20+ Tips From The Most Effective Online Teachers

This is a cross-post from http://edudemic.com

The fundamentals that define a great teacher don’t differ much whether classes are taught in the online setting or off, but there are certain things that need greater emphasis and gain greater importance when a teacher is working with students who aren’t in a traditional classroom setting.

Knowing how to highlight these things to help students reach their potential and get more out of a course is what separates online teachers who are good from those who are great.

While that might sound challenging, the reality is that many of the things that make the best online educators so successful aren’t especially strange, shocking, or even all that revolutionary.

Even better, many of these educators are willing to share their secrets and to help other teachers moving into the online forum figure out how to adapt their teaching strategies to the online world.

Read on to learn what it takes to excel at teaching online and gain a new understanding of what really separates great online educators from the pack.

1. What students can teach each other is just as important as what the professor teaches.

   
   Joan Goloby, a communications professor at Endicott College who has taught online courses for more than 12 years, offers this as her No. 1 tip for teaching online. She believes that peer learning is one of the biggest assets of online education, and that professors working in the online environment should capitalize on it. Instructors should assume the role of facilitators and should help students start conversations, share experiences, solve problems, and help each other through the course material. This, she says, creates a richer and more engaging online experience for students.

2. Online should never mean easy, for teachers or students.

   While online courses might have a reputation for being easier and less rigorous than their offline counterparts, Goloby argues that that shouldn’t be the case. Instead, high expectations should be set from the beginning and students should be told just how much time and involvement they’ll be expected to put forth to be successful in the course. Yet high standards aren’t just for students. She also states that teachers should understand that online courses will take much more time to develop and facilitate than classroom courses. A willingness to commit to putting in that extra time is a big part of what defines successful online teachers.

3. Giving thoughtful and regular feedback is essential.

   Another critical element to online teaching success is feedback. Professor Goloby believes that feedback and assessment in an online course should be continuous, because, just like their in-class counterparts, online learners crave recognition and comment. In fact, many students find this kind of engagement to be even more essential to feeling successful and recognized in the online environment. She advises online instructors to give students thoughtful and regular feedback throughout the course. If there isn’t time for a lengthy response when a student emails or messages, then a response should indicate a later date at which this feedback can take place.

4. Decide how you want to communicate with students.

   There are many avenues for communication available to instructors working with students but it’s critical that the right one is chosen for a given type of information. Some communication with students should take place in discussion forums, while other conversations are best to have in a private email. Using a variety of methods to communicate and experimenting with which works best for a given group of students, is important for online education success, according to Kristen Betts, an online educator at Drexel University.

5. Understand that it’s not just a day job.

   
   One of the keys to excelling as an online teacher, according to West Texas A&M professor Richard Rose, is understanding that being an online educator isn’t the same as working a 9-to-5 job. He believes that being an online educator is much more a lifestyle than an occupation. Students can run into trouble and need guidance at any time of the day, meaning sometimes the an online educator’s workday won’t end until 10 or even midnight. Those who are really committed to teaching a successful course don’t make students wait until it’s convenient for them to answer urgent questions, and instead respond as soon as they can. This doesn’t mean educators have to give up personal time, but it does require a fair amount of flexibility and a willingness to stretch work hours well outside of the traditional boundaries.

6. Be proactive about course management.

   As an experienced online educator, Lawrence Ragan knows a thing or two about what separates a successful teacher from one who struggles in the online environment. One of his key strategies for success is practicing proactive course management. This includes monitoring assignment submissions, reminding students of upcoming deadlines, and making course progress adjustments when they’re needed. How much or how little of this kind of course management will need to be done depends heavily on the needs of students, but Ragan advises that online educators will be more successful, regardless of the experience or dedication of students, by putting greater emphasis on this in the early weeks of the course as students adapt to the new responsibilities of online learning.

7. Establish patterns for students.

   While online learning offers a great deal of flexibility, Ragan also advises that it also have a set and repeating structure to it. This can help instructors to prepare materials and can also be beneficial to students who will know what is expected of them week after week and can more easily arrange their non-course activities. Over the course of the semester, this sort of scheduled activity creates a rhythm that can make it easier for students to build time management skills that will help them to succeed.

8. Have a contingency plan.

   Whether the course management site decides to crash or you get unexpectedly ill, there may be times during an online course when the usual rhythm of things will be interrupted. These occasions can be far less disruptive to students if an instructor has a plan in place for these kinds of unexpected events. Ragan believes that online instructors must have a plan for how they’ll communicate changes to students or have a person who may be able to step in for them or act as an emergency contact should something serious take place. This reduces stress for both the instructor and the students and ensures that online courses will operate with limited hiccups regardless of any unexpected events.

9. Think before you write.

   In the online environment, lack of context, tone, and facial expressions can mean that some things don’t translate how they should. As a result, misunderstandings and misinterpretations are common. While there is no way to absolutely ensure that a message will be received as intended each time you communicate with students, Ragan advises adopting a policy that requires instructors to “think before you write.” He states that not only should communications with students be clear and concise, they should also be read before sending or posting to make sure that there’s little room for misinterpretation or for students to find them offensive. It’s not a foolproof method, but it can help to avoid some of the most common problems with communicating in the online environment.

10. Help students track their progress.

    
    Without information about their progress and feedback about where they’re going in the class, most students in an online course will feel pretty lost. As a rule, Ragan believes that student assignments and tests should be returned within a couple of days and grades should be posted online as soon as the instructor has them available. It’s also important to touch base with students throughout the semester, especially those who are struggling or may need a little more encouragement to push themselves to their potential in the course.

11. High-quality course materials count even more online.

    One of the most important things to remember about teaching a successful course online is that content quality counts, perhaps even more so than it does in the traditional classroom environment. From editing errors to broken links, course material needs to be of the highest quality to avoid any confusion with students and to ensure that they have access to the best possible resources for learning a given topic. In order to develop course materials that are in line with this ideal, Ragan advises focuses on three key areas: content accuracy, instructional design, and systems performance. Each plays a critical role in determining the online learning experience, and should be addressed when necessary to maintain a high-quality course.

