Group items tagged

Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. This resource hosts communities for members to contribute and share learning and teaching materials. The communities are categorized by higher education disciplines. In addition to contributing materials, members can comment about outside learning materials that are used, share information about themselves and knowledge about their discipline, put together personal collections to use in the classroom and become a Peer Reviewer of learning materials in member's discipline. In addition to discipline communities, there is the Community of MERLOT Partner Academic Support Services (COMPASS). This community is made up of ePortfolio, Faculty Development, Library and Information Services, Online Courses and Pedagogy. The ePortflio Portal centers educational resources around ePortfolio use in higher education, among students and faculty. Partner Communities like GLOBE extend the MERLOT network. The Global Learning Objects Brokered Exchange (GLOBE) alliance was established between ARIADNE Foundation in Europe, Education Services Austrailia, LORNET in Canada, National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME) in Japan and MERLOT with the goal to "work collaboratively on a shared vision of ubiquitous access to quality educational content." The majority of MERLOT members are faculty/instructors and the balance are students, campus administrators, librarians and other members of higher education who are concerned with online learning materials, technology, teaching and learning, and innovation.

"What used to be known as remedial education now goes by either developmental education or basic skills. Lexicon aside, it's become apparent that these classes don't work. At least half a dozen reports released in the past year (two in the past couple of weeks alone) warn that the United States is headed for an economic calamity unless we can figure out how to get more students to successfully complete some type of postsecondary education program. It doesn't have to be a baccalaureate degree. It could be an associate's degree or a professional certification, but by the year 2018 about two-thirds of all jobs will require some college education, according to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce. Of those, 22 million will require actual degrees, AA or better, but at the current rate, we're already off track by some 3 million degrees."

From edna.edu.au, "Australia's free online resource for educators." There are several interesting topics available here (each with its own RSS feed), and while many articles pertain to Australia, not all do. The topics in the left-hand column: Teacher education resources, Curriculum and education studies, and Education technology all appear to be particularly rich.

This is open access journal from the University of Regina (Canada) launched in December 2009, a a re-birth of Policy and Practice in Education, which published it's last number (15:1) under that title in August 2009. From Our Scope, "We envision works that augment the latitude and significance of the idea of education, while acknowledging the ubiquitous growth of the digital arts and sciences in the everyday practice of life and how that might (in)form notions of formal and informal education."

By Justin Reich on Educational Technology Debate on December 8 2011. Reich argues, from his research on the use of wikis in the schools, that educational technology tends to benefit affluent students, rather than under-served students, primarily because there are more resources for students and teachers in the affluent environment, so teachers can use technology to its best advantage. He recommends technology initiatives that specifically target low-income and under-served students as a solution, and cites some interesting programs.

Also, "The Official Social Network of the Global Education Conference." This social network, on ning, has over 9,000 members and 104 distinct groups. The Network offers the Global Education Conference, a collaborative, world-wide community initiative for students, educators and organizations at all levels. It takes place online (free) using the Blackboard Collaborate platform.

By Sam Dillon in New York Times, March 9, 2010. An international comparison of K-12 education systems and their relative success from Andreas Schleicher, a senior education official at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. Schleicher offered testimony before the Senate education committee.

Billed as the "American Education News Site of Record," Education Week is an important site for education news. Subscription is required to read some of the articles on this site. There are free subscriptions to e-newsletters available, as well as free short-term subscriptions.

No author or date listed, this blog posts promotes a guide to Google+ for educators, written by Steven W. Anderson. I bookmark this post for two reasons. First, obviously, the opportunity for educators to learn more about Google+ and it's potential educational applications. But also the format, LiveBinder, is an interesting way to present and share resources.

By Jarret Cummings in Jarret's blog, Educause, Nov 9 2011. Review of education policy briefing led by Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, in which she discussed her department's on-going commitment to open educational resources (OER). Her statement included a wide-ranging definition of OER and information about how OER will tie-in with recently announced government grants.

Research arm of the U.S. Department of Education. This organization funds "top educational researchers nationwide to conduct studies that seek answers on what works for students from preschools to postsecondary, including interventions for special education students. ..."

If we are to achieve our goal of leading the world in education, we must be leaders in the design and implementation of a more effective education system. To that end, this plan calls for a new approach to R&D for education that focuses on four areas:

MDEC serves post-secondary education in Michigan with a network for educators to research and share best practices, refine strategies for quality programs, and to advocate for developmental education. This is not an online network - most meetings "held using a conference call format."

" Education Market Research "

By David Nagel, in Policy & Advocacy section of THE Journal, April 23 2010. The article announces the newly published National Educational Technology Trends: 2010, Innovation Through State Leadership report, published by State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA). Trends include "enhancing teacher effectiveness" through professional development and "scaling up success" by expanding innovative programs that have worked. Report is bookmarked as well, see trends_edtech tag.

Edited by Terry Freedman and published on Informations and Communications Technology (ICT) in Education: The Educational Technology Site, March 2010. This is a really great e-book (free, downloadable PDF) which organizes Web 2.0 education projects by grade level, including a section for adult learners, and a section of resources. There are links to all projects and analysis and self-reflection by the project creators.

By Catherine M. Casserly and Marshall S. Smith. This is a free pdf download of a chapter from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching publication, Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content and Open Knowledge.

By Virginia Heffernan in Opinionator in the New York Times. A review of Cathy Davidson's new book,Now You See It. Heffernan's review suggests that Davidson's new book argues that we not hold current students to out of date standards for education. Educators must not just embrace new technologies, but understand the position of these technologies in the changing world. Follow the davidson tag for her blog.

The National Education Research and Development Centers are funded through IES's NCER. The mission of the R&D Centers is to contribute to the production and dissemination of rigorous evidence and products that provide practical solutions to important education problems in the United States. The R&D Centers achieve this mission by developing, testing, and disseminating new approaches to improve teaching and learning, and ultimately, student achievement. Each of the Centers conducts a focused program of education research in its topic area. In addition, each Center works cooperatively with NCER, conducts supplemental research within its broad topic area, and provides national leadership in defining research and development directions within its topic area. Currently, there are 18 National R&D Centers.

This is the blog space of Dr. Alec Couros, professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. He's been blogging in this space since 2004 and, according to the About page, posts "personal reflections and resources related to teaching and learning, democratic media, critical media literacy, digital citizenship, openness, and social justice."