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Theron DesRosier

We Are Media » About Project Background - 0 views

www.wearemedia.org/About+Project+Background

university 2.0 community service

shared by Theron DesRosier on 07 Nov 08 - No Cached
  • The We Are Media Project is a community of people from nonprofits who are interested in learning and teaching about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organizations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world. Curated by NTEN, the community will work in a networked way to help identify the best existing resources, people, and case studies that will give nonprofit organizations the knowledge and resources they need to be the media. The community will help identify and point to the best how-to guides and useful resources that cover all aspects of creating, aggregating, and distributing social media. The resulting curriculum which will live on this wiki and will also cover important organizational adoption issues, strategy, ROI analysis, as well as the tools.
  • Theron DesRosier on 07 Nov 08
     
    The We Are Media Project is a community of people from nonprofits who are interested in learning and teaching about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organizations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world.\nCurated by NTEN, the community will work in a networked way to help identify the best existing resources, people, and case studies that will give nonprofit organizations the knowledge and resources they need to be the media. The community will help identify and point to the best how-to guides and useful resources that cover all aspects of creating, aggregating, and distributing social media. The resulting curriculum which will live on this wiki and will also cover important organizational adoption issues, strategy, ROI analysis, as well as the tools.
  • Theron DesRosier on 14 Nov 08
     
    Thanks Stephen, great bookmark. We are thinking about Change.gov right now. Wondering how we make it less broadcast and more 2.0.
shalani mujer

Gain Computer Help Fast Today - 2 views

I usually depend on wireless internet access. Everywhere I go my laptop is always with me so I can use the internet everywhere and anytime. However, there was a time when my laptop got infected by ...

computer help

started by shalani mujer on 06 Oct 11 no follow-up yet
Gary Brown

Critical friend - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 2 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Critical_friend

feedback

shared by Gary Brown on 22 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • The Critical Friend is a powerful idea, perhaps because it contains an inherent tension. Friends bring a high degree of unconditional positive regard. Critics are, at first sight at least, conditional, negative and intolerant of failure. Perhaps the critical friend comes closest to what might be regarded as 'true friendship' - a successful marrying of unconditional support and unconditional critique. [
  • Gary Brown on 22 Sep 10
     
    I've been wrestling with the tension again between supporting programs to help them improve, but then rating them for the accountability charge we hold.  So I've been looking into the concept and practice of the "Critical Friend."  Some tensions are inherent. This quote helps clarify.
Nils Peterson

An emerging model for open courses @ Dave's Educational Blog - 0 views

davecormier.com/...merging-model-for-open-courses

shared by Nils Peterson on 01 Sep 10 - Cached
  • if I was going to advise any *learner* about pursuing their interest (and by definition, in an “open” situation the set of learners is not prescribed), I’d urge them to find an *existing* robust community of people already talking about that subject, and then focus on helping them develop skills to engage, as a newcomer, with existing coversations and communities.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 01 Sep 10
       
      Says Scott Leslie. I think we have been saying similar things.
  • Can the two ideas– open, networked learning communities and open courses affiliated with and/or products from institutions not only co-exist, but feed off of one another? I get the asymmetry aspect, I really do, but I’m not convinced that institutions have no worth or that the situation for continuing– maybe even increasing– that worth is hopeless
  • @Scott Leslie. Thanks for your comment on the language of ‘courses’, or in my case ‘modules’. It has helped me realise that my approach to open education post my looming retirement may be trapped in the wrong mindset. I have been trying to think of how I can convert a module I teach at Leeds Uni that dies when I retire to an OE resource ‘in the wild’. I have been thinking about how it can be packaged as an OE module that a community of network of open learners can engage with and exploit/re-purpose according to individual and collective needs. I assumed that I and others would somehow organically become mentors (open tutors?) and flexibly help out as required. Perhaps I should be trying to develop links with existing communities engages in discussions and project around the discipline of my module and try and contribute there somehow. I think your comment illustrates the difficult transition in moving between open education as content (based on a formal education model) and open education as process that engages disparate audiences with varied agendas and objectives.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 01 Sep 10
       