12. Emphasizing active learning.

    Encouragement of active learning was one of the traits found to be central to successful online learning by a study conducted at the University of Central Florida. Active learning is a model of instruction that puts the responsibility of learning on the learner. While instructors can be facilitators of this process, students should understand that they will get more out of the course and achieve a better grade when they take responsibility for their own learning. While this can be true for any type of course, it is especially important in the online forum because students aren’t being monitored face-to-face.

13. Let students get to know you as a person.

    One of the traits of a successful teacher, as defined by Ken Bain in his well-known book What the Best College Teachers Do, is building rapport with students. A key element of building this relationship is allowing students to see you not just as a professor, but also as a person. According to a 2011 article in the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, this is also an incredibly important element of finding success in online education. In fact, it may be even more important than it is in traditional classrooms, as the remote environment can sometimes feel isolated and students who have closer relationships with their instructors are less likely to feel lost or unsure and are more likely to ask for help when they need it.

14. Get to know your student population and their needs.

    Connected to the establishment of a rapport with students is another key element ascribed to successful online educators by the Journal of Online Teaching study: the best online teachers get to know the needs of their students. Understanding the student population allows an instructor to best determine how much or how little help they need and to tailor lessons and feedback to those needs. Some students may be struggling with work, family, or financial issues and may need more motivation and support. The report quotes Ken Bain’s approaching to college teaching, stating, “You don’t teach a class, you teach a student.” That same sort of individualized approach is just as critical in the online environment, if not more so, than in a traditional classroom.

15. Keep students motivated and engaged.

    
    Much of the interaction in online classes happens in discussion forums and chatrooms. While students can and should be allowed to communicate with each other without the constant supervision and encouragement of the instructor, the instructor does play a key role in helping students get the most out of these experiences. The Journal of Online Teaching research suggests that teachers should ask questions in these settings that will help to get and keep students interested in the subject matter. Asking questions that facilitate reflective thinking, collaborative learning, or knowledge building can be especially helpful.

16. Be present.

    Dr. Judith Boettcher has been working with online education since the early 90s and has written numerous books on the subject of online teaching, making her a bit of an expert on the subject. In her “Ten Best Practices for Teaching Online,” her number one tip for success is for educators to be present at the course site. That means using communication tools, participating in discussion forums, and generally being a daily presence for students. Dr. Boettcher believes that this helps to facilitate bonding with students and ensures that they’ll feel supported in their studies. The most successful online educators, she says, set virtual office hours and make it very clear from the start of the course when and where they’ll be available to students.

17. Ask students for feedback.

    While reading course evaluations at the end of the semester can be useful, far more so is getting feedback from students while the course is actually going on. Instead of waiting until it’s too late to change things, this allows online teachers to make adjustments as the course is going on, which can be far more beneficial to students. This is another of Dr. Boettcher’s key ways to build a more successful online course and she advises to ask for feedback as early as week three of the semester.

18. Ensure that course expectations are very clearly defined.

    Students should know from the outset of the course how the instructor will communicate with them and how much time they should be spending on the course each week, according to guidelines for success laid out by Dr. Boettcher. Every course site should lay out exactly how students are expected to communicate with one another and the instructor as well as the specifics of the activities and assignments they’ll need to complete on a weekly basis. Setting this out at the beginning of a course and making sure that its readily available to students will reduce confusion and allow students to figure out how they’ll fit the coursework into their lives.

19. Be willing to use a variety of different learning methods and tools.

    The online environment provides the opportunity for instructors to employ a wide range of teaching and learning tools and methods. Being open to a wider variety of these can help to keep students engaged, advises Dr. Boettcher. For instance, she suggests allowing students to work both independently and in groups, and making use of online tools that allow for both synchronous and asynchronous activities. Each of these activities may require different tools, from chat rooms to quizzing programs, so instructors need to be both willing and able to employ a variety of methods throughout the course to keep students learning and advancing.

20. Know the online learning platform in and out.

    
    It shouldn’t be surprising that research at the University of Illinois has defined this as one of the key traits an online learning facilitator will have. Online teachers should have extensive knowledge of the tools used in delivering online programs, the methods used to communicate with students, and the course management systems used to bring everything together. Being comfortable with these technologies, or more desirably proficient in them, allows educators to spend less time thinking about them and more time focusing on the content of the course, as well as providing a valuable foundation for developing innovative ways to use these platforms for learning. In addition, it can make instructors a better resource for students who may struggle with learning to use these online tools.

21. Be willing to revise and refine your lessons.

    Even experienced online educators need to be flexible when it comes to a willingness to revise and refine lessons. Certain groups of students may need additional support or information may just need to be presented in a different way for some students to really understand it. While a total overhaul isn’t necessary, online instructors will find greater success through adapting course materials to the needs of students, not forcing students to adapt to the needs of the course.

22. Online learning may be remote, but it shouldn’t be solitary.

    Perhaps the most important secret to success as an online educator is that online education shouldn’t be a solitary endeavor. Students may be working remotely from homes, libraries, or workplaces, but they should never feel like they’re alone in the online learning process. Support from instructors and other students is critical for success. There are a variety of methods to achieve this, and each course should use them to adapt and respond to the needs of students.

4 Key Benefits Of Blended Learning

A cross post from http://edudemic.com

Often there seems to be an “either/or” approach to taking online and face-to-face (F2F) classes. Some students may want the full campus experience of pursuing a degree at a traditional brick and mortar institution, while others want the convenience and flexibility of elearning. Some programs also offer a blended format in which classes are a mixture of both modalities.

