Group items tagged

For millions of students worldwide, free, open courseware provides a window, if not a front-row seat, to top university classes. The formats are as varied as the people who tune in. Some consist mainly of lectures recorded on iTunes, while other courses seek to replicate a classroom experience by offering study groups, computer-graded tests, and weekly assignments. And while you might get a badge or certificate showing you mastered the material, you generally won't get direct interaction with the professor, who may have recorded the lectures a few years ago. Here is a look at five introductory economics classes: four through open courseware and one in a traditional classroom.

""We were shocked to discover that among our majors, there is considerable resistance to this idea," Frechie said. "It began as our faculty thinking how can we keep pace with this new, emerging, younger and more technologically-literate population of students that we're working with today." The administration at Cabrini is also taking into consideration that there are many conditions to look at before making any move toward a digital transition. It is likely that some upperclassmen at Cabrini wouldn't get to experience a digital classroom experience."

In a few slides, he'd spelled out the nine essential components of a university education: admissions, lectures, peer interaction, professor interaction, problem-solving, assignments, exams, deadlines, and certification. While Thrun admired MIT's OpenCourseWare-the university's decade-old initiative to publish online all of its lectures, syllabi, and homework from 2,100 courses-he thought it relied too heavily on videos of actual classroom lectures. That was tapping just one-ninth of the equation, with a bit of course material thrown in as a bonus.

"Having done this, I can't teach at Stanford again," he said at a digital conference in Germany in January. "I feel like there's a red pill and a blue pill, and you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I've taken the red pill, and I've seen Wonderland."

Of course, the rules are often in flux, making it difficult for to stay up to speed-which reinforces the need for a digital literacy program for teachers and administrators. It's not enough to impose rules on how not to use social media; teachers should be required at the start of every school year to learn how to use social networks and other tools effectively in the classroom, and how to maintain privacy settings for both professional and personal accounts.

"The Center for Instructional Technology maintains a pool of approximately 125 iPads and iPad2s dedicated to student/faculty use in semester-long courses. Interested Duke faculty whose instructional goals are compatible with CIT's annual investigative goals as listed below may submit an application to use iPads in their class. Additional information and a link to the application can be found on the iPad Course Loan page."

Salon is a high-power web platform where users can read, annotate, and discuss visual media.

Hi-Fi, Stereo, Speakerphone & more

A potential tool to connect classrooms with Skype/Google Hangouts? The microphone might be better than most laptop built-in ones, it supports conference calls. Can also connect with mobile devices.