Group items tagged

This report defines the google generation and discusses how students and researchers, search for the information they need. While not specifically a techtools article, it is important for instructors to understand students may not have the information literacy skills that we think they have!

This first of two videos shows what college faculty handouts for research projects do and don't include to assist students with their research.

Here's to thinking outside the box......

Classroom assessment is both a teaching approach and a set of techniques. The approach is that the more you know about what and how students are learning, the better you can plan learning activities to structure your teaching. The techniques are mostly simple, non-graded, anonymous, in-class activities that give both you and your students useful feedback on the teaching-learning process.

While you have to search through the content, you get insights into what works for students and what doesn't (e.g. "their website is often down for "improvements"")

Of the three new bookmarks I found I though this one related to last weeks technology tools stats related to various generations online.

This is a free online whiteboard where students can collaborate on chemistry and math problems without worrying about typing symbols. Also students can work on group projects together.

very cool. that's neat that's it's free. I need to play around with it a bit to get used to the interface, but I might try it out.

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.

If you use Google Talk (Google's instant messaging client) or just chat from inside your GMail account, you can set up a HTML "badge" that you can copy on to any webpage so that visitors can just click a link and start chatting with you. I've used a badge copied on to my Blackboard site to allow students to instant message me. The advantages are that the student doesn't need to sign up for a Google account to use this, and they don't even have to know your gmail account address to chat with you since you can make the badge say whatever you like.

In his work as a professor, Stephen Downes used to feel that he was helping those who least needed it. His students at places like the University of Alberta already had a leg up in life and could afford the tuition

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.

"Purplemath's algebra lessons are written with the student in mind. These lessons emphasize the practicalities rather than the technicalities, demonstrating dependable techniques, warning of likely "trick" questions, and pointing out common mistakes. The lessons are cross-referenced to help you find related material, and a "search" box is on every page to help you find what you're looking for.

Abstract: As more and more instructors enter the world of online teaching and learning, a body of knowledge is emerging around the challenge of facilitating online interaction and fostering online collaboration. This paper draws from the literature on asynchronous learning and the authors' own experiences with online discussion and collaborative online projects. We identify a variety of techniques for focusing student dialogue, fostering an online learning community, and promoting successful collaboration. Instructors who are teaching wholly online courses or simply integrating online components into face-to-face classes will benefit from the observations and discussion.

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.

FREE webinars include collaboration technologies, Merlot Introduction, and ePortfolios in the Cloud. Resources include Sloan Semester Archives that tell the story of how "Using online learning, colleges and universities from across the country responded in record numbers to help students and institutions impacted by the storms. Dubbed "Sloan Semester" the initiative provided free online courses to students impacted by Katrina and Rita storms." Here you can identify more benchmarks in a useful case-study of how Institutions committed to online learning were transformed to leverage learning resources in a time of need. I know that Illinois schools looked at Elluminate when H1N1 was an active global pandemic.

A short article listing 4 benefits of using smartphones in the classroom. While I'm still not totally convinced, some good points are made here. The issue I don't ever seem to see addressed in articles like this, though, is how to keep students from going to facebook or their texts after using the phone for a learning purpose.

A social Networking Tool that allows users to create polls and quizzes in an international setting via texting,twittering,and the web.

Audience response system that uses mobile phones, twitter, and the web. Responses are displayed in real-time on gorgeous charts in PowerPoint, Keynote, or web browser.

This was used in a class I took and I found it a fascinating tool to doing a poll or survey for a class. It allows students to use the tech that they generally already use to a great extent - such as responding by text from the phone using a code specific to that poll, responding via twitter, or on the PollEv.com site directly. I haven't integrated this yet into a class, but I can really see potential here after using it in a class