There may be a classroom meeting once a week, for instance, with much of the course taking place online. Students may also find that their F2F professors make use of available technology for various activities as well.

Given that both options have advantages for learners that potential employers will find appealing, college students should take both online and F2F courses. Here are four benefits college students can obtain by blending these two modalities.

Enhanced Communication Skills

Meredith Findling, Resource Manager at Kavalir, provided a list of the “top ten skills employers are looking for” (12 June, 2012). At the top of the list are communication skills, and Findling stated, “Being a clear, concise and effective communicator is critical in the workplace.” In fact, she explained, being able to demonstrate such skills will place college graduates ahead of other applicants. However, virtual and traditional education emphasize different aspects of communication skills that can be harnessed for improvement and gainful employment after graduation.

Many businesses and professions are becoming increasingly global, necessitating the need for holding telephone conferences, online meetings, and other such activities perhaps among a diverse group of people spread across the globe. Online courses provide an opportunity for students to develop increasing skills in this virtual communication context that almost has no boundaries; therefore, better preparing them for the workplace. Furthermore, online classes require a lot more reading and writing than F2F ones by their very nature. As students complete their assignments, they also increase their skills in written communication. For example, students must read and navigate the course site, follow directions, compose responses, and other such activities.

However, students should keep in mind that even jobs that are remote typically require some in-person events. Employees may have to interview at a company’s home office in person or attend and present at meetings. A F2F course will provide you with practice interacting with others, presenting using the latest technology to share your ideas, and honing your speaking and listening skills.

By combining the benefits of both online and brick and mortar classes, students obtain the communication skills employers are seeking and demonstrate that they can function in either world, the electronic and the human.

Increased Digital Fluency

Findling places “technical skills” at number five on the list of skills employers are looking for. She explained that “most jobs require an understanding of computer hardware and software; including e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets” (12 June, 2012). To see how important this is, review the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report 2012: Living in a Hyperconnected World. The report covers in detail how rapidly technology is “deeply redefining relationships between individuals, consumers and enterprises, and citizens and governments.” From the individual country sections, you will notice that there is almost no way to avoid needing to become digital fluent in the global economy.

Online classes provide students with full immersion into this virtual world. Students must be able to access the course, utilize its features fully, and perform a host of other tasks online. As students advance through the curriculum, they also continually augment their technical skills, becoming increasingly fluent. Elearning offers students a chance to demonstrate what they can do utilizing technology.

On the other hand, F2F classes clearly don’t offer students as much time to hone their skills online. However, they, too, offer some advantages. For example, there has been a tendency to stereotype students into two groups: 1) digital natives, or those born after the start of the Information Age in the late 1980s; and 2) digital immigrants, those born before the start of the Information Age. The assumption is that because the digital immigrants grew up with technology, they are more tech savvy.

However, recent research indicates that the natives may not be as fluent with technology as assumed (c.f. Perez, S., “So-Called ‘Digital Natives’ Not Media Savvy, New Study Shows.” The New York Times. 29 July, 201). The reverse also may be true. The brains of the so-called digital immigrants may rewire themselves for better utilization of technology (e.g., Small, G. et al., “Your Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation during Internet Searching.” The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. 17(2), February 2009).

Therefore, one of the advantages of a F2F course is that it provides students some in-person, real time guidance on developing tech skills, such as number two on Findling’s list, “electronic research and analytical skills.” A F2F gathering also provides students with the opportunity to utilize the technology synchronously as a team rather than in isolation from a home computer.

Taking courses in both modalities will help students increase their level of digital fluency.

Expanded Networking

Another basic but important distinction is in professional networking. Online courses often have a student make-up from a large, possibly even global area. For example, students in virtual classes may come from locations around the United States, soldiers stationed overseas, foreign students residing in other countries, etc. These students may have opportunities to participate in class activities with businesses around the nation and the world as well. Therefore, they are already learning how to connect with others globally and virtually.

Traditional brick and mortar courses tend to be more localized or regional. Students may be taking classes with a fairly homogenous group of peers who come from the same town or state. There may be no interaction with others beyond this area. However, this does have some advantages as students will be getting to know others in or near their own communities.

By blending the online and F2F courses, you will be better networked at the local, regional, and global levels. This should increase your odds at finding gainful employment.

Strengthened Professionalism

Finally, last month, Forbes contributor Meghan Casserly reported on a study in which 86% of 1,200 large companies said they look for “professionalism” in potential employees. The remaining traits on Findling’s list explain what this means. Employers want college graduates who can work alone or within a team, possess a good ethical compass, be consistently flexible and adaptable, and demonstrate planning and project management skills.

Because students must be self-motivated and disciplined to succeed in an online course—there is no professor standing over them to help them stay on task, virtual learning provides an excellent way to build these skills and demonstrate them for employers. Students must be able to plan their time and course projects in order to do well. In short, online classes demonstrate that a student can be a professional who can work independently and without direct supervision.

On the other hand, F2F classes show potential employers that a student has learned the attributes of professionalism as part of a team. Students may work in-person with others to plan, manage, and complete a project. Students should be able to explain what their role on the team was and how the workload was balanced to accomplish their goal.

While individual professors and programs may blend F2F with electronic delivery of a course, it remains important for students to opt for a mixture of both modalities. Doing so will bring you the skills that potential employers are seeking at a high level. By mixing both online and F2F courses, students can develop the skills of professionalism that employers are looking for in an employee. Therefore, this should help increase their chances of finding gainful employment after graduation.

