Group items tagged

I believe there are 3 needs in modern literacy that we cannot ignore as educators. Digital literacy is not an "option" anymore. Most of the texts that we read each day appear on a screen, complete with embedded media, advertisements, and hyperlinks. Navigating these spaces is required to function successfully in modern society. We should immerse our students in these mediums, and provide them guidance to maximize their learning. Digital texts foster curation and recall. When I read texts in hard copy, I often annotate using words and images. This helps me to make meaning of the text in the moment that I'm reading it. However, when I read digital texts, my annotations and sketches are automatically added to my intellectual database in Evernote. My database is fully searchable by content and tag. Therefore, when I need citations, information, or ideas to guide my writing, I most often return to the digital sources, ideas, and phrases captured in my database. In short, texts in hard copy make an impact, but digital texts shape my thinking and writing more often. Teachers need to teach students to digital and hard copy texts equally. Existing resources coupled with teacher comfort levels often reduce the amount of instruction that students receive regarding digital texts. In fact, a teacher recently told me that "you just can't get the same experience from a Kindle as you can from a hardback book." Really? We need to get comfortable with digital texts ourselves and share the process meaningfully with students.

"MindTap is well beyond an eBook, a homework solution or digital supplement, a resource center website, a course delivery platform or a Learning Management System. More than 70% of students surveyed said it was unlike anything they have seen before. MindTap is a new personal learning experience that combines all your digital assets - readings, multimedia, activities, and assessments- into a singular learning path to improve student outcomes."

The partnership will expand the reach of the McGraw-Hill Campus service, which was first rolled out last July as a means of offering universal, single sign-on access to McGraw-Hill offerings to students and educators from within a school's existing LMS at no cost. With the service, the entire library of McGraw-Hill resources can be accessed with the service with a single click for browsing of test banks, e-books, PowerPoint slides and other offerings.

"Given an expectation of digital literacy among students, why should we worry about student perceptions of CMS tools? For the same reason exemplary instructors stay aware of their students' general learning style preferences-to evolve their teaching styles to meet diverse preferences and maximize learning while also attempting to develop and enhance students' abilities to learn in different ways. Likewise, knowing the CMS tools that students find most effective establishes an important baseline for understanding student needs that can be addressed not only in a CMS but also through other online systems and services. The University of Florida (UF) conducted a survey investigating that question in spring 2009, during the university's most recent CMS evaluation and adoption decision to replace the existing CMS. This research bulletin presents the survey results to help inform other institutions with their own evaluation and adoption processes. The information will also benefit instructors looking to maximize their own use of a local CMS and/or to choose tools that enable personal learning environments, as well as specific tools for learning. "

Insights on student perceptions of the LMS.

"Of the 1,140 respondents, 92% reported they found the system very useful, useful, or somewhat useful, providing further evidence of the mission-critical nature of CMSs. [...] Responses identified their top choices as the ability to see their grades, course announcements, syllabus, assignment submission, online quizzes and tests, discussions, and calendar." (p. 4) "Students most frequently cited the need for a better user interface." (p. 5) "The most repeated suggestions fell into the areas of: - Improving ease of use of the e-learning system - Requesting specific tools or features - Requesting --perhaps requiring-- instructors to use the CMS" (p. 6) "Students most value tools that support self-monitoring: tracking progress, self-assessment, grade book views, and the like." (p. 8)