Group items tagged

"Online education has officially arrived. What five years ago was the ubiquitous domain of University of Phoenix, is now dominated by sexy start-ups like the recently announced edX by Harvard and MIT. The unprecedented boom of these education technology outfits has thrown the media into a tizzy about the coming of an education revolution. It certainly will happen, but there are some fundamental challenges it must tackle before it can disrupt and transform elite higher education."

Another advance in the flipped classroom construct. What I found most interesting was the use of the students as peer assessors when they were given papers to write instead of quizzes. not sure how effective it would be, but it might be very effective to have 1000 or so thoughtful critiques of a paper you've written. You would see a trend of the responses, and it might weed out subjectivity. That kind of "crowdsourcing" is something unique that technology could provide. There is a module in moodle which was not ready for primetime in version 1.9, but in Moodle 2.0 it might be. It was called Workshop, and allowed teachers and students to do peer editing and grading in an organized way. If it works better in 2.0, we should consider using it for peer editing exercises... ben

"Seven years of research at the University of Central Florida (UCF) has found that blended courses--those that combine face-to-face instruction with online learning and reduced classroom contact hours--have the potential to increase student learning while lowering attrition rates compared to equivalent, fully online courses. This research bulletin reports the results of a disciplined UCF program that has led to a fundamental redesign of the instructional model."

A passionate and eloquent plea from a university lecturer, attesting to the continued relevance of the lecture as a learning tool. I value her point that a lecture promotes active listening, but I disagree with the notion that a technology that has worked for thousands of years should see continued use simply because it has worked in the past.[1] Given the multitudes of other means of delivery of information today (remember, the lecture was developed when the only other means to spread information was handwriting), the lecture as transmission of information is a tool, not THE tool. She also equates books to lectures, and says that if we abandon one we move toward abandoning the other. A bit of tenuous logic, if you ask me. Still, perhaps worth a read.  [1] See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptorium#Trithemius.27_Praise_of_Scribes

Lots of examples of rubrics for web, collaborative, and digital projects from the University of Wisconsin.

"Search, links, media sharing, social media, Wikipedia, games, open source etc. are ground breaking shifts in the way we learn, says Donald Clark. Unfortunately, they're not matched by the way we teach. The growing gap between teaching practice and learning practice is acute and growing. Institutional teaching, especially in Universities is hanging on to the pedagogic fossil that is the lecture. The true driver for positive, pedagogic change is the internet."

A study that sheds light on the debates and the intersections of technology and 21st century skills from the vantage point of school-based educators. Attitudes of more than 1000 educators is explored

Good overview of action research. "This booklet discusses several types of action research, its history, and a process that may be used to engage educators in action research. Two stories from the field, written by teachers about their own reflections on the process, are given as illustrations of action research."

"Our research shows that the argument that there is a generational break between today's generation of young people who are immersed in new technologies and older generations who are less familiar with technology is flawed," says Dr Jones. "The diverse ways that young people use technology today shows the argument is too simplistic and that a new single generation, often called the 'net generation', with high skill levels in technology does not exist." Press release: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/press-releases/20523/not-all-todays-students-are-tech-savvy.aspx

"New Horizons for Learning identifies and communicates successful strategies as a leading-edge web resource for educational practice."

Good article - although not as good as the ones posted by Sean.

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.Tags:The Stone is featuring occasional posts by Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, that apply critical thinking to information and events that have appeared in the news.

Lots of examples of rubrics, both holistic and analytic.