Learning in Real Time Offers Much-Needed Resource Guide for Online Learning & Collaboration

New York, NY — August 28, 2006 — A new book offering keen insight into the world of real-time online learning and collaboration is quickly becoming an important desk reference for educators, trainers and anyone looking to enhance the quality of learning online through the magic of real-time interaction.

Learning in Real Time (Wiley/Jossey-Bass), released this month to great acclaim, guides instructors in evaluating how and why to use real-time tools.  It also illustrates how educators can develop their own strategies and styles when implementing synchronous tools to improve the online learning experience.

Authored by Jonathan Finkelstein, a pioneer in the development of synchronous learning theories and platforms, the book catalogs real-time learning venues, describes good practices for facilitating synchronous learning, and offers original real-time techniques to enhance student learning.  Learning in Real Time translates Finkelstein’s many years designing and facilitating live online learning experiences into an invaluable resource guide.

While each chapter of Learning in Real Time considers the academic context of faculty members looking to incorporate real-time interaction, the book is also a valuable resource to instructional designers, trainers, tutors, advising staff, librarians, and anyone involved in professional development, course design, or providing student support services.

“Jam-packed with extremely practical strategies and well-crafted activity ideas, Learning in Real Time goes well beyond the tools and deftly focuses on the process of effective live online learning and collaboration,” writes Alan Levine of the New Media Consortium.  “Anyone teaching, presenting, coaching, or collaborating online will end up with a marked-up, highlighted, and dog-eared copy of this book parked next to their computer.”

Diana Oblinger of EDUCAUSE adds, “Good instruction is all about people. Learning in Real Time focuses on people, relationships, and the power of human dialog.”

 

The book’s release is accompanied by the launch of a dynamic new web site by the same name – LearningInRealTime.com – which features many exciting resources.  The site includes: interaction with the book’s readers and others interested in synchronous learning via an online community, a playground area providing hands-on access to real-time tools, and a direct connection to the author himself.

The centerpiece of the LearningInRealTime.com site is the Real Time Minute™ (RTM), an ongoing free series of regularly released video and audio podcasts by the author offering quick tips, musings and reflections to provoke dialogue and help jumpstart or improve real-time online learning.

Anyone can subscribe to the Real Time Minute using the box at the top right corner of the LearningInRealTime.com site and receive an email when new episodes are released.  Syndication is also available using the RTM’s RSS feed.  Viewers  phone or write in questions or comments for the author to address in upcoming episodes.

Finkelstein is the president of the LearningTimes Network and executive producer and founder of http://www.LearningTimes.org, the largest and fastest-growing free community of education professionals worldwide.

Learning in Real Time is the fourth book in the Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning series, which offers concrete and practical resources to help higher education practitioners meet the challenges of the online learning environment.

The book is available from http://www.learninginrealtime.com, http://www.jossey-bass.com, http://www.amazon.com and other online and offline booksellers.

Seniors Citizens Online?

posted by Susan Manning on Oct 11, 2008  5:29 PM

My friend’s grandfather passed away last Christmas at the age of 103. He was a remarkable man. In a room downstairs he still had the computer he built way back before they becan using integrated circuits. He was not your average senior when it came to computers. He was quite comfortable with the internet. In fact, in his early 90’s his hearing as all but gone. He was a very social fellow and found that the internet was perfect for him to still keep connected and give of himself. From what my friend said, he was quite an e-mailer and very active on forums even into those first few years of his 100’s when even the computer became a bit too exhausting for him to keep connected with. I wish I had learned about him before then. I think it would have been interesting to text chat with a fellow that had seen so much in his lifetime.

I think the internet can be a valuable resource as we all age. Our families move away and get so busy trying to keep up with their own lives that the net provides a great way to keep in touch. The healthiest seniors are the ones that keep learning and online is a terrific place to do that and to share too. Definitely as health issues begin to close doors to face to face communication (hearing going, difficult to get out of the house, etc.) it can be a life line to life beyond the confines that age brings.

