Ko & Rossen, Chapter 9: Creating Courseware and Using Web 2.0 Tools  ↓

There is a section in the chapter titled “Problems that students typically encounter” that, I think is important (but all chapters in this book are equally important in my opinion):  some icons on a course website sometimes mean the same because they are too general as stated in that chapter such as “Main course or Notes or Information,” etc. Therefore what seems obvious to the teacher might not to the student. So once again, the focus has to be on being more specific by choosing the right terminology.

Another important chapter is about preparing beforehand the students for an online course: setting up a short online quiz seems to be a good way to introduce the students about what an online course is supposed to be. And on the teacher’s side, it is crucial to balance the workload when you have many students spread over a few online classes.

I see the workload and  time management as two big priorities for the teacher: learning how to manage effectively many students and choosing the right online tools to make an online course excellent and attractive at the same time.

I took more than one look at Prezi, and it is definitely a good visual presentation application. Most of my students choose Prezi rather than Power Point but I always give them the choice so they have both options for their oral presentations in class. I like the “flash” feeling with Prezi. It somewhat feels more professional to look at it and it focuses on the important point in a more effective way than Power Point being more static.

Short screencast with Screen-o-Matic: my mind map + via YouTube below =

http://youtu.be/sEFxyEjdDrY

→ Below, you can play with it too with your mouse:



Short poll with SurveyMonkey : http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6DHHLM

• I read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 9: Creating Courseware and Using Web 2.0 Tools, pp. 252-269 . There are some new software I never heard of very “tempting” in this chapter for creating audio files. So far, I created a YouTube video for one of my classes. A bit “funny” because it was not edited and you can see and hear two things: when I fix my hair and the voice of the owner of the boutique. We are both true amateurs here!:
• http://youtu.be/0OSQ0WaogkY  
• Recording with Audacity: after several attempts, it finally worked (excellent sound!) : 0_Pedagogy_first__Week_14
  
• I used a PowerPoint presentation I used in class and I uploaded it to Slideshare and I added an audio file.
• With Mac, I had some problem so I did it with a PC after viewing a tutorial on the Slideshare Website: I did a Voice podcast in Blackboard and saved it on my desktop and then I inserted in as a MP3 file (zip file; I extracted the files thereafter).
• With my MacBookAir, if I export the slides made with Keynote and I save them as a Power Point after, I could not hear my voice once uploaded in Slideshare (after saving the Keynote slides in a Power Point presentation). I could only hear my recording with Keynote . It took me a little while to figure this on my own but I finally did with a PC.
• Embedded  audio file Slideshare: the sound has a few ups and downs but it is working.
• http://www.slideshare.net/DAArnaud/pedagogy-first-week-14
• Recording on eyejot: I did like this feature a lot. Hopefully, it will come through to anyone who wants to watch and hear it:
  

Frustrated with week 14 having some problems navigating between PC and Mac while trying to embed Audacity on either one but I finally made it work thanks to Anthony Ginger who added a file extension (wav) on WordPress…..:

• I read the entire book before the Winter 2012 break: Ko & Rossen.
• I took a screenshot from my MacBookAir: here it is below above the Flickr logo

• I created a new account on Flickr.
• I added a picture with annotation:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/92891392@N06/
• Unfortunately, I was not able to use Mbedr to embed my image with its annotation in my blog post using WordPress.com so I just linked the image (link above).