Welcome to The Viral Learning Interest Group

This blog has first created for sharing ideas about how technologies (web technologies and education data mining) to be used in promoting effective teaching and learning in universities.
The objectives are (adopted the Carnegie Melon University) :

• Effective teaching and learning involves acquiring relevant knowledge about students and using that knowledge to inform our course design and classroom teaching.
• Effective teaching and learning involves aligning the three major components of instruction: learning objectives, assessments, and instructional activities.
• Effective teaching and learning involves articulating explicit expectations regarding learning objectives and policies.
• Effective teaching and learning involves prioritizing the knowledge and skills we choose to focus on.
• Effective teaching and learning involves recognizing and overcoming our expert blind spots.
• Effective teaching and learning involves adopting appropriate teaching roles to support our learning goals.
• Effective teaching and learning involves progressively refining our courses based on reflection and feedback.

Some research that I was personally engaged in over the years:

• UTS TLPF Grant (AUD 10k) (2009): Curriculum Renewal and Better Support of Student Learning Needs through Pattern Analysis of Student’s Learning Experiences. 
• UTS TEDD Grant (AUD 10k) (2009): Improving the Support of Stu-dent Learning Needs through Pattern Analysis of the Student Experience. 
• UTS VC's T&L Strategic Grant (AUD 50k) (2010): Inform Course Learning and Renewal by deeply understanding cause-effect of student learning behaviours and performance

Please share with us your experiences and why/what/how you use web technologies to improve your teaching and learning performance.

Augmented Reality - Reality with technological enhancements

Web 2.0 Technologies in plain English!

Web 2.0 - so cool

Twitter

Social Networking

Wikis

e-portfolio

Using Web 2.0 in teaching and learning - an ECommerce subject

While preparing my lectures for the E-Commerce subject, I have an idea how to apply web 2.0 in my teaching.

• That is, I will run a blog for posting announcements, course materials and receive feedbacks from students. This may not be new, but it helps me alot in organizing the contents and more importantly, keep students more engaged in the course. Also, a good point here is that students now can proactively subscribe to the course mailing list and I never have to chase them for their emails ever again! They can then unsubscribe from the list once completing the course and I can reuse the group list for next semester.
• I also plan to use WikiSpaces to promote collaborative work among students. Basically, students will be working in group assignments, so they have to share ideas, contribute to the project and deliver on time. With WikiSpaces, peer authoring (contributing simultaneously to a single document), e-portfolio (collection of your experience: artifacts -> reflections -> prograssion), effect coordination, secure file sharing and guaranteed submission of work become possible! 

If you have any ideas, please share with us