| Conference Registration WebCT Homepage | |
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| Wednesday, July 12, 2006: 2:30 PM-3:15 PM | |||
| Missouri Room (Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers) | |||
| D-15: WebCT with LiveJournal - Producing Creative Collaborative Communities | |||
| Detailed Description: | This session will discuss the need in contemporary education to undermine the pedagogical paradigm of teaching from the top-down. Building on a preliminary exploration of utilizing blogging technology within WebCT, this presentation will demonstrate the power of LiveJournal to extend the power of WebCT by constructing creative, collaborative communities that really speak to the new generation of technologically sophisticated learners. | ||
| Presentation Format: | Showcase | ||
| Topic: | Incorporating innovative tools: breakthrough technologies and WebCT | ||
| Target Audience: | Course Designers, Faculty and Other Instructors, System Administrators, Senior Administrators, E-learning Managers, K-12 Educational Staff | ||
| Appropriate Audience Level: | Beginning or new users of WebCT, Experienced WebCT users | ||
| Abstract Text: | This paper extends a preliminary exploration of utilizing Blogging software as a way of extending the power of WebCT. Now using WebCT 6, I have developed a fully integrated connection between WebCT and LiveJournal. With WebCT, LiveJournal provides a space to respond creatively to literary texts, to find links between literary texts and students' own experience, to share and critique these insights and to intuitively discover literary ideas and concepts. LiveJournal also creates within WebCT a space for university-wide conversations on global issues. These form the matrix for focussed debate within the WebCT Discussion Tool; eg. a LiveJournal conversation on the death penalty translates into a WebCT Discussion/Debate on a literary text questioning the death penalty. This paper is underpinned by the educational philosophy of Parker Palmer who argues for the need in contemporary education to undermine hierarchical paradigms of teaching. I argue that new technologies empower our contemporary, technologically sophisticated students to create learning communities that assist in this direction. My students are required to create a personal journal, interact with their peers and contribute to a range of Communities. The following have been set up within WebCT: Creative Community http://community.livejournal.com/poetrywcom/; Review Community http://community.livejournal.com/bookrc/ ; Hot Topics http://community.livejournal.com/acudiscuss/. Together, these provide a window into students' literary and cultural interests and a space in which a collaborative community can flower. But without WebCT with its sophisticated tools these Breakthrough Technologies would not have such a focussed functionality. Finally, this paper describes the ways WebCT with LiveJournal helps: 1) produce creative, collaborative communities; 2) break down course, campus and university boundaries (with the University of Hong Kong I am establishing an interactive, creative expression community –using WebCT and LiveJournal); 3) shift the top-down educational paradigm; 4) demonstrate how new technologies can turn the learning experience into a new paradigm for living. | ||
| Session Leader: | Michael Joseph Griffith Australian Catholic University | ||
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