Group items tagged

Slideshare by Jane Hart on top 100 tools for learning 2012, 2012 based on votes of 500+ learning professionals worldwide, C4LPT, www.C4LPT.co.uk

Top 100 websites for women at end of 2012 Did a call in from Forbes groups to identify sites with "informative and compelling content, smart navigable design, engaged communities, and a voice that speaks to and for the female reader that's kept fresh, timely, and in-the-know by savvy staffers and impassioned writers. ... Does it have that amorphous and often indefinable quality that inspires us to share--with out social networks and in e-mails and conversations with our moms, sisters, friends and colleagues."

From the State of Consumers and Technology report from Forrester. Released 12/19/12. Found that those who go online at least daily was 78% of US adults in 2011, and it jumped to 84% in 2012 due to the growing use of smartphones and tablets. At least 50% of US adults owns a smartphone, and 19% own a tablet.

Very interesting assessment of Twitter users in comparison to general public. They seem to be younger, more Democratic (redundant?) than general population. . . but only 13% of adults said they ever use Twitter or read Twitter messages. So there is a small saturation rate. " In the Pew Research Center's 2012 biennial news consumption survey, just 13% of adults said they ever use Twitter or read Twitter messages; only 3% said they regularly or sometimes tweet or retweet news or news headlines on Twitter. Twitter users are not representative of the public. Most notably, Twitter users are considerably younger than the general public and more likely to be Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party. In the 2012 news consumption survey, half (50%) of adults who said they posted news on Twitter were younger than 30, compared with 23% of all adults. And 57% of those who posted news on Twitter were either Democrats or leaned Democratic, compared with 46% of the general public. (Another recent Pew Research Center survey provides even more detail on who uses Twitter and other social media.)"

Very interesting infographic on how integrating use of twitter and facebook greatly increases giving to nonprofits during the last three years, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

Interesting assessment of growth, # of users, and ROI in 2012 for Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and LinkedIn and where each is going in 2013. Impact for Studio--looks like Twitter is strong, and LinkedIn is up and coming?

Jane Hart's reading list for 2012 of monthly curated links to useful articles, presentations and readings.

Blog post by Lara Galinsky on Dowser (who's solving what and how), August 6, 2012 "This may sound idealistic but we are already on the way. According to Net Impact's recent Talent Report: What Workers Want in 2012, the Millennial generation wants, and expects, to do good and do well in their paid work. In fact, a majority of students (65 percent) expect to make a difference in the world through their work, and 53 percent would take a 15 percent pay cut to work for an organization whose values matched their own. However, in my experience, too few of these students know the kind of difference they want to make, and how to make it. And that is the real opportunity. In order to harness this generation's desire to create change, we must move away from the antiquated concept of vocation, which emphasizes what's in it for the individual: whether it will sustain their interest or bring them fame or fortune. Instead, we need to help young people start their professional lives by asking questions. What issues, ideas, people, and projects move them deeply? What problems are theirs to own? How can they combine their heads and hearts to address those problems? What is their unique genius and how can it be of use to the world beyond themselves?"

interview with Rosabeth Moss Kanter, September 2012, Harvard Magazine on business ecosystems and how they thrive with connections between large and small businesses, education and business, turning ideas into enterprises, and cross-sector collaboration

Article from NYT Blogs by Claire Cain Miller, 2012, on $22.5m fine levied by Consumer Protection, FTC, against Google for collecting data on where Safari browser users visit online to construct ads to market to them.

Ted blog by Kate Torgovnick, May, August 6, 2012 that discusses Heffernan's TED talk on Dare to Disagree, 2012. Offers five guidelines for productive disagreement.

Blog post by Lisa Lane on her Program for Online Teaching class to teach people new to teaching online to articulate their pedagogy for teaching online. She explains how it started as a SMOOC (small to medium) online class in the middle of the quickly paced MOOC movement and how she wishes she had never categorized it as a SMOOC at all (even though it was open to requests to participate). Instead she views it is a class (with textbook and syllabus) guided by the facilitator and content and scaffolded with sequence and mentors/moderators, etc. However, she reverted to the more traditional model as the class was underway. September 4, 2012

Blog post by Lisa Lane, November 2, 2012, on textbook creation/use, convenience, costs, etc. It's relevant to our 'series' formulation in the WLStudio.

Blog post by Lisa Lane early this month (November 2012 explaining to another online instructor how she built a system for aggregating students' blog posts that may be relevant to WLStudio series and "sharing" activities? She uses FeedWordPress. Excerpt: "Participants set up their own blog wherever. Then I need to get the feeds from those blogs into the Pedagogy First! aggregated blog, using FeedWordPress. I use the Add Link widget (yes, I know it's old) so participants can add their own, and have provided more extensive instructions for them about blogs and feeds. In particular, we want people who post on many subjects to not only use the "potcert" tags for their posts, but use the feed for that tag only. This is so only their class-related posts show up on the class blog. The back end of this process is a little more complicated. When participants enter their information in Add Link, it goes directly into the Blogroll. The Blogroll is what feeds into FeedWordPress as a default. I customize the titles of feeds and the names of participants to use their real names for everything. I change the titles of feeds by going into FWP's Syndication area and using Feeds & Updates. Using the drop down menu to bring up a particular blog, I change the title and click manual control so it doesn't revert back the next time the feed updates. When I do this, it seems to update automatically in the Links area. Then I go to Users and make sure their names are their full names by editing them individually."

