EET Learns

"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?

Quizlet looks like a very powerful study aid for students, especially those needing to "hear" the words, as there's a voice option.

Introduction: "Across North America and increasingly the world, there is a move within education to adopt a constructivist view of learning and teaching. In part, the argument for this move is a reaction against teacher-centred instruction that has dominated much of education, particularly adult and higher education, for the past forty years or more. While I do not argue with the basic tenets of constructivism, I do resist the rush to adopt any single, dominant view of learning or teaching. Unless we are cautious, I fear we are about to replace one orthodoxy with yet another and promote a 'one size fits all' notion of good teaching."

Survey of student's perceptions of e-learning and e-resources in Canadian universities.

"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.

"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.

"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. "

"The Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University is pleased to announce our 2011 Centennial Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, November 10-12, 2011 in Banff Alberta Canada. This gathering of teacher/scholars is a "practitioners conference" dedicated to developing individual and collaborative teaching and learning scholarship, sharing nascent data and findings, going public with compelling results of completed research projects, and building an extended scholarly community. The goals of this event, and the Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University, include understanding and improving student learning through systematic scholarly inquiry and building collective knowledge for the future."

Report has visuals showing LMS usage in universities across Canada. Angel is 1%.

"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."

"College technology went on the move in the 2010-11 academic year, venturing into mobile platforms like smartphones and tablets such as the iPad. The devices were used within classes and without for teaching, reading texts, student affairs, contacting alumni, and recruiting prospective students. But the movement-driven by the recognition that people were spending more time on mobile devices-went in fits and starts. Higher education, never a rapid adapter, struggled to figure out how best to make use of mobile devices and new capabilities."

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

This was passed on by Kathy. What an excellent resource! Some, many of us are already using but there are tons of others to browse.

"Meet the Class of 2015" whitepaper.