Blog #5 week ending Oct. 4, 2007

Entry #1

It is important to organize content so that it gives students a learning environment where they can access and learn information in a way that is comfortable to them. The book lists a number of principles of how people learn. I am going to choose a few and explain why I think they are important.
Use review in learning: Using review keeps the information the student has recently been taught current. With review the student does not forget what is important and is able to retain that information and repeat it more.
Use examples and demonstrations: Using examples and demonstrations helps illustrate visually what is being taught. Something that might have been unclear to the student during the lecture can trigger something in the mind when the student sees an example.
Use clear assignments and directions: If the assignment/directions are unclear for the student they become stuck and frustrated and sometimes do not finish the assignment. Making it easier to understand allows the student to better understand the material and prep any questions that might arise from doing the assignment.

Entry #2

A moderator is someone who oversees discussions on a forum. We are beginning our moderator duties for our wiki project. Each week we will be moderating our discussions and hopefully get a good turn out. I was a little nervous at the beginning about running my own discussion. I was thinking, “What questions am I going to ask?” or “What if my discussion stalls?” But before we began our moderations we had to research our topic, with mine being eLearning 2.0. I learned a lot about my topic and am interested in what the other students have to say about my topic. We will be moderating our discussions for five weeks and hopefully my topic will interest others and I will learn something new that I haven’t thought of already.