How To Make Students Better Online Researchers

A cross-post from edudemic.com

I recently came across an article in Wired Magazine called “Why Kids Can’t Search“.  I’m always interested in this particular topic, because it’s something I struggle with in my middle and high school classes constantly, and I know I’m not alone in my frustrations.
Getting kids to really focus on what exactly they are searching for, and then be able to further distill idea into a few key specific search terms is a skill that we must teach students, and we have to do it over and over again. We never question the vital importance of teaching literacy, but we have to be mindful that there are many kinds of “literacies”. An ever more important one that ALL teachers need to be aware of is digital literacy. I could go off in many directions on this, but for the purpose of this post I’m focusing strictly on the digital literacy of searching.
In the past, we spent a lot of time in schools teaching kids how to do library research, and how to use a variety reference materials like dictionaries, encyclopedias, microfiche, card catalogs, public records, anthologies, and other sources too numerous to recall. Many of these forms of reference are no longer used, as they (or incarnations much like them) are all now available to us on the internet.
However, when we made this switch to internet-based resources, we somehow left a gap in education and made no real focus on teaching kids how to find valid, credible, useful resources online. The result is our frequent frustration with a generation of kids who will still type in the word “Egypt” and grab the first search result that pops up on Google when studying anything remotely related to the topic.
As they get older, kids often employ the tactic of typing a question into the search bar – “How do I find out about mummies in Egypt?” This actually gives Google a little more to work with – namely the word “mummies”, but this additional boost is thwarted because the search is in the form of a question. Top results yield links to Answers.com, YahooAnswers, and other equally useless (academically speaking) results. Anyone – you, me, a 2nd grader, or a Kardashian, can post an answer on these sites. True the internet is becoming more semantic all the time, but we are far from there yet, and these kinds of searches are almost always a waste of time.

The real answer?

SPEND TIME teaching your kids the digital literacy skill of proper searching. It’s never too early for them to learn. Are they old enough to learn to use a dictionary or an encyclopedia? That’s the time! Here are the levels that need to be taught:
1. It begins as a critical thinking and language skill – narrowing their focus to a specific idea, and then selecting the few key terms and some alternatives that will help them.
2. Utilizing the various “search help” tools that many search engines offer – Google offers the ability for kids to narrow the search by time, type (images, news, dictionary, reading level), and also offers a nice advanced search tool. Some simple Boolean tools, such as +, “and”, and – are still extremely useful to know.
3. Critically sorting through the results – is the top result always the best? Often the answer is no. Google sorts its results based on the amount of hits a URL gets and sorts that way. It’s not so much academic as it is a popularity contest. Remember, Google can’t think (yet), so it’s still up to us to make the determination about what will be useful. Taking some time to teach kids about credible resources, scholastic research-based resources, and most importantly valid resources, is a worthwhile and necessary exercise. As an example, my students blog, usually about academic topics they are studying in school. If one of my students posts a movie of their re-enactment of Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address, their post will likely pop up in any given search about Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address. Are they a valid scholastic resource? Are they experts? ’nuff said.
4. Sometimes, supply your kids with the internet resources you want them to use. If your focus is on finding the information within a given resource, maybe it’s not necessary to always pile on the extra step of searching for the resource – especially if this is still a skill they struggle with. You can go old school and write the links on the board, or the easier route of pasting or embedding the links into your class webpage. Either way, this practice actually sets a bar for students – they become more accustomed to the type, format, and quality of resource that is valid for academic research. Obviously, they need to learn and use search skills, but this “calibration” every once in awhile is actually a good thing for setting expectations.

Useful Links For Searchers

Here are some links that offer some resources for teachers trying to teach students the digital literacies involved with searching.

• How to Spot a Fake Website
• Great Tech Expectations: What Should Elementary Students be Able to do and When?
• Boolify Project: An Educational Boolean Web Search Tool (very visual)
• Boolean Searching on the Internet
• Rockwell Schrock’s Boolean Machine
• Web Search Strategies in Plain English
• KidRex – a Kid Safe Search Engine

The Teacher’s Guide To Wikipedia

A cross post from edudemic.com

There’s a vast array of resources available online. From using the Googles to hunting around Wikipedia, students and teachers alike turn to a select few channels when doing research online.
Katie and I are working on a guide to Google for teachers but I wanted to share a very useful resource about Wikipedia. It was assembled by the Wikipedia folks and is designed to be a simple guide to the basic terminology, usage, and details of Wikipedia. It’s organized in a simple question-and-answer format so feel free to scroll through the questions you already know.
However, take the answers with a big grain of salt as they’re written by Wikipedia. Regardless, this is a useful resource since basically all students begin research with the big W. That’s Wikipedia among the cool kids.

What does wiki mean?

The term “wiki” is derived from the word wikiwiki, which is the Hawaiian word for “quick”. A wiki is a web site which allows people to contribute content; see our article on wikis for more information about this.

Is Wikipedia accurate and reliable?

Wikipedia’s objective is to become a compendium of published knowledge about notable subjects. The reliability of Wikipedia articles is limited by the external sources on which they are supposed to rely, as well as by the ability of Wikipedia’s editors to understand those sources correctly and their willingness to use them properly. Therefore, articles may or may not be reliable, and readers should always use their own judgment. Students should never use information in Wikipedia (or any other online encyclopedia) for formal purposes (such as school essays) until they have verified and evaluated the information based on external sources. For this reason, Wikipedia, like any encyclopedia, is a great starting place for research but not always a great ending place.
Wikipedia is rapidly developing, and its editors strive, over time, to increase its reliability as a source of information. Readers are encouraged to compare articles to what they already know from reliable sources and improve the articles’ accuracy and detail. Articles about many of the major sciences were developed from other free or public domain encyclopedias. This provides a reliable basis upon which Wikipedia’s editors could expand. Because of its growing utility, Wikipedia is cited almost daily in the press.
It is possible for a given Wikipedia article to be biased, outdated, or factually incorrect. This is true of any resource. One should always double-check the accuracy of important facts, regardless of the source. In general, popular Wikipedia articles are more accurate than ones that receive little traffic, because they are read more often and therefore any errors are corrected in a more timely fashion. Wikipedia articles may also suffer from issues such as Western bias, but hopefully this will also improve with time. For more information, see Wikipedia:Criticisms.

