DNLE from Stanford University

Online courses have become popular nowadays in the field of teachers training because they provide teachers with a variety of opportunities for lifelong learning and professional development without thinking of time, place and pace. Recently, I have taken a new path for learning and developing my teaching skills. I decided to find what I need not to attend what the Ministry of Education provides us. My first online course was offered by Oregon University titled "Building Teaching Skills through the Interactive Web" in 2010 followed by another one by the same university to develop the listening and speaking skills (ATDOP) in 2012. These courses didn't only provide me with a huge flow of information, materials, websites and more, but also helped me to be connected to the whole world. I met a lot of colleagues from all over the world. We shared many experiences and successful practices.

This year, I took TWO online courses that are a little bit different from those previous ones. The first was the "Gamification" course by Coursera. It was not just an online course with 30-50 participants. It was a massive open online course (MOOC). There were more than 2000 participants from all over the world with different backgrounds and specializations. They worked together to achieve the objectives of the course sharing experiences, scaffolding and helping each other to move on and reach the end. The second course was "Designing a New Learning Environment (DNLE) 2012" offered by Stanford University and instructed by Prof. Paul Kim from October 15 – December 23, 2012. I love this course because it helps me to develop a new learning environment that is suitable for my students' ages, needs and interests. This doesn't mean I'm going to develop it from scratch, but search for open sources that allow me to select from varieties.  The objectives of this course are:

1. Identify advantages, disadvantages, limitations, and potentials of at least 10 interactive learning models and solutions.
2. Describe how online communication, collaboration, and visualization technology play a role in the behavioral, cognitive, constructivist, and social dimensions of learning.
3. Describe the major components and processes involved in development of interactive education systems.
4. Communicate rationales of learning technology design approaches through team-oriented collaborations.
5. Evaluate the value of ideas, principles, and techniques used in educational media or systems.

In the following posts, I will share with you what I'm doing in this course!