Blog 5 - Free journaling on Bonk & Zhang

I chose to read chapters 8 and 9 on the "doing phase" or "hands on" phase. This is the phase that follows the reading, reflecting, and displaying. Phase 4 can be anything from writing a paper to interacting with people or data through various tools. These tools not only provide the "doing" or task, but through the use of wiki's, pod casts, discussion boards, and chat, it also provides a mechanism for feedback for the student.

A few of the techniques discussed for doing included simulation, case studies or scenarios, and wiki's. The first technique I find interesting is simulation. Often when a person (nursing instructors, at least) thinks of simulation, the new high fidelity manikins come to mind, but simulation comes in many forms. One example the text gave was the Cells Alive website, this website gives students the opportunity to see cells in action. This is not something that many students have the opportunity to see. I personally have used the cells alive website to show my students how cardiac cells differ from other cells in that they have what is called automaticity. It shows how one cell by itself will begin contracting, then when placed on a slide with other cardiac cells (all separated) they all contract but not in a synchronized rhythm, as the cells move closer together though, their rhythm becomes synchronized and they end up contracting together, this is really cool to see. Another example of simulation is a virtual patient care activity that allows students to experience decision making without putting a live patient at risk. I pulled out the medical uses in this blog, but simulation is used in numerous other classes, business, education, etc.

Another technique or tool is the use of case studies or case scenarios, these can offer practice or learning of problem solving and decision making. These can be done asynchronously or synchronously. When adding the use of chat, students can have access to people in the field being studied and receive feedback from experts in that field.

Wiki's are also a tool for doing, we all experienced the benefits of wiki in this class (playing on pbwiki). Wiki's can be used to "do" many things in the final phases of a class, or during the learning, using it as a teaching tool. The text mentions how through the use of wiki's students can collaborate and write a book using wiki. How cool would that be, while learning about the online tools, a group uses wiki to write about their experiences and how they learned the online tools.

Chapter 9 is a wealth of information, providing ideas, applications for use and instructional considerations for specific activities. I am not going to list all the activities (there are many) but some require software to be purchased while others make use of readily available online tools such as wiki or discussion boards.


Reference:
Bonk, C. & Zhang, K. (2008). Empowering online learning: 100+ activities for reading, reflecting, displaying, & doing. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass.