commencing…
• Introductions
– What is your standard practice?

13. Commencing…
• One of my favorite activities: Superhero Students
“In this activity you are to create a drawing of yourself
to share with the rest of the class. Your drawing should
portray you as a superhero and include your superhero
name. You don't need any artistic abilities for this task,
as I won't be evaluating you on your drawing abilities.
The goal is to use your creativity to create a
representation of yourself so that we learn more about
each other. You can use pen/pencils/crayons and
paper, or a graphics program to do this.”
– Adapted from Dunlap & Lowenthal:
http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/CUOnline/
FacultyResources/additionalResources/Handbook/
cuonlinehandbook2011/Documents/chapter10.pdf

14. • Mine looks like
this.
• Why?

15. Commencing…
• Introductions: Adjective Circle (Amazing
Anna)
A
E
B
D
C
• It’s easy to do this in a f2f class. How does it look like it in an
online course?

16. Commencing…
• Variations
• Tell us about yourself using 7 adjectives
• Tell us about yourself using 7 nouns
• As above, but also use photos
• As above, but use the 7 adjectives to
write a story.

17. Stories & digital storytelling
• Instructors telling stories
• Students creating stories
– Single images, videos,
screencasts, comics

18. Stories & digital storytelling

19. Stories & digital storytelling
Storybird

20. Stories & digital storytelling
Voicethread

21. Weekly video updates:
Social presence - Teaching presence

23. Empower (and listen to) your
students

24. Discussions/debates driven by realworld data - Twitter
http://search.twitter.com

25. Discussions/debates driven by realworld data - Newspapers

26. Discussions/debates driven by realworld data – Comments

27. Discussions/debates driven by realworld data – Blogs posts

28. Think-Pair-Share:
Describe the use of an activity with your own content.
How would you improve this strategy?
Stories & digital storytelling
Video updates
Empowering students
Discussions driven by real-world data

29. Concept Mapping: Keeping up-to-date
and connecting all the pieces

30. Concept Mapping: Keeping up-to-date
and connecting all the pieces

31. Concept Mapping: Keeping up-to-date
and connecting all the pieces

32. Video-related activities
• Content delivery (reusing video) –
Youtube, Vimeo, TED, Amazon, iTunes

33. Video-related activities
• ed.ted.com

34. Video-related activities

35. Video-related activities
• Additional ideas
– Record an elevator speech
– Find, share, and comment
– Identify misconceptions in existing videos
– Film and share roleplays

36. Introduce learners to professional
communities - The case of Twitter

37. Introduce learners to professional
communities - Others
– Professional listservs e.g., Tomorrow’s
Professor
– Blogging communities
– Social Networking Sites (e.g., LinkedIn
discussion groups, Facebook groups)
– Ask students to attend a virtual
conference and do X (reflect/summarize/
etc)

38. E-books, Open Books, Open
Textbooks
• Create worthwhile digital artifacts as a
class (and make available to others)
– E.g., E-books and online textbooks

39. E-books, Open Books, Open
Textbooks
• Work with your instructional designer to figure out the
best platform for creating the e-book (Wiki? A
dedicated website? A collection of Google
documents?)

40. Audio
• Using music, sharing music, creating class
playlists…
http://www.rdio.com/
http://www.jango.com/

41. Think-Pair-Share:
Describe how you would use one of these in your own course.
How would you improve this strategy?
Concept Mapping
Vide-related & audio-related activities
Professional communities
E-books, open books, open textbooks

42. Image attribution
• Teacher writing on blackboard
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Teacher-writing-onblackboard564.jpg
Unless otherwise noted by the original images, content is provided under a CC Attribution
Non-Commercial Share Alike license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/
3.0/).