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alexandra m. pickett

Does Class Size Matter? - Distance Education Report Article - 1 views

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    Does class size matter? http://www.magnapubs.com/newsletter/distance-education-report/270/Does-Class-Size-Matter-13523-1.html This article originally appeared in Distance Education Report. I've been the director of online education at my institution since 2007. One question I've been asked many times over the years is "What is the optimal number of students to have in an online class?" My usual response is to pretend I didn't hear the question and walk away as quickly as possible. Well, that's not totally true. But as you can imagine, this is not an easy question to answer, as there are many variables that come into play--the topic of the class, the overall course design, the academic rank of students in the class, the experience of the instructor teaching the class, etc. I've had many interesting discussions with students, staff and administrators over the years about enrollments in online courses. When I first started teaching online, my courses would fill almost immediately, sometimes within minutes. Inevitably, students would contact me and request an override for the course - not just one or two students, but dozens upon dozens of students. They were usually surprised when I said no. These frustrated students would often reply with a comment such as, "But it's an online class, so you can take unlimited numbers of students and it won't be any additional work for you." Surprisingly, I've heard this kind of comment from some faculty, staff and administrators as well. I usually view these interactions as opportunities to offer a bit of education about online learning. So I might say, for example, that if I had seven graded assignments in my online course, and 25 students, I would end up grading 175 assignments--with the emphasis on "I." However, if I doubled the number of students in my class and graded seven assignments for 50 students, that would be 350 assignments to grade. There were also 22 quizzes, two exams and multiple
alexandra m. pickett

An Open Letter to Professor Edmundson | Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

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    "Given your critique of "online education," I find it ironic that learning designers and others who work day-in, day-out on online (and blended) learning spend much of our time saying similar things to our faculty partners and university stakeholders as you so eloquently articulated in the above quotes. The error that you make, and it is a fundamental error, is that you confuse what is going on at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, M.I.T. with edX and Coursera, with traditional online learning. You write as if you are critiquing online classes, but what you are really taking issue with are the new crop of massively open online courses (MOOCs). This error is not merely semantic. Confusing online learning with MOOCs disallows any meaningful analysis of the challenges and benefits of either format. Conflating online learning with MOOCs also closes the possibility of any substantive discussion of how institutions of higher education are responding to challenges around access, cost and quality. And perhaps most troubling, by conflating online learning with MOOCs you are mischaracterizing and devaluing the hard work of your fellow educators to bring the active learning principles, the principles that you yourself espouse, to new teaching modalities."
alexandra m. pickett

Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World - 0 views

  • In the end they titled their paper “The Weirdest People in the World?” (pdf) By “weird” they meant both unusual and Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. It is not just our Western habits and cultural preferences that are different from the rest of the world, it appears. The very way we think about ourselves and others—and even the way we perceive reality—makes us distinct from other humans on the planet, not to mention from the vast majority of our ancestors. Among Westerners, the data showed that Americans were often the most unusual, leading the researchers to conclude that “American participants are exceptional even within the unusual population of Westerners—outliers among outliers.”
  • the “weird” Western mind is the most self-aggrandizing and egotistical on the planet: we are more likely to promote ourselves as individuals versus advancing as a group. WEIRD minds are also more analytic, possessing the tendency to telescope in on an object of interest rather than understanding that object in the context of what is around it. The WEIRD mind also appears to be unique in terms of how it comes to understand and interact with the natural world. Studies show that Western urban children grow up so closed off in man-made environments that their brains never form a deep or complex connection to the natural world.
  • metaphysical questions: Is my thinking so strange that I have little hope of understanding people from other cultures? Can I mold my own psyche or the psyches of my children to be less WEIRD and more able to think like the rest of the world? If I did, would I be happier?
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  • weird children develop their understanding of the natural world in a “culturally and experientially impoverished environment” and that they are in this way the equivalent of “malnourished children,” it’s difficult to see this as a good thing.
  • Cultures are not monolithic; they can be endlessly parsed. Ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs, economic status, parenting styles, rural upbringing versus urban or suburban—there are hundreds of cultural differences that individually and in endless combinations influence our conceptions of fairness, how we categorize things, our method of judging and decision making, and our deeply held beliefs about the nature of the self, among other aspects of our psychological makeup.
  • If religion was necessary in the development of large-scale societies, can large-scale societies survive without religion?
  • research about fairness might first be applied to anyone working in international relations or development.
  • Those trying to use economic incentives to encourage sustainable land use will similarly need to understand local notions of fairness to have any chance of influencing behavior in predictable ways.
  • The historical missteps of Western researchers, in other words, have been the predictable consequences of the WEIRD mind doing the thinking.
alexandra m. pickett

C. M. Rubin: The Global Search for Education: Is Your Child an Innovator? - 0 views

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    "How do you train an Innovator? We are born curious. We are born with imagination. The first challenge is to ensure that these very human qualities are not schooled out of us, as Sir Ken Robinson says. Beyond that, in my research, I identified five essential education and parenting practices that develop young people's capacities to innovate: 1. Learning to work collaboratively (innovation is a team sport!). 2. Learning to understand problems from a multi-disciplinary perspective. 3. Learning to take risks and learn from mistakes. 4. Focusing on creating versus consuming. 5. Reinforcing the intrinsic motivations of play, passion, and purpose versus the extrinsic carrots and sticks."
Rob Piorkowski

