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How To Keep Your Audience Awake

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12 Most Engaging Presenter Behaviors…0n How to Keep Your Audience Awake

Do you want to engage your audience. First, many people in your audience are tired—probably at least a third of them just don’t get enough sleep. They’re sitting there hoping they won’t embarrass themselves by nodding off. Part of your job is to help them stay awake, to actually pay attention and consider what you are saying. Next time you practice a presentation, note how many of the following strategies you actually use. Then add a couple more. You don’t want your audience to look like this.

 

  1. Start by telling your audience what they will take away from your talk. What are three things worth paying attention to and remembering? One of my talks starts with: “When you leave after two hour workshop, you will know how to (1) organize a talk and save hours of time; (2) use my professionally designed slides to categorize information on your slides and keep your audience engaged; and (3) feel more confident and excited about giving a presentation.
  2. Speak less than the time allotted. When you begin, say, “I know I have 30 minutes. I will only talk for 15, and then let’s discuss what I’ve said.” Your audience will think to themselves, “OK, I can listen for 15 minutes.” Plus, they will be happy not to have to listen as long as they expected.
  3. Use silence effectively. When you are playing catch and you throw the ball to someone, you find yourself waiting—will the other player catch it, and how? You don’t throw ball after ball without looking to see if the person caught one of them. When you make a statement, it’s like playing ball—you have to wait in silence to see how people receive it. Don’t keep throwing more and more words without giving your audience the chance to catch each sentence.
  4. Pause periodically. Silence not only gives your audience a chance to digest your information—it also gives them permission to participate. When you pause, you non-verbally tell your audience that they can interrupt you. Your pause makes people feel comfortable—that you are encouraging them to jump in and speak. If you talk nonstop, you will never engage your audience.
  5. Emphasize key words. If you speak in the same voice tone throughout the entire presentation, no one knows what is really important. Make it obvious to your audience what they really need to pay attention to.
  6. Use numbers, and emphasize them. A person can pay attention better when you say, “There are three strategies to solve this situation. Number 1 is… Number 2 is… Number 3 is…” Every time you say a number, it reengages your audience’s attention and helps their brains to listen.
  7. Remind your audience of the benefits of what you just told them. I frequently say something like, “By using these professionally designed slides you will feel more confident when speaking, and you’ll be able to make eye contact with your audience because you won’t be reading the slides.”
  8. Add some emotion or humor to your talk. People can only sit and listen to someone spouting facts at them for so long. You have to engage the “child” part of your audience by using emotional words. “I’m excited today to be here to tell you some good news.” Or “The TEAM did some hard grueling work and came up with this amazing new way to visualize the product.”
  9. Tell a story that interests your audience. We all love stories—especially ones that have some emotion connected to them. Tell a story within 5 to 8 minutes of starting your talk.
  10. Say these words: “You, Your”. When starting say, “I am delighted to see all of you here.” Later on say, “As you know, we have this situation. First, you will hear some ideas and then please give your opinions about how we can change this situation.”
  11. Do something unexpected. One of my clients stopped talking in the middle of his presentation, blanked out the screen and said, “OK, you’ve heard enough of the possibilities of using this new program, let’s discuss your views so far.” The energy changed in the room. People started talking and came to some understandings before he went on. Another presenter passed out several products and asked people to talk about them.
  12. Give people “brain food”. Literally, give them food, and I don’t mean donuts. Here are some ideas: almonds, walnuts, cashews, small cups of bananas and blueberries, dark chocolate, small turkey sandwiches, yogurt (without the sugar), green tea. These foods will help them concentrate, which means they will be more engaged with you.

One last word:

If you yourself aren’t engaged, then you might as well forget it. Find some way to motivate yourself to be excited about your talk—you can’t expect your audience to carry you or motivate you. You are the one in front of the group, so it’s up to you to bring the interest and curiosity into the room. You don’t have to be an over-the-top enthused presenter. By using these strategies, you can exude quiet engagement.
Which ones will you start with?

PS: You may think you do these things already, but until you record yourself and watch, or ask someone else to critique you, you may just be fooling yourself.

Real learning

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We are constantly learning, regardless of how old we are. Or, let’s at least say we are trying hard to learn. The ways we are learning, though, seem not quite right when we consider what we are trying to achieve.