      Seems to be someone who wants to explore the fine line of releasing his modules into the wild. It might be interesting to engage him
Judy Rumph

Views: Why Are We Assessing? - Inside Higher Ed - 1 views

www.insidehighered.com/...suskie

Assessment

shared by Judy Rumph on 26 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Amid all this progress, however, we seem to have lost our way. Too many of us have focused on the route we’re traveling: whether assessment should be value-added; the improvement versus accountability debate; entering assessment data into a database; pulling together a report for an accreditor. We’ve been so focused on the details of our route that we’ve lost sight of our destinatio
  • Our destination, which is what we should be focusing on, is the purpose of assessment. Over the last decades, we've consistently talked about two purposes of assessment: improvement and accountability. The thinking has been that improvement means using assessment to identify problems — things that need improvement — while accountability means using assessment to show that we're already doing a great job and need no improvement. A great deal has been written about the need to reconcile these two seemingly disparate purposes.
  • The most important purpose of assessment should be not improvement or accountability but their common aim: everyone wants students to get the best possible education
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Our second common purpose of assessment should be making sure not only that students learn what’s important, but that their learning is of appropriate scope, depth, and rigo
  • Third, we need to accept how good we already are, so we can recognize success when we see i
  • And we haven’t figured out a way to tell the story of our effectiveness in 25 words or less, which is what busy people want and nee
  • Because we're not telling the stories of our successful outcomes in simple, understandable terms, the public continues to define quality using the outdated concept of inputs like faculty credentials, student aptitude, and institutional wealth — things that by themselves don’t say a whole lot about student learning.
  • And people like to invest in success. Because the public doesn't know how good we are at helping students learn, it doesn't yet give us all the support we need in our quest to give our students the best possible education.
  • But while virtually every college and university has had to make draconian budget cuts in the last couple of years, with more to come, I wonder how many are using solid, systematic evidence — including assessment evidence — to inform those decisions.
  • Now is the time to move our focus from the road we are traveling to our destination: a point at which we all are prudent, informed stewards of our resources… a point at which we each have clear, appropriate, justifiable, and externally-informed standards for student learning. Most importantly, now is the time to move our focus from assessment to learning, and to keeping our promises. Only then can we make higher education as great as it needs to be.
  • Kimberly Green on 27 Oct 10
     
    Yes, this article resonnated with me too. Especially connecting assessment to teaching and learning. The most important purpose of assessment should be not improvement or accountability but their common aim: everyone wants students to get the best possible education.... today we seem to be devoting more time, money, thought, and effort to assessment than to helping faculty help students learn as effectively as possible. When our colleagues have disappointing assessment results, and they don't know what to do to improve them, I wonder how many have been made aware that, in some respects, we are living in a golden age of higher education, coming off a quarter-century of solid research on practices that promote deep, lasting learning. I wonder how many are pointed to the many excellent resources we now have on good teaching practices, including books, journals, conferences and, increasingly, teaching-learning centers right on campus. I wonder how many of the graduate programs they attended include the study and practice of contemporary research on effective higher education pedagogies. No wonder so many of us are struggling to make sense of our assessment results! Too many of us are separating work on assessment from work on improving teaching and learning, when they should be two sides of the same coin. We need to bring our work on teaching, learning, and assessment together.
Theron DesRosier

Walk Score - Helping homebuyers, renters, and real estate agents find houses and apartm... - 0 views

www.walkscore.com/how-it-works.shtml

homebuyers 2.0

shared by Theron DesRosier on 14 Nov 08 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 14 Nov 08
     
    Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle-not how pretty the area is for walking.
Theron DesRosier

techPresident - Daily Digest: Did the Internet Matter? - 0 views

www.techpresident.com/...digest_did_the_internet_matter

techpresident politics 2.0

shared by Theron DesRosier on 01 Dec 08 - Cached
  • "Does the Internet Matter?": That's the title of a new report out from Temple University's Institute for Business and Information Technology. Making use of some techPresident data, Temple's Sunil Wattal, David Schuff, and Munir Mandviwalla considered how social media in particular shaped the '08 presidential primaries. Their conclusion? While YouTube and MySpace may help lesser-known candidates find footing, only blogs seem to correlate with boosts in Gallup poll numbers. ( You might notice that the report requires a password, but we've got one for you: "templeowls.")
  • Theron DesRosier on 01 Dec 08
     
    From the Techapresident post: "Does the Internet Matter?": That's the title of a new report out from Temple University's Institute for Business and Information Technology. Making use of some techPresident data, Temple's Sunil Wattal, David Schuff, and Munir Mandviwalla considered how social media in particular shaped the '08 presidential primaries. Their conclusion? While YouTube and MySpace may help lesser-known candidates find footing, only blogs seem to correlate with boosts in Gallup poll numbers. ( You might notice that the report requires a password, but we've got one for you: "templeowls.")
Gary Brown

News: Room for Improvement - Inside Higher Ed - 1 views

www.insidehighered.com/...employers

employers critical thinking

shared by Gary Brown on 21 Jan 10 - Cached
  • 302 private sector and non-profit employers who, by and large, say their employees need a broader set of skills and higher levels of knowledge than they ever have before. But, most surveyed said, colleges and universities have room for improvement in preparing students to be workers.
  • It is time for us to match our ambitious goals for college attainment with an equally ambitious – and well-informed – understanding of what it means to be well-prepared,” said Carol Geary Schneider, the association’s president. “Quality has to become the centerpiece of this nation’s postsecondary education.”
  • Nearly across the board, employers said they expect more of their employees than they did in the past
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Employers were largely pessimistic in their views of whether higher education is successful in preparing students for what was characterized as “today’s global economy.”
  • “All of us must focus more on what students are actually doing in college.”
  • Employers said colleges should place more emphasis on preparing students "to effectively communicate orally and in writing" (89 percent), to use "critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills" (81 percent) and to have "the ability to apply knowledge and skills to real-world settings through internships or other hands on-experiences" (79 percent). Fewer than half -- 45 percent and 40 percent, respectively -- though colleges should do more to emphasize proficiency in a foreign language and knowledge of democratic institutions and values.
  • Eighty-four percent said that completion of "a significant project before graduation" like a capstone course or senior thesis would help a lot or a fair amount to prepare students for success, with 62 percent saying it would help "a lot." Expecting that students complete an internship or community-based field project was something that 66 percent of employers surveyed said would help a lot.
  • Gary Brown on 21 Jan 10
     
    Updating what we've heard.
Gary Brown

Outsourced Grading, With Supporters and Critics, Comes to College - Teaching - The Chro... - 3 views

chronicle.com/...64954

grades

shared by Gary Brown on 06 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Lori Whisenant knows that one way to improve the writing skills of undergraduates is to make them write more. But as each student in her course in business law and ethics at the University of Houston began to crank out—often awkwardly—nearly 5,000 words a semester, it became clear to her that what would really help them was consistent, detailed feedback.
  • She outsourced assignment grading to a company whose employees are mostly in Asia.
  • The graders working for EduMetry, based in a Virginia suburb of Washington, are concentrated in India, Singapore, and Malaysia, along with some in the United States and elsewhere. They do their work online and communicate with professors via e-mail.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • The company argues that professors freed from grading papers can spend more time teaching and doing research.
  • "This is what they do for a living," says Ms. Whisenant. "We're working with professionals." 
  • Assessors are trained in the use of rubrics, or systematic guidelines for evaluating student work, and before they are hired are given sample student assignments to see "how they perform on those," says Ravindra Singh Bangari, EduMetry's vice president of assessment services.
  • Professors give final grades to assignments, but the assessors score the papers based on the elements in the rubric and "help students understand where their strengths and weaknesses are," says Tara Sherman, vice president of client services at EduMetry. "Then the professors can give the students the help they need based on the feedback."
  • The assessors use technology that allows them to embed comments in each document; professors can review the results (and edit them if they choose) before passing assignments back to students.
  • But West Hills' investment, which it wouldn't disclose, has paid off in an unexpected way. The feedback from Virtual-TA seems to make the difference between a student's remaining in an online course and dropping out.
  • Because Virtual-TA provides detailed comments about grammar, organization, and other writing errors in the papers, students have a framework for improvement that some instructors may not be able to provide, she says.
  • "People need to get past thinking that grading must be done by the people who are teaching," says Mr. Rajam, who is director of assurance of learning at George Washington University's School of Business. "Sometimes people get so caught up in the mousetrap that they forget about the mouse."
Gary Brown

