David's Blog
e-Learning Glossary (A)
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The first installment of an e-Learning glossary. Nice definitions of all those terms you read about, but were afraid to show your ignorance by asking what they mean.
The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative: a collaborative effort to utilize information technologies to modernize structured learning. ADL sets the standards for SCORM courses.
Accessibility: the degree to which information on the web is made available to people with disabilities. For instance, people with disabilities such as visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive have the ability to access information from the web.
Action Projects: when ideas learned through research are tested and related through real-world situations.
Activating Prior Knowledge a tool that helps learners connect to concepts about to be taught by using activities that relate to the current level of their knowledge.
ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) Model: an instructional design model that represents a flexible guideline for constructing effective training support tools.
Adult Learning Theory: a theory pioneered by Malcolm Knowles, which describes learning motivators and how they differ in adults and children. Adults are more self-directed and autonomous in their learning, and bring more life experience to the learning process than children.
Advance Organizer: guidelines for an abstract introduction developed by David Ausubel. They were designed to activate prior knowledge and help students respond better to the training that is about to occur.
AICC: standards that apply to the development, delivery, and evaluation of training courses that are delivered via technology. The Aviation Industry CBT (computer-based training) Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology-based training professionals that develop training guidelines for the aviation industry.
Alternative Assessments: allows teachers to evaluate their students' understanding of a specific subject, or of their overall performance. Examples include: performance assessments, journals and portfolios.
Andragogy: a term coined by Malcolm Knowles to describe the way in which adults learn. The main points include: What's in it for me? Let me decide how I'll learn it. Where does this fit in relation to the other stuff I know? Sell me on learning this. Remove the obstacles from my path, please.
Anticipation Guide: a checklist written by the instructor to trigger existing knowledge.
Applet: a small Java program or application that runs on a browser and can be embedded in the HTML of a webpage.
ARCS: acronym for Keller's Theory of Motivation (attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction).
Artifact Strategy: the teacher presents carefully selected objects (artifacts) to the students, poses a problem. The students attempt to solve it by conducting research on the artifacts, which can be anything appropriate, including words, pictures, web sites, physical objects.
ASP (Active Server Pages): a technology promoted by Microsoft that allows web developers to embed Visual Basic code into HTML documents, to make web applications more interactive.
ASP (Application Service Provider): a company that supplies software applications and/or software-related services over the Internet. ASPs allow companies to save money, time and resources by outsourcing some or all of their information technology needs.
Asset: 1) Intellectual property. 2) Hardware and software owned by an organization.
Asynchronous Learning: a type of learning where interactions between instructors and students occurs with a time delay. Some examples are self-paced courses taken via the Internet or CD-ROM, Q&A mentoring, online discussion groups, and email. Our Learning and Planet forums are good examples.
Authentic Instruction: instruction that focuses on higher order thinking, depth of knowledge, real-world applications, and social interactions, and that is meaningful to students
Free online courses
Comprehensive List of Free Online Classes and Online Courses
Lots of open courseware classes from different universities, sorted by subject. Nice to have an aggregated list from the various sources
The Interactive Whiteboard Revolution Forum
Quite a range of opinion and debate here -
http://iwbrevolution.ning.com/forum
e-Learning Games
Why is it that people will give up on a piece of e-learning after 10 minutes, but will play a game for hours? Simply put, games are fun.
Games motivate us with rewards when we succeed, and let us try again when we fail. Learners pay attention when they are engaged which helps improve retention, which, in turn, helps learners to apply concepts in the real-world performance environment.
In his book, Engaging Learning, Clark Quinn extracts the essential characteristics of how you can make effective games:
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Thematic Coherence – Every game is in a genre (or blends several), and the action within the game must be consistent to the theme or model world we develop. Clear Goal – The player must be presented or discover the goal he or she is trying to achieve within the theme. Balanced Challenge – An experience that is too simple is not fun, and one that is too difficult is frustrating. As the player improves, the challenge needs to increase appropriately. Then tension should relatively wax and wane while maintaining a steady increase. Relevance: Action to Domain – The dilemmas and consequent decisions that the player makes must be meaningful in the model world. Relevance: Problem to Learner – The genre of the game and the story line must be of interest to the player. Choices of Action – There needs to be (at least a perception of) a variety of choices the player can make at any time. Direct Manipulation – The player should act directly on the model world through the interface. Action Coupling – Input-output interreferentiality: the action in the world should cause actions that are represented back to the player by consequences in that world. Novel Information or Events – The play should include elements of chance that make the play non-deterministic. |
The book's website is www.engaginglearning.com.
Active Learning
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