Digital Natives

Personally I don't like this term at all and think it is unnecessary. While working on my assignment I came across a blog entry by Courtney Hunt discussing her 12 hopes for 2012:Enhanced Adoption of Digital Technologies.
I like this hope of Courtney's.
The false assumption of the inherent superiority of “Digital Natives” and “Millennials” in leveraging new technologies will cease to dominate people’s thinking. We will realize that we all have the opportunity – and ability – to be as digitally proficient as we want to be. As we all become more digitally proficient, we will once again realize that substance (e.g., functional and organizational knowledge, experience, wisdom, emotional intelligence, communication skills) is much more important than form (i.e., specific digital skills) – and far more difficult to acquire!

2.1.1 My Current Understanding of "Online Pedagogy"

In relation to the phrase "online pedagogy" in  simple terms I think of the process of teaching online.

This then leads me to think about the strategies and philosophies that are considered when creating content for online learning and how does this differ from creating content for face to face learning.  Another element that comes into focus immediately when thinking about online pedagogy are technological tools.  What are the best tools to use? How does the instructional design need to differ to incorporate the features and benefits of the tools?  Are individual learning styles still catered for?

Then my thoughts go onto what new skills as a teacher do I need to develop to teach in an online format and what skills am I expecting my students to be efficient in to fully receive the benefits of the online pedagogy?

Synchronous and Asynchronous Communication

The queston of synchronous and asynchronous arises again in relation to a mode for online learning. My post below to the forum on 05/03/2012 supplies a link to my wiki on this topic from a previous subject.


Both synchronous and Asychronous have an important place in online learning and both provide an essential but different learning experience.
In my previous subject (EDU8415- Multi-Modal texts and New Literacies) I created a wiki about managing virtual teams. In the this wiki I explored the use of synchronous and asynchronous communication in terms or forming and training a virtual team. You can take a look at the wiki here http://edu8415-virtual-teams.wikispaces.com/ The aim was to define particular activities required to form and train a virtual team and then match the activity with a possible communication method.

Late Start

Have been trying to start this subject all week but other stuff kept getting in the way.

Have suceeded to catch up this morning and post to the relevant forums.   Starting to read the selected readings.

Considering the following as a topic for assignment 1.  "Online learning has transformed the corporate training sector"

Found an interesting article this morning "Corporate Elearning - A New Frontier
http://www.astd.org/NR/rdonlyres/E2CF5659-B67B-4D96-9D85-BFAC308D0E28/0/hambrecht.pdf

I hadn't considered the difference between e-learning and online learning before.  This is the definition shown in the above article.

The term e-learning covers a wide set of applications and processes,

including computer-based learning, Web-based learning, virtual

classrooms, and digital collaboration.

Online learning constitutes just one part of technology-based

learning and describes learning via Internet, intranet, and extranet.