Compelling blog post by Stephen Downes on free vs. not free resources, especially the distinctions made by educational institutions and OERs, November 27, 2012

Interesting study on social media users by Pew Internet and American Life Project, December 2012, released February 2013, by Maeve Duggan and Joanna Brenner Summary Twitter attracted 16% of all internet users. They were more likely to be younger (18-29), African American, or Hispanic, and urban. Pinterest attracted 15% of all internet users. They were five times as likely to be women as men, more likely to be wealthier, and rural. Instagram users make up 13% of all internet users. They are more likely to be younger, African-American, Hispanic, and urban. Facebook has 67% of all internet users participating. They are more likely to be younger and more urban. Tumblr has only 6% of all internet users. They are 4x more likely to be younger than older.

Blog post by Carol Ross, May 21, 2012, Next Avenue PBS, on how to present your "unique promise of value" (William Arruda) on your calling card. Showcase your brand on LinkedIn. Tips: Post a (good) photo with your profile Put the summary section to optimum use --brand story--compelling statement of your distinctive value, a backstory that explains how you go to be so good at what you do, and an aspirational statement. Make your Specialties Section special Align your experience section with your summary section Be choosy about your recommendations Guidelines to develop your brand story--be introspective, gather feedback, identify a theme, describe formative moments in your life.

An article view by Jenna Wortham at the New York Times of different online learning sites for mastering computer codes and programming, March 27, 2012. Mentions Codecademy, Girls Develop It, Treehouse, General Assembly, etc. Excerpt: "Peter Harsha, director of government affairs at the association, said the figure had been steadily climbing for the last three years, after a six-year decline in the aftermath of the dot-com bust. Mr. Harsha said that interest in computer science was cyclical but that the current excitement seemed to be more than a blip and was not limited to people who wanted to be engineers. "To be successful in the modern world, regardless of your occupation, requires a fluency in computers," he said. "It is more than knowing how to use Word or Excel but how to use a computer to solve problems." "

HASTAC discussion by badge designers, 10/2012 Note this excerpt: Include badge earners in the design process of your program. Understand their motivation, what drives their involvement, and what they hope to get out of the program you are creating. Consider the diversity of your learners; they are likely to be driven by different goals. Assessment is just as important in a badge-based learning system as it is in more traditional learning environments. In order for badges to have value to the earner and to those who would consider using the badge to impute the skills or competencies of an individual, appropriate assessment practices need to back up the process by which the badge was awarded. Craft a badge system that is flexible enough to accommodate a range of learning styles, motivations and pedagogies. Some contexts call for more proscribed badging opportunities, where experts set up gauntlets which learners pass successfully before earning badges. Other systems call for a more grassroots approach, in which learners set their own goals and pursue less well-defined pathways that get them where they want to go as individuals, with badges in hand to show for their efforts. Creating a badge system that can adapt to a variety of contexts and audiences is a worthy challenge. Break up complex requirements into simpler steps and attach a badge to each step (so the badges act like waypoints on the overall path).

"The Varied Functions of Badges" summary from HASTAC discussion, 9/2012 My interest in the functions of badges was spurred along when the MacArthur Foundation asked for help documenting the design principles for using digital badges that emerge across the 30 projects underway by the awardees in their Badges for Lifelong Learning project. We needed to come up with a manageable number of categories. Here is what we came up with: Recognizing Learning. This is the most obvious and arguably the primary function of badges. David Wiley has argued cogently that this should be the primary purpose of badges. If we focus only on purposes, then he may well be right. His point is that badges are credentials and not assessments. This is also consistent with the terrifically concise definition in Seven Things You Should Know About Badgesby Erin Knight and Carla Casilli. Assessing Learning. Nearly every application of digital badges includes some form of assessment. These assessments have either formative or summative functions and likely have both. In some cases, these are simply an assessment of whether somebody clicked on a few things or made a few comments. In other cases, there might be a project or essay that was reviewed and scored, or a test that was graded. In still other cases, peers might assess an individual, group, or project as badgeworthy. Motivating Learning. This is where the controversy comes in. Much of the debate over badges concerns the well-documented negative consequences of extrinsic incentive on intrinsic motivation and free choice engagement. This is why some argue that we should not use badges to motivate learning. However, if we use badges to recognize and assess learning, they are likely to impact motivation. So, we might as well harness this crucial function of badges and study these functions carefully while searching for both their positive and negative consequences for motivation. Evaluating Learning. The final category of