I attended two different "online learning experiences."
The first was 21st Century Learning #70: Loving Moodle from EdTechTalk.com. I came across the name of Moodle and was curious as to what it was. Moodle is free classroom management software. It allows students and teachers to collaborate more easily. (It is the same sort of thing that we have set up at NU with the discovery site.) The session was talking about how easy Moodle is to use for everyone; for tech savvy and non tech savvy people. Some of the ways they mentioned using it was posting lessons, turning in assignments, posting lesson plans, wiki feature, and many other things. This particular session was a bit over my head at times. It appears that this software is more for upper level schools and colleges. The hosts were talking about other things with acronyms and not explaining what they meant so I found that I didn't understand everything they were talking about. If you understand what Moodle is and use it in your school, then I highly suggest listening to this session.
My other learning experience was It's Elementary #22: Gaming in the Elementary Classroom also from EdTechTalk.com. For those of you who know me, my darling husband is a video game producer so I was immediately drawn to this topic. This was an interesting session talking about the different types of games, learning opportunities that games present, barriers to using games in the classroom, and some games that should never and will never be a part of the classroom. This was a very interesting session to attend. For someone who doesn't know much about games, it is helpful to learn all about them...that they are not all the same. There is educational merit to some of them and can be a valuable asset to the classroom. I encourage you to listen to this session...it was really good!
Overall I would say that my online education experience was successful. I wish I had understood more about the first session, however now I know more of what to look for when I am choosing one of these sessions. The second was fun for me because I understood what they were talking about. Now that I have done this once, I am going to keep my eyes and ears open for sessions on topics that I would really enjoy. I will do this again!
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Great summaries of the sessions that you attended. The great think about the Online K-12 conference and EdTechTalk is that the sessions are archived and always available. It might be fun to actually "attend" one of the EdTechTalk sessions. We might do that for one of our classes as the Women of the Web session is during our class.
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