First, the title of this article caught my eye. Then the "new" definition of Digital Humanites caught my attention. Finally the author's comments caught me off-guard. I think people should read this for the initial content (what's promised by the title and the leading question). Also people might want to think about whether some of Sathian's remarks cross a line into stereotyping and racism.

With Kenyon's ArcGIS Online organizational account, story maps are one tool available to you for presenting spatial pedagogical lessons to your students. I suggest exploring the Gallery and Storytelling Apps links

This is a pretty awesome site. Open in a fresh browser window as each click on a hot link opens a new tab. I would like to confirm many of the dates of these sites, but just the map and its interactive-ness alone is worth checking out!

The author of this opinion urges caution in the rush to MOOC-ify higher education. He touts the benefits of (another version? of a MOOC called) a hybrid online-field course. I think this type of course is tailored for field-based disciplines such as his own (marine biology), but I am sure this could be modified for non-field science disciplines. I am almost positive, though, that such a hybrid course would fail to live up to the largest, most-inclusive (in terms of numbers of students enrolled) meaning of a MOOC.

Here are some rather simple guidelines for developing online videos for your courses, pushing these to your students, and maximizing their pedagogical impact.

Thoughts of a professor who is taking a MOOC. (Sorry this is a bit dated, but the Chronicle message was caught in my Spam filter.)

Admittedly this example covers engineering students and is limited to just two semesters worth of data from a large, public, research university. However, the results are encouraging if you ever wondered whether or not students might actually watch the screencast videos you are making (or plan on making).

A catalog of resources for the Digital Humanities (um, sorry, Digital Liberal Arts). Use the Search feature to find entries for tools you might want to consider for your project. (Note: we cannot vouch for all of these tools, and some of them are defunct. However, this is a great starting point.)

This is the second of two MOOC-related stories in the Chronicle yesterday. I am "taking" a MOOC at the moment, which is taught by a professor at Duke University. I do get the feeling that he is treating me (and all the students in the MOOC) with respect, but I can imagine a situation in which this may not be the case. The conveners of the meeting that drafted this "Bill of Rights" clearly want to send the message that online educators should have the best interests of their students FIRST and foremost in their minds. I stress FIRST here because the drafters of the document want to avoid having MOOC students become a commodity that can be sold such as with social media participants (e.g., Facebook).

MOOCs are in the news -- not surprising. I decided to pass along two articles from yesterday's Chronicle of Higher Education; this is the first. The title basically tells the story, but underlying the main point are two sub-points. First, the ho-hum nature of the GSU attitude: "the Georgia State University Senate had little difficulty in finding a way to provide credit for MOOCs." I wonder about that. Second, the offhand announcement of what could significantly ratchet up departmental work loads: "academic departments (will) determine if (students completing MOOCs) have the required understanding of the material."

This is Paul Andersen, a high school teacher in Bozeman, MT. He was 2011 Montana Teacher of the Year, and he has delivered Ted talks and is a prolific web video producer. In this video he describes some of the trends in the evolution of educational text books, but, moreover, he touches upon some recurring deep problems in teaching modern students. These are problems for teachers, especially us at the higher end of education as the students coming our way will be more demanding of our product. I think this is a large driving force for pedagogical change. I thought this was a tough one as far as tags are concerned; if you have better ideas for a tag, please send it my way.

The title of this one pretty much sums up the content completely. There is a link to some good vs. bad examples of PowerPoint slides, but they are pretty self-evident. The guidelines discussed in this article are worth exploring even if you are not developing a MOOC or a smaller online course -- for example, if you just want to flip a class or two.

This essay specifically discusses the MOOC concept in the context of a small liberal arts college. I have personally heard many of the points raised in this essay in conversations here on the Kenyon campus.

Academic publishing house John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has teamed up with TED to produce instructor material for a recently launched series of videos called the "TED Studies." The link takes you to a press announcement from Wiley, in which there is a link to the first two inaugural courses. One of these is in psychology, the other is in statistics. The instructor material is online in these first two cases, but I cannot see where Wiley precludes potential print material in the future. I also cannot find the TED Studies area of the TED web pages, and I am trying to discover the difference between TED Studies and the previously announced TED-Ed initiative. I will update this comment when I can find more information.

This is about as honest an assessment of MOOCs as I've seen. Read between the lines and you'll see the promise and potential failings of this grand educational experiment.

Other possible tags: Roy_Orbison and Nude_Models During a recent demonstration of software for creating video clips from DVDs the subject of copyright naturally arose. I shared some notes on copyright that I took while watching a webinar that highlighted the court decision in the Georgi State U. case in May. This article fits in nicelywith this thread of a conversation in that it illustrates the touchy/controversial nature of what exactly is meant by the term "transformative."

This is a video posted by the Harvard Business Review. The speaker provides examples of how disrupting one's routine -- and of those around you -- can lead to new ways of doing things. I think the analogy of Miles Davis with a professor is pretty clear.

Show me the data! Frankly, I think any survey that includes 722 physics faculty members has to be worthwhile -- that is quite the sample size! Moreover, this is likely to be pretty representative. While it is impressive that a very large majority (88%) were aware of certain "research-based instructional strategies," what is even more impressive is that 82% of the respondents had tried some of these strategies. True, 1/3 of these have given up and gone back to traditional lectures, but I agree with Eric Mazur's comment that this means that 2/3 are still plugging away. The follow-up studies should be interesting, especially if they shed light on what drove the 1/3 who gave up to do so.

These really are easy habits, and I have employed most of them in my classes over the years. Of course, some are easier to pull off than others! Habit number 3 reminded me of something from my grad school days to the point that I felt compelled to post the very first comment.

This course redesign "formula" may not work for all courses, but perhaps it can work for you. The article describes what amounts to a course redesign that results in a blended classroom, using the technology available through the text publisher as the source of outside data. The six guidelines they propose can be boiled down to: (1) guide students in active learning; (2) enforce deadlines to keep students on task; (3) reward students for real effort, which translates into real learning; (4) provide regular assessment (immediate feedback via technology, if possible); (5) accommodate varied learning styles; and (6) keep on students to do their work (again, technology can help with this).