If you can’t apply it, you haven’t learned

In most cases, you are interested in using the new knowledge to accomplish something. Yet, you choose to learn in ways that don’t bring you anywhere close to applying what you learn. Maybe it is trigonometry for the SATs, or web design for the job interview on the horizon. Even the book you are reading on how humans form habits is probably tied to a change you wish to make happen in your life. So, you do learn for a reason: You are hoping to apply what you learn. And you want that to happen sooner than later.

Doing the wrong things more doesn’t make things right

Given this very clear goal, what do we do? We listen, watch videos, take notes, read… When we realize that we retained very little, we find out we haven’t learned; we have already forgotten most of it. Then we try harder. Read harder, listen harder, write harder. You know it.

Try testing

What we don’t include in our learning effort is testing. That’s the secret missing piece in the routines of billions of people as they strive to learn. At worst, the act of testing yourself to see if you learned is completely absent. At best, it is an afterthought; a 10-question quiz at the end of a 4-week long study plan. Think about it. When was the last time you tested yourself on what you learned?

The disconnect between what we respect and what we do

This is completely against what we know and value in life about practice and experience. We have utmost respect for people who practice a lot; if they have been tested extensively and repeatedly, they must be great at what they do. We prefer lawyers with a strong track record in court. We feel more confident with surgeons who have more experience operating on others. Professional athletes dry-run over, and over, and over long before they get their first glimpse of the competition. Countless more examples underline one fact: We believe extensive testing is the right way for others, and we respect the ones who do more. But when it comes to us, we stay in our comfort zones, never looking back to evaluate whether we actually learned.

This comfort zone of ours makes us give in to the false sense of completion when we finish a book. It makes us move to the next blog post as soon as we are done with one. It justifies the illusion of finishing a TED talk and assuming we now know how we will use the snippet of wisdom in that video. Once we think we “got” the information, we don’t look back, we don’t check whether we internalized it, we don’t see if we can apply that learning to a problem of our own.

In the US culture, testing in schools is sometimes perceived as evil; though a necessary one. Ask someone what testing means, and you will hear all the critics about labeling, grading, force-ranking people. But guess what. That is testing at its worst, and I believe that is what makes us miss the real learning opportunity today.

Testing shows the way

Tests, when done right, put us in the driver’s seat. They force us to make a judgment, give us deep awareness about what we are missing to make the right call in the future, when the right call will be of great importance. Tests reveal to us what we are strong at, and what we are weak at. Tests show us the path, so that we know what we know and what we don’t. Testing is the due diligence on our learning performance. When used as a learning method, there is almost no better way to learn something, anything, deeply.

I know what you just thought. When you heard the word test, you visualized the endless stream of multiple choice questions you once tackled to prove to others that you deserve whatever you were shooting for. While that is indeed a test, that is not the only one. Testing is a much broader concept. Practically, you are testing yourself whenever you force yourself to produce an answer, before you see the answer. And that moment is not about grading, not about labeling you. Plain and simple: that moment is all about confronting yourself to see whether you actually know stuff. That simple.

One thing I learned

Not convinced? Here’s my advice. Test this theory yourself, on your own terms. Make this post the first experiment and challenge yourself. Don’t just move to the next article. First, see if you acquired something from this post. I know you want to read a lot, and read fast, but just for once, do your reading differently, and embrace the thrill of cold calling.

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Course Designers Package

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In 2013 we introduced a free comprehensive guide on how to take your course online to help both the digitisation and structuring of knowledge for our readers. The Educators’ initiative for 2014 is to promote the preservation of knowledge (in diverse digital formats) and structuring of the knowledge as a teaching tool. In 2014 we are extending our existing service with more direct collaboration with this extensive package:

Training programmes (Course Designers Package):

  • Teachers Starter Pack
  • Moodle Course Design Pack
  • Help with Curriculum Design
  • Course Validation & Certification
  • Help with Internet Marking
  • Virtual Class Room

Our workshops and online programs are built round the simple principles of providing high quality, practical and pragmatic solutions that enable you to deliver a significant improvements in terms of quality, efficiency and performance to your current activity. 

If you have an in-depth knowledge and understanding on your specialised subject and are ready to learn new technology, then we are interested to hear from you.

A passion to help others together with exemplary facilitation and presentation skills is essential. We will be your partner and provide both technical and marketing help.

Make a request now it takes less than a minute!

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Empower Yourself

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You can, and should, empower yourself.

We tend to think of empowerment as a gift granted to us by others. Your supervisor empowers you to make decisions; your government empowers you to vote; a business empowers you to customize a product. These are all examples of empowerment, to be sure, but they are not the only ways we can experience it.

