Do not wait for things to happen, there are many things you can do in the Agora now or whenever you have time and interest.
Agora Studios
The main sessions are called studios, as in the places artists, musicians, craftspersons do their work. Think of studios less as a classroom and more of a creative space.
Some of the studios are Foundational — they are important for all participants, and we might even say “required” or Learner Selected — you can select based on your own interests. We also have indicated the studios that are written in Spanish.
Foundational Studios
- Prepping Your Toolbox: This studio covers key skills to track your progress during the program, including the role of Twitter and how to stay connected through Twitter, and organizing your files within an ipad/cloud workflow.
- The Possibilities of Collaborative Learning: This studio introduces collaborative learning techniques including collaborative content creation, collaborative activities, and collaborative assessments.
- Course Redesign: This studio introduces a course design process that will allow you to think about how to begin redesigning your course to be more student centred and to create more opportunities for mobile learning.
Learner Selected Studios
During the daily Studio Series block, five to six studios will be offered at the same time. You get to choose which one you want to attend. You should complete five of these to attend during the week.
Topics include:
- Personal Learning Networks
- Assessment Tools
- Alternative Assessments
- Scenario-Based Learning
- Liberating Structures (Estructuras Liberadoras)
- Recording and Creating with Audio
- Making Short Form Videos
- Free Stuff: Finding, Sharing, and Reusing Open Resources
- Meme media: attention-grabbing images and animated GIFs
- Visual Facilitation
- Office Hours (open time)
What to bring and what to expect in July:
The program is designed around the iPad, but you are encouraged to bring other mobile devices such as a laptop or a smartphone. Some activities such as media creation are easier to do on a laptop.
Before the program begins, it is important that you:
- know how to take a photos and videos on your iPad (camera app) and review/share them (Photos app)
- know how to capture a photo of your iPad screen
- are familiar with the iPad keyboard
- have an Apple app store account
- can connect your iPad to the wifi
- can download and launch an app from the App Store
Please spend some time with your iPad and get familiar with the settings and basic use of apps.
You should also create accounts on these services. If you already have an account, feel free to use it.
- Create a Google account (for sharing files, using documents, uploading videos to YouTube)
- Create a Twitter account (for sharing ideas, using as an identifier for your work)
- Create a DropBox account (recommended for sharing files)
- Create a SoundCloud account (recommended for the Audio studios)
See Getting Your Technology Ready for more detailed information on the technologies we are using.
Sharing and Connecting
This program is designed around open collaboration and sharing. We have built in opportunities for you to connect with colleagues, and share your work. Our goal is to build a supportive, collaborative community where we can build on each other’s ideas and work together. This is especially important when you move to the online phase.
Reflecting on Success and Failure
Trying new things requires being able to sometimes fail. We believe in celebrating both successes and failures, and are trying to create an environment where you spend the first week trying as many new things as possible.
At the same time, the program encourages you to reflect on where mobile devices can be useful in your teaching, and to constantly be asking yourselves “why” use an app, a technology, a technique, or a student centred approach.
Pre-Week Activities
Once you receive your ipad and have a Twitter account set up you should begin following our twitter account @AgoraUgD and searching the tweets marked with #UDGAgora hashtag people have shared.
You will use twitter to replay to our Daily Try — a daily mini, quick challenges designed to help you practice new skills before the start of the program. Go ahead and see today’s Daily Try or any ones from the past.
And you will also receive a series of regular email messages from the teaching team with any additional instructions or suggestions. You can unsubscribe from the emails at any time (a link is in each message) and/or you can subscribe under a different email address via http://tinyletter.com/udgagora