21CFP - The Fluencies - 0 views

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    The 21st Century Fluencies are not about technical prowess, they are critical thinking skills, and they are essential to living in this multimedia world. We call them fluencies for a reason. To be literate means to have knowledge or competence. To be fluent is something a little more, it is to demonstrate mastery and to do so unconsciously and smoothly.
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    Critical Thinking meets Technology
Rob Piorkowski

Seven Keys to Improving Teaching and Learning - Faculty Focus | Faculty Focus - 0 views

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    "My first suggestion is to start where the bottlenecks in the discipline are," he said. "What topics in your course are harder for the students? Why is that? Are students lacking requisite prior knowledge? Do they need more practice of certain basic skills? Do they bring misconceptions to the table? If you don't know, collect some data. Once you get a handle on the reasons why, start bridging those gaps with appropriate interventions. Work incrementally. Get comfortable with a few changes in your teaching first, and then expand to others, until you reach a tipping point. …
alexandra m. pickett

Is technology the best way to stop online cheating? No, experts say: better teaching is. - 0 views

  • The better question than "how can I stop cheating?" is "how can I best facilitate and assess learning?"
  • "Students are more likely to engage in dishonesty when they’re under stress and pressure, when the norms are unclear, and when there are temptations and opportunities," she said.
  • "when students don’t feel connected and a sense of belonging to the learning community, whether it's online or face-to-face, they are more likely to detach from any sense of collective community responsibility or ethics and substitute for that a pure ethic of mercenary self-interest,"
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  • 'What’s the best teaching and learning experience I can construct and deliver for the vast majority of students who are there to learn authentically and who want to succeed?'"
alexandra m. pickett

Reflections of a mooc unvirgin | E-Learning Provocateur - 0 views

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    "Suggestions for improvement To be fair, the cons that I have listed above are not unique to the EDCMOOC, nor to online learning in general. I remember similar problems from my uni days on campus. Nonetheless, they inform my following suggestions for improvement… Week 1 should be set aside as a social week to allow the happy greeters to get their social proclivities out of their systems. It may be tempting to set aside a pre-week for this purpose, but the truth is it will bleed into Week 1 anyway. The instructors need to be much more active in the discussions. I recommend they seed each week with a pinned discussion thread, which marks the official line of enquiry and discourages multiple (and confusing) threads emerging about the same concepts. More importantly, the instructors should actively prompt, prod, guide and challenge the participants to engage in critical analysis. Explication of the implications for e-learning must be the outcome. A moderator should delete the spam and ban the spammers. A support page and discussion thread should be dedicated to helping the lost souls, so that they don't pollute the rest of the course with their problems. All in all, I am glad to report my first mooc experience was a positive one. I won't rush out to do another one in a hurry, but that's simply because I know how demanding they are. But one thing's for sure, I will do another one at some stage. I look forward to it!"
alexandra m. pickett

Are Teachers of Tomorrow Prepared to Use Innovative Tech? | MindShift - 0 views

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    "Are Teachers of Tomorrow Prepared to Use Innovative Tech?"
alexandra m. pickett

Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog: 12 Leadership Guidelines for Leading through Learning ... - 0 views

  • Understand that we will never get back to normal: While it is comfortable to want to seek the status quo, “normal” in times of a crisis is constantly changing. Leaders need to move on to seek better ways of doing things, letting these new ways become the new normal. Take care of one another: Listening reduces anxiety. Provide regular updates on what is happening across the organization and expand inclusivity. React…pause…respond: The right response will be made once information gathering, integrity, an open heart, and seeking to understand have been considered. Talk—even when you don’t believe there is much to say: Overcommunication is essential during turbulent times. Consistent and continuous messaging prevents rumors from spreading and demonstrates the leaders’ approachability and transparency. Be visible—now is not the time to play hide-and-seek: People become fearful when the leader goes into hiding. As a leader, be present, inform comfort, and provide strength for others. Maintain integrity and high value morals: Current circumstances should not influence or distort your definition of integrity and other core values. Optimize costs, with retention in mind: Make cost optimization decisions keeping employee retention in mind. This allows leaders to assess risk and make more informed decisions. Be a brand ambassador: The organization needs people who are brand ambassadors. As brand ambassadors, you are responsible for representing the organization both internally and externally in a positive manner. This means you must refrain from making statements that might cause further turbulence. Assess and rebuild trust: Rebuilding an injured organization requires making difficult decisions that not everyone will understand. For this reason, you and other leaders must continuously asses and rebuild trust. Remember, leaders are human, too: Though there will be difficult times during a crisis, as leader, it is important to remain composed. Think like a child: Try to live “in the moment,” not allowing business to consume every moment. Work/life balance can exist, even in a crisis. Take care of your emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being: Don’t put any aspect of your well-being on hold. While change and uncertainty at work are draining, you cannot allow them to take over your life.
danfeinberg

