GlobalSkillsCC

By LaGuardia's Center for Teaching and Learning (also cited here), this site provides tutorials as well as samples for students and faculty interested in ePortfolios. See lagcc tag for related bookmarks.

"Whether you're a student building your ePortfolio, an educator using ePortfolios for teaching and learning, or you're interested in the growing ePortfolio field, we invite you to explore the many resources available here at ePortfolio@LaGuardia. "

Published by the Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE), 2012. This is the first of three annual reports to look at "strategies that appear to be associated with a variety of indicators of student progress and success." For more on this project, follow the tag CCCSE.

By Jennifer Gonzalez, Students section, The Chronicle of Higher Education, February2 2012. The new project is being led by the Center for Community College Student Engagement and will analyze data from four different surveys: Community College Survey of Student Engagement, the Survey of Entering Student Engagement, the Community College Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, and the newly created Community College Institutional Survey. Reports will be produced annually for the next three years. See CCCSE tag for first year's report.

This center, based at the University of Texas at Austin, is looking at the relative success of various intervention/engagement/support methods at community colleges. Follow CCCSE tag for more about this project.

"Abstract The use of design patterns is now well established as an approach within the field of software systems as well as within the field of architecture. An initial effort was made to harness patterns as a tool for elaborating the design of the elements of personal learning environments as part of the University of Bolton's Personal Learning Environment project; however, this earlier effort had a number of limitations that prompted a revisit to the pattern language documented here. In particular, the initial patterns, while functionally useful, lacked some of the moral and generative qualities that are the essential qualities of an effective pattern language. This paper presents a revised pattern language focused around two primary categories, learning networks, and personal learning tools."

"The NASA Electronic Professional Development Network (ePDN) program, located at the Georgia Institute of Technology campus, brings together multiple partners to tackle developing effective electronic professional development courses for use in NASA programs and by STEM teachers across the nation. The three Georgia Tech partners are the Distance Learning and Professional Education (DLPE) department, the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC), and ORBIT Education, Inc, a NASA-themed educational service provider. "

"Learning is at the center of higher education. It is an essential part of the mission of all colleges and universities. The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) is a community of higher education institutions and organizations committed to advancing learning through information technology (IT) innovation. ELI is a strategic initiative of EDUCAUSE. While EDUCAUSE serves those interested in advancing higher education through technology, ELI specifically explores innovative technologies and practices that advance learning. As these innovations mature, ELI works with the larger EDUCAUSE community to integrate them into the higher education mainstream."

by Rose Asera, October 2011. Full report available to download. Case study report describes Virginia's process of redesigning developmental education system-wide. To start, developmental mathematics will be taught as a series of nine one-credit modules, with students taking only the modules they need. (originally bookmarked in GPG group)

Information about the upcoming conference on networked learning in higher education and lifelong learning

Group Works ("a pattern language for bringing life to meetings and other gatherings") has created a deck of cards, where each of the 91 cards describes one "theme" [my term] that they feel makes up the pattern language. 

An interesting way to present the individual items that make up their pattern language. These cards are available as a deck, as a PDF, and soon as a mobile app.

by Jon Marcus on The Hechinger Report, December 26, 2011. Open University, a successful British online public university to be used as a model in the U.S. The goal is to help students who are intimidated by higher education adapt to and succeed in college. Next Generation Learning Challenges, a Gates funded initiative, will adapt two free Open University, at-your-own-pace online courses for use at about a dozen U.S. colleges and universities this academic year: one to help students be more comfortable with math so they do better on placement tests or move more quickly through remedial courses, and another to teach students skills to prepare them for college.

By Juhyung Harold Lee as a Viewpoint in SchoolBook, December 23 2011. Lee argues that coaching -- learning effective strategies from trusted former teachers -- is the key to improving teaching. 

WHEN a college textbook, "Principles of Biology," comes out from the Nature Publishing Group in January, one place it won't be is on the shelves of school bookstores. Enlarge This Image An interactive graphic in "Principles of Biology," an electronic textbook from Nature Publishing, teaches students about the symptoms of a stroke. Enlarge This Image An interactive graphic from Wolfram Research lets readers change the display parameters of an oil spill. That's because the book was designed to be digital-only. Students will pay not for a printed edition at a bookstore, but for permanent access on the Internet ($49).

By Belinda Allen and Kathryn Coleman (both of University of New South Wales), proceedings of ascilite 2011 conference, Australia, December 2011. ascilite is the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education. "The paper explores creativity as a graduate capability, the creative potential of digital media, and how changing directions in assessment practice could support the assessment of creativity, with a focus on using eportfolios in assessment." Full text, as PDF, available on this page.

From the blog Connectivism by George Siemens, December 14 2011. Siemens argues the importance of artifacts to help students make sense of their experiences in MOOCs and other online learning experiences.

From this librarian's perspective, GSCC has proven the richness of an e-community's artifact collection. We are thinking about how to integrate the artifacts even further into the experience in GSCC 2.0.

Contents of eLearning Papers No 27, published by elearingeuropa.info December 2011. This collection of 6 papers (plus an editorial) focus primarily on how technology has (or has not) impacted learning design. Full text of all articles is available here, along with a PDF of the print version.

Familiar terms in some of the article titles, including patterns, students as learning designers, invitational online learning environments, and "blended collaborative construction participation."

By Kevin Carey, Commentary in The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 11, 2011. Community Colleges will now have an opportunity to vie for a top prize. "The Aspen Institute is awarding the first annual Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, with the winner and up to three runners-up sharing in the $1-million prize fund." Among the 10 finalists, Aspen Institute's evaluators conducted site visits and looked closely at employment outcomes, teaching practices and student learning. "The best community colleges, they found, were focused and intentional when it came to structuring the learning experience."