EET Learns

I was working with some instructors on including a widget in their Angel courses that would update a list of the articles they are bookmarking.  Found a way to do this using Diigo through this informational slide show.  Lots of different tidbits on how to use all the tools Diigo can offer.

Again, another great idea. I'd love to try this out in my classes. So, please let me know asap so I can give it a try. Thanks! Connie

An easy way to create a widget for any social media you use

Looks like Dropbox still one of the top! I am using in for many of my students - they love the ease of use, especially since they no longer have access to the "z" drive for storage.

Offline mapping for Android phones, Street View for nature trails and 3D Google Earth maps are all improvements coming to Google Maps in the near future.

Ever wonder how much work you actually do in a day? There can be a lot of distractions between meetings, your manager's questions, impromptu pot-lucks and gab fests. Some days it can feel like it's impossible to get anything done. That's because according to Jason Fried it IS. Jason is the co-founder of 37 Signals, a company that builds web-based collaboration tools. He's also the co-author of the bestseller Rework - a book all about how to make work work better. Although he himself is a manager, Jason has no problem blaming workplace inefficiencies on meetings and managers. (Runs 22:49)

"Despite their ubiquity among students, mobile phones are still viewed as contraband in most classrooms. Students are told to turn their phones off, leave them in their lockers, or leave them at home. This response to what is arguably the most ubiquitous 1-to-1 computing device available in our schools today undoubtedly led many students to list bans on mobile phones as one of the biggest obstacles to technology use in the recent Speak Up 2010 report."

Interesting tips - except he uses the cliche "the fact of the matter is" - one o my pet peeves

"Providing feedback to students about their in-class presentations can be a juggling act, and students may not be able to connect instructor comments with specific moments in their talks. In this essay, Drs. Curto and Laudato describe a technique for providing feedback via rich media capture. Much like comments in the margins of a written assignment, feedback is received at the appropriate time point in the presentation."

Several instructors have asked over time about different ways to give students feedback on their in-class presentations. This is a PDF article that addresses this specifically.

"The concept of a job is going away" (Bersin, 2012) and so should the concept of assessment. At least assessment as we know it. Or the assessment forms that we dearly esteem. The truth is, most educators teach to assess. Yes, the end goal of the learning experience is to prepare learners to succeed in the assessment. Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

OER repository

Research Methods in Education

OER site from BCcampus

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 number of college students who say they own tablets has more than tripled since a survey taken last year, according to new poll results released today. The Pearson Foundation sponsored the second-annual survey, which asked 1,206 college students and 204 college-bound high-school seniors about their tablet ownership. The results suggest students increasingly prefer to use the devices for reading. One-fourth of the college students surveyed said they owned a tablet, compared with just 7 percent last year. Sixty-three percent of college students believe tablets will replace textbooks in the next five years-a 15 percent increase over last year's survey"

Very interesting change in student ownership of tablets - and attitudes about textbooks.

It is very difficult to predict trends in edu tech with accuracy but if there is one safe bet, it is that tablets will soon dominate the campus scene, and print is on the way out.

Old vs New Ways of Thinking About…