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How do you educate a generation of students eternally distracted by the internet, cellphones and video games? Easy. You enable them by handing out free iPhones — and then integrating the gadget into your curriculum.
That’s the idea Abilene Christian University has to refresh classroom learning. Located in Texas, the private university just finished its first year of a pilot program, in which 1,000 freshman students had the choice between a free iPhone or an iPod Touch.
Think web apps to turn in homework, look up campus maps, watch lecture podcasts and check class schedules and grades. For classroom participation, there’s even polling software for Abilene students to digitally raise their hand.
Conversely, the problem with the internet is there’s too much information, and it’s difficult to determine which data is valuable.
The iPhone is aiding Abilene in giving students the information they need — when they want it, wherever they want it, said Bill Rankin, a professor of medieval studies who helped plan the initiative.
nstead of standing in front of a classroom and talking for an hour, Rankin instructs his students to use their iPhones to look up relevant information on the fly. Then, the students can discuss the information they’ve found, and Rankin leads the dialogue by helping assess which sources are accurate and useful.
“Polling opens up new realms for people for discussion,” said Tyler Sutphen, an ACU sophomore who has participated in the iPhone initiative for a year. “It’s a lot more interactive for those who aren’t as willing to jump up and throw out their answer in class. Instead, you push a button on the iPhone.”
many professional educators and administrators remain hesitant, reluctant, and perhaps even highly resistant to try online learning and teaching with technology.
with accelerating demand for online learning, significantly reduced budgets, and the emergence of hundreds of free or relatively inexpensive Web technologies, that resistance is coming to a sudden halt.
Consider having these stories developed by peers and colleagues whom they trust instead of by vendors or external consultants.
starting with a simple technology tool or resource that can be mastered and applied is more important than explaining the underlying instructional approach,
Support staff might be on call when needed for 1:1 help and advice. Technical support personnel and trainers should not dictate a single approach or instructional philosophy but rather they should listen to teacher needs and respond accordingly.
For instance, the final 5-10 minutes of a department, program, or unit meeting might be saved for a live presentation of an emerging technology or discussion of ideas related to how one is using technology or the Web in instruction
modeling the use of online technologies and courses by one’s colleagues and superiors is highly valuable.
or instance, someone savvy with technology or knowledgeable about online teaching and learning might be asked to support one or more novice teachers or assistants.
This time give permission for kids to write notes, but it has to be a fact that they learned in class and pass it to another student.
se the amount of paper each student pulled off to give you that number of facts about the lesson they learned that particular day. For instance, if a student pulls of one piece of the roll, they have to give one fact about the lesson, and so on.
A new year has just begun, but while time passes by our educational system keeps standing still. Your kids are still learning the same way you did 20-30 years ago, because they are still in a classroom with books.
Online learning tools and technologies have surfaced in recent years but the impression you get is that e-learning is still confined to a little group of savvy educators who have understood how to leverage the power of the Internet for teaching and learning.
the educational paradigm has not fully embraced those fantastic discoveries to give birth to a new learning paradigm that gets rid of useless exams, tests and paper sheets to focus on those new learning skills required to live a successful and meaningful life.
Start the video by introducing the subject matter expert, the “SME,” and then tell the learner what they are going to learn. Next, show the instruction. Finally, through a summary, tell the learner what they just learned.
e-learning is evolving with the World Wide Web as a whole and it's changing to a degree significant enough to warrant a new name: E-learning 2.0.
When we think of learning content today, we probably think of a learning object. Originating in the world of computer-based delivery (CBT) systems, learning objects were depicted as being like lego blocks or atoms, little bits of content that could be put together or organized. Standards bodies have refined the concept of learning objects into a
rigorous form and have provided specifications on how to sequence and organize these bits of content into courses and package them for delivery as though they were books or training manuals
In learning, these trends are manifest in what is sometimes called "learner-centered" or "student-centered" design. This is more than just adapting for different learning styles or allowing the user to change the font size and background color; it is the placing of the control of learning itself into the hands of the learner [5].
In the world of e-learning, the closest thing to a social network is a community of practice, articulated and promoted by people such as Etienne Wenger in the 1990s. According to Wenger, a community of practice is characterized by "a shared domain of interest" where "members interact and learn together" and "develop a shared repertoire of resources."
Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration.
International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. This journal provides a place for teachers, students, and academics to work toward improving the quality of higher-education instruction.
Podcast Generator is a free web based podcast publishing script written
in PHP: upload media files (audio-video) via a web form along with episode
information and automatically create podcast w3c-compliant feed including
iTunes specific tags
Podcast Generator is a free web based podcast publishing script written
in PHP: upload media files (audio-video) via a web form along with episode
information and automatically create podcast w3c-compliant feed including
iTunes specific tags