Empowering yourself means deciding your own path and doing what you need to do to acquire the skills and opportunities necessary to follow that path.

Steps to Self-Empowerment

Step 1: Expand Your Mind. Before you act in an empowered manner, you must be able to think in an empowered manner. Often, this means learning to let your mind roam beyond the parameters of what you have learned in school or been trained to do on the job.

Opening your mind to the possibilities is a skill that must be constantly practiced. Study, read, engage with others who can teach you something new.

Step 2: Expand Your Territory. If you are in extend your field of studies, start teaching part times, study abroad. If you are in the workplace, seek opportunities to travel, take assignments in another city or country, expand your expertise, get involved with new technology. Your exposure to new visions of success will radically change your thinking.

Next Step - The Educators Starter Pack

The starter pack is designed to empower you to manage your students community from different sources in one place. In most cases The Educators provide related test and content online to assist your teaching. The starter pack is offered free of charge (subject to approval) and is made of two stages:

Stage 1- You are given an online training/inductions programme. This online programme is designed to give you an understanding or how a virtual room works. Here you will be using the system as a student, this gives us the opportunity to not only to train you but also you will gain the learner experience which is crucial for the next stage.

Stage 2- On a successful completion of the first stage you will be given a class room to manage (content in the class is subject to your expertise). You will be expected to enrol few students (5 min. to 10 max.) on your course and manage them through their tasks. Next step is to run your class subject to contract. (Click here for Standard Service Rates)

TheEducators.com aims to create a wider spectrum of possibilities for its members. We create the opportunities, and you empower yourself.

Click me to join

You can carry on with further training programmes (Instructional Design, Moodle Course Design, Teaching with Moodle, Test and Assessment Design, Moodle Administrator, VLE Architecture)

Beyond learning styles

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Beyond learning styles by: Annie Murphy Paul

Whenever I speak to audiences about the science of learning, as I’ve been doing a lot this fall, one topic always comes up in the Q&A sessions that follow my talk: learning styles.

Learning styles—the notion that each student has a particular mode by which he or she learns best, whether it’s visual, auditory or some other sense—is enormously popular. It’s also been thoroughly debunked.

The scientific research on learning styles is “so weak and unconvincing,” concluded a group of distinguished psychologists in a 2008 review, that it is not possible “to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.” A 2010 article was even more blunt: “There is no credible evidence that learning styles exist,” wrote University of Virginia cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham and co-author Cedar Riener. While students do have preferences about how they learn, the evidence shows they absorb information just as well whether or not they encounter it in their preferred mode.

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This doesn’t mean, however, that teachers and parents should present material to be learned in just one fashion. All learners benefit when information is put forth in diverse ways that engage a multitude of the senses. Take, for example, a program that teaches math using music. At Hoover Elementary School in Northern California, a group of third-graders learned to connect the numerical representation of fractions with the value of musical notes, such as half-notes and eighth notes. Fractions are notoriously difficult for young students to grasp, and a failure to catch on early can hobble their performance in math into middle and high school. Clapping, drumming and chanting gave these pupils another avenue through which to understand the concept.

The lesson here: The “learning style” that teachers and parents should focus on is the universal learning style of the human mind, and two characteristics of it in particular.

First, students benefit from encountering information in multiple forms. They learn more, for example, from flashcards that incorporate both text and images—charts, graphs, etc.—than from cards that display text alone.

Second, students’ interest is kept alive by novelty and variety, so regularly turning away from textbooks and blackboards is key. As long as the new activity genuinely informs the students about the academic subject at hand, clapping a math lesson—or sketching in science class, or acting during story time—can help every student to learn better.

One more thought about learning styles: instead of dividing learners into categories such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, a classification I find much more useful is the one proposed by historian and educator Ken Bain, author of the bookWhat the Best College Students Do. In Bain’s scheme, there are three types of learners:

  1. surface learners, who do as little as possible to get by;
  2. strategic learners, who aim for top grades rather than true understanding; and
  3. deep learners, who leave college with a real, rich education.

Bain then introduces us to a host of real-life deep learners: young and old, scientific and artistic, famous or still getting there. Although they each have their own insights, Bain identifies common patterns in their stories. You can read more about these deep learners (they include astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Stephen Colbert) on the Brilliant Blog, here. And right now, take a moment to appraise your own “learning style”: is it surface, strategic, or deep?

