MVCR Tech Tools

Synchronous or Asynchronous eLearning? Check the Benefits of Synchronous and Asynchronous e-Learning to choose the best learning solution for your learners.

In an online classroom environment many of the learning activities and expectations are similar to those found in a traditional classroom. These learning environments offer meaningful interactions in a face-to-face setting and are most commonly referred to as synchronous learning activities (Hrastinski, 2008; Harris et al., 2009; Simonson et al., 2012).

Google Forms are great for quick surveys and even quizzes (provided you don't need answer checking/feedback). SurveyMonkey isn't hard, but the free version has certain limits, and Google Forms is even easier to get up and going.

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.

Prezi designs and creates presentation software that is enabling millions of people to be great presenters.

9to5mac reviews Nuance's latest iteration of Dragon Dictate for Mac.

Reaching agreement on the convenience of online classes is easy, but arguing in favor of a synchronous learning experience in a virtual classroom is harder. Debunking the top 10 myths about synchronous online teaching helps refute the arguments against it, while the transformational nature of online teaching can convert skeptics into supporters.

Reaching agreement on the convenience of online classes is easy, but arguing in favor of a synchronous learning experience in a virtual classroom is harder. Debunking the top 10 myths about synchronous online teaching helps refute the arguments against it, while the transformational nature of online teaching can convert skeptics into supporters.

I can't believe that people still believe all these myths. However I have colleagues that still resist even limited technology in hybrid classes.

Scribblar is an online whiteboard application. While many disciplines lend themselves well to text, there are certainly classes where the ability to literally draw students a picture is worth a thousand words.

Workshop: Constructivism as a Paradigm

A website button generator. Design your very own button or use one of the preset examples. Then download or hotlink the image, or get CSS code. Fast & free!

I use Padlet all the time in my class for a quick sentence or paragraph-level group writing activity - it's easy to share with your students and you can embed it very easily! http://padlet.com/salinmiso/8tihmalkbcyl

I know many people use Google Docs for collaborative writing - I used to use Google Docs all the time as well, but OneNote Online is my new favorite! It has a book-like layout and you can create several tabs for different groups so everyone has their own space (their own page in a tab), which is less confusing than Google Docs.

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

10 blogs on instructional design

Nice plain language account of online teaching from a happy veteran. Michelle Everson has been teaching online for five years. Here, she shares the top 10 best practices she has learned about online teaching.

Discussion boards. Google documents. YouTube videos. TED Talks. Khan Academy. These are just a few of the many resources some of us have used in our ever-growing arsenal of techie tools. We want to stay on the cutting edge. The Sloan Consortium (now Online Learning Consortium) predicts this trend toward an increased usage of technology will continue into the foreseeable future.

Literature instructors teaching Shakespeare can bring his plays alive by incorporating technology into the literature classroom.

Facebook and Twitter may be ubiquitous, but there are many other social media tools out there that can enhance teaching and learning. Here, three educators share their favorites.

According to ACTFL, foreign language learners need as much as 240+ hours of input to reach an intermediate level of proficiency. I'm looking into ways to use Twitter together with other applications like Feedly to encourage students to become autonomous learners and get more input from authentic francophone listening and reading sources. I can help them navigate through the sea of information available by sending them my suggested feeds and then practice using the target language by discussing topics together. Feedly is used to create a personal list of RSS feeds to favorite online news, video, audio and learning sources and save, publish and/or share them with others via an RSS reader application or even Twitter.