What prevents someone from contributing false or misleading information?

Wikipedia’s content control mechanisms are reactive rather than preventive: anyone can go to almost any page and change the information to make it false or misleading. Although the majority of edits attempt to improve the encyclopedia, vandalism is frequent.
Fortunately, such deliberate errors tend not to linger. Hundreds of dedicated Wikipedia contributors monitor real-time edit feeds (particularly for important or controversial articles) and quickly revert most inappropriate edits. Many articles are on one or more editors’ personal watchlists (and major articles are watched by hundreds of editors), and this provides a second layer of content control. Third, Wikipedia’s huge user base is constantly analyzing and improving every article, undoing vandalism as it is found. If an anonymous or relatively new user changes a statistic or date by even a little bit, without justifying their edit, they are particularly likely to raise a red flag. If an individual continues to vandalize after being warned, then they may even be blocked from further editing.
The key to this reactive system is that Wikipedia, unlike mainstream print sources, keeps a full history of every change to every article. Nothing is ever lost, and no abuse is permanent. See Wikipedia:Edit history for more information.
All that being said, Wikipedia is not perfect. A reader may have the bad luck of arriving at a page just after it has been vandalized and before it has been repaired. There have been incidents in the past where vandalism has been discovered still in place months after the fact. At any given time, there is some inaccurate information somewhere in Wikipedia. It is for this reason that readers must be particularly diligent in verifying Wikipedia against its external sources, as discussed above. It is also a good idea, if you feel uncomfortable about an article, to check its history for recent “bad-faith” edits. If you find a piece of uncorrected vandalism, you might even decide to help future users by correcting it yourself. That’s a great feature of Wikipedia.

Can students cite Wikipedia in assignments?

It depends on what teachers accept. Just in case, you shouldn’t copy an article word for word. The best policy for all writing is to have more than one source. Wikipedia can be an excellent starting place for further research. Teachers might ask students what they did to validate the information they learned from Wikipedia. Using a comprehensive search engine such as Google or Yahoo!, students can easily compare Wikipedia content with information from other reputable websites. Most Wikipedia articles also contain an “External links” section at the bottom, which often leads to other relevant sites. Students can compare information in Wikipedia with information in other encyclopedias or books in the library. As a general rule, contributors to Wikipedia are encouraged to cite their sources, but, of course, not all do. For the sake of verifiability, it is advisable to cite an article that has listed its sources. Most of our better articles have sections such as “References,” “Sources,” “Notes,” “Further reading,” or “External links,” which generally contain such information.
For purposes of establishing authorship and finding more sources, students may also find the articles’ “View history” tabs useful, as these detail every contribution, the contributor and often a summary of what was contributed. All of our contributors have talk pages for leaving them messages. If you are logged in, a toolbox link (“E-mail this user”) is also visible beside the user pages of many registered contributors. Other means of contacting Wikipedians are listed at Wikipedia:Contact us.

Is it a safe environment for young people?

Wikipedia has similar safety issues as other equally open environments. Participation in Wikipedia requires children to know basic Internet safety practices. Children will be communicating and interacting with anonymous adults, and parent or teacher supervision is important, depending upon the age of the child, just as in any other online environment. No child should ever assume that if somebody has an account on Wikipedia, then they’re safe to meet in person, and the usual internet safety rules apply: do not give out personal information, do not arrange to meet someone you meet on Wikipedia, and report to a responsible adult at once if anyone is making you feel uncomfortable. In any case, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia project, not a social environment for making offline friends, and chat is generally discouraged.
Wikipedia has the advantage that most communication is done in an open, public, reviewable manner (even personal talk page messages are readable by anybody). Note, however, that in contrast to some sites directed towards youth, Wikipedia does not have staff to patrol discussion pages or remove inappropriate comments; it only has volunteer administrators, who will exclude people breaching civility rules, but who will not censor conversations if they deal with adult topics. Wikpedia has a policy on child protection and will remove editors who are found/suspected of being dangerous towards children either online or in the real/offline world. However, children and their parents must understand that Wikipedia does not collect information about its editors (in the way that sites such as Facebook do), hence most editors are anonymous even if they have a user account.
Wikipedia is not bowdlerized or censored. It contains articles on subjects such as racial slurs, controversial political and religious issues and movements, and sexual acts, including images of nudity. However, the information about sexual topics will probably be more neutral and factually accurate than what young teens hear from their peers, and no more erotic than the material of North American or European sex education classes; that is, articles on these topics are kept to facts and are not meant to incite or titillate the reader. Articles, including those on human reproduction, may contain anatomical, graphic photographs of sexual organs, which certain cultures may find inappropriate for small chidren. However, Wikipedia can be configured to hide these images if desired. Note also that although it discusses the methodology of terrorism and violence, Wikipedia is not a how-to guide.
Pages which are normally appropriate for children to use are occasionally vandalized with rude words or content which may be offensive. Vandalism is normally noticed and removed within a few minutes—if not seconds—but it is still possible that a person may access a page before this is dealt with.
The 2008/9 Wikipedia Selection for Schools is a selection of 5,500 articles deemed suitable for school children and has been checked and edited for this audience and protected against editing or vandalism. It contains about the equivalent content to a 20 volume encyclopaedia organized around school curriculum subjects, and is available online and as a free download for use by schools. If you find something wrong there, you should go to the corresponding Wikipedia page to make the correction. The next edition of the Schools selection will then include your correction.

What is open-source media?

Open-source media is a kind of information produced by open groups of developers in which anybody who wants to can use the information. Open-source production emerged among software engineers with the production of Linux, a free software computer operating system. MediaWiki is an open source software package that supports an open source encyclopedia.
Open-source production relies on qualified users to maintain a constantly improving collection, whether it is an open collection of computer code or of encyclopedic information. Open source collections typically maintain back-up resources, so if a developer accidentally damages the code or the content, it can easily be reverted to an earlier, stable version. The same backup system provides protection against malicious damage to an open-source project.

