O thy virtues, thou blog and bloggers. Seest thou this day the new dimension that thou hast brought to mankind and to pets.
I tell you, this is fast education
Relevant to this week's topic, this short video explains what makes a good podcast (and I completely disagree with the commenter who says that podcasts should be rambling and silly--those types of podcasts are very annoying!).
Piazza is designed to connect students, TAs, and professors so every student can get the help they need when they need it. Today, hundreds of thousands of students across hundreds of campuses are using Piazza for their classes. It warms me to think I started something that is impacting the way students learn and the way instructors teach.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that social media has changed more than just how we pass the time, it has now infused itself into formal learning channels. Although adoption is slow (for instance, only 15% of teachers find value in Facebook, Wiki, and other social networks), time will only show that it will rise. I think that the integration of social media in higher education has its benefits and challenges... however I can say that undisputedly it is one of the better ways of increasing communication between academics and students.
I think it depends on the course and the course learning objectives. Social networking may not be a tool that aids in encoding course content and thus, would be inappropriate to include.
I am currently enrolled in both the Tech Tools course and the Instructional Design Course. This web page about where the different tech tools fit in a "Blooms Taxonomy" scheme is a great resource for both classes.
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!
It seems in the twenty-first century new learning technologies are appearing every day for teachers to think about. With the advent of technology across all fields of learning, the ways in which learners store and retrieve information for further use has dramatically changed.
The statistical software language R is open-source with free download for Windows PCs. It's a bit cumbersome to learn with the help manuals running to 4,000 pages of "stream of consciousness" thinking. However, it's very powerful, and will readily do things that (say) Excel cannot do. Scripts can be saved to Word documents for later re-use.
In this article from The Gaurdian (UK) the author reports on a debate at King's College London where a respected panel and an energetic audience of students discussed the future of online technology and education. While students didn't think it was a big deal, not all of the educators saw technology and education flowing together so smoothly. A very interesting article.
An article on Twitter for teachers, from Edudemic, a site that distributes stories around teaching, learning, and the impact of technology on education.
In addition to the comment that populated itself below, I want to add that this link contains a list of etiquette rules for Twitter that I think are very useful for a newbie.
Twitter has proven itself to be an indispensable tool for educators around the globe. Whatever skill level you may be, Twitter is downright fun and worth your time. So here's a useful guide that we curated from Edudemic's archives in an effort to put something together that was a bit easier to read than random blog posts.
Below is a great idea from a science teacher who posted this on an NSTA listserv. This is a creative idea to promote student learning of basic foundation knowledge in an introductory level course. This technique promotes "students interacting, thinking, creating, communicating, and applying content/subject knowledge"!
I never thought Snapchat would work in a classroom setting. I think it's time for me to stop being too old school and meet my students in the middle and allow them to enjoy my messages in whatever reasonable way that is necessary.
#TT1921 - I got a better insight into synchronous interaction though this article. I think it is worth reading. Synchronous learning refers to a learning event in which a group of students are engaging in learning at the same time. Before learning, technology allowed for synchronous learning environments, most online education took place through asynchronous learning methods. Since synchronous tools that can be used for education have become available, many people are turning to them as a way to help decrease the challenges associated with distance that occurs in online education.