EET Learns

free - open access textbooks in Business, Science, Math, Professional and Applied Sciences, and Humanities and Social Sciences

"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? "

I heard a great interview with the founder of The Noun Project on CBC's The Spark. This project offers some excellent simple, clean icons for easy use. Food for thought!

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.

"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.

action item infographic

Program Development and Evaluation

What I like about this article is how it discusses using students to help teachers learn technology and its applications for learning.

Research Methods in Education

If you are interested in education and intellectual property you might be interested in part of this pod cast (Time stamp: 14:23)

Experts discussing the competencies needed to be successful in an online teaching environment.

"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.

Interesting article about a lawsuit related to the development of apps that allow students to pull specific information from etexts. Gets into copyright issues / crossing the line.

Process directives:   1. Design through action        2. Design with (people), not for (clients) - design comes from within   3. Design systems, not stuff - not about making change but creating the conditions in which change is possible and the incentive to want to make change.   4. Document, share, measure   5. Start locally, scale globally   6. Build

Great find.

Discusses the success of using peer-instruction during lecture time to help students solidify concepts.