Group items tagged

BC is running a pilot between some key post-secondary institutions to provide online tutoring for writing for students.

A summary of common learner experiences with MOOCs and Open Online Learning. Compiled using reflective pieces directly from students. Outlines common themes that came out of the research

"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.

"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. "

"Open-Access Courses: How They Compare For millions of students worldwide, free, open courseware provides a window, if not a front-row seat, to top university classes. The formats are as varied as the people who tune in. Some consist mainly of lectures recorded on iTunes, while other courses seek to replicate a classroom experience by offering study groups, computer-graded tests, and weekly assignments. And while you might get a badge or certificate showing you mastered the material, you generally won't get direct interaction with the professor, who may have recorded the lectures a few years ago. Here is a look at five introductory economics classes: four through open courseware and one in a traditional classroom. "

A colleague of mine just finished his masters in special education.  This is a link to his capping project.  It contains tips on how to work with students who have asperger's syndrome.

"Discover the innovative work taking place in colleges and universities across Ontario in the area of technology applications, course development, student support services, marking, exams, and many other aspects of online and mobile learning."

Create your own video channel to collect a stream of videos. This could be good for a course that requires the students to post youtube videos and the instructor would like to share the videos with the whole class.

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

"I've been hesitant to dive into using Windows Live because I've already become so familiar with GoogleDocs. However, there are good reasons for me to start learning. For one thing, my students and colleagues are, for the most part, already using Microsoft Office in their work, and Windows Live doesn't require them to learn yet another interface. (Yes, I know that GoogleDocs isn't really that different, but I've frequently found that people consider the need to switch interfaces off-putting.)"

Should we be considering using MS Live instead of google docs?

This is from the comments below the article "When I tried this I ran into a problem with it not working cross platform with Mac. This made it useless in an academic environment." We would likely need to do some initial testing to see if it viable to make the switch. If it makes instructors more comfortable then it should be seriously looked at.

"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? "

"Educational video are possbily one of the most effective learning tools, and honestly, even most grown-ups will find them enriching and entertaining. But what if the only video resource you use is YouTube and you can not access it in your school or classroom. Are there any alternatives ? Yes there are more eighty alternatives to YouTube that you can use with your students. These video resources are among the best online. We have spent so much reviwing every single one and therefore we confirm their suitablity to education."

Interesting app. Be nice if students could also send stuff to the teacher. Hmmm. Still like the AppleTV in the classroom idea.

There is a small town, about 12 miles east of Austin, Texas, where a high school devoted to teaching every subject to every student through project-based learning (PBL) opened five years ago. On its own, this would not have been a noteworthy event. The list of schools across America deepening the learning process through PBL has been growing for quite some time. But few schools have fine-tuned the process like Manor New Technology High School in Manor, Texas, where 98 percent of seniors graduate and 100 percent of the graduates are accepted to college

"The result? "We find that learning outcomes are essentially the same-that students in the hybrid format pay no 'price' for this mode of instruction in terms of pass rates, final exam scores, and performance on a standardized assessment of statistical literacy," the report concluded."

"This is the 6th annual conference on blended learning sponsored by COHERE (Collaboration for Online Higher Education & Research) and CSSHE (Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education). It will feature Dr. Tony Bates, the well known scholar and commentator on the use of technology in higher education. His latest book is Managing Technology in Higher Education: Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2011). In addition to taking an active part in the entire conference and doing the conference wrap-up, Tony will deliver the following keynotes: Meeting the challenge of technology: are we failing as managers? Designing university teaching to meet the needs of 21st century students The conference will also feature a number of concurrent sessions, for which we invite proposals related to one of the following streams: 1. Taking stock of blended learning in higher education: Management, policy, and research issues 2. Case studies of teaching and learning issues related to blended learning"

Teaches you how to replace the calendar in Angel with a google calendar.  When you update your google calendar it updates in Angel.  You can't make updates to the calendar in Angel, it has to be done through Google.  Great if you have multiple sections of the same class--only update once!

Nice find. I used this tool for all my classes and it works great. Now, though, I use that embed code and put the code into a section header in a lessons page. That way it's in the students view the moment the get into the course. Then I hide the calendar tab.

Love this idea! Jeff - do you have a separate google calendar for each course, or do you have one for all your courses? Also, I'm interested in using google blogs (blogger) for journals and would like to embed the codes, just as done for google calendar. Have you heard of anyone doing so? I tried changing a tab to a link for a blog, but am not sure if this is the best way. I did see an article in which the instructor had students create their own blog, then submit the link. The links were then put into a chart put into the course. Any other ideas?