Encouraging Student Creativity

I strongly believe in the importance of creative teaching. If a teacher creative and love to create, his or her students will be also creative. I came across this blog of a teacher who stimulates creativity of her students. Visit Mini Matisse and enjoy the selected music, creative assignments, videos and learning products that students are producing in Mrs. Hahn's class. There are no limits to student imagination and the flight of their ideas.

New Moodle Books: Science Teaching with Moodle

I have been just informed that Packt has published a new Moodle book and has a promotion month in March. I am interested in reading Science Teaching with Moodle book and writing a review. I am teaching science methods class this semester and am designing the course on Moodle.

I am ready to write a book about teaching with Moodle myself. If I only had more time...

Here is the Packt Press release:

Press Release

March, 2011

Packt celebrates Moodle March with exclusive book offer

Packt has this week announced a series of discounts and promotions to herald the forthcoming publication of the Science Teaching with Moodle 2.0 book in March. Moodle March will offer readers the exclusive discounts of 20% off the cover price of all Moodle print books and readers will be able to buy any 4 Moodle eBooks from Packt at a price of $60 / £38 / €45 for a limited period only.

Moodle is a free Course Management System (CMS), which is a web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. Moodle also has many effective modules and assessment techniques for testing that can be used for any subject.

Science Teaching with Moodle 2.0, written by Vincent Lee Stocker, helps readers to create interactive lessons and activities in Moodle to enhance your students' understanding and enjoyment of science. The book, which is 386 pages long, is packed with lots of practical examples; each chapter takes you through a different aspect of teaching using Moodle.

“Moodle is one of the first topics Packt published books on and we remain committed to offering more interesting books that will help the diverse needs of Moodle users. The set of Moodle books we’ve recently published shows our continued commitment to topic area, and we intend to publish cutting-edge Moodle books for a long time to come”, said Packt's Open Source publisher Doug Paterson.

For more information on Moodle March and the discounts being offered throughout March, please visit: - https://www.packtpub.com/article/moodle-march

K12 Online Conference 2010: Spread the Word!

K12 Online Conference 2010

It is great to witness the process of blossoming of online conferences and join the conversation with educators around the world about bringing change to the current ways of teaching and learning.

IT4ALL is just about that too! We will hold a Connecting Online conference in 2011.

The themes for CO11 (February 4-6, 2011) presentations are:

1. Connecting Online to Improve Instruction and Learning: Online Learning and Instructional Experience
2. Experiences with technology in face-to-face and online classes. What worked and what didn’t work for you?
3. How do you use technology to promote and sustain your online workshops, consultation, and communities of practice and learning?
4. Research conducted on e-learning, blended online learning, and blended learning.
5. Reviewing or promoting books on integrating technology into the classroom, e-learning, blended learning, and blended online learning.
6. Challenges administrators, instructors, students, and community members face in connecting online.

The live online presentations include a 40 minute talk and 10 minutes for questions. Each presenter is accompanied by one or two moderators who introduce him or her and provide support.

You are invited to sign up and present.

Visit all the above mentioned sites and join the communities to become empowered with the knowledge of innovative ways of using Web 2.0 technologies in teaching.

The Importance of Personal Learning Networks

View and contribute to this Voicethread on the topic of Personal Learning Networks. I find it inspiring and interactive and also illustrative of how a teacher can use this tool in engaging students in communication and for sharing ideas through writing and voice re-cording.

More Moodle Books to Review

I was asked to write a review for two more Moodle books published by Packt:
Moodle 1.9: Theme Design. Beginner's Guide and Moodle 1.9 Extension Development(Raw). I am curious what these books will add to my knowledge of Moodle and if they have some perspectives on Moodle 2.0 which will be launched in July, 2010.

How Rewarding it is to Share Knowledge with Like-Minded People!

"Innovative Pedagogy and Course Redesign: Crossing the Disciplinary Divide" - this is the theme of this year conference I enjoy going to. It an annual meeting of like-minded people from NY and other states of the USA. There were 27 institutions represented this time from about 10 states and there were a number of foreign scholars -- interestingly enough, they were from Russia, St. Petersbugh, Julia Sharapova, and a young scholar Ajara, from Beshkek, Kirghistan. I enjoyed the guest speaker of this year plenary session, Dr. Therese Huston, a cognitive psychologist from Seattle. She is the author of a just published book "Teaching What you Don't Know." Therese is a very dynamic presenter and very engaging and inspiring. We had a lot of fun at the session - she ran it for about 2 hours. Therese forced us to think out of the box! I was immediately thinking about inviting her to our college for the General Courses' design discussions or for creating a center of Academic Excellence - to encourage people's creative thinking and understand that it is OK to teach out of your comfort zone and there are ways how to be successful in that... I go to this conference to get inspiration and confirm my constructivist ideals and pedagogical initiatives. I am always well received and appreciated. It is here I was giving a Moodle workshop with Mary Anne Campo, when we first introduced Moodle at MSMC. I know for fact that Ramapo College switched Blackboard to Moodle after my workshop in 2008 and their Resource Teaching Center invited me to conduct a Moodle workshop for Ramapo faculty who planned to design their new courses based on Moodle. I also presented a session on Web 2.0 tools and pedagogical recidivism. This year presentation was about Global collaboration at IT4ALL with M4T workshops.

Snowblog CT Netcity International Project 2010

Today was the last session of the International Multicultural virtual project that I agreed to participate in during the Spring semester. I was invited to join the project in December by Gal Springman, the co-founder and coordinator of Snowblog project. I was scheduled to teach two online courses in the spring of 2010: Teaching with Technology and Literacy and Technology. I decided to invite my students to experiment and join the project to learn about integrating technology through using its tools in a context. It was in a way, a risky adventure. I knew nothing about the leader, about the project, and about the content of the project. But what a Russian would I be if I hadn't taken a risk and tried something totally unknown?!!

It turned out to be a powerful experience from the point of view of learning about the virtual projects, twists and turns of the project coordination by the educators from different cultures, time zones, and with different educational platforms, experiences and views.

I will need several blog entries to reflect on the project experience.

Here are the links to the final virtual meeting on WiZiQ and our team's Voicethread creation to greet and say Good Bye to the participants of the Snowblog Project 2010.