Group items tagged

"Survey confirms that majority of Canadians agree mobile phones are an invaluable tool for students; unlimited mobile data plans enable Mobile Student 2.0 movement Toronto, ON - August 9, 2012 - Mobilicity today released new research findings pointing to the increasing role smartphones are playing in and out of the classroom. The Mobile Student 2.0 Survey found that 66 per cent of Canadians would use a mobile phone to conduct online research anywhere, anytime; 46 per cent would download mobile apps to help stay organized; 41 per cent would record lectures and tutorial sessions; and 42 per cent would coordinate school and social activities if they were a student. Moreover, the majority of Canadians (56 per cent) think that mobile phones are an invaluable tool for students. The Mobile Student 2.0 refers to the next-gen student who relies on a smartphone with Internet usage to enhance their education and social life. "

"Author Nancy Foasberg, looks into the use of E-Readers on a college campus. This article was published in the September 2011 issue of Information Technology and Libraries. To learn whether e-book readers have become widely popular among college students, this study surveys students at one large, urban, four-year public college. The survey asked whether the students owned e-book readers and if so, how often they used them and for what purposes. Thus far, uptake is slow; a very small proportion of students use e-readers. These students use them primarily for leisure reading and continue to rely on print for much of their reading. Students reported that price is the greatest barrier to e-reader adoption and had little interest in borrowing e-reader compatible e-books from the library. "

"Nature Education, the educational wing of the Nature Publishing Group which also runs Scitable, one of the largest science publishers in the world - is hoping to resolve this with the release its first ever science textbook. It's called the Principles of Biology, and for a $49 lifetime access, students receive a constantly-updated biology textbook, for less cost."

"The applications tested by the university encompassed: * Blackboard Mobile Learn, on which all clients simultaneously accessed course curriculum and viewed on-demand streaming video; * Video-based curriculum, video delivered by Distribution Access, a Canadian educational video provider; * Apple Facetime for video conferencing; * Apple AirPlay for wireless streaming of multimedia content to an Apple TV connected to a classroom projector; * Live, local video content streamed through Haivision Network Video gear; * ResponseWare real-time polling from Turning Technologies. The university used VeriWave WaveInsite to set up and run the test and to measure performance. Each application was delivered simultaneously to all 100 devices. According to a statement issued by Aruba, the applications performed "with the highest quality and without any noticeable jitter, delay, or frame loss.""

"The number of people browsing the Web from a mobile device has more than tripled since 2009, and it is sure to continue growing, with browser platforms such as iOS and Android offering mobile browser support that is almost identical to what we have come to expect from a desktop experience. As the mobile consumer market continues to grow, so will the aspirations of individuals and companies who look to embrace what the mobile Web has to offer. With this in mind, many website owners have begun to develop a strategy for providing information and services to their mobile visitors. However, mobile strategies can vary massively from website to website, depending on what the company wants to offer visitors. For example, eBay's strategy will be very different from an individual's strategy for a portfolio website, which might simply be to improve readability for those viewing on a mobile device."

"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. "

"Even though e-textbooks make up a small portion of the bookseller's business, that market is likely to grow in the next several years, and teaming up with Microsoft will strengthen its ability to grab a larger share of the college bookstore market, Mr. Iannone said. One of the first new features the joint venture will offer is a Windows 8 application for Nook, Barnes & Noble's e-book reader."

"Colleges themselves are also finding a need to craft multiple identities online, setting up a different Facebook page and Twitter account for every department or research lab. The University of Virginia's library has 14 Facebook accounts. (One focuses on the science-and-engineering library, another on the fine-arts library, and so on.) Many colleges now count dozens of official Twitter accounts, plus a tangle of pages on Facebook, channels on YouTube, and photo collections on sites like Flickr. In the past year, more colleges have tried to get a handle on their many online identities, crafting social-networking policies and creating a new job position-social-media strategist-to try to bring some sort of order to the chatter."

"A month or so before back-to-school season begins in earnest, Amazon has jumped into the lucrative college textbook market with Kindle Textbook Rental. Amazon claims students can save as much as 80% off textbook list prices by renting from the Kindle Store. The company is offering tens of thousands of textbooks, which students can rent for periods ranging from 30 to 360 days. Amazon has also extended its Whispersnyc technology so that students can access all their notes and highlighted content in the Amazon Cloud, even after the rental agreement is over."

Textbook rentals at up to 80% off the hard copy price. Wow!

"A study by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project confirms the idea that young adults-particularly undergraduate and graduate students-are more likely to use the Internet and own tech devices than is the rest of the general population. But nonstudents ages 18 to 24 were more active on social networks than were college students, sending more updates to Facebook and Twitter."

"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

"This brief summarizes the main themes from the EDUCAUSE Mobile Computing 5-Day Sprint, held April 25-29, 2011. This learning experience brought together presenters and hundreds of participants, who exchanged ideas and information via webinars, online conversations, Twitter, and blog posts. The central message from the event are that mobile computing has enormous potential; that it requires IT departments to embrace new roles; that many of the best practices for computing generally apply equally to mobile computing; and that attention must be paid to issues including infrastructure and security in order to support an effective mobile computing program."

"It found that more structured on-boarding tactics made employees happier and more confident, and more likely to believe they fit both the job and organization. In turn, those who went through a structured program were significantly more likely to feel engaged and loyal to their employer than those that didn't the researchers estimate "In most organizations, they think of the on-boarding process as primarily imparting information, which is necessary, but that's not enough," Prof. Gruman said. Additionally they need to create opportunities for employees to quickly develop a social network, establish where to get information and support, provide work that's engaging enough to make them feel they are making a contribution and feedback that they are valued, the researchers found."

"Millennials, the generation of young Americans born after 1982, may not be the caring, socially conscious environmentalists some have portrayed them to be, according to a study described in the new issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology."

"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."

"Welcome to the brave new world of Massive Open Online Courses - known as MOOCs - a tool for democratizing higher education. While the vast potential of free online courses has excited theoretical interest for decades, in the past few months hundreds of thousands of motivated students around the world who lack access to elite universities have been embracing them as a path toward sophisticated skills and high-paying jobs, without paying tuition or collecting a college degree. And in what some see as a threat to traditional institutions, several of these courses now come with an informal credential (though that, in most cases, will not be free). "

Can you imagine 160,000 students registered in a course?

See also http://www.tonybates.ca/2012/03/06/discussion-of-moocs-more-links-and-questions/ for more info on MOOCs. This link notes the completion rates for some courses.

Take Charge of Your Science," fliers shouted. Promotional ads in the conference programs urged the society's 25,000 members to join the APS Wikipedia Initiative and "make sure Wikipedia-the world's No. 1 online encyclopedia-represents psychology fully and accurately."

"Blended learning is a hybrid of classroom and online learning that includes some of the conveniences of online courses without the complete loss of face-to-face contact. The present study used a causal-comparative design to examine the relationship of sense of community between traditional classroom, blended, and fully online higher education learning environments. Evidence is provided to suggest that blended courses produce a stronger sense of community among students than either traditional or fully online courses."