As I work on becoming a better online learning facilitator, I find myself wondering what I’m missing out on in terms of professional learning. As such, I was delighted to stumble across Anne Davis’ blog entry sharing some online journals.

While it’s been awhile since I’ve read academic journals–looking back, I’m shocked it’s been a few months since I cracked a journal open, print or otherwise–I’m finding most of the articles to be long and windy descriptions of what the researchers did in conducting the study. Less useful is what they found out…like trying to get blood from an onion.

However, that criticism aside, I have stumbled upon some journals worth reading! Here are some of the articles (links to the abstracts and full text) that caught my eye:

1. Students’ Perceptions of Online-learning Quality given Comfort, Motivation, Satisfaction, and Experience
2. Best practices in teaching K-12 online: Lessons learned from Michigan Virtual School teachers
3. Using On-Line Modules for Professional Development in Action Research: Analysis of Beta Testing Results
4. Evaluation and Application of Andragogical Assumptions to the Adult Online Learning Environment

Lot of heavy-duty reading just in these 4 articles, but items 2 and 4 are calling to me now. But before signing off, I have to reference a recent entry by Anne who points to the fact that MIT is making it’s articles available to the public for free. Will education ever be the same?
;->

“The vote is a signal to the world that we speak in a unified voice; that what we value is the free flow of ideas,” said Bish Sinyal, chair of the MIT faculty and the Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning, in a statement released recently by MIT’s News Office.

For some of us, this may be too little, too late. The academics have hoarded their light in the ivory tower, leaving the rest of the land to labor in darkness…un-engaged, uneducated, ignorant of the high art of research. Hmm…maybe not….

The engagement I seek in my learning is a state of full immersion in whatever I am doing. Students are no different. They seek that ‘flow’ in all they do. K12 learners already find that flow in video games, in reading books, in playing music. If we are not getting kids into that ‘flow’ in our classrooms, then they are not engaged with the content we are hired to convey.

My job is not to perform for students, but to applaud students who perform for students. One of the first things I say every fall, and often throughout the year, is that I am NOT the teacher. We are all learners here. I get a lot of push-back about that, especially from my fellow faculty members. Oh well. That is reality. Get used to it.

Are your classes intellectual engaging?
Source: Durff on Intellectual Engagement

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