Posted 6:46 PM by George Siemens
Question: I would like to put together a series of resources relating to designing online resources and teaching online. I need help. If you design or teach online, could you send me your five best tips? I'll compile these and have them on an elearning website that will "premier" at the end of July.

Had a neat experience today...was able to meet with a group of teachers and administrators from Garden Valley Collegiate in Winkler, Manitoba to discuss their experiences in using personal digital assistants (PDAs - think Palm). Very valuable visit.

Quote from their website: "Garden Valley School Division is pioneering the use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) in an educational setting at Garden Valley Collegiate (GVC). Our project focuses on the usefulness of PDAs to students in addition to their use by teachers and administrators."

For an unbiased view :) from Palm, read the GVC case study at: Palm Case Study

Here is a very quick overview of some of the benefits of PDAs in education:

• Low cost (or at least lower than desktop/laptop)
  
• Teach students to work together, as a team - research, group editing, etc.
  
• Portable - the classroom goes with the student (heard a good comment on that this weekend: "Does anyone go to the "reading place"?? No, people read wherever...why do we insist that students go to the "learning place" (i.e. classroom)?")
  
• User friendly - immediate benefit. On a recent Ready2Net broadcast (NO STRINGS ATTACHED— WIRELESS & PDA
  scroll down to program #3 - available in webcast format soon!) a point was made that the social uptake of PDAs is faster than anything seen in an educational setting before. Students, instructors, and administration see immediate use and application.
  
• Wide range of programs available, with more being developed. This ensures ongoing development and new applications
  
• It works! Students enjoy learning in this format...do I have to say anything else??
  

Very interesting. PDAs may figure prominently into education in the future. GVC is an excellent example of perpetual experimentation...knowledge is built by doing. Rather than merely discussing the role of technology in education, go out and do it, and then discuss it...GO GVC!! (ahem, excuse me...that was pent-up).

24 Hour Professor
Quote: "Is technology turning college teaching into a 24-hour job? The growth of e-mail, course Web sites, instant-messaging software, and online courses has forced many professors to rearrange their daily routines and has made them more accessible to students than ever before."

Comment:Isn't that one of the "curses" of the Internet age? Previous notions of work and time give way to one that reflects the global nature of our society. From my experience, an instructor needs to be able to achieve personal balance...unchecked, the call of the Internet will quickly overwhelm an instructor's personal life...

Online Education Rivals "Chalk and Talk"
Quotes: "Like many people whose formal education was based entirely on "chalk and talk" lectures, I was skeptical about the value of online education...Online courses can provide as good an education as traditional classes."

Comment:From my experience, the greatest critics of online learning are those who have never taken an online course. The value of online learning is the experience. Most people see new concepts through the eyes of their past experiences. This results in an immediate prejudice of online learning's ability to produce a classroom experience. Quite honestly, online learning isn't supposed to create classroom experiences. It is different...has different strengths, different opportunities, different weaknesses. Take a course and find out...

DSL, VDSL, SHDSL
Quote: "...several technologies exist that improve on today's DSL with higher speed and/or symmetric bandwidth. In conversations with vendors of DSL semiconductors and equipment, it's apparent that these new technologies—namely SHDSL (symmetric high-speed DSL) and VDSL (very-high-speed DSL)—are technically mature"

Comment: For all the talk about DSL and cable Internet connections, the reality is that neither can effectively deliver two-way interaction (DSL is great one way, cable may fluctuate too much, depending on traffic)...enter (drum roll)...VDSL, capable of 13 - 55 Mbps (over short distances). Suddenly, real options exist for video and collaboration over the Internet...oh, happy days!!