"Flipping the classroom changes the place in which content is delivered. If the teacher assigns lecture-type instruction-in the form of video, simulations, slidecasts, readings, podcasts-as homework, then class time can be used interactively. The class becomes conversation space, creation space, space where teachers actively facilitate learning.  The home becomes the lecture space. The hundred+ year-old frontal teaching model flips."

Interesting use of Diigo for social bookmarking with students in specific courses in higher education.

Lots of resources to help educators get started.

"The buzz surrounding massive open online courses, or MOOCs, has grown nearly as massive as the courses themselves. MOOCs are the new "thneeds," the oddly-shaped items peddled by the Once-ler in The Lorax: Everybody seems to want one, even if nobody yet knows exactly what they are or what they mean. But amid all this MOOC mania, the University of Maine at Presque Isle is attempting a different kind of free online offering - one that would swap the scale of a MOOC for the high-touch experience of a conventional online course. Michael Sonntag, the provost, calls it a "LOOC": a little open online course."

"A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives*" From Iowa State University Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.

"Think Twitter is just a waste of time? Think again. Its organizational structure makes it an effective tool for connecting with students and others online" While this article is aimed at K-12, it also applies to higher ed.

"Alec Couros explains some of the strategies that seems to bear fruit when it comes to the adoption of technology for faculty members. He also touches on how to get started with Twitter, and shares some ideas on how to leverage social media for research."

While fair use is different (and in flux) in Canada, the rest of this tutorial contains useful information on using CreativeCommons and adding images to things like blog posts

"While classroom teaching and management strategies are well documented, the online learning environment presents different challenges and benefits. Teaching in an online environment requires a special set of teaching skills since many of the strategies and tactics associated with best teaching practices are somewhat constrained by the primarily text-based environment. The VOCAL approach summarizes the key characteristics that a master instructor utilizes to be effective in an online environment. VOCAL is an acronym for Visible, Organized, Compassionate, Analytical and Leader-by-example. The ability of the teacher to effectively infuse these characteristics into their instructional practice - to BE VOCAL - will promote a supportive, challenging, constructive, rigorous and effective instructional environment. Instructors who practice a VOCAL approach will have more productive learning environments, fewer management problems and more positive learning experiences with their students."

"How to create an account:"

"Here are five ideas and tools for video projects that you can try with your students this year."

"Change will happen, though it is likely to be slower than government or some media observers might prefer. Apart from internal consultations, we all need to listen carefully to the most important constituency here: students. It is not clear, for example, that there exists a big appetite for three-year degrees among Canadian students. If anything, the pattern of recent graduates seeking second credentials (master's degrees or college diplomas in an applied field) demonstrates that current employers are requiring more, not less, education."

"The Wikipedia Education Program's vision is to mobilize and empower the next generation of human-knowledge generators to contribute to Wikimedia projects. Based on the learnings from the Public Policy Initiative, a pilot program to use Wikipedia in university classrooms in the 2010-11 academic year, the Wikipedia Education Program strives to expand Wikipedia's use as a teaching tool worldwide. Professors who participate in our program assign their students to edit Wikipedia articles as part of their coursework. Students are assisted by trained Wikipedia Ambassadors, who help both in the class and on wiki. You can get a quick introduction to how the program is structured at Wikipedia Education Program/A-Z. Additional resources are available at the Education portal."

Not shocking, but still interesting. Still, as pointed in this post, there is a place for technology in the classroom "If you're worried that your students or children are eroding their vocabulary due to texting, you may want to sit down. Thanks to a new study in New Media & Society, it appears that students who text on a frequent basis perform worse on grammar tests."

"Hashtag is a great way for users to locate and keep track of particular information within the massive tweets. Know the topic you are interested in and look for its corresponding hashtag and try to continually check it for updates. This is the established way Twitter experts use to fish for new updates in their fields of interest."

"The traditional lecture may have been an efficient format for transferring information 100 years ago, but it's no longer practical in an era of exploding medical knowledge, says Dr. David Snadden, executive associate dean of education for the faculty of medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "We've actually reached a stage where we can't fit [in] all the curriculum. It's just not possible." "The thing that's becoming really critical for us is helping our students understand how to manage information, access and sift information" as they'll need to do as practising physicians, he adds. Shifting course material onto the Internet offers a solution to both these challenges, Snadden says. In addition to freeing class time for more active learning, the model allows students to control the pace of their learning and "skip the things that don't seem relevant or that they already know." 

"Until this week I had not known that George Washington (the President, not the institution) had considered the foundation of a national university to be of the utmost importance. In fact, he had meant to give it a starring role in his Farewell Address, and complained at length when Hamilton excised it from the work. Here's Washington to Hamilton on why the university merited mention in the address:"

"The goal of Teach With Tournaments is simple -- immerse students in the personalities and character of the great men and women of history through competition. For this school year, the tournament focused on one theme: the most courageous figure in U.S. history. Each student chose a historical figure he or she thought best embodies courage in U.S. history, from military heroes such as Alvin York to civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks to humanitarian pioneers such as Clara Barton. Each choice was then paired off in the bracket system. Students were required to research their character's accomplishments and then defend their choice in front of the class. Afterward, the class voted and the winners moved on to the next round, eventually narrowing the field of 64 to one champion."

"The flipped classroom is a pedagogical model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed. The notion of a flipped classroom draws on such concepts as active learning, student engagement, hybrid course design, and course podcasting. The value of a flipped class is in the repurposing of class time into a workshop where students can inquire about lecture content, test their skills in applying knowledge, and interact with one another in hands-on activities. Although implementing a flipped classroom places different demands on faculty and forces students to adjust their expectations, the model has the potential to bring about a distinctive shift in priorities-from merely covering material to working toward mastery of it."

An overview of Twitter and ways of using it in education. A Twitter primer with reasons, stories and resources.