As our own generation and our children’s generation ages, I think we all will be very busy on the net. Just think of all the things you would have the time to give and share with others. But for the generation that did not grow up with computers, it sure can be intimidating at first. I have been trying to get my mom on the net for years. She is interested in broadband, but she lives too far out in the country to get on yet. Providers keep saying they are working on getting it out there. Many of her sisters are fairly active now. I set up a family Ning where I uploaded the scanned images of all of my grandparents photos from their photo albums. I surely do not know who are in all those pictures going way back when and my grandparents have passed on now. So theis project has given us all a place to gather to keep up with all the branches of the family tree that have scattered to the four corners of the Earth and they know that their memories of what those pictures are about and who was in them are valuable and would soon be lost if they did not get on line and share. I set up a Ning to do this and the platform has been very useful. They photos are easy to add comments (memories) to. We all can upload our own pictures from our own generation to let everyone feel connected to the now as well as the past. We have discussion tools and can upload videos too.

I think family photo album projects based initially on the scanned, uploaded, and commented photos from senior family albums is a terrific way to get them involved. It may require a younger member of the family to set up the Ning and to get all the pictures uploaded, but once on the net, they will probably stay quite busy commenting on the photos. After they warm up with that, they may branch out further to learn more. I wish I had begun our family project before my grandparents had passed on. It would have been so neat to now have their comments there on the Ning and to have given them this wonderful way to have stayed connected to their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

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We’re going on a conker hunt (with a little bit of ICT)

This is a great way of extending the story We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and a simple way to get the children outdoors finding out about their own environment, without even realising what they are doing.

Use the story of the bear hunt as a starting point for exploring all the different actions the children can follow during the story. Build a simple obstacle course in the hall and encourage the children to think of different ways of moving around the course, e.g. climbing over, going under, through, between, etc.

Now take the story a little further by exploring a walk. This could be a walk that the children are familiar with near to school or it may simply be one you make up. Start by taking a series of photographs which show a variety of different things that the children might see on their walk and things which could involve them in carrying out an action. (Make sure that they are digital images if you want to create a digital storybook at the end of the process). The images suggested below are really useful as a starting point, although you can probably think of plenty more. (If you can’t take the children out, take additional photographs yourself or take images from the internet – try Teachit Primary’s Image bank.)

over the stile
under the bridge
over the bridge
through the long grass
around the nettles/brambles
around the muddy puddles
along the path
over the stepping stones

The outcome for the children will be to create their own story, ‘We’re going on a conker hunt’, based on the story of the Bear Hunt. The photographs that you’ve taken could be laminated and used as a resource to spread out on the carpet. Or the images could be used within your interactive whiteboard software and the activity carried out on the whiteboard.

Look at the images and talk to the children about where they could go on their walk. Encourage the children to talk about the different actions they carry out, e.g. run along the path, skip over the bridge. If you’re arranging the photographs on the carpet, write the children’s actions on pieces of paper which can be moved around with the photographs. If you’re using the whiteboard, add the images to individual pages and move the pages around for the children to tell the story in different ways. Write the actions under the images and move the text from page to page.

Encourage the children to think about the ending of the story. Where is the conker going to be hiding and where will you have to go to find it? – e.g. through the muddy puddle, around the nettles, etc.

When the children are happy with the story they’ve written, explain to them that they’re going to make a storybook of their own, that they’ll be able to see and hear on the computer.

Download the free software package Photostory3 from the Microsoft website http://www.microsoft.com. This is a really simple program to use and will allow you to sequence the images the children have chosen. You can also add text and record the children’s voice with the image. When the story has been completed it can be saved as a video that you can add to your website or simply use as an electronic storybook – a great way to save and show your storybook.

Have fun on your conker hunt!

Michelle Singleton is an ICT Teacher Adviser for Lancashire Learning Excellence