From about 7:30pm through 9:04pm, I had the opportunity to encourage and assist University of Incarnate Word (UIW) students in Dr. Lucretia Fraga’s (@lucretiafraga) class on blended learning. What a joy it was to connect with fellow learners, sharing a few tips I have picked up over the years!

Thanks to Dr. Lucretia Fraga and her class for having me over!

1) Organizing for the Session – Diigo Outliner
To organize for the session, I decided to go retro and use Diigo, which I recalled had a built-in social group feature that facilitates sharing information and links to group members. What it also had, which I hadn’t seen before until I revisited Diigo, is the Diigo Outliner. They include an Outliner tool that you can drop information in. Here’s what it looks like:

You’ll notice that the items on the left side of the screenimage reflect links that I’ve saved to Diigo, while the right side of the screen shows my outline. The “+” symbol next to each point indicates there is more information. You can see the full outline online–with links–online at http://tinyurl.com/bce2016mg

I also created a Diigo Group to facilitate sharing among the group. Thanks to Diigo for their featuring groups like this as part of their solution!

2) Class Activity
What a joy it was to meet the UIW students, which ranged from 24 years old to retired military men in their 50s. And, what a diverse audience, too. To get them going, I shared selections from Vicki “CoolCat Teacher” Davis’ podcast series, Every Classroom Matters. These were well-received. Rather than do a written report back, I asked them to keep track of 1-2 points takeaways, then introduced them to Voxer.

After the short introduction, I asked them to record their takeaways into a Voxer group I created (Teaching Today’s Learners, or TTL for short at the suggestion of Dr. Fraga). What fun to see them exploring and learning how millenials and Generation Z folks could connect. For some, it was a stretch, but they jumped right in!

Thanks again to Dr. Lucretia Fraga and her class for being such good sports and learners!
🙂