Badges, Blogs, and Google+: Clicking in an Online Learning Community
- Deanna
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When we teach online we must do more than build a course. We must select the right tools and tasks to both encourage student learning and allow effective demonstrations of it, but we must also intentionally build social capital and create a learning community. Creating a learning community that clicks, or connects, is a challenge under any circumstances, but even more difficult in an online class where there is little social capital. As both an online instructor and student, I have found that you can create an online learning community that clicks and will share the tools that I use with my students, including badges, blogs, and social media, to create connections and foster active engagement. These tools have successfully worked to engage first-year students through graduate students and include adaptations of methods I learned as an online student at Texas Tech and through the National Writing Project.
2014 CCCC – Computer Connection
Saturday, March 22 ~ L Session 9:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. ~ 3rd Floor of the JW Marriott
Inspired by:
- How to Enhance Learning by Using High-Stakes and Low-Stakes Writing By Peter Elbow and Mary Deane Sorcinelli
- High Stakes and Low Stakes in Assigning and Responding to Writing ~ Peter Elbow (See Tip Sheet for Specific Uses and Benefits)
- Social constructivism and Lev Vygotsky
Resources, strategies, and tips:
- Creating an (Online) Community
- Inspiring writing and learning in six words
- Me Museums
- Using Badges to Assess a Class Community Assignment
- Google Docs, Blackboard blogs, and class discussion
- Students Respect the Badge
- Why My Students Must Blog
- Community Doesn’t Just Happen
- Class Badges web site
- Class Dojo
- Note: CMS systems such as Edmodo, Moodle, and wikis also have built in badges