Have You Tried Coursera?

To keep up-to-date with teaching and learning, take a look at the courses offered through Coursera. They’re free, and they’re taught by some of the best professors in the world. You learn at your own pace while watching videos, engaging in interactive practice, self-testing, using feedback, and monitoring your own progress. Some of the courses offered this winter and spring include: E-Learning and Digital Cultures (University of Edinburgh); Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application (Georgia Institute of Technology), General Game Playing (Stanford University), The Ancient Greeks (Wesleyan University), A New History of China (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), and A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior (Duke University).

A Puzzle with Some of the Pieces Missing

It’s a giant puzzle, isn’t it? A puzzle with some of the pieces missing. That’s what it feels like if you are a teacher or school administrator trying to decide which direction to head with curricular materials, methods, and equipment. Looking at what’s available, you’ll find traditional textbooks, online courses complete with management systems, courses that are basically text-based but make use of specific digital resources, apps such as the iBook Author that let your teachers or staff develop their own courses, online curricular content for a portion of a course, software you can purchase for your school server or individual computers, apps for specific learning areas, online experiments. . .  Pulling together what is best for your students is not easy, especially when the puzzle is complicated by the need for digital devices and robust wireless networks.

The Education Week Webinar, Forging the Technology – Curriculum Link might help you get started fitting the pieces of your curriculum together. It’s scheduled for March 1, 2012, but if you can’t make the session you can sign up (it’s free) and review what took place in the seminar anytime within the next six months.