e-learning July 2008

Jerry Roche published a great article in the July 2008 edition of E-Learning titled "Teaching & Learningt in the 21st Century". He sites a variety of organizations, schools and consultants who have converted to a virtual learning environment and he feels Virtual Classrooms are "the most profound difference between learning in the 20th century and learning in the 21st century". A consutant Lance Dublin (founder of Dublin Consulting) offered his 5 tips for presenters in a virtual classroom environment which were very much in line with what we discussed on Thursday and address some of the obstacles we felt were important;
1. "Slice and dice the content into 10 minute sections". He includes ideas such as visual polls, interactions and annotations, which definitely kept my interest during our first class last week
2. "Leverage the visuals". Dublin offers advice around drawing, color use, highlighting, and keeping the screen active (avoid static lecturing).
3. "Think conversation, not lecture". I know my experience in previous virtual classrooms had been very static and unidirectional. Viewing the environment as a facilitation ideas vs. a lecture can have great impact.
4. "Move it along". He recommends maintaining a good pace "two to four minutes per visual" and that multi-tasking is assumed in a vitual world.
5. "Interact, interact, interact". Considering the updates we viewed on Thursday evening, it looks like Centra and others have advanced thier toolbars and offerings to create greater opportunity for interaction.