Middle of Nowhere

During the break my husband and I had a week's holiday in Australia where we drove to what felt like the middle of nowhere - a place called Arkaroola in the Flinders Ranges. Amazing trip. Now back to 'facilitation online' - not quite the 'middle of nowhere' anymore!

I listened to George Siemens lecture on Curatorial teaching/learning and thought I'd have a go at embedding a presentation of my notes - trying to use some of the tools highlighted earlier in the course.

First I had a go with the Google Docs presentation tool. Easy to make the presentation but then couldn't embed it. Here's a link to the presentation though.

So copied slides into PowerPoint and then uploaded to a new Slideshare account. Spent a while searching around for information on how to embed the thing (I'm at work so can't view YouTube videos for help). Eventually managed the following. It's boring old text but you've got to start somewhere :)



I liked the idea of curatorial teaching and it reminds me a bit of the initial web quest activities where the teacher pulls together useful links and gives the students activities to complete using those resources. The 'curator' now has many more resources to access in order to create an exhibition - blogs, wikis, videos, presentations, email groups (i.e. Web 2.0 material).

In secondary teaching there are usually learning objectives that need to be achieved by students and often learning activities lead the learner down a path towards that goal. I wonder if this 'exhibition' approach would be difficult for learners at this level - i.e. not enough structure. But perhaps such 'exhibitions' could help students develop experience/skills in 'how to learn'. As with other learning activities it will come down to the skill of the teacher in setting up the activity.

One last thing. Whilst listening/watching the download of the lecture, one of the participants (didn't make note of name, sorry), kept a running commentary on what was being said in the chat tool. Very helpful, thank you!