You can email the author at annie@anniemurphypaul.com. You can also visit her website, follow her on Twitter

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Metacognitive And Learning

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Strategies For Instructional Design

Do you know how to learn? Many people don’t. Specifically, they don’t know how to look inward to examine how they learn and to judge what is effective.

That’s where metacognitive strategies come in. They are techniques that help people become more successful learners. Shouldn’t this be a crucial goal of instructional design?

Improved metacognition can facilitate both formal and informal learning. It can improve the performance of new tasks on the job and help teams problem solve more effectively.

Here are some things instructional designers should know about metacognition.

What is metacognition?

  1. Metacognition is often referred to as “thinking about thinking.” But that’s just a quick definition. Metacognition is a regulatory system that helps a person understand and control his or her own cognitive performance.
  2. Metacognition allows people to take charge of their own learning. It involves awareness of how they learn, an evaluation of their learning needs, generating strategies to meet these needs and then implementing the strategies. (Hacker, 2009)
  3. Learners often show an increase in self-confidence when they build metacognitive skills. Self-efficacy improves motivation as well as learning success.
  4. Metacognitive skills are generally learned during a later stage of development. Metacognitive strategies can often (but not always) be stated by the individual who is using them.
  5. For all age groups, metacognitive knowledge is crucial for efficient independent learning because it fosters forethought and self-reflection.

The Two Processes of Metacognition

Fortunately, many theorists organize the skills of metacognition into two components. This makes it easier to understand and remember.

  1. According to theory, metacognition consists of two complementary processes: 1) the knowledge of cognition and 2) the regulation of cognition.
  2. Knowledge of cognition has three components: knowledge of the factors that influence one’s own performance; knowing different types of strategies to use for learning; knowing what strategy to use for a specific learning situation.
  3. Regulation of cognition involves: setting goals and planning; monitoring and controlling learning; and evaluating one’s own regulation (assessing results and strategies used).

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Metacognition and Expertise

  1. Many experts cannot explain the skills they use to elicit expert performance. (Perhaps this is due to the automatic functioning of the expert.)
  2. Metacognitive strategies often separate an expert from a novice. For example, experts are able to plan effectively on a global level at the start of a task—a novice won’t see the big picture.
  3. Some adults with expertise in one domain can transfer their metacognitive skills to learn more rapidly in another domain.
  4. On the other hand, some adults do not spontaneously transfer metacognitive skills to new settings and thus, will need help doing so.

Examples of Metacognition Skills You May Use

Successful learners typically use metacognitive strategies whenever they learn. But they may fail to use the best strategy for each type of learning situation. Here are some metacognitive strategies that will sound familiar to you:

  1. Knowing the limits of your own memory for a particular task and creating a means of external support.
  2. Self-monitoring your learning strategy, such as concept mapping, and then adapting the strategy if it isn’t effective.
  3. Noticing whether you comprehend something you just read and then modifying your approach if you did not comprehend it.
  4. Choosing to skim subheadings of unimportant information to get to the information you need.
  5. Repeatedly rehearsing a skill in order to gain proficiency.
  6. Periodically doing self-tests to see how well you learned something.

Metacognitive and learning Strategies

Metacognitive strategies facilitate learning how to learn. You can incorporate these, as appropriate, into eLearning courses, social learning experiences, pre- and post-training activities and other formal or informal learning experiences.

  1. Ask Questions. During formal courses and in post-training activities, ask questions that allow learners to reflect on their own learning processes and strategies. In collaborative learning, ask them to reflect on the role they play when problem solving in teams.
  2. Foster Self-reflection. Emphasize the importance of personal reflection during and after learning experiences. Encourage learners to critically analyze their own assumptions and how this may have influenced their learning.
  3. Encourage Self-questioning. Foster independent learning by asking learners to generate their own questions and answer them to enhance comprehension. The questions can be related to meeting their personal goals
  4. Teach Strategies Directly. Teach appropriate metacognitive strategies as a part of a training course.
  5. Promote Autonomous Learning. When learners have some domain knowledge, encourage participation in challenging learning experiences. They will then be forced to construct their own metacognitive strategies.
  6. Provide Access to Mentors. Many people learn best by interacting with peers who are slightly more advanced. Promote experiences where novices can observe the proficient use of a skill and then gain access to the metacognitive strategies of their mentors.
  7. Solve Problems with a Team: Cooperative problem solving can enhance metacognitive strategies by discussing possible approaches with team members and learning from each other.
  8. Think Aloud. Teach learners how to think aloud and report their thoughts while performing a difficult task. A knowledgeable partner can then point out errors in thinking or the individual can use this approach for increased self-awareness during learning.
  9. Self-explanation. Self-explanation in writing or speaking can help learners improve their comprehension of a difficult subject.
  10. Provide Opportunities for Making Errors. When learners are given the opportunity to make errors while in training, such as during simulations, it stimulates reflection on the causes of their errors.

