Collaborative Communities, Personal Learning Communities, and Twitter

The instructors for the UW-Stout E-Learning course Collaborative Communities (register now for Summer 2011 Session: June 20 - August 12, 2011)
, Kay Lehmann and Lisa Chamberlin have been experimenting with uses of social media to support their eLearning certificate program course. Kay and Lisa are the authors of Making the Move to eLearning: Putting Your Course Online. They use Twitter daily. 

According to Kay, "Twitter provides us with links to good resources and articles as well as letting us network with some of the finest minds in the fields of education and online learning. We want our students to join us on Twitter. We advise them they can be lurkers, meaning they don't have to post messages, known as tweeting. We think everyone needs a Professional Learning Network (PLN) and your PLN is incomplete if you are not using Twitter."

How do you join Kay and Lisa on Twitter? Go to http://twitter.com and click "Sign up now" button. Complete the form and create your Twitter account. Fill in your profile page. Go to settings and complete the "Account tab", "Notices" tab, and "Picture" tab (you can use an avatar of your choosing but most Twitter users do have some sort of visual identifier). These are the most vital.

Use the Find People button and search for chamberln_Instr and kay_lehmann and start following both of them. Lisa also posts as chambo_online

Messages for the students in the Collaborative Communities course will include #ccstout in the tweet. This phrase preceded by a # is known as a hashtag, it is a way to mark tweets and make them searchable. There are other hashtags which may be of interest to people in the eLearning certificate program including #eLearning or #mLearning.



Kay Lehmann, EdD
lehmannk@uwstout.edu
C 509-520-1046 (Pacific time zone)
Online Professional Development
College of Education, Health and Human Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Stout
http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/
Co-Author of Making the Move to eLearning: Putting Your Course Online

Instructional Design for eLearning by Susan Manning: LAST CALL Summer 2011

EDUC 763 Instructional Design for E-Learning   (Register Now)





If you’re trying to figure out what to do with your online course, either because it seems lifeless or you wonder what could be different, Instructional Design for eLearning may be for you.

Or, if you want to find out more about what goes into designing and delivering quality education online, this is definitely for you! We cover the theoretical and the practical sides of organizing learning events for online delivery.

Delivered in a highly engaging and interactive asynchronous format, the class examines topics such as theories of learning, linking objectives to assessment and methods for presenting content. The course addresses issues for K12, higher education and corporate trainers. 


For more information, visit https://webmail.uwstout.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/instructonline/index.html

This class is taught by Dr. Susan Manning, e-learning professional and co-host of the great podcast series, The Greenroom at Learning Times.org. Susan has also recently authored (along with Keven Johnson) the new book Online Education for Dummies.