Thursday, July 8, 2010

Additional weekly assignment

Each week of the course, students will participate in an online discussion forum in Moodle.

The discussion forums may be accessed at: http://moodle.coe.uh.edu/mod/forum/index.php?id=56

Discussion forum activities will begin on Monday each week and continue throughout the week, ending on the following Sunday. In these online discussions, we will explore research studies that focus on the same categories we are using to structure the course modules:
week #1 Communication - will discuss teachertube http://www.teachertube.com/
week #2 Creativity & Innovation - will discuss tagul http://tagul.com/
week #3 Critical Thinking & Problem Solving - will discuss lucidchart
http://www.lucidchart.com/
week #4 Collaboration, Feedback, Reflection & Social Networking -will discuss easypolls
http://easypolls.net/
week #5 Presentation

and how they are used to support online education and/or instructional activities.

Each week, students will create a mini-research proposal for a study in their field and post it for discussion and feedback.

Here are the steps for each weekly discussion forum activity:

Step 1: FIND a Research Study Related to the Weekly Module Category
Students will find a relevant research study, journal article, or other related resource that is connected to the weekly module's category. The research findings should describe any aspect of how these topics were used to support an instructional goal. We have created a Research Studies in Distance Education web page that contains some studies and we will continue to update this page throughout the course. You may also search for other research findings that are related to your own area of interest and use those if you prefer.

Step 2: IDENTIFY Meaningful/Replicable Elements in the Study
Students should find elements within the study they reviewed that they could use in their own proposed study. For example, there are many research studies on the effectiveness of podcasting in education, which would fall under Module 1: Communication. Students could determine if the methodology or analysis procedure used in this study could be replicated in their own field.

Step 3: CREATE a Mini-Research Proposal of Your Own
Students will develop a plan for a possible research study based on the topic of the weekly module that also includes the use of a Web 2.0 tool or resource. An actual research study DOES NOT need to be conducted for this course, but the plan for such a study should be described in three to five paragraphs.

Students should answer the following questions in their mini-research proposal:

Why is the study important?
Who are the subjects/participants of the proposed study?
What is the basic research question?
Where would the study be conducted?
What is the time frame of the study?
What type of data would be collected?
How the data would be analyzed?
What study was the inspiration for this study? (Please cite author, title, where it was published, and the URL)
Step 4: SHARE your Mini-Research Proposal
Students should try to post their mini-research proposal on the Moodle discussion forum early in the week, leaving time for other students and the instructors to post their own comments and participate in an online discussion.

Step 5: COMMENT on Other Students' Plans
As mentioned above, students should also review the postings of other students and post questions or comments about the proposed research studies during each week's discussion period.

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