This post continues my discussion of teacher generated structured learning models. The first post considered hyperdocs and webquests. Here I will consider two tactics I use and for lack of well-used and promoted titles I will call the interactive syllabus and the layered online resource.
Interactive Syllabus
The concept of an interactive syllabus is a concept I proposed as part of my interest in a different model of textbooks. When we parted ways with our publisher over our interest in a different approach to offering a textbook for what I sometimes describe as the “technology for teachers” course, one of the ideas in justifying the combination of a core Primer and online resources concerned the advantages of pairing down the traditional book and combining this Primer with a variety of online content. The online content offered the opportunity to keep content as current as possible, but also allowed an expansion of the material offered. For reasons of cost, a traditional textbook must make decisions about what is to be included. The existing publishing offering would likely contain things that were not considered valuable to an instructor imagining his/her course and would not include content the authors could have included but did not. For example, the authors probably did not discuss important research articles and how these studies were conducted for a course that might be assigned for a sophomore course for future teachers. Grad students might have been interested in the specifics of some of the key research articles that were used to justify specific classroom practices.
The idea of the interactive syllabus was proposed as a way to integrate the Primer and the author developed content an instructor could select to assign as well as other online resources from other sources the instructor wanted the student to read. The interactive syllabus was a way to structure the combination of resources and to link directly the resources that were online. [example]
An interactive syllabus need not be based on the model of a Primer and online resources as I have described. An interactive syllabus is essentially a web site with the home page representing the course overview and essentials and individual web pages identifying the content to be reviewed for a given unit/lesson and related activities. I have been using Google sites to create interactive syllabi for my own courses. A website is pretty much the basic model for all of these concepts whether implemented as interrelated blog pages, google docs, or some other way of putting content and links online.
Layering
Layering is another term I decided was descriptive of a group of online services suited to adding elements to existing web pages or online videos. To me, the idea was that educators as designers could add elements to existing web content as a way of improving the educational value of these online resources. The online elements could serve to activate existing knowledge relevant to the novel online material, to encourage processing of the online material, and evaluate understanding as a way to identify failed understanding and improve retention. These added elements could include highlighting, added comments, questions, links to additional information, discussion triggers, and similar supports for learning.
I have a collection of tutorials describing specific services and how these services work. I would also encourage review of an introductory video I created to explain the concepts of design and layering.
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