Group items tagged

"The Open Educational Resources Research Hub (OER Research Hub) provides a focus for research, designed to give answers to the overall question 'What is the impact of OER on learning and teaching practices?' and identify the particular influence of openness. We do this by working in collaboration with projects across four education sectors (K12, college, higher education and informal) extending a network of research with shared methods and shared results. By the end of this research we will have evidence for what works and when, but also established methods and instruments for broader engagement in researching the impact of openness on learning. OER are not just another educational innovation. They influence policy and change practices. In previous research (OpenLearn, Bridge to Success and OLnet) we have seen changes in institutions, teacher practice and in the effectiveness of learning. We integrate research alongside action to discover and support changes in broader initiatives. Our framework provides the means to gather data and the tools to tackle barriers. The project combines: A targeted collaboration program with existing OER projects An internationalfellowship program Networking to make connections A hub for research data and OER excellence in practice The collaborations cover different sectors and issues, these include: the opening up of classroom based teaching to open content; the large-scale decision points implied by open textbooks for community colleges; the extension of technology beyond textbook through eBook and simulation; the challenge of teacher training in India; and the ways that OER can support less formal approaches to learning. By basing good practice on practical experience and research we can help tackle practical problems whilst building the evidence bank needed by all."

"Transdisciplinarity: literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines. More about transdisciplinarity. Virtual collaboration: ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team. More about virtual collaboration. Sense-making: ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed. More about sense-making. Social intelligence: ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions. More about social intelligence. Cross-cultural competency: ability to operate in different cultural settings. More about cross-cultural competency. Cognitive load management: ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques. More about cognitive load management. Novel and adaptive thinking: proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based. More about novel and adaptive thinking. Computational thinking: ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning. More about computational thinking. New media literacy: ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication. More about new media literacy. More about new media literacy. Design mindset: ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes. More about design mindset."

"What kinds of questions make for good inquiry-based projects? As we said, they must first be questions that the kids truly care about because they come up with them themselves. In addition, good questions share the following characteristics: The questions must be answerable. "What is the poem 'Dream Deferred' based on?" is answerable. "Why did Langston Hughes write it?" may be answerable if such information exists, or if the students have some relevant and defensible opinions. "Why did he choose this particular word in line six?" is not answerable because the only person likely to know such a specific answer is Hughes himself, now deceased. The answer cannot be a simple fact. "In what year was Lincoln killed?" doesn't make for a very compelling project because you can just look it up in any number of books or Web sites. "What factors caused the assassination attempt?" might be a good project because it will require research, interpretation, and analysis. The answer can't already be known. "What is hip-hop music?" is a bit too straightforward and the kids are not likely to learn much more than they know already. "What musical styles does hip-hop draw from and how?" offers more opportunity for exploration. The questions must have some objective basis for an answer. "Why is the sky blue?" can be answered through research. "Why did God make the sky blue?" cannot because it is a faith-based question. Both are meaningful, valid, real questions, but the latter isn't appropriate for an inquiry-based project. "What have people said about why God made the sky blue?" might be appropriate. Likewise, "Why did the dinosaurs become extinct?" is ultimately unanswerable in that form because no humans were around to know for sure, but "What do scientists believe was the reason for their extinction?" or "What does the evidence suggest about the cause?" will work. Questions based on value judgments don't work for similar reasons. You can't objectively answer "Is Hamle

From the site: "This website was conceived at the 2007 Flugsaurier pterosaur research meeting in Munich when we, a collection of pterosaur researchers and artists directly working with us realised that there was no comprehensive, high quality website dedicated to this popular group of prehistoric animals. This acts in stark contrast to a number of excellent dinosaur-based websites and, frankly, we couldn't quite figure out why when pterosaurs are equally famous, popular and, in some respects, better known than their dinosaur cousins. With this in mind, we set out to create a pterosaur based website that: figure * Presents up-to-date information on pterosaurs in an accessible fashion * Sources information from the primary scientific literature * Is written by qualified, experienced pterosaur researchers * Can reflect the active research occuring in pterosaur science * Provides professionally produced pterosaur art and photographs of pterosaur specimens"

While the law requires teachers to use evidence-based practices in their classrooms, the field has not yet determined criteria for evidence based practice nor whether special education has a solid foundation of evidence-based practices. Also, those teaching strategies that have been researched are difficult for teachers to access.

A scholarly article with tremendous real-world practical implications and suggestions. Love this.

A scholarly article with tremendous real-world practical implications and suggestions. Love this.