Why do people contribute to open-source projects?

Few surveys have developed reliable answers to why people contribute to open source works like Wikipedia. Some sort of public interest or community spirit is often part of the motive. Open-source projects offer an opportunity to contribute to something that has lasting value and that will continue to grow. Open-source publishing allows writers and software developers to apply their skills outside of a strictly business environment. Casual writers and editors sometimes participate as a hobby or as a learning experience. Classrooms may evaluate and post information as a learning activity. Volunteering is also one of the few ways writers and Web designers can gain experience and exposure without already having any.

Beyond information from the encyclopedia, what can students learn from Wikipedia?

Most young people will likely at some point become involved in interactive online activities. For educators, young people’s involvement with Wikipedia provides an opportunity to survey their understanding of online safety, and to teach appropriate practices. Educators can use Wikipedia as a way of teaching students to develop hierarchies of credibility that are essential for navigating and conducting research on the Internet.
Wikipedia provides an opportunity for teachers to discuss the concept of the open content. Wikipedia is an opportunity to participate in an open community that relies primarily on mutual respect and cooperation, but which is not related to familiar authority figures some youths might tend to oppose.
Editing in Wikipedia is an opportunity to learn to participate in collective editorial processes. Wikipedia presents a ready opportunity for youths to research, compile and publish articles for peer review. For youths who contribute images, selection and production of an image provides opportunities to learn what a market wants from an artist. Youths who master skills for accurate writing and drawing about encyclopedic subjects are better equipped to develop their own style in more creative genres.
Because all articles in Wikipedia must conform to neutral point-of-view, students participating in collaborative editing activities on Wikipedia are building experience in detecting and eliminating bias in writing.

Can a school group set up its own wiki?

Yes. The MediaWiki software which powers Wikipedia is an open source software package, which means anyone who knows how to use it and who has access to a server computer may set up his or her own wiki project.
Access to a wiki database can be password protected, to allow groups to develop an open document within their membership. Passwords can allow a wiki to be developed by a school club, a teachers group, a regional group of schools, or any group within an educational community. Wikis might be used for school histories, to develop yearbook material or as class projects. A group can operate a wiki project online or within a closed local area network.
Even without access to a server computer, anyone with a personal computer may download the MediaWiki software and run it as a personal wiki. See: mw:Manual:Wiki on a stick.
For more information, see: How to start a wiki and mw:Manual:Installation guide.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Schools”, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

50 Little-Known Ways Google Docs Can Help In Education

The following is a cross-post from OnlineColleges.net. Whether you’re looking into online schools or not, they do a good job at cataloging interesting ways to use Web 2.0 tools in education!
Google Docs is such an incredible tool for college students, offering collaboration, portability, ease of use, and widespread acceptance. But there are so many options, both hidden and obvious, that there’s a good chance you’re not using Google Docs to its fullest capability.
We’ve discovered 50+ great tips for getting the most out of Google Docs as a student, with awesome ideas and tricks for collaboration, sharing, and staying productive.

• Access your documents from anywhere: Whether you’re in your dorm room or the school library, you can access your Google Docs. Take advantage of this to make it easy to do your work on-the-go.
• Use Docs reference tools: Take advantage of the Define option to use Docs’ built in dictionary, as well as a thesaurus and an encyclopedia available for use right in your document.
• Go mobile: Google Docs is available on most smart phones, and has a number of capabilities available on the go.
• Save to different file types: You can easily save your documents and spreadsheets to commonly used file types like DOC, XLS, CSV, and HTML.
• Use keyboard shortcuts: With keyboard shortcuts, you can speed through all of your tasks in Google Docs.
• Use templates: Google Docs has a template gallery for just about anything you can imagine, from an apartment bills organizer to a doc for organizing college visits.
• Convert PDFs to images and text: Use Google Docs to make PDFs easily editable.
• Create forms: Gather research information, ask for opinions, and more by creating Forms in Google Docs.
• Search EVERYTHING: Search through pretty much everything you’ve got by searching Docs and Gmail together, thanks to Gmail Labs settings.
• Autodetect links: Simply add links in Google Docs by having them automatically detected, instead of having to input full URLs.
• Adding video: You can embed video in documents, slides, and more to dress up your presentation.
• Insert photos with drag and drop: Instead of going through the process of attaching, you can just drag and drop files from your hard drive into the document, then wrap text around the photo.
• Create graphs: Visuals are great tools for getting your point across. Using charts in Google Spreadsheets, you can create your very own information-sharing graphs.
• Look up live finance data: In Google Spreadsheet, you can use special formulas to pull live information from Google’s finance service.
• Self-update spreadsheets: In addition to inserting live finance data, you can create a live link to that data for a document that constantly updates itself as accurate.
• Draw in Docs: Using Polyline, snap to guides, and other drawing features, you can easily create the images your documents need.
• Insert facts: Using Google Spreadsheet, it’s easy to insert facts, like the population for a city, which is simply pulled through the Google search engine.
• Simply add equations: Google Docs has found a way to make it easy for students to take notes in class, offering an Equations editor for adding equations onto your pages.
• Embed Docs anywhere: Get a link to your document or spreadsheet, and you can embed or publish it anywhere, including Facebook or a class blog.
• Just share: Get the ball rolling on collaboration through Google Docs by sharing your document through email links.
• Turn it into a webpage: Download your document in HTML, and you can share it as a webpage with a minimal amount of hassle.
• Chat away: In Google Docs, you can see anyone who is currently editing the document, and if needed, send a message to chat with them.
• Team up with anyone: Using Google Docs, you can collaborate on a document with friends, classmates, and professors.
• Share an entire folder: If you’ve got a collection of documents to work on together, just open up a shared folder that everyone can access.