Want Students to Take an Optional Test? Wave 25 Bucks at Them - Students - The Chronicl... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...65370

CLA motivation

shared by Gary Brown on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • cash, appears to be the single best approach for colleges trying to recruit students to volunteer for institutional assessments and other low-stakes tests with no bearing on their grades.
  • American Educational Research Association
  • A college's choice of which incentive to offer does not appear to have a significant effect on how students end up performing, but it can have a big impact on colleges' ability to round up enough students for the assessments, the study found.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • "I cannot provide you with the magic bullet that will help you recruit your students and make sure they are performing to the maximum of their ability," Mr. Steedle acknowledged to his audience at the Denver Convention Center. But, he said, his study results make clear that some recruitment strategies are more effective than others, and also offer some notes of caution for those examining students' scores.
  • The study focused on the council's Collegiate Learning Assessment, or CLA, an open-ended test of critical thinking and writing skills which is annually administered by several hundred colleges. Most of the colleges that use the test try to recruit 100 freshmen and 100 seniors to take it, but doing so can be daunting, especially for colleges that administer it in the spring, right when the seniors are focused on wrapping up their work and graduating.
  • The incentives that spurred students the least were the opportunity to help their college as an institution assess student learning, the opportunity to compare themselves to other students, a promise they would be recognized in some college publication, and the opportunity to put participation in the test on their resume.
  • The incentives which students preferred appeared to have no significant bearing on their performance. Those who appeared most inspired by a chance to earn 25 dollars did not perform better on the CLA than those whose responses suggested they would leap at the chance to help out a professor.
  • What accounted for differences in test scores? Students' academic ability going into the test, as measured by characteristics such as their SAT scores, accounted for 34 percent of the variation in CLA scores among individual students. But motivation, independent of ability, accounted for 5 percent of the variation in test scores—a finding that, the paper says, suggests it is "sensible" for colleges to be concerned that students with low motivation are not posting scores that can allow valid comparisons with other students or valid assessments of their individual strengths and weaknesses.
  • A major limitation of the study was that Mr. Steedle had no way of knowing how the students who took the test were recruited. "If many of them were recruited using cash and prizes, it would not be surprising if these students reported cash and prizes as the most preferable incentives," his paper concedes.
  • Gary Brown on 04 May 10
     
    Since it is not clear if the incentive to participate in this study influenced the decision to participate, it remains similarly unclear if incentives to participate correlate with performance.
Joshua Yeidel

Refining the Recipe for a Degree, Ingredient by Ingredient - Government - The Chronicle... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...125545

assessment accreditation outcomes

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 04 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Supporters of the Lumina project say it holds the promise of turning educational assessment from a process that some academics might view as a threat into one that holds a solution, while also creating more-rigorous expectations for student learning. Mr. Jones, the Utah State history-department chairman, recounted in an essay published in the American Historical Association's Perspectives on History how he once blithely told an accreditation team that "historians do not measure their effectiveness in outcomes." But he has changed his mind. The Lumina project, and others, help define what learning is achieved in the process of earning a degree, he said, moving beyond Americans' heavy reliance on the standardized student credit hour as the measure of an education. "The demand for outcomes assessment should be seized as an opportunity for us to actually talk about the habits of mind our discipline needs to instill in our students," Mr. Jones wrote. "It will do us a world of good, and it will save us from the spreadsheets of bureaucrats."
  • Joshua Yeidel on 04 Jan 11
     