In summary, metacognition is a set of skills that enable learners to become aware of how they learn and to evaluate and adapt these skills to become increasingly effective at learning. In a world that demands lifelong learning, providing people with new and improved metacognitive strategies is a gift that can last forever.

Learning Styles

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Extract from the Article on Learning Styles by: Christopher Pappas

There are 7 main Learning Styles, but the first three are the most common and widely used:

  1. Visual: Where learners prefer to use pictures, images and spatial understanding
  2. Aural: Where learners prefer acoustic stimuli
  3. Kinesthetic: Where learners prefer to use their body, hands, gesturing and touching
  4. Verbal: Where learners prefer speech and writing
  5. Mathematical: Where learners prefer using logic and reasoning
  6. Interpersonal: Where learners prefer to learn and function within groups
  7. Intrapersonal: Where learners prefer self-study and to learn alone

Advocates of the learning style theory argue that instructors can achieve much better results when they take their student’s learning style under consideration and create a course that best fits this exact style.

The adversaries of the learning style theory say that this concept is misunderstood and not scientifically proven, and they argue that learning styles do make instructors understand what motivates and cerebrally stimulates their students, but they can’t guarantee a successful outcome nor predict it.

So where is the truth in that and where lies the Learning Styles myth?

What truth lies beneath?

  • First of all, it’s true that people are different and that these exact differences affect the way they learn. Some have special needs. Some have special abilities. And no one can argue that intelligence comes in various levels and forms.
  • Second, people have different interests and when someone is interested in a subject, chances are that he will learn about it faster and more in depth.
  • Third, learners have diverse backgrounds, something that undoubtedly affects their learning.
  • And, last but not least, there are people with various learning disabilities, something that ultimately affects the way they learn and that requires a special approach on behalf of the instructor.

learning Strategies

What’s the key to effective learning? Read the learning strategies post.

It’s not just what you know. It’s what you know about what you know.

Debunking the myth of Learning Styles

  • There is no convincing evidence to prove that when an instructor changes the presentation mode of his course to match the learning style of his students actually helps them learn.
  • There is no “better” or “faster” learning as an outcome of implementing individual preferences into a course. It’s just a style that ultimately makes no difference in learning.
  • Instructors should not just take under consideration the learning styles of their students, but also their background and interests.
  • Content is the parameter that should directly affect the mode of presentation and not the learning style of the students.
  • It’s definitely more efficient to create a course based on the motivational characteristics of the students and not their learning styles, and always be ready to adjust the learning methods and techniques and engage multiple senses rather than just one.
  • Perceptual learning has to do with senses and there is nothing restrictive about that. It doesn’t prove that someone is a specific type of learner. It merely suggests that people have preferred learning styles.
  • Not all learning happens the same way and nor should teaching. What’s crucial is to decide which techniques are best for which learning outcomes and not about customizing a course based on learning styles.
  • We mostly think of learning styles as de facto, without questioning their true value, purpose and relevance. And the truth is that according to recent research conducted by major US universities there is no correlation between learning styles and successful learning.

 

Christopher Pappas

Founder of The eLearning Industry.

via The Myth of Learning Styles.

Knowledge Creation Digital Age

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We are all aware of the prevalence and growth of the Internet as an information sharing tool and many have come to grasp the shift from our previous era of top down media production to consumption flow, which was controlled by few, to a more level playing field (available to many) due to cheap and accessible means of production (Digital Media Technology) and freely available distribution channels (Internet and the power of social media networking platforms). Read more →

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E-learning’s Most Annoying Traits

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E-learning’s most annoying traits

Over 100 learning professionals were asked what one thing most annoys them about online learning materials. Their responses were both varied and numerous.

