Group items tagged

The Guardian HE paper in the UK recently published an article highlighting 12 UK blogs on higher education worth following (on things from HE planning, pedagogy, online learning, research, etc.)

"More than a decade after Prensky's influential articulation of digital natives and immigrants, great disagreement exists around these characterizations of students and the impact of such notions within higher education. Perceptions of today's undergraduate learners as tech-savvy "digital natives" (Prensky, 2001a), who both want and need the latest emerging technologies in all learning situations, continue to dominate the discourse in education technology research and practice. Popular yet largely unsubstantiated conceptions of digital natives are often embedded within the assumptions of contemporary research on student perceptions of emerging technologies, seemingly without regard for a growing body of evidence questioning such notions. In order to promote critical discussion in the higher education community considering potential directions for further research of these issues, especially within the Canadian context, the purpose of this review of recent literature is to analyze key themes emerging from contemporary research on the Net generation as digital natives. "

An interesting article discussing the benefits of higher education to society (and how to measure them). This flips the current trend in the discussion of higher education and its benefits from an individual to a more global focus.

An article in EDUCAUSE by Randy Bass. The article is about how the formal curriculum is being disrupted as "high-impact educational practices" and "the experiential co-curriculum" move from the margins of higher education into common practice. He also addresses how the current "participatory culture " and the trend toward "informal learning" are affecting the curriculum. The article concludes with recommendations for instructors on how they can change their teaching practices to "keep pace with our expanded understanding of learning." - the description provided by Christopher Price, Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), The College at Brockport, State University of New York.

Provides examples of how and where flipped teaching is being used in higher education contexts.

This blog (as part of the Chronicle of Higher Education) explores the very important question about how you define internationalization (one of the key strategic areas for the U of S in the future)?

"I wanted to share some additional thoughts on Cliff Atkinson's new book, The Backchannel, and its implications for higher education.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, the first chapter of the book is available online and provides a very clear introduction to the logistics and possibilities of the backchannel.  What might the backchannel look like in educational settings?  Here are a couple of examples."

Brand new article that just came out in the Higher Education Research and Development journal. It features researchers from La Trobe University in Australia, but may be of interest to people at the U of S.

"Generation is often used to explain and rationalize the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in higher education. However, a comprehensive review of the research and popular literature on the topic and an empirical study at one postsecondary institution in Canada suggest there are no meaningful generational differences in how learners say they use ICTs or their perceived behavioural characteristics."

Nice post about the writing application Scrivener on the ProfHacker blog on The Chronicle of Higher Education site. This is the main application that I use for writing anything longer than an email. Since this was written, a Windows version of Scrivener was released.

Article that provides statistics on tablet prevalence in university students. Explains the difference between mobile and tablets. Briefly suggests uses for tablets in higher ed.

Interesting article that describes the student data being collected at some universities. The data is be used to "eAdvise" students into the proper programming and courses, which leads to higher retention rates. The data may be used to go as far as even monitoring card swipes and analyze student social interactions.

While initially aimed at K-12 education, this table absolutely applies to higher education as well.

A university professor relates how teaching fourth-grade helped prepare her for her role in higher education.

"Many of us who teach in higher education do not have a teaching background, nor do we have experience in curriculum development. We know our content areas and are experts in our fields, but structuring learning experiences for students may or may not be our strong suit. We've written a syllabus (or were handed one to use) and have developed some pretty impressive assessments, projects, and papers in order to evaluate our students' progress through the content. Sometimes we discover that students either don't perform well on the learning experiences we've designed or they experience a great deal of frustration with what they consider high stakes assignments. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) proposes that it's important to determine the area (zone) between what a student can accomplish unaided and what that same student can accomplish with assistance. This provides for consistent structural support, when required (Hogan & Pressley, 1997)."

An interesting article exploring the teaching-research nexus in higher education - ie. the interplay (or not) of teaching and research roles.

The research studies noted in the article include a mix of K-12 and higher education. "There have been many interesting studies done about iPads in the classroom and the effects on both students and teachers. I've pulled together a list of various study results regarding iPads in the classroom below. Check out just how much of an influence studies show iPads in the classroom are having on education."

"Students pay many thousands of dollars for a college education in order to prepare themselves for the job market. If the college or university is providing the wrong stuff, that's a poor investment for the students."

Interesting blog post by Tony Bates on the changing face of higher education, the role of distance education and educational technology. Worth a read.

This is an interesting post on using Evernote as an ePortfolio tool. It's written by a K-12 educator, but I think much of it could apply in higher ed. Students in my educational technology course used Blogger for their ePortfolios, but i can see this as an option in the future.