• Work on documents all at the same time: Google Docs allows users to simultaneously work on a single master document, so you can come together with other team members and professors to work on a document at the same time.
• Allow editing without signing in: If you’re sharing a document with classmates who don’t have a Google login, just make it available to edit without signing in.
• Track visits: Using Google Analytics, you can track how much traffic a published document is receiving.
• Set notification rules: Find out about the changes made by your collaborators on any given document by setting up notification rules.
• Use Docs instead of emailing attachments: Rather than emailing revised versions of documents over and over again, you can just use Google docs and see revision histories.
• Kick slackers off of a project: Simply remove collaborators doing more harm than good by clicking None next to their name.
• Freeze to stop editing: If you’ve perfected certain rows and columns in your spreadsheet, just freeze them so they’re not accidentally edited.
• Revert back to old versions: If your group doesn’t like a certain set of changes made, it’s very simple just to revert back to automatically saved previous versions in the revision history.
• Save brainstorm notes for group projects: Get everyone’s ideas all together in one place by using Google Docs for brainstorming.
• Use data validation: Make sure that your collaborators aren’t adding a mess to your spreadsheet by using data validation on shared documents.
• Use color coding: You can change text colors based on rules, like setting green for one classmate, blue for another, and red for yourself.
• Clean up your main Google Docs page: Move items to individual folders, and you can make your landing page a lot cleaner and easy to navigate.
• Insert a bookmark: Make it easy to access other parts of your document, like a table of contents, by inserting bookmarks throughout.
• Create subfolders: For an extra step of organization, create folders within folders.
• Get color coded: Color code the names of your folders for quick and easy identification.
• Get synched: Using tools like Syncplicity, you can get all of your Google Docs synched up with documents from Microsoft Office.
• Create your own shortcuts: Put together shortcuts to launch Google Docs, create a new document, and even access frequently used documents in a flash.
• Print multiple Docs at once: If you need to speed through printing several documents at one time, just download and open them as a zip file.
• Quick View PDFs: When you see PDF files in search results, you can just Quick View them to open them up in Google Docs.
• Check your translation work: Google Docs has added a translation tool, which can easily be used to double check your work when writing a foreign language essay.
• Get a grade before you turn assignments in: Using Flubaroo on Google Docs, you can get quick feedback on your assignment, giving you a chance for improvement before you need to turn it in.
• Write in full screen mode: Make your toolbar, menus, and other tempting distractions disappear by displaying your Google Docs in full screen.
• Automatically correct your common mistakes: If you have words that you just can’t spell to save your life, set up a preference to automatically find and replace your mistakes with correctly spelled words.
• Customize your styles: If you like a consistent look for your documents, set up a customized style so you don’t have to go back and fix it with every new document.
• Work offline: Use the offline feature of Google Docs to work on the bus, plane, or anywhere you plan to go without an internet connection.
• Save web pages to your Google Docs account: Turn any web page into a PDF for viewing later by using the send to Google Docs extension for Chrome.
• Back it all up: Google Docs itself offers a great way to back up your documents, but it never hurts to save elsewhere, right? Back up and download all of your Google Documents and save them to a hard drive for safekeeping.
• Use Google Docs for everyday stuff, too: You can use Google Docs to track expenses, maintain your calendar, and more.

50 Education Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About

The following is a cross-post from Online Degrees:

Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved.
Yet as with anything related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers.
Here, we’ve compiled a list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher’s tech tool arsenal this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom.

Social Learning

These tools use the power of social media to help students learn and teachers connect.

1. Edmodo: Teachers and students can take advantage of this great tech tool, as it offers a Facebook-like environment where classes can connect online.
2. Grockit: Get your students connected with each other in study sessions that take place on this great social site.
3. EduBlogs: EduBlogs offers a safe and secure place to set up blogs for yourself or your classroom.
4. Skype: Skype can be a great tool for keeping in touch with other educators or even attending meetings online. Even cooler, it can help teachers to connect with other classrooms, even those in other countries.
5. Wikispaces: Share lessons, media, and other materials online with your students, or let them collaborate to build their own educational wiki on Wikispaces.
6. Pinterest: You can pin just about any image you find interesting on this site, but many teachers are using it as a place to collect great lesson plans, projects, and inspirational materials.
7. Schoology: Through this social site, teachers can manage lessons, engage students, share content, and connect with other educators.
8. Quora: While Quora is used for a wide range of purposes, it can be a great tool for educators. It can be used to connect with other professionals or to engage students in discussion after class.
9. Ning: Ning allows anyone to create a personalized social network, which can be great for both teachers and students alike.
10. OpenStudy:Encourage your students to work together to learn class material by using a social study site like OpenStudy.
11. ePals: One of the coolest benefits of the Web is being able to connect with anyone, anywhere. ePals does just that, but focuses on students, helping them to learn languages and understand cultures different from their own.

Learning

These educational tools can help you to make lessons fun, interesting, and more effective.

12. Khan Academy: Many teachers use this excellent collection of math, science, and finance lectures and quizzes to supplement their classroom materials.
13. MangaHigh: MangaHigh offers teachers a wealth of resources for game-based learning in mathematics.
14. FunBrain: If you’re looking for a great collection of educational games, look no further than FunBrain. On it, teachers can take advantage of fun tools for math and reading.
15. Educreations: Educreations is an amazing online tool for the iPad that lets teachers (or students) create videos that teach a given topic. Perfect for studying or getting students to show off their knowledge.
16. Animoto: Animoto makes it simple to create video-based lessons or presentations for the classroom and to share them with students or anyone else.
17. Socrative: Available for computers, mobile devices, and tablets, this student response system engages students through games and exercises on any device they have on hand. Even better, teachers can easily assess student progress and track grades.
18. Knewton: Adaptive learning has been a hot topic in recent months, and with Knewton it’s something that any teacher can access and use. The site personalizes online learning content for each student according to his or her needs.
19. Kerpoof: On Kerpoof, students can get creative with their learning with games, interactive activities, drawing tools, and more that are both fun and educational.
20. StudySync: With a digital library, weekly writing practice, online writing and peer reviews, Common Core assignments, and multimedia lessons available, this site is a fully-featured tool for teaching and learning that can be a big help in the classroom.
21. CarrotSticks: On this site, teachers can take advantage of a wide range of math learning games, giving students practice while they have fun.