Of these, the 17 most annoying traits of online learning materials were:

  1. Patronising the learner.
  2. Having a section called ‘How to use this e-learning module’.
  3. Spelling out the materials’ objective, such as, ‘By the end of this module you will have learnt…’
  4. Text-heavy sections labelled ‘Background’ or ‘History’, and the related issue of getting learners to read a company policy in the guise of it being ‘e-learning’.
  5. Poor screen design
  6. Pages cluttered confusingly with text and Clip Art graphics.
  7. Using text to explain what each button does, rather than letting the users explore and find out for themselves.
  8. The use of fading text and pictures – in and out, in and out – which just frustrates the user.
  9. Inane, irrelevant and ineffective interactions, including fatuous multiple-choice questions.
  10. Poor program design
  11. The lack of a ‘page-turning’ running theme to maintain user interest.
  12. Having a robotic voice read all of the text as it appears on the screen, with no option to move on until the voice finishes (it’s a timeline the user can’t control).
  13. Seeing the messages ‘Error 404. Not Found’ and ‘Unable to open http://www…..’
  14. Step locking, which is making the user click everything that’s possible to click on before the page will advance (to ‘ensure understanding’ by the learner).
  15. Performance issues
  16. Images, such as an animated clock, along with the message ‘Loading’, which takes several minutes to disappear, or the message, ‘Hang on, we’re having technical difficulties’, followed by a frozen screen.
  17. As the user submits something, the following message appears on screen, ‘Sorry, your session has timed out’, resulting in everything the user has produced disappearing into the ether.

If these traits seem worryingly familiar or, worse still, they’re recognisable in some of your own e-learning output, then do something about it.

On a different level, though, is the e-learning material – however it’s delivered – really what the learning is all about? Isn’t the real learning encapsulated and demonstrated in the activities that learners undertake, applying the knowledge they’ve gained having worked through the e-learning materials? After all, you can learn the Highway Code by rote and you can use all of the driving simulators there are but you can never say you’ve learnt to drive until you do it in a vehicle on a real road in the real world.

It’s well-known that we learn by doing. Yet e-learning materials still ask learners to read something, watch a video and/or listen to audio and then answer some questions. How does anyone, including the user, know they’ve really understood what they’re supposed to have understood unless their understanding is demonstrated in reality?

 

Plan your online course - Less is More

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Do you ever wonder where that term “less is more” comes from?

Many people think that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the founders of the modern architectural movement was the first to use it. Actually it was the English poet Robert Browning, who wrote this in 1855. Regardless of the origination, what can be applied to architecture or poetry can and should be applied to our work as educators.

Everywhere you turn a new strategy is being suggested or a new tech tool is popping up. You may be asking yourself…Where does it end? How do I keep it all together? How do I keep a balance? How do I know that I’m providing the best support to my students?

So…how do we hold it all together? How do we ensure that we are bringing our best to our course, without losing it? We do it, by remembering that “less is more”.

1) Plan your online course, be focus

Prepare your online lessons with a short talk (a video clip not more than 15 minutes) to introduce the key points of the lesson. On the same page below the video clip, list the key points raised (not more than 300 words) in the video. Follow it with the lesson notes (Keep it short - 1000 words) providing brief expansion on the lesson topics. For each of these topic you can recommend additional reading (either from the course text book or/and hyperlink to a relevant article on the web). Finish the lesson with an assignment. Use the assignment both as teaching and testing your students.

2) Use the course assignment as a teaching tool

Take the time to review the lesson content for the entire course. Instead of examining all that content separately, incorporate an ongoing story (Case study) going through your lessons. Use your creativity and combine lesson content with the course activities (case study). It will help the flow of lessons much better. Instead of thinking of individual test/assignment for each lesson, think of a story (case study) running through your course. You can embed further learning material in the body of case study.

3) Pick one tech tool and use it well

There are amazing tools on the web. Some of you are eager to embrace as many of these tools as possible and many of you may be put off by the amount of technology involved. Going to workshops, learning how to use them and forgetting why you thought, that was a good idea in the first place. STOP! In the rush to use a wiki, blog or social media site with your students, it’s easy to lose the site of the big picture. What’s MORE important is to see the power of what one tool can do to make a difference in your work and learn how to use that tool well. Maybe it’s starting a blog and using that to support your course. Whatever the tool, choose to use one and using it well.

As an educator, I share these three suggestions because it’s easy in our daily work as educators, to get caught up with all the content and lose the meaning. Remember it’s the quality not the quantity of your lesson that makes the difference.

