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Bucks County Community College

What is most important about the world of American literature? It's an important question, and some would argue for the works of Twain, while others might speak eloquently about Richard Wright, and so on. This inventive 16-part series for college students deals with the foibles of American literature through a "diversity of voices" in a way that is eminently accessible and interesting. This series was created in 2003 by Oregon Public Broadcasting and it features segments like Exploring Borderlands, Native Voices, and Regional Realism. Each program is also accompanied by a number of lesson units, plans, and additional classroom activities. Visitors can also read detailed program descriptions, and look over a list of Related Resources

There are several widely-accepted rubrics (Quality Matters, the ION one in Illinois, etc.), but in my opinion, they focus on course design, not on teaching the course. When I was at Black Hawk College, we created a Best Practices for Exemplary Online Teaching set of standards based on the Chickering and Gamson's "7 Principles of Good Practice for Undergraduate Education" meta-analysis. Individual best practices for online teaching were pulled from the literature and listed as possibilities under each of the 7 principles, and an 8th was added with some of the course design elements not already mentioned in the first 7. In other words, we created a local document that could assist faculty in doing self-assessment, peer evaluations of each other's courses, and potentially institutional review of online courses. However, our instrument was not used for institutional assessment because it was not approved as part of the faculty [union] contract. It is important for a document like this to be shared with the faculty ahead of time so that they know how their courses are going to be evaluated. I also think it is helpful to have several people evaluate various aspects of online courses, such as someone who is an expert in online education who can evaluate the learning experiences and course design elements of the course, someone from the faculty member's department who can evaluate the quality and accuracy of the course content, as well as the administrator whose job it is to evaluate teaching. If the institution uses a type of rubric or assessment document when evaluating face-to-face teaching, it needs to be vetted by online experts to determine if it emphasizes appropriate, comparable variables in the online environment. For example, if activities to promote student engagement is on that form...what does that look like online? Not all administrators or faculty who have not taught online would know what to look for as indicators of student engagement.

As Big Data Comes to College, Officials Wrestle to Set New Ethical Norms Plus many other articles that address data

The Century America compilation of websites are a part of the COPLAC digital history project, a collaboration of several colleges in which student researchers have explored their local community's experiences during the Great War. Spearheaded by Dr. Bill Spellman, and under the direct leadership of Dr. Ellen Holmes Pearson from the University of North Carolina Asheville and Dr. Jeffrey McClurken from the University of Mary Washington, the project combines digital technologies, distance mentoring, and undergraduate research. The UNC Asheville website explores parts of Western North Carolina, with particular emphasis on the college's home city of Asheville, during the Great War.

Book review I know that our faculty friends in the humanities have a lot of advice to offer for facilitating student writing, but often it doesn't seem to fit the context of quantitative work (or at least, the benefits are lost in the translation of the process). Enter Student Writing in the Quantitative Disciplines: A Guide for College Faculty by Patrick Bahls, 

TED, a nonprofit organization that produces a popular annual conference on ideas, is launching TED-Ed, an online collection of lessons it hopes will bring the best educators to any classroom with an Internet connection.(march 2012)

The Community of Scientists project seeks to pair up NH classrooms for inquiry-based science co-investigations, using technology for video and voice communication.  Teachers at Winchester School (K-8) in Winchester, NH, are working out initial technology questions by creating a Community of Scientists with Elementary Education Methods II students at Keene State College. The pilot project is to co-investigate hydroponics as a sustainable option for growing food rapidly in smaller areas. It entails setting up a simple classroom hydroponics station where students will explore how to best grow plants hydroponically.  KSC students will conduct and monitor their hydroponics experiments while students in Winchester School conduct similar experiment in their own hydroponic station in their classroom.  Students will then video chat with their co-investigators and share their findings.

Thanks for diigoing this.

"Despite Halt in Federal Enforcement, States Move Ahead With Regulations for Online Programs" The federal government may not be able to enforce a rule requiring colleges to be licensed in every state where they are operating, but that hasn't stopped states from forging ahead with new regulations for the myriad institutions that enroll students within their borders but may have no physical campus there.

45 senior graphic design students at Keene State College are striving to promote their senior graphic design portfolio review.

"The ninth annual survey, a collaborative effort between the Babson Survey Research Group and the College Board, is the leading barometer of online learning in the United States.  Based on responses from over 2,500 academic leaders, the complete survey report, "Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011" can be downloaded here."

NE Canvas User Group - Emmanuel College Storify

During his days as a clerk for the federal government in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne began crafting some of his most notable works. The Hawthorne in Salem site celebrates his life and times in this very unique place. Created by the North Shore Community College in nearby Danvers, the site offers up an interactive timeline of dates from Hawthorne's life. Visitors can browse through six sections, including Life & Times, Literature, and Buildings and Houses. The Maps area is a delight, offering maps of Salem Village, Salem in Hawthorne's time, as well as Salem today. Accompanying articles also provide riveting insight into Salem around the time of Hawthorne's birth in 1804. The site's introductory video is also worth a look. [Scout report]

A new program will give grants to a variety of high-tech teaching projects, with the hope of helping low-income students better succeed in their studies. Next Gen Learning Challenges, led by Educause, a nonprofit that supports education technology, is designed to find technology-based approaches to improve college readiness and completion among low-income students.

Wiffiti publishes real time messages to screens in thousands of locations from jumbotrons to jukeboxes, bars to bowling alleys and cafes to colleges. You can interact with Wiffiti from your mobile phone or the web.

Power to the People! Jennifer Ditkoff, Keene State College Give students the power to guide their own education. Using Wallwisher an instructor gains insight on student needs and opens up a classroom discussion. After library instruction short tutorials are posted on Voicethread. Students experiment with the concepts, actively participating in assessing their own research efforts, as well as their classmates. Students have control over their own learning experience and can revisit the course materials throughout the semester to add content, ask questions, and receive feedback. Diigo is used rather than a static handout. Students provide links to helpful materials for their peers, highlighting the community aspect of ongoing education. Jennifer Ditkoff has worked in academic, public and medical libraries, learning every type of classification system, including the elusive Cutter system. When she is not troubleshooting electronic resources, she teaches information literacy, staffs the reference desk, and shows up early to committee meetings. She enjoys learning about new technologies.

The Connexions approach Connexions is an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Our Content Commons contains educational materials for everyone - from children to college students to professionals - organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger collections or courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license.

The Internet's primary effect on how we think will only reveal itself when it affects the cultural milieu of thought, not just the behavior of individual users. The members of the Invisible College did not live to see the full flowering of the scientific method, and we will not live to see what use humanity makes of a medium for sharing that is cheap, instant, and global (both in the sense of 'comes from everyone' and 'goes everywhere.') We are, however, the people who are setting the earliest patterns for this medium. Our fate won't matter much, but the norms we set will.

boyd, danah. 2009. "Living and Learning with Social Media." Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology. State College, PA: April 18.

Next Generation Learning Challenges means to Dramatically increase college readiness and completion by fostering the development and adoption of technologies that enable more flexible, high-quality learning experiences for all students.