Lesson Planning and Tools

Use these tech tools to pull together great lessons and design amazing and memorable student projects.

22. Teachers Pay Teachers: Have great lessons to share? Looking for something to add to your classes? On this site you can do both, selling your own class materials and buying high-quality resources from other teachers.
23. Planboard: Make sure your lessons are organized and that your day runs smoothly with the help of this amazing online tool designed just for teachers.
24. Timetoast: Timetoast is a pretty cool for student projects, allowing them to build sleek, interactive timelines in minutes.
25. Capzles: There are so many different ways that Capzles can be used in the classroom, there’s bound to be an application that fits your needs. What does it do? Capzles makes it simple to gather media like photos, videos, documents, and even blog posts into one place, making it perfect for teaching, learning, or online projects.
26. Prezi: Want to build presentations that will wow your students? Make use of this online tool that makes it simple to do all kinds of cool things with your lessons, even allowing collaboration between teachers.
27. Wordle: Create stunning word clouds using Wordle, a great complement to language lessons of any kind.
28. QR Codes: QR codes (or quick response codes) are showing up with greater frequency in education. If you’d like to get in on the trend, you’ll need a tool to create and manage the codes like Delivr and one to read codes, like any of those listed on this site.
29. Quizlet: Quizlet makes it easy for teachers to create study tools for students, especially flashcards that can make memorizing important information a snap.
30. MasteryConnect: How are your students performing with regard to state and common core standards? MasterConnect makes it simple to track and analyze both, as well as other elements of student performance.
31. Google Docs: Through Google Docs, teachers can create and share documents, presentations, or spreadsheets with students and colleagues as well as give feedback on student-created projects.
32. YouTube: Not all schools allow YouTube, but they are missing out as the site contains a wealth of great learning materials for the classroom. There’s even a special education-focused channel just for teachers and students.
33. TED-Ed: TED isn’t just a great place to find inspiration anymore, the site also contains numerous videos that are organized by subject and can help you to teach everything from how pain relievers work to Shakespearean insults.
34. Glogster:Glogster is a social site that lets users mash up music, photos, videos, and pretty much anything else you’d like. It’s a great way to create learning materials and a handy tool for creative student projects.
35. Creaza: Want to bring your student projects into the 21st century? Creaza can make that possible, offering tools to brainstorm, create cartoons, and edit audio and video.
36. Mentor Mob: On Mentor Mob, you or your students can create a learning playlist, which is essentially a collection of high-quality materials that can be used to study a specific concept.

Useful Tools

These tools can help you to stay connected, organized, and increase the ease of building multimedia lessons and learning tools.

37. Evernote: Capture great ideas, photos, recordings, or just about anything else on your Evernote account, access it anywhere, and keep it organized. A must-have tool for lesson planning.
38. Twitter: There are so many ways Twitter can be used in education. Teachers can connect with other educators, take part in chats, share their ideas, or even use it in the classroom to reach out to students.
39. Google Education: Google offers a number of great edtech resources for teachers, including email and collaborative apps, videos, lesson plan search, professional development, and even educational grants.
40. Dropbox: Easily store, share, and access any kind of data from anywhere with the easy-to-use and free Dropbox service.
41. Diigo: Diigo lets you treat the web like paper-based reading material, making it simple to highlight, bookmark, take notes, or even add sticky notes.
42. Apple iPad: One of the most widely used, though expensive, tech tools being used in today’s classroom is the Apple iPad. With a host of educational apps being developed for the device, it’s become a favorite of teachers and students alike across the nation.
43. Aviary: Aviary is a suite of tools that make it easy to edit images, effects, swatches, music, and audio or to create and modify screen captures.
44. Jing: If you’re teaching kids about tech or just about anything else, a great screenshot program is essential. Jing is one great option that allows teachers to take screenshots as images, record up to five minutes or videos then edit and share the results.
45. Popplet: You and your students can use Popplet to brainstorm ideas, create mindmaps, share, and collaborate.
46. Google Earth: From geography projects to learning about geological processes, Google Earth can be an amazing and fast way to show students anywhere in the world.
47. DonorsChoose: Need funding for a classroom project? You can get it through this site that hooks up needy teachers with willing donors.
48. SlideShare: With SlideShare, you can upload your presentations, documents, and videos and share them with students and colleagues. Even better, you can take advantage of materials that other have uploaded as well.
49. LiveBinders: Like a real-life three ring binder, this tech tool allows you to collect and organize resources. Much better than a binder, however, the site also comes with tools to connect and collaborate and a virtual whiteboard.
50. AudioBoo: Through this tool, you can record and share audio for your students or anyone else.

The Must-Have EdTech Cheat Sheet

There’s a whole galaxy of terminology that you should know about when it comes to education technology. From PLNs to Blended Learning to Synchronous Online Learning… it can get overwhelming.
Lucky for all of us, the co-founder of Boundless clued me into a fabulous new infographic they just launched. Dubbed the EdTech Cheat Sheet, I think it’s one of the most useful infographics out there today. You should consider printing this out and keeping it handy should you ever come across some crazy term that doesn’t make sense to you.
Check out Boundless as well, they’re a startup that lets students rely less on textbooks and spend more time actively learning. Very cool.

Click here to download the picture.
Copied from http://edudemic.com/2012/07/edtech-cheat-sheet/