Getting started

#OCL4Ed (2014.02)

Another free professional development opportunity from the OERu
5 - 19 February 2014

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Four things you can do before starting the #OCL4Ed workshop

Register for the course to receive email announcements and create optional website accounts for Twitter, G+ and personal course blog. Consult the overview summary of our learning environment. Bookmark the recommended pages in your browser. This will provide easy access to the most important pages for this course. Work through the Course orientation. Note: Further help and assistance is provided on the FAQ page for this course.

How to register for OCL4Ed

Screencast showing how to register for a mOOC hosted on WikiEducator If you would like to receive course instructions from your facilitators via email, you must register for the course. Note that you do not need to login to the website to gain access to the course materials. These are published freely as open educational resources. You must login to WikiEducator in order to register for the course. If you don't have a WikiEducator account, you can create one now. Go to the course homepage: http://wikieducator.org/OCL4Ed Complete the registration form (see screencast for details, best viewed in full screen mode). If you would like the OER Foundation to keep track of your activity for the purposes of issuing badges for participation, please provide your usernames for G+, Twitter and your personal course blog. Learners requesting formal assessment services will be required to publish their activities using a course blog. Summary of website accounts used for the course Account Purpose Support resources WikiEducator Registration is needed to receive course instructions via email Account is required for posting WENotes Create a WikiEducator account. Twitter Optional - Used for microblog posts and tracking contributions for issuing a digital participation badge Tutorial on microblogging G+ Optional - Used for forum posts and tracking contributions for issuing a digital participation badge. Create a gmail account Blog url Optional for learners who want to share thoughts using their personal blog or course blog established for this course. Required for learners who request formal assessment services for the course. Tutorial on creating a blog ask.oeruniversity Community based question and answer forum to support OERu learners Tutorial on ask.oeruniversity

A free content video streamed from Vimeo OER Foundation.

An overview of the OCL4Ed learning environment

The graphic below provides a visual representation of the different technologies used for OCL4Ed. You should read and work through the self-study learning resources listed on the course schedule. Share your thoughts and ideas with fellow learners using the interaction tools including your preferred microblog service and open forum hosted on the Google+ OCL4Ed community. Keep up to date by visiting the #OCL4Ed aggregated feed regularly which is also displayed on the course homepage. The aggregated feed provides a succinct summary of all the relevant posts from the different interaction technologies. The graphic below provides a visual representation of the different technologies used for OCL4Ed.

Overview of the OCL4Ed learning environment

The learning environment for the OCL4Eed online workshop uses three sources:

1. Learning resources
   • You can choose to work through the self study tutorials on
     • WikiEducator and
     • Open access resources you find on the Internet
   • The question and answer support forum called Ask OERu
2. Interaction tools - You can post thoughts and interact with fellow students using:
   • Microblog posts for short interactions including:
     • WENotes (WikiEducator Notes) or
     • Twitter (Remember to include the "#OCL4Ed" tag in your posts.
     • Personal blog posts (a requirement for participants who will request formal assessment services).
   • Discussion forum posts for more detailed responses.
3. OCL4Ed Aggregated feed which generates a timeline of: microblog posts (WENotes & Twitter), discussion forum post in the OCL4Ed Google+ community, and support questions, answers, and comments from Ask Oeru. (This is an important resource for gaining an overview of what is happening in the course).

Bookmark recommended pages in your browser

This is a two step process;

1. Visit the pages we recommend you should bookmark for the course.
2. Follow the instructions for your specific browser.

Recommended pages to bookmark

• #OCL4Ed Course homepage in WikiEducator (Use the navigation links on the top of your page to find relevant course resources.)
• Aggregated #OCL4Ed microblog feed - You can also post notes directly from this page when logged into WikiEducator or using your Twitter account.
• ask.oeruniversity question and answer forum for the OCL4Ed course.

Instructions on how to bookmark a webpage

• Google Chrome
• Firefox
• Internet Explorer (called favorites)
• Safari