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This article describes the use of social media as a bridge between students, teachers, and the online course. Many students are currently using social media such as Facebook and Twitter. The challenge for instructors is to learn how to leverage that as as an opportunity to create value for the student, the course, and for the instructor. The growing trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is commonplace among many campuses and it is now becoming common for institutions to require students to supply their own technology tools.

This article describes the increased use in the eLearning industry to HTML5 as an authoring tool. Moving away from things like Adobe Flash has allowed new opportunities and avenues of creation possibilities to content developers. HTML5 has wide support across many different browsers and LMS platforms which makes the use of HTML5 an easy transition/addition. HTML5 does, however, have difficulty working with older browsers such as IE8. Using authoring tools such as Adobe Captivate 9 and Articulate Storyline makes HTML5 easy to use.

New York Times technology blogs are located here. The articles are very current. I (as a teacher) will probably benefit from these sites as much as my students. I plan on posting the YouTube "Blogs in Education" video along with these blogs, because the video gives a good description, application and history of blogs.

February 2009 | Volume 66 | Number 5 How Teachers Learn Pages 34-38 Learning with Blogs and Wikis Bill Ferriter Technology has made it easy for educators to embrace continual professional development. Few ideas about teachers' professional growth resonate with me more than those of Richard Elmore, professor of educational leadership at Harvard, who has gone as far as to argue that school structures make learning for adults unlikely at best and nothing short of impossible at worst. In a 2002 report for the Albert Shanker Institute, Elmore wrote, As expectations for increased student performance mount and the measurement and publication of evidence about performance becomes part of the public discourse about schools, there are few portals through which new knowledge about teaching and learning can enter schools; few structures or processes in which teachers and administrators can assimilate, adapt, and polish new ideas and practices; and few sources of assistance for those who are struggling to understand the connection between the academic performance of their students and the practices in which they engage. So the brutal irony of our present circumstance is that schools are hostile and inhospitable places for learning. They are hostile to the learning of adults and, because of this, they are necessarily hostile to the learning of students. (pp. 4-5)

Technology has made it easy for educators to embrace continual professional development. Few ideas about teachers' professional growth resonate with me more than those of Richard Elmore, professor of educational leadership at Harvard, who has gone as far as to argue that school structures make learning for adults unlikely at best and nothing short of impossible at worst.

Founded in 1943, ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization dedicated to advancing best practices and policies for the success of each learner. Our 175,000 members in 119 countries are professional educators from all levels and subject areas--superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.

I'd chosen accessibility tools as my elective for the scrapbook, so I thought I'd share this resource which includes numerous links that contain useful information, as well as software that can be used to ensure that your course is as accessible as possible. It also includes some relevant legal information that could also come in handy! Hope you'll find it handy..

It took me about an hour to find this podcast. I wanted a podcast that addressed topics that are could be understood by a student in a college level math class. These short podcast give a step by step solution for various algebra problems and could be used as a supplemental way of explaining a particular problem. I would use these podcast if there were a few more examples for each topic. For instance, I would like at least 3 podcast for the common denominator problem. I would probably use the podcast as a section review or with a worksheet that had similar examples.

This is a wiki created in May 2006. The author is Mr Demetri M. Orlando who is currently working as director of information technology at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, chair the NAIS technology & curriculum task force, and do consulting work for strategic thinking around technology. This wiki site offers information to K-12 teachers on how to grow their professional network, integrate technology into teaching, and teach & learn online. It is intended as a comprehensive source of information about all aspects of eLearning.

A paper introduces a conception of discussion forums as student centred peer e-learning environments. The proffered conception positions the student as expert/facilitator at the centre of the learning event and the instructor, one step removed from the process, as overseer of the dialogue.

Problems of privacy with social media sites are legal issues as well as practical ones. This article reveals various cases of employers (and schools) probing for personal data from subordinates.

More on the privacy theme. It's not just about students posting things that they'll regret later, it's also about making laws that protect us all from grasping superiors.