Use of Social Media In Formal Learning

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We live in the era of social media and professionals of any level should not make the mistake to underestimate their power. We can easily understand why social media can be useful from a marketing point of view. What’s more interesting, however, is to see how social can be effectively used in formal learning.

Learning In A Social Orbit

Social media are getting quite popular in eLearning, as well as in traditional classrooms and workshops. The advantages are many and instructors cannot afford to ignore them: multiple-level interaction, reduce or elimination of classroom time, boost participation and collaboration, new job opportunities, opportunities for the development of online communities consisting of people with common training experiences, and so many more. And these are only few of the reasons why members of the learning community hop on board the social media train.So, let’s see how we can increase the effectiveness and longevity of formal learning, stimulate the engagement of learners, and enhance the social aspects of learning through the use of social media.

10 Tips on Use of Social Media In Formal Learning

  1. Design and implementation of a solid instructional plan, aligning social media to learning objectives.
  2. Social media include a variety of tools, applications and platforms that can provide a wealth of resources and materials to support any course. Choose the ones that will back up your course’s content.
  3. Before the beginning of the course, find out about the likes and interests of your students, as well as which social media they are already using. Build your course around them.
  4. Use all the resources social media offer to fire up discussions, fora, conversations, comparisons, collaborations, opinion-sharing and networking. You can also use them for broadcasting (Skype, YouTube) and then share with an even wider public.
  5. Use social media not only to share links and resources, but also to stimulate your audience’s interest and participation. If your crowd is young, tech-savvy and interested in new trends, then benefits are endless.
  6. Find those social media applications that will generate the desirable content in minimum time and reduce time spent in traditional classrooms.
  7. Use social media to encourage your audience to attend discussions, webinars, and groups and ask them to provide feedback and generate new ideas.
  8. The social media platforms can be used for an introduction to the course, for pre and after class activities, as well as for questionnaires, where mood, style and methods can be determined by the instructor.
  9. Blogging is one of the most powerful social media. Start a blog for your course, module or domain and encourage people to post, respond, share and critique.
  10. Last but not least, since not all audiences are technology and social media enthusiasts, make sure that all the resources you use are easy to share, like or re-tweet, convert your content into appealing graphic visual representations, upload your lectures or presentations in YouTube and generally facilitate those who are more reserved, uncommunicative and reluctant. You ‘d be surprised with the results once you get people to open up and engage.

via 10 Tips To Effectively Use Social Media In Formal Learning.

How To Use Twitter For Social Learning

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Published in Concepts Sunday, 28 April 2025 13:01

8 Tips To Use Twitter For Social Learning

There is so much information on it that is easily accessible, bite-sized and you can find virtually everything you need! If you don’t yet have a Twitter account, I will not try to convince you, but if you want to make learning easier, more fun and more appealing to young and tech-savvy learners, here is all you need to know about Twitter.

 

  1. Create An Informative List of Resources: Before you begin, create a list of things you want to provide as information to your learners. Think what will be interesting, engaging and re-tweetable. Chunk it and post regularly, so you keep the interest of your learners.
  2. Create Learning Hashtags: Come up with a #hash tag with the help of which learners will be able to feedback and communicate on your materials.
  3. Create Learning Topics: Create topics, making use of the hashtags. In Twitter you can also create regular Twitter chat events. Don’t forget to encourage your learners by liking, re-tweeting and commenting on relevant tweets they share.
  4. Create Learning Lists: You can create your own learning lists which basically is a curated group of Twitter users. This way you and your learners will be able to see the stream of your group’s tweets.
  5. Learn How To Search: Twitter has a powerful and accurate search engine that will help you get the information you need most. Get familiar with the Twitter trail.
  6. Follow The Influencers: Get in touch and follow interesting people from your field of study – eLearning Developers, Instructional Designers, Subject Matter Experts, Professors and other experts – see what they share and what gets re-tweeted. Think about the things your learners will find interesting and will want to re-tweet.
  7. Re-Tweet: Re-tweet and share everything you want your learners to know. Don’t forget to encourage them by liking, re-tweeting and commenting on relevant tweets they share.
  8. Favourite: Show your appreciate by favorite a tweet. You will encourage the poster of the original Tweet by let him/her know that you liked the tweet. Also, by doing so you can save the Tweet for later review.

 

As eLearning Professionals your bread and butter is to be up on educational technology developments. Like it or not, you will see Twitter almost everywhere these days, so why not make use of it?

via 8 Tips To Use Twitter For Social Learning.