CTLT and Friends

"In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings. "

"The results of the survey [of employers], released Friday, suggest that colleges need to change how they prepare their students for the working world, particularly by reinforcing soft skills like honoring workplace etiquette and having a positive demeanor. " -- Oh, yes, and get rid of the tatoos and piercings.

Relevant to Gary's post about Career Services and Liberal Arts -- can "professionalism" be part of the curriculum?

As we work with CLA, perhaps inviting Careers Services to join as independent reviewers will help the effort

What seems to be missing here is inclusion of employers directly into the learning community. If professors "aren't sure how what they teach applies in the nonacademic world", get somebody directly involved who is, as one voice in the conversation, anyway. Of course this will be challenging to the professoriate, but it could also be revitalizing.

ongoing discussion of these tools. Note Longanecker's comment and ask me why.

another for those collecting the secret reality of teaching

"No, Social Search isn't yet another social network aggregator. It's a way for you to make your Google search results more relevant by adding a section dedicated to content written by your friends and acquaintances. Though limited, we think it's pretty useful thus far."

A piece of a Personal Learning Network -- searchability.

"But I can't help but think the new software represents the triumph of hope over experience. Drupal looks great in theory: It's a powerful way to govern a Web site that is born out of the collective efforts of the community. In practice, it tends to be a bit of a mess."

Noew that the White House has launched its new Drupal-based site, a Slate columnist weighs in on Drupal's negatives.

"Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) announced the launch of a native application for BlackBerry(R) mobile devices, debuting at the University of Washington this week, as part of the new Blackboard Mobile(TM) platform which is being leveraged by a growing number of campuses and K-12 schools to deliver a rich set of campus life services and content to mobile devices.

The BlackBerry application enables many more users to enjoy an enhanced experience while navigating course catalogs and campus maps, e-mailing professors and classmates and receiving real time updates on course schedules, campus events, news and sports with Mobile Central (formerly MobilEdu(TM)), Blackboard Mobile's flagship suite of applications.

Originally optimized for users of Apple(R) iPhone(R) and iPod Touch(R) devices, the best Mobile Central experience is now available to users of BlackBerry devices. The suite is also generally accessible to users of any smart phone or mobile Web enabled device.

"This new platform allows us to easily reach our students, faculty and staff around the clock and deliver information whenever and wherever they want it, which increasingly is on mobile devices like the BlackBerry and iPhone," said David Morton, Director of Mobile Communication Strategies at the University of Washington (UW). "As a modern, global university, UW committed to embracing mobile communications and is pleased to be the launch institution for the BlackBerry initiative." "

Users at Northwestern University will be able to log into both Blackboard Learn and Google Apps with a single signon thanks to the efforts of the institution's IT development team. The code created by the team as a Blackboard Building Block and named Bboogle has also been released as open source to let other institutions use or build on the technology at no cost.

"

This ECAR research bulletin addresses the data privacy issues that must be covered by contractual language when entering into an agreement for externally provided IT services or for external consulting about institutional systems. It covers instances in which external agents have access to data that is considered confidential and/or where data can be linked to personally identifiable records. It is based on work done at The College of New Jersey between November 2008 and May 2009"

Educational Testing Service website hosting a literature review ca 2007 on formative feedback. First 10 pages made it look promising enough to Diigo

A startup campus in health sciences attempts to put into practice many OAI-like approaches in health sciences. Amid the enthusiasm there is some anecdotal evidence about practical difficulaties like coordinating curriculum and finding time for research.

Another single-measure assessment with political implications. The comments unpack some of the complexities behind "graduation rates".

"To some, the White House shift to Drupal from a proprietary software package represented a serious seal of approval for open-source software."

""We don't claim we do everything," said Chris Capossela, a senior vice president at Microsoft. "If we do 50 percent of the functions that these other companies do, but they're the ones customers really want, that's fine. The magic is that end users actually like to use the software."

This strategy seems to have worked even during the recession.

"

I think most of us are aware of and agree with what this author is positing - the purpose in sharing this is related to our work with departments in re-thinking how they think about teaching and evaluate it.

""People often think that education works either to improve you or to leave you as you were," Mr. Cahn says. "But that's not right. An unsuccessful education can ruin you. It can kill your interest in a topic. It can make you a less-good thinker. It can leave you less open to rational argument. So we do good and bad as teachers-it's not just good or nothing.""

"What we want is for assessment to become a public, shared responsibility, so there should be departmental leadership."
George Kuh director of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment.

Kuh also says, "So we're going to spend some time looking at the impact of the Voluntary System of Accountability. It's one thing for schools to sign up, it's another to post the information and to show that they're actually doing something with it. It's not about posting a score on a Web site-it's about doing something with the data."

He doesn't take the next step and ask if it is even possible for schools to actually do anything with the data collected from the CLA or ask who has access to the criteria: Students? Faculty? Anyone?