12040

12040

General Session - Conference Presentation Only (20 minutes, no formal paper)

Selia Karsten, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario Canada, drkarsten@astralsite.com
 * Creative Crossroads: Learning Partners Collaborate**

Since 2002, teachers engaged in graduate programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto have participated my online courses (Holistic Approaches to Information Technology and Foundations of Curriculum). These courses are collaborative, constructivist and student-centred.

Using simple tools, students from all parts of the globe engage in synchronous and asynchronous communication to build projects for presentation to the class. Primary goals are to enable student collaboration, creativity, and sharing. Most participants are teachers whose target learners vary considerably.

In this conference session, I focus on collaboration between learning partners as demonstrated with two online activities that display the use of effective (though not necessarily the most current) Internet tools. Students may choose whatever media they prefer for accomplishing the activity.

I’ll give excerpts from completed projects. Links to projects will allow conference attendees to further view examples in their own time.

Activity One: Designing a blended course: Partners produce an outline, activities and projected outcomes for a proposed course. Course Design Examples to Explore include two projects online (wiki and website), two submitted as .pdf files and two submitted as Power Point presentations. A comprehensive list of other course projects will be included.

Activity Two: A shared reading of a biography or autobiography of a teacher in order to produce an inspired media-based review in a presentation including questions to engage class participation. A list of suggested books will be given. Book Review Examples to Explore include three Power Point Presentations.

All Audiences student collaboration creativity learning partners sharing