online curriculum centre faculty member training, january 2010

Online curriculum centre

Faculty member training, January 2010

© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007

What is the OCC?

A service designed to support teachers of the IB curriculum in all three academic programmes

A 24-hour Internet service available in English, French, Spanish and Chinese.

A database of educational resources that uses the power of the Internet to give IB teachers the platform to share and exchange their knowledge and expertise.


The OCC allows teachers to:

view and download curriculum and assessment materials

exchange details of useful resources (eg web sites, books, magazines)

exchange teaching ideas discuss curriculum and assessment issues with other

IB teachers from around the world have active input into curriculum developments

through online questionnaires read the latest IB news and information


The OCC allows teachers to:

But most importantly…

It enables teachers to become actively involved in a growing and dynamic online learning community


Growth of registered users (Mar 03 to Apr 09)


OCC users by programme (total = 104131)

62769, 60%

22975, 22%

18387, 18%

DP

MYP

PYP


OCC users by language (total = 104131)


The role of the online faculty

Experienced IB teacher Enthusiastic about web

technologies Appointed to manage a

particular curriculum area Two key areas of

responsibility:1. Discussion forums

2. Teacher resources


Key forum responsibilities

Enter the OCC a few times a week. Check for messages that require a response,

supporting and promoting discussion. Initiate discussion to keep the forum active. Look out for inappropriate messages. Alert the subject manager and OCC manager of

messages that need their attention.


Forum management tools

Create FAQs of questions or threads. Create links within threads to other threads. Add file attachments to messages. Promote important threads to the top of the list. Make threads stay at the top for a certain period of

time. Lock topics (to make announcements). Create separate forum threads for particular topics or

areas of discussion.


Key resources responsibilities

Enter “view resources” on a regular basis and “approve” resources at a high level.

Contribute resources of your own. Delete resources that have obviously been added in

error. Contact the subject manager if in any doubt about a

resource.


Faculty member “competencies”

Qualities and characteristics of successful e-moderators in the online learning environment.

Adapted from Gilly Salmon’s e-moderation work.


Faculty Member Competencies – Am I?

Quality

Characteristic 1. Confident 2. Constructive

A. Understanding of online processes

B. Technical skills

Operational understanding of software in use, reasonable keyboard skills, able to read fairly comfortable on screen, good, regular internet access

C. Online communication skills

D. Content expertise

E. Personal Characteristics

Personal experience of using online forums or online learning environments. Empathy with the challenges of online interaction.

Courteous, polite, and respectful in online (written) communication.

Knowledge and experience to share, and willing and able to add own contributions.

Determined and motivated as a faculty member.

Able to build online trust and purpose. Understand the potential of online learning and groups

Able to appreciate the basic structures of the OCC, and the WWW and Internet’s potential for building online communities.

Able to write concise, energizing, personable online messages. Able to create “presence” in virtual environmentsAble to encourage sound and relevant contributions from others. Know of useful online resources.

Able to establish an online identity as a faculty member.


Quality

Characteristic 3. Developmental 4. Facilitating


B. Technical skills




Ability to develop and enable others, act as catalyst, foster discussion, summarise, restate, challenge, monitor understanding and take feedback.

Know how to use special features of software for faculty members, such as editing, archiving etc.

Able to engage with people online – not the machine or software, be appropriately visible online.

Able to trigger debate by posing intriguing questions. Know when to intervene, know when to hold back.

Able to adapt to new communication concepts, methods, audiences and roles.

Know when to control groups, when to let go, how to bring in non-participants, know how to pace discussion and use time online.

Able to use features of software for faculty members to explore user participation eg. message history.

Able to interact through discussion forums and achieve interaction between others, be a role model.

Carry authority through helping with misunderstanding e.g. the interpretation of assessment criteria.

Show sensitivity to online relationships and communication.

Faculty Member Competencies – Have I?


Quality

Characteristic 5. Knowledge sharing 6. Creative


B. Technical skills




Able explore ideas, develop arguments, promote valuable threads, close off unproductive threads, choose when to archive. Build on the OCC knowledge product. Able to create links between discussion forums & OCC resources, introduce online resources without diverting participants’ interaction.

Able to value diversity with cultural sensitivity, explore differences & meanings. Is able to summarise active threads.

Knowledgeable about valuable resources (eg. on the Internet) & refers teachers to them and how to use them in teaching.

Able to show a positive attitude, commitment & enthusiasm for online community building.

Able to use a range of approaches from structured activities (e-tivities) to free wheeling discussions, & to evaluate & judge success of these.

Able to use software facilities to create & manipulate conferences & to generate an online learning environment, able to use alternative software & platforms. Able to communicate comfortably without visual cues, able to diagnose & solve problems & opportunities online, use humour online, use & work with emotion online, handle conflict constructively.

Able to enliven online discussions through use of multi media & electronic resources, able to give creative feedback & build on teachers’ ideas.

Knowledgeable about how to create & sustain a useful, relevant online community.

Faculty Member Competencies – Am I?

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shar

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Knowledge taking

Teacher-resource facilitation

IBO publications and resources

Access and motivation

Setting up system and accessing

Welcoming and encouraging

= OCC & technical support = Faculty member functions

Online socialisation

Bridge building

Posting and responding to messages

Knowledge product construction

Eliciting resources

Facilitating exchange

Development

Supporting,

sharing

Going beyondcurriculum area

The OCC – ‘growing’ online communities


Qualities of successful e-moderators

Credible members of the learning community. Self-awareness, interpersonal sensitivity and the ability to

influence are important for e-moderating.

There is evidence that people who display higher levels of emotional competence have greater success in relations with others (on and offline) and superior performance.

“It is ironic that what some take to be dehumanising technology may actually need teachers to be more empathetic and considerate” (Knight, 2002).

E-moderators need to have the ability to “recognize communication styles and learning patterns from other cultures” (Simons, 2002).

online curriculum centre faculty member training, january 2010

Documents

occ users

ib curriculum

ib teachers

occ manager of messages

separate forum threads

curriculum developments

important threads

forum active