Group items tagged

"Mobile Initiatives 'Breaking Down the Walls of the Classroom' at Abilene Christian U Small private college Abilene Christian University has entered the fourth academic year of its mobile education initiatives, and the program's momentum and influence is still growing. The Texas institution, which has added the Apple iPad to its list of devices made available to students and faculty, along with the iPhone and iPod touch, recently hosted a Connected Open House, with attendance by people from dozens of other schools. The university is also running numerous mobile-oriented research projects among its faculty and recently opened three new mobile research centers sponsored by a sizeable grant from AT&T."

Digital Badges for faculty PD

"Around fall 2010, the college began looking for a tool that could be distributed to faculty and students for user-generated content. Said Palson, criteria for evaluation focused on two areas: "It had to be accessible via mobile. And it had to be easy to use." Ease of use included the ability for a new user to "jump into it, create something, and it would be ready to go." The instructional technology staff began a pilot using Brainshark and, according to Palson, immediately saw that it was different from what had been used in the past."

Brainshark - another tool for generating online presentations

"What is lost with this settlement is the chance for something better. The shift away from Access Copyright in recent months has led to a growing awareness of the large number of licensed materials on university campuses, the benefits of open access, the emergence of open educational resources, and the move to digital course materials. Investing in new open materials - which pay the creator but allow for more flexible use and reuse - would offer innovative teaching materials at the very time that Canadian higher education should be rethinking how course materials are developed and disseminated in a digital world. This is hard work as new models require real investment, commitment from faculty, and patience from students. The payoff would have been significant, but the AUCC is seemingly more interested in "cost certainty" than in education innovation. The big question now is whether its members feel the same. My guess is that most will sign, but perhaps some will carefully assess their experience of operating outside the collective and see some short term pain for long term gain. "

New agreement re ACCESS copyright this week.

Create bundles of links. This would be a great way to share a bunch of links with students or other faculty.

Why attend Flip the Switch? I love to teach, just like others at Cornell, but the bad news is that while we all are teaching, 64% of our students are texting!! Out of my frustration, I've been experimenting successfully with using mobile devices and to turn my students away from distraction and towards interaction. At a deeper level, I am now connecting better with ALL students, not just the ones that always raise their hands. In the process I started to wonder if I could somehow help other faculty members do this. The Workshop My team has put together an intimate, hands-on workshop specifically focused on creating an action plan for each participant's courses/teaching needs, on how to make use of cellphones and other devices to intrigue and engage students, deploy digital video to renew attention spans and implement innovative "apps" to engage the YouTube generation in order to improve the learning environment.

ANother idea for May PD:

Some studies reveal deep doubts among students and faculty that distance learning ever can have the degree of interaction in a non-distance environment. Horn (1994) and Hirumi and Bermudez (1996) are among those who find that, with proper instructional design, distance courses actually can be more interactive than traditional ones, providing more personal and timely feedback to meet students' needs than is possible in large, face-to-face courses.

"The wait is almost over. A weeklong exercise in withdrawal from social media usage will end for the campus community at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology shortly. The Pennsylvania university, which performed a similar move last year, has been blocking network access to 10 popular sites, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, Hi5, Twitxr, and Plurk, as well as texting outlets. This year's activity has been dubbed, "Back to Blackout." The intent of the blackout is to inspire thinking about how, when, and where people use and abuse social media, according to Eric Darr, executive vice president and provost. "We believe that technology is not inherently good or bad. Rather, technology becomes useful or destructive in the hands of users. This exercise is an attempt to better understand an important technology, social media, that clearly impacts how we live and work. It might inspire students, faculty, and staff to think more about their social media habits and to further raise awareness about the impact that social media has on daily life and work.""

"Define Your Boundaries How you choose to set boundaries on the kinds of communication you have with colleagues and students will ultimately be a personal decision, albeit shaped by campus policy (on office hours or the use of email) and departmental culture (some departments expect your attendance at frequent social events, and others don't). Because the language of social media (following and friending) tends to blur boundaries, it's very important that teachers communicate carefully with students about their own practices (I and many other faculty simply have a rule of not friending students on Facebook, for example) and especially when social media are included in course requirements. Jason and Alex's discussion of the creepy treehouse problem offers some good suggestions on making your reasons for using social media for the course transparent. "

"Have you ever said to yourself, "I really should do something about this course, but..."?? This web site is designed to provide practical and effective help for faculty members interested in designing or redesigning a course."

"After you create your syllabus, go back to and take a closer look at your learning outcomes for the course. As you read through the outcomes, write a discussion question related to each outcome. For example, suppose you teach a political science course and one of your learning outcomes is, "Students will be able to discuss current issues in political science informed by popular media and scholarly evidence." Now take that learning outcome and write a discussion question. "

"Thinking developmentally is one of those instructional design issues that we don't do often enough. We understand that different learning experiences are appropriate for students at different levels. We expect a higher caliber of work from seniors than from those just starting college. But how often do we purposefully design a progression of learning experiences? "

"March 21, 2012 Thinking Developmentally: Designing Courses with a Progression of Learning Experiences By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog Add Comment Thinking developmentally is one of those instructional design issues that we don't do often enough. We understand that different learning experiences are appropriate for students at different levels. We expect a higher caliber of work from seniors than from those just starting college. But how often do we purposefully design a progression of learning experiences?"

Thinking developmentally is one of those instructional design issues that we don't do often enough. We understand that different learning experiences are appropriate for students at different levels. We expect a higher caliber of work from seniors than from those just starting college. But how often do we purposefully design a progression of learning experiences?

"Today's classrooms require that instructors possess competencies for teaching all students. Robust instructional strategies and culturally sensitive curricula are critical, but more important is an instructor who is sensitive and responsive to the unique differences of each student. Recognizing the need to strengthen specific competencies to reach and teach all students requires an understanding of new ideas and a willingness to view instruction through varied cultural lenses."