Day Eight Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

As you have all probably heard, the mission of BHC is to “provide the environment and resources for individuals to become lifelong learners.” One way we faculty can contribute to that mission is to assist students in learning how to learn on their own, how to function in the real world as a lifelong learner, how to manage personal and professional learning networks (especially in your discipline), how to select good resources from a sometimes overwhelming flood of amazing web-based tools and other sources of information. But, you say, I don’t have time to research and evaluate all of these tools and information sources to select what are best for my students!

An easy way to learn yourself without much time investment and help your students strengthen their lifelong learning skills is to engage them in doing some of the research. That process in itself shows students how you use your networking contacts to be a Master Learner (aka David Warlick), one who is engaged, active, inquisitive, skeptical, networked, connected and sharing. We can’t possibly know all, so we need to develop strategies for continuing our learning that fits into our busy lives. Engaging your students as partners in your learning network is key!

For example, if your students are doing individual or small group projects, send them to one of the web sites listed below. Have them collaborate in choosing at least one tool to use that will assist them in their work for the project, and investigate and evaluate two others. Then, add to the rubric for the project that they are to report on their experience with their chosen tool by posting their mini-report to the class wiki. They should include, for example:

• Name of the tool (and URL)
  
• What the tool does
  
• Description of how the tool was used by their group to make their work more effective or efficient
  
• A rating of the tool and the criteria that they used to rate the tool
  
• A general recommendation of what types of work the tool is best suited for.

Web sites with links to dozens of tools:

• Organizing Your Digital Self (Maria Anderson, faculty member)
  
• Top 100 Learning Tools
  
• Web 2.0 Tools and Applications Index
  
• Carrie Delcourt’s Web 2.0 Highlights/Samples
  
• Internet for Classrooms
  
• Master List of Web 2.0 Tools

Our discussion of researching information sources will be discussed in one of our other “ideas.”