    Lumina Foundation pushes a Eurpopean-style process to define education goals state- and nation-wide, with mixed success. "Chemistry, history, math, and physics have been among the most successful", whileothers have had a hard time beginning. "Supporters of the Lumina project say it holds the promise of turning educational assessment from a process that some academics might view as a threat into one that holds a solution, while also creating more-rigorous expectations for student learning. Mr. Jones, the Utah State history-department chairman, recounted in an essay published in the American Historical Association's Perspectives on History how he once blithely told an accreditation team that "historians do not measure their effectiveness in outcomes." But he has changed his mind. The Lumina project, and others, help define what learning is achieved in the process of earning a degree, he said, moving beyond Americans' heavy reliance on the standardized student credit hour as the measure of an education. "The demand for outcomes assessment should be seized as an opportunity for us to actually talk about the habits of mind our discipline needs to instill in our students," Mr. Jones wrote. "It will do us a world of good, and it will save us from the spreadsheets of bureaucrats."
Sarah Usher

I Have Help and I Become a Police Officer - 1 views

I want to follow the footsteps of my father who was a decorated police officer. Not wanting to embarrass the reputation he has diligently planted in the police force, I decided to seek the help of ...

police careers

started by Sarah Usher on 17 Aug 11 no follow-up yet
Theron DesRosier

P2PU - Peer 2 Peer University / FrontPage - 0 views

www.p2pu.org

p2pu edupunks

shared by Theron DesRosier on 13 Aug 09 - Cached
  • The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses. Think of it as online book clubs for open educational resources. The P2PU helps you navigate the wealth of open education materials that are out there, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and we are building pathways to formal credit as well.
  • Theron DesRosier on 13 Aug 09
     
    "The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses. Think of it as online book clubs for open educational resources. The P2PU helps you navigate the wealth of open education materials that are out there, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and weare building pathways to formal credit as well."
Gary Brown

Theoretical Expertise Rankings - ProCon.org - 3 views

www.procon.org/credibility-ranking.php

rankings ratings

shared by Gary Brown on 08 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Evaluating the credibility of one person's statements is difficult if not impossible, especially without knowing, for example, each person's background, training, affiliations, education, or experience. However, we feel that a guide to a person's theoretical expertise can be helpful, so we have built theoretical expertise ranking charts for each ProCon.org website to help differentiate the theoretical expertise of the various sources on our sites.
  • Gary Brown on 08 Sep 10
     
    An old site worth pondering.
Joshua Yeidel

Using Outcome Information: Making Data Pay Off - 1 views

www.urban.org/...311040.html

assessment outcomes

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 22 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 22 Sep 10
     
    Sixth in a series on outcome management for nonprofits. Grist for the mill for any Assessment Handbook we might make. "Systematic use of outcome data pays off. In an independent survey of nearly 400 health and human service organizations, program directors agreed or strongly agreed that implementing program outcome measurement had helped their programs * focus staff on shared goals (88%); * communicate results to stakeholders (88%); * clarify program purpose (86%); * identify effective practices (84%); * compete for resources (83%); * enhance record keeping (80%); and * improve service delivery (76%)."
Gary Brown

