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Digital Research Tools (DiRT)\n\n \n\nThis wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively. Whether you need software to help you manage citations, author a multimedia work, or analyze texts, Digital Research Tools will help you find what you're looking for. We provide a directory of tools organized by research activity, as well as reviews of select tools in which we not only describe the tool's features, but also explore how it might be employed most effectively by researchers.\n\n

Twitter: A Tool for Academia to Connect, Share, and Grow Relationships\n\nTwitter: A Tool for Academia to Connect, Share, and Grow Relationships\nJohn LeMasney\nDigital Media Convergence\nCOMM 563 SP09\nIntroduction\n\nTwitter allows individuals to send out messages to followers as well as the public about any topic, without editing, complete with what a power user of the system named Andrew Korf calls "ambient intimacy" or "to follow or be somewhat intimate with people without needing to directly engage them" (Salas, 2009). It is a very direct way to broadcast, relatively easy to do (comparative even to blogs), and allows for an asynchronous audience and interaction (Siegel, 2007). It allows for the following of others in the thousands and the ability to be followed by thousands (Johnson-Elie, 2009). As a result, it has the potential for greatness as a mass communication tool, as well as a one-to-one communication, often simultaneously (Johnson-Elie, 2009). While it was first envisioned as a fun way to keep in touch with friends, its ability to meet much more serious needs is being quickly realized (Shropshire, 2009; Antlfinger, 2009). Given the right context, training, and support, it can transform the ways that organizations, businesses, and communities communicate (Robinson, 2009; Ferak, 2009; Antlfinger, 2009). I'll demonstrate in this paper that Twitter is a yet-undiscovered powerful communication tool for academic staff, faculty and students to connect, share, and grow relationships.

Purpose of the Experience\n\nInnovation continues to occur on the internet at an extremely lively\npace. What was once the realm of email, FTP, Gopher, and the Web is\nbarely recognizable a mere 10 years later. Keeping up with the speed of\ninnovation and maintaining a familiarity with the most recent tools and\ncapabilities is handy in some professions and absolutely critical in\nothers. This course is designed to help you understand and effectively\nuse a variety of "web 2.0″ technologies including blogs, RSS, wikis,\nsocial bookmarking tools, photo sharing tools, mapping tools, audio and\nvideo podcasts, and screencasts.

This Directory contains over 2,700 tools for learning in two main sections:\n\n 1. for creating, delivering and managing learning and performance support solutions\n 2. for personal learning and productivity, for sharing resources, as well as group collaboration (also includes some enterprise tools)\n\nThe tools in this Directory are both freeware/open source and commercial.

There are growing expectations among college students to be able to access and manage their course materials over the World Wide Web. In its early days, faculty would create web pages by hand for posting this information. As Internet technologies and access have matured over the past decade, course and learning management systems such as Blackboard and Web CT have become the norm for distributing such materials. In today's Web 2.0 world, wikis have emerged as a tool that may complement or replace the use of traditional course management systems as a tool for disseminating course information. Because of a wiki's collaborative nature, its use also allows students to participate in the process of course management, information sharing, and content creation. Using examples from an information technology classroom, this paper describes several ways to structure and use a wiki as a course management tool, and shares results of a student survey on the effectiveness of such an approach on student learning.\n\nKeywords: Wiki, Course Management, Collaboration, Web 2.0, Content Creation, Student Learning.

Turning a College Lecture into a Conversation with CoverItLive Alfred Hermida by Alfred Hermida, April 13, 2009 Tagged: coveritlive, journalism school, social media, twitter, university of british columbia Journalists who also teach will know that one of the challenges of teaching a large, undergraduate class is the sheer number of students. It can be hard to foster a discussion in a lecture hall, where many students may be too intimidated to speak up. So instead the lesson often becomes a lecture, as the professor stands up in front of the class and talks at them for the best part of an hour. In this instructor-centered model, knowledge is a commodity to be transmitted from the instructor to the student's empty vessel. There is a place for the traditional, one-to-many transmission. This is the way the mass media worked for much of the 20th century and continues to operate today. But the emergence of participatory journalism is changing this. Most news outlets, at the very least, solicit comments from their online readers. Others, such as Canada's Globe and Mail, use the live-blogging tool CoveritLive both for real-time reporting and for engaging readers in a discussion, such as in its coverage of the Mesh conference in Toronto. Tools such as CoveritLive or Twitter can turn the one-to-many model of journalism on its head, offering instead a many-to-many experience. The same tools may also have a use in the classroom, as a way of turning the traditional university lecture into a conversation.

