Adventures in Innovative Learning Design for Blended and Online Learning Environments Presented by Dr. Julia Parra Quality Matters Southwest Regional Conference 2014

Hello Again  This is me - Julia aka Julia Wiggins (Second Life) aka @desertjul and more… LOL, I have so many identities, I'm not sure I remember them all. Could this be a problem? InterWeb Identity Crisis?

My Spiel As you all know, we live in an amazing time with access to the world of information at our fingertips. If information and knowledge are power, then at no time ever before in history has the average person had so much power! Or at least the potential for power :) And of course, as you all know, in addition to information, the tools are pretty awesome but I know that sometimes I get caught up in the fact that things are always in flux and ever changing. So I was thinking, this is a great time to pause, survey this exciting landscape and create as well as curate innovative learning models and strategies that are engaging and represent what we currently know and have available.

Leveling Up Horizon Report 2014 Tracking the Tools Examining Self/Educator Identity: The Science & Art of Learning & Learning Theory Mashup Standards = Foundation Accessing Innovation, Thinking Innovatively Elements of the Creative Classroom Research Model MOOCs and the Rise of the Acronym To MOOC or Not to MOOC? MOOC in Progress…

Horizon Report 2014 Trends, Challenges, & Developments http://www.tagxedo.com/art/b5b3d71aa4fd4cd3 http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed

Any idea what the #1 tool has been for the last 3 years? Tracking the Tools Julz Toolz http://bit.ly/julztoolz Any idea what the #1 tool has been for the last 3 years? How about #38?

Top 5/100

#38 from the MOOC Pack Curtin University MOOCs: Thinking, Content, Platform, Partnerships http://blogs.curtin.edu.au/odvce/2013/02/curtin-university-moocs-thinking-content-platform-partnerships/

The Science & Art of Learning AKA The Gogies Pedagogy – structured, formal K12 learning Andragogy – structured, formal adult learning (Knowles, 1980) Heutagogy – The study of self directed learning; includes unstrucured, self-directed & self-determined learning; focus on metacognition, knowledge sharing, creativity, original works, etc. (Hase & Kenyon, 2000; Blaschke, 2012) Hybrid Pedagogy (Stommel, 2012) - http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/Journal/hybridity- pt-2-what-is-hybrid-pedagogy/

Learning Theory Mashup Technology-based Pedagogy (Gao, Choy, Wong, & Wu, 2009) Social Constructivism (Vygotsky, 2005) Transformative Learning Theory (Mezirow, 2000) Connected Learning Community (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2012) Critical Media and (Kellner & Share, 2005) Connectivism - Learning Theory for the Digital Age – “the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks. It shares with some other theories a core proposition, that knowledge is not acquired, as though it were a thing. Knowledge is, on this theory, literally the set of connections formed by actions and experience.” (Siemens & Downes, 2011)

Standards = Foundation

Accessing Innovation With resources from New Media Consortium, SLOAN-C, Quality Matters, iNACOL, the Top 100 Tools for Learning and many great researchers at our fingertips with Google Search/Scholar, we actually have some great research-based models, standards, and best practices that provide a foundation for creating online and blended courses. So, like a house, when your course has a strong foundation, you can build on that foundation with everything that is awesome about you, your students, and your content. One thing that I think is important, is to figure out some things about your favorite strategies, your students, and your content and try to design models or processes that work for you and that you can share with others. This is what I think awesome teaching and learning is about - moving beyond the best practices towards models for differentiation, addressing different content, reaching different populations, etc.

Thinking Innovatively Things I believe in and do well – collaboration, providing choice, using the technology, promoting fun --- but that’s not necessarily innovative…what might be innovative is how I put all of these ideas together and consistently apply them… Something I heard about innovation – an “idea becomes an “innovation” only when it can be replicated reliably on a meaningful scale at practical costs. “ (Peter Senge, 1990)

My Innovative Interests Phases, Scaffolds, and Technology for Collaboration (Parra, 2013) HyFlex – Hybrid & Flexible (Abelmalak & Parra, submitted 2014)  Co-Design for Democratic Classrooms (Abelmalak, in press). Gamification, Game-Based Learning, The Multiplayer Classroom (Sheldon, 2012) MOOCs… What are yours?

Also from Horizon Report 2014 - http://www. nmc

MOOCs and the Rise of the Acronym… MOOC - Massive Open Online Course xMOOC (professor-centric), cMOOC (connectivity-based) LOOC – Little Open Online Course SPOC – Small Private Online Classes – might open to public LeMOOC – Limited enrollment MOOC, iMOOC (internal) MOOC MANIA! The HYPE! The Fame! The Failure! The Fame - (Siemens, 2008, 2013; Breslow, Pritchard, DeBoer, Stump, Ho, & Seaton, 2013) The Failure – (Anders, 2013; Kolowich, 2013)

~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland To MOOC or Not to MOOC? So why do a MOOC now? … “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”  ~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland  

MOOC Design in Progress… Look for it on the Canvas Network in Fall 2014 

References - http://goo.gl/QBseNA Contact Info and Resources julia.parra@gmail.com 575-646-4066 Skype: desertjul http://juliaparra.com References - http://goo.gl/QBseNA