For-Profit Hearing: Legislation Might Include All Colleges & Greed is Good « ... - 2 views

wcetblog.wordpress.com/...forprofithearingoct2010

accreditation

shared by Gary Brown on 30 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Democrats were being unfair in singling out the for-profit institutions.  Senator Enzi, the ranking minority member on the Committee, followed up with a statement released on the HELP webpage.  Enzi said. “It is naïve to think that these problems are limited to just the for-profit sector.”
  • Finances in higher education is confusing and accreditation is confusing
  • Senator Jeff Merkley (OR) asked if “student loans should be extended to programs that are not accredited.”  Ms. Asher gave a polite lesson on the difference between accrediting institution and accrediting program.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Ms. Asher was also a champion of reviewing the financial incentives for colleges.  “We need to shift incentives for colleges to focus on outcomes for students.”
Gary Brown

GE Reform Process - Revising General Education: Comments and Questions - University Col... - 0 views

universitycollege.wsu.edu/...default.aspx

general education

shared by Gary Brown on 23 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • I actually learned something in these classes for 3 main reasons. The first reason was that the class size was small, and my interaction with my classmates and professor/teacher made the material meaningful and educational. Secondly, the essays required for these classes pushed me in my writing skills, and promoted independent research and construction of ideas through writing.
  • Taking the class with students who were serious and knowledgeable about their field of study made my experience educational. Sitting in a large lecture hall with 200 other students who also are taking the class just to get the requirement is not educationally stimulating.
  • Spending money on classes that don’t have any impact is especially hard now that tuition has gone through the roof. Requiring less classes of greater quality will help alleviate this problem and help students graduate on time.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • I also think that if there are going to be any cut-backs on classes it should be done on GE classes. Also, the writing portfolio process is tedious for DDP students, especially for those who transferred from a community college. Honestly the hardest part of the process was not the proctored test (I received a pass with distinction) but hunting down professors to sign the required
  • Likewise, if we eliminate western history, mythology, philosophy and comparative politics, we abandon our common heritage and reduce our graduates to individuals with technical skills but no understanding of how America became the greatest nation in history and of our individual responsibilities as productive and educated citizens
  • Gary Brown on 23 Sep 10
     
    a student reviewing the gened reform proposal....
Judy Rumph

Blog U.: It Boils Down to... - Confessions of a Community College Dean - Inside Higher Ed - 4 views

www.insidehighered.com/...it_boils_down_to

Outcomes Assessment accountability

shared by Judy Rumph on 29 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • I had a conversation a few days ago with a professor who helped me understand some of the otherwise-puzzling opposition faculty have shown to actually using the general education outcomes they themselves voted into place.
  • Yet getting those outcomes from ‘adopted’ to ‘used’ has proved a long, hard slog.
  • The delicate balance is in respecting the ambitions of the various disciplines, while still maintaining -- correctly, in my view -- that you can’t just assume that the whole of a degree is equal to the sum of its parts. Even if each course works on its own terms, if the mix of courses is wrong, the students will finish with meaningful gaps. Catching those gaps can help you determine what’s missing, which is where assessment is supposed to come in. But there’s some local history to overcome first.
  • Judy Rumph on 29 Sep 10
     
    This is an interesting take on what we are doing and the comments interesting
S Spaeth

Seamless Services?: Lowering barriers to adding images to posts - 0 views

scspaeth.blogspot.com/...riers-to-adding-images-to.html

iteams

shared by S Spaeth on 25 Jan 09 - Cached
  • S Spaeth on 25 Jan 09
     
    The Zemanta blogging service helps me reconsider the value of a Flickr account. I established a Flickr account, SCSpaeth, several years ago and added pictures periodically. But I have never made much use of the pictures. While pictures can add to the interest in a blog post, finding images, adding them to the blog and documenting them properly took a lot of effort. So, I only added them when they added enough to compensate for the extra work. The Zemanta service changes the barriers to using more images.
Theron DesRosier

Obama Looks To Harness Grass-Roots Support : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...story.php

obama networked governance

shared by Theron DesRosier on 14 Nov 08 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 14 Nov 08
     
    When President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January, he'll have expanded majorities of Democrats in both houses of Congress - and the support of a big grass-roots movement. Millions of people helped him beat Sen. John McCain, and Obama must be as innovative in harnessing their power postelection as he was during the campaign.
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