Apparently there is no such thing as too much participation in online discussions. Participation in discussions (as measured by words posted) scales linearly with grade on test.

The idea of storyboarding was developed at the Walt Disney Studio during the early 1930s. storyboard for video production is essentially a large comic of the film or some section of the film produced beforehand to help directors, cinematographers and television commercial advertising clients visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. Often storyboards include arrows or instructions that indicate movement.More recently the term storyboard has been used in the fields of web development, software development and instructional design to present and describe, in written, interactive events as well as audio and motion, particularly on user interfaces and electronic pages.

Social media may have started out as a fun way to connect with friends, but it has evolved to become a powerful tool for education and business. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter and tools such as Skype are connecting students to learning opportunities in new and exciting ways.

I like this site as it offers innovate ideas for bringing social media into classrooms. It also categorizes the suggesions by levels - K-12 and college. It also gives suggestions for students' use and for teachers' use.

For as long as there have beenexams, there has been cheatingon exams. Online exams are nodifferent, although they do providesome challenges that set them apartfrom traditional face-to-face exams.These include a heightened opportunity to collaborate with others,greater possibility of using unapproved resources, and an increasedlikelihood that someone other thanthe student is taking the test

This article presents a rather extensive list of things to put in place in order to reduce cheating in online classes. It is unlikely that cheating will be eradicated in online or in f2f classes but every effort towards its reduction is an effort that enhances the value of a certification from the institute.

It's midweek at Anywhere State University. Jenny rolls out of bed at about nine a.m., as usual, and thinks about breakfast and her first class. As she's dressing and getting ready to go out, she fires up iTunes on her laptop and checks her podcast subscription.

podcasts include extensive discussion on gaming as well as other aspects of eLearning

I agree that as we continue, learning will become more interactive, using all types of tech tools to enable students not only to learn in the classroom, but as online learners also.

Students hate discussion boards and mostly feel like they don't get anything out of them. They go into check box mode and real dialogue is lost. How can we fix them?

I used discussion board for 2 full semesters. I received feedback from my students in both ways: course reflection and my performance evaluation. The feedback was very positive. The assignment for the discussion boards would include an actual company with specific operations (inventory, quality, process design, etc.). Students were free to answer any questions and required provide a feedback to at least one of the classmates answer. Students felt connected to their classmates, shared different views, had an opportunity to learn from each other.

The title is a bit misleading but some of the recommendations discussed can definitely spark some life into DBs. DBs are a good way to foster engagement but unless properly done can mostly be seen by students as a one and done exercise.

This is a great music theory tutor/reference/resource. I recommend it to all of my colleagues, as well as my students. Using the site is free.

I hear complaints about the poor quality of student writing today as often as I read stories about the Internet causing the end of higher education as we know it (i.e., frequently). When those complaints come in the form of actual conversations with peers, instead of in print, I feel myself immediately put on the defensive.

Thanks for this post Heather. I liked that the instructor recognized that despite some challenges with using a new technique to promote his students' writing skills the energy that was expressed by his students far outweighed the "mess" that he dealt with the first time trying something new.

The lack of learning transfer is a common mantra in higher education. It's a good article for reflection. Although I've been a proponent of service learning, at the same time, I wasn't sure how students could or if they would transfer their experiences to the academic component. Now, I need to rethink my position on service learning and its impact on connected learning

This essay describes some of the most cost-effective and appropriate ways to use computers, video, and telecommunications technologies to advance the Seven Principles.

by Arthur W. Chickering and Stephen C. Ehrmann "Since the Seven Principles of Good Practice were created in 1987, new communication and information technologies have become major resources for teaching and learning in higher education. If the power of the new technologies is to be fully realized, they should be employed in ways consistent with the Seven Principles. Such technologies are tools with multiple capabilities; it is misleading to make assertions like "Microcomputers will empower students" because that is only one way in which computers might be used." This article originally appeared in print as: Chickering, Arthur and Stephen C. Ehrmann (1996), "Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever," AAHE Bulletin, October, pp. 3-6.