Rapple Project Portfolio
Intent of Project
The intent of this course is to inform higher education faculty on the effective use of a professional networking tool to support learning goals of online education. LinkedIn is a popular online professional networking site. LinkedIn is a social networking site that many professionals use to connect and communicate with other professionals with similar professional interests and career goals. It is also a mechanism for job seekers to request and share recommendations. Individuals may also explore career opportunities in a professional field. What most educators fail to identify is the potential educational benefits of a social networking tool for students and educators.
Needs Analysis
- Problem: There is a serious lack of action on the part of higher education faculty to implement Web 2.0 tools into online classroom instruction. A recent study showed that while faculty express interest in using these interactive tools, in fact their use as an educational tool is rare. Ajjan & Hartshorne (2008) found that 47% of faculty feel that Web 2.0 tools improve student learning, but the vast majority (74%) have no plans to use social networks in their classrooms and only 8% have plans to implement in the future. Adults learn best within a real-world context using real-world solutions to solve real-world problems. Additionally, adults learn best in a social community of learners. This mini-course will reveal to higher education faculty a learning environment that can support these features for strong pedagogical teaching practice by using an interactive Web 2.0 tool.
- What is to be learned: The learner will develop a proficiency in using a social networking site, LinkedIn, as a learning tool to best design a learning activity for adult learners in higher education.
- The Learners: The learner will be faculty teaching in higher education. This can be at the community college, undergraduate college, or university level.
- Instructional Context:The activities for this course are strictly online. The learner will be encouraged and supported to apply what is learned to the subject area taught.
- Exploring the problem and solutions:The learner will have a chance to acquire new knowledge, assimilate what is learned to prior knowledge, synthesize, and reflect on using this tool for best practice in their area of teaching.
- Goals:For faculty to improve on current practices and/or develop new learning activities for strengthened student outcomes in their classrooms.
Task Analysis
Prerequisites:
- Experience in online teaching.
- Experience developing learning activities that are real-world.
- Basic understanding of social networking sites.
- Willingness to explore and experiment with using Web tools in online education.
- Understanding of students right to privacy, archiving student work, open and closed environments for online teaching.
Learning Outcomes:
- Participants will be able to use a Social Networking tool to engage students in professional networking practices and reference building.
- Participants will learn how to guide students in the exploration of careers and professional organizations.
- Participants will be able to model resource sharing and building discussions around these resources.
References/Resources
Ajjan, H. & Hartshorne, J. (2008).