Educational Research and Evaluation at Alverno College In 1976, the college formally established an office of educational research and evaluation that would investigate a series of questions at the behest of the faculty, with special attention to linking the outcomes of college to the curriculum,establishing the validity of assessment techniques and the assessment process, and demonstrating the link between college-learned abilities and alumnae performance in the world of work, personal life, service, and citizenship. Our initial concerns were for assessment activities that operated at the level of individual students and were integral to their learning. (For additional information, go to Student Assessment-as-Learning.) Alongside this use, assessment can also be an instructor's tool for improving learning or a policy tool for planning and improvement. We have gradually developed a program of assessments that operates at the levels of individual student, program, curriculum, and institution. In this context, educational research and evaluation are part of a dynamic learning system based on the educational principles and values underlying Alverno's mission and supported by structures that ensure coherence and continuing improvement. One such structure is the Research and Evaluation Council, made up of senior faculty, staff, and administrators. However, responsibility for review of program, curriculum, and institution-wide effectiveness lies with departments faculty and staff across this institution.

Frustrated With Corporate Course-Management Systems, Some Professors Go 'Edupunk' A group of tech-savvy professors are claiming punk music as inspiration for their approach to teaching. They call their approach Edupunk. Punk rock was a rebellion against the clean, predictable sound of popular music and it also encouraged a do-it-yourself attitude. Edupunk seems to be a reaction against the rise of course-managements systems, which offer cookie-cutter tools that can make every course Web site look the same.

The Meyer and Land Threshold Concept "The idea of threshold concepts emerged from a UK national research project into the possible characteristics of strong teaching and learning environments in the disciplines for undergraduate education (Enhancing Teaching−Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses). In pursuing this research in the field of economics, it became clear to Erik Meyer and Ray Land [1−6, 7−12], that certain concepts were held by economists to be central to the mastery of their subject. These concepts, Meyer and Land argued, could be described as 'threshold' ones because they have certain features in common." Glynis Cousin, An introduction to threshold concepts Over the past five years this concept has been embraced by many disciplines outside economics; indeed the above quote is from Glynis Cousin's excellent short introduction to the concept written for earth scientists. The threshold concept has been seen as a valuable tool, not only in facilitating students' understanding of their subject, but in aiding the rational development of curricula in rapidly expanding arenas where there is a strong tendency to overload the curriculum (Cousin, [1, 13]). This web page will describe, briefly, the characteristics of a threshold concept and list selecteted references to the work of those examining its value in the engineering and computer sciences, the physical and biological sciences, economics, accountancy, mathematics and statistics.

Highlight and Share the Web! Diigo is a powerful research tool and a knowledge-sharing community Research and Collaborate * Don't just bookmark! Highlight the web! Add sticky notes too! * Access and search your findings from any PC or iphone! * Create groups to pool resources for specific projects. Connect and Discover * You are what you annotate, creating a presence for you in the community. * Connect with friends effortlessly and non-intrusively through content. * Discover quality resources on any subject or get personalized recommendations. * Learn More » Play Demo Video

The Knowledge Media Laboratory works to create a future in which communities of teachers, faculty, programs, and institutions collectively advance teaching and learning by exchanging their educational knowledge, experiences, ideas, and reflections by taking advantage of various technologies and resources. The KML is currently working with its partners, including Carnegie Foundation programs, to achieve the following goals: * To develop digital (or electronic) tools and resources that help to make knowledge of effective teaching practices and educational transformation efforts visible, shareable and reusable. * To explore synergy among various technologies to better support the scholarship of teaching and learning. * To build the capacity for faculty and teachers independently to take advantage of information and communications technologies that enable them to re-examine, rethink and represent teaching and student learning, and to share the outcomes in an effective and efficient way. * To sustain communities of practice engaged in collaboratively improving teaching and student learning by building common areas to exchange knowledge and by building repositories for the representation of effective practice.

Enhancing Learning through Technology (ELT) We are increasingly aware of how technology can enhance the student learning experience. Our work with institutions indicates a shift towards an overarching approach which uses technology to enhance core activities, e.g. using technology in assessment to improve feedback to students. This shift has been taking place within institutions over the past few years since the release of the original 2005 HEFCE e-learning Strategy, as reflected in the Welsh HEFCW (Higher Education Funding Council for Wales) Enhancement of Learning Strategy. More recently, on 26th March 2009 HEFCE released their Enhancing Learning and Teaching through Technology (ELTT) Policy Statement. This Policy Statement includes an Implementation Framework to support our stakeholder institutions for the development of their own L&T strategies - this Framework was developed through evidence collected from a range of Academy and JISC programmes. To reflect this emphasis, and in line with our remit to support the student learning experience, the Academy has developed an Enhancement of Learning through Technology (ELT) programme. We are in the process of developing this website to reflect this shift and to map our menu structure onto the HEFCE Implementation Framework, i.e. to support institutions on the interpretation of the Framework - to be completed by mid June 09 (JISC are undertaking a similar exercise). We are also developing an additional resource through EvidenceNet. Currently, to support institutions and in collaboration with the JISC we have developed a joint search tool, as below - Academy resources can also be accessed using the menu on the left.