Vocational Education meets Research in the dynamic classroom of Linda Darling-Hammond, 2008. The students are doing the research, teaching and learning. They control their own destiny and they are taking the world by storm! They are not waiting to be taught, they are teaching each other and themselves as teams of researchers. Darling-Hammond, L. (2008). Powerful learning: what we know about teaching for understanding. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

"While gamification is gaining ground in business, marketing, corporate management, health insurance,ecology and wellness initiatives, its application in education is still an emerging trend. This article presents a study of the published empirical research on the application of gamification to education.The study is limited to papers that discuss explicitly the effects of use of game elements in specificeducational contexts. It employs a systematic mapping design. Accordingly, a categorical structure forclassifying the research results is proposed based on the extracted topics discussed in the reviewed papers. The categories include gamification design principles, game mechanics, context of applyinggamification, consisting of type of application, educational level, and academic subject,implementation and evaluation. By mapping the published work to the classification criteria andanalyzing them, the study highlights the directions of the currently conducted empirical research onapplying gamification to education. It also indicates some major obstacles and needs, such as the needfor a proper technological support, the need for controlled studies demonstrating reliable positive ornegative results of using specific game elements in particular educational contexts, etc. Although mostof the reviewed papers report promising results, more substantial empirical research is needed todetermine whether both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation of the learners can be influenced bygamification"

The high volume of research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education can make it difficult to interpret and apply the results. We review the research. Then, by focusing on the results from high-quality research, we try to answer the question "What works in education?"  Our goal is to provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions.

"The dreaded question. "So, what's your Ph.D. research about?" You could bore them with an explanation. Or you could dance. That's the idea behind "Dance Your Ph.D." Over the past 3 years, scientists from around the world have teamed up to create dance videos based on their graduate research. This year's contest, launched in June by Science, received 45 brave submissions. "

What a great idea, to dance your way to new understandings and thinking :-)

"In this epaper, we describe a structured approach to inquiry-based learning that uses the World Wide Web as a primary information resource. Specifically, we address an intuitive 8-step process that begins with an essential question and ends with a knowledge product produced by students, typically completed in a cooperative setting. We also discuss the skills required by both student and teacher to make inquiry-based learning and the Internet a successful endeavor. Finally, we discuss the components of a Project Page, an online document that facilitates the learning process and support the reader with Web links relating to inquiry-based learning."

"Crickets are small programmable devices that can make things spin, light up, and play music. You can plug lights, motors, and sensors into a Cricket, then write computer programs to tell them how to react and behave. With Crickets, you can create musical sculptures, interactive jewelry, dancing creatures, and other artistic inventions -- and learn important math, science, and engineering ideas in the process. Crickets are based on more than a decade of NSF-funded educational research. Lifelong Kindergarten researchers collaborated with the LEGO company to create the first "programmable bricks," squeezing computational power into LEGO bricks. This research led to the LEGO MindStorms robotics kits, now used by millions of people around the world. While LEGO MindStorms is designed especially for making robots, Crickets are designed especially for making artistic creations. Crickets were refined in collaboration with the Playful Invention and Exploration (PIE) museum network, and are now sold as a product through the Playful Invention Company (PICO)."

Diigo is much more than a simple web annotation or social bookmarking tool. It is an online research and collaborative research tool that integrates tags, digital highlights, interactive sticky notes, captured snapshots, and group-based collaboration, allowing a whole new process of online information management, learning, and teaching in the 21st Century. 

This is a great resource on Diigo and how to use.

Create a page to store all your research. Adds shortcuts to websites. You can also annote them or color code them based on the type of information contained on each site. You can also drag and drop to place them in any order you wish.

Create a page to store all your research. Adds shortcuts to websites. You can also annote them or color code them based on the type of information contained on each site. You can also drag and drop to place them in any order you wish.

"Any research based or inquiry-based project seems to work well for me. I enjoy leading the children through the process of developing a research question. It's always interesting to hear what goes on in the minds of these inquisitive learners. Last year my grade 8 (14-year-olds) were working on the impact of government systems on individual and Societies. Students took up the case studies of India and Pakistan, some of them worked on Arab-Israeli conflict, and yet another group picked the Berlin Wall and its impact on the population."

"This essay will explain why I label various technologies as winners, losers, and magic bullets in the table below. My opinions are not based on exhaustive research. They are based on my experience both as a high school teacher and as an entrepreneur." My evaluations are based on whether I view these technologies as supporting a model of education that is one-to-many or a model that is many-to-one. The latter is the model I prefer, as will become clear in the rest of this essay.

"This article examines the use of both game-based learning (GBL) and gamification in tertiary education. This study focuses specifically on the use of games and/or simulations as well as familiarity with gamification strategies by communication faculty. Research questions concentrate on the rate, frequency, and usage of digital and non-digital games and/or simulations in communication courses, as well as instructor familiarity with gamification. A survey was constructed with questions emerging from the game-based learning and gamification literature. It was distributed to communication faculty at public institutions of higher education in a southern state. In this context, the author argues that while the term gamification is novel, the approach is not. Based on the results, current gamification strategies appear to be a repackaging of traditional instructional strategies."

One New Hampshire high school student fell in love with accounting while working at a local business. Another attended the recent Democratic National Convention as a campaign volunteer. And a third, whose relative worked in the state immigration office, researched challenges facing newcomers to the state. All earned high school credit for their work outside school, an opportunity available under a burgeoning high school redesign effort in New Hampshire that sets its sights beyond simply stiffening course requirements and graduation standards.