Coursera - 0 views

shared by danfeinberg on 23 Apr 12 - No Cached
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    We are a social entrepeneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Our technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students.
alexandra m. pickett

Anne Derryberry, Badges: The "New Black," or another "Black Hole"? - 0 views

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    RT @aderryberry: talking about #badges 4 learning at #slnsolsummit coming up at 9 http://t.co/0ewoy4LTKo #gamification #seriousgames... @edwsonoma Hi Ellen!! @aderryberry is w/ us LIVE: #Badges: The "New Black," or another "Black Hole"? http://t.co/eVCQdeNcap #games4learning @carlacasilli YES tune in live to hear @AnneDerryberry on #Badges now! http://t.co/Apk8Xomex1 #gamification #seriousgames What is "#gamification"? asks @aderryberry #slnsolsummit thoughts? comments? http://t.co/0ewoy4LTKo #seriousgames #games4learning @edwsonoma Hi Ellen!! @aderryberry is w/us LIVE on #Badges at the #SLNSOLSummit http://t.co/eVCQdeNcap #games4learning #gamification @ibogost http://t.co/sugrnric9Z : ) #SLNSOLSummit is streaming live right now. join us?! http://t.co/KzxsZhzfZX #SLNSOLSummit live right now. join us?! #games4learning http://t.co/KzxsZhzfZX #lrnchat #edchat #edtech #badges #highered #onlinelearning r u viewing the #slnsolsummit LIVE webcast on #badges? http://t.co/KzxsZhzfZX thanks 4 joining us! Who are you? where are you? : ) Anne Derryberry: Badges: The "New Black," or another "Black Hole"? http://t.co/NsldVPFZay #SUNYCIT2013 #games4learning
alexandra m. pickett

» live SLN SOLsummit 2013 - 0 views

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    @nicholemcgill glad u will be able to join us virtually 4 the #slnsolsummit via the webcast! links will b posted here http://t.co/z8IoZ2TV video intro and preview for the #slnsolsummit coming up this week http://t.co/ri59YbSZ4X webcast live & free http://t.co/3SyKgulqFt RT @SLNSOLSUMMIT: the #SLNsolsummit will be broadcast live & FREE w/no registration starting tomorrow http://t.co/d72xrBe6op check o ... welcome to the #SLNsolsummit LIVE webcast! thank u for joining us! who u are and where u are at this moment? http://t.co/5ERUGhDLX0 #SUNY Provost David Lavallee speaking LIVE right now! #SLNSOLsummit #highered #onlinelearning http://t.co/hTQFYpARkq Open by Design @jimgroom live 11:30am ET Check links 4 day 2 #slnsolsummit webcasts http://t.co/vgFHV61wJk #openeducation #edupunk #diy #oer #slnsolsummit 9am http://t.co/rulPbvEzki @ericstoller @jimgroom @rpetersmauri @courosa @kvignare #sachat #openlearning #moocs #oer... @dlinstruction http://t.co/3SyKgulqFt all streamed sessions have links on this page. #slnsolsummit : ) "games in learning" day3 #slnsolsummit coming up 9am tomorrow LIVE http://t.co/QJxNfNVhS4 #gamisfication #seriousgames #edchat #edtech... TY! RT @kthompso .@alexpickett thks 4 continuing2 "openup" #slnsolsummit 2 all of us outsiders! tremendous resources! http://t.co/2ViPYT5sK8 @usablelearning @carlacasilli @aderryberry ALL #slnsolsummit sessions were recorded and will be available here: http://t.co/3SyKgulqFt .@alexpickett thanks for continuing to "open up" #slnsolsummit to all of us outsiders! tremendous resources! http://t.co/WzSogbw0Lc - Kelvin Thompson (kthompso) http://twitter.com/kthompso/status/307562772768636928 recordings of all sessions will be posted here: http://t.co/3SyKgulqFt Slides here: http://t.co/emGjcPRIJr … #slnsolsummit @FredWBaker They have them all up and archived here: http://t.co/17syrE5eZz Pretty cool @alexpickett - Jim Groom (jimgroom) http://twitter.com/jimgroom/status/311212673071194112
alexandra m. pickett

LearningWare - Leaders in learning games and game shows for classroom, online and webinars - 0 views

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    Create your own classroom or self-directed gameshow style games, quizzes, tests and surveys using LearningWare's software templates, described below. All are Y3K compliant. Our mission is to make learning fun. For example, Quiz Rocket is a unique, easy-to-use quiz and survey program. Unlike other web-based tools, Quiz Rocket creates an interactive, media-rich environment for Web users. Using Quiz Rocket's fill-in-the-blanks, template approach, you can customize quizzes and surveys around any content and publish them on the Web for access anywhere, anytime. All six Flash Learning Interactions are included: multiple choice, matching, T/F, branching, short answer, and sequencing questions.
alexandra m. pickett

WebStripper Offline Browser. Download Web Sites and Browse Offline - 0 views

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    Retrieves HTML pages including all links to graphics, sound, video etc. Retrieved sites look just as they would on the web. Scripts still run correctly. Links are converted to point to the files on your own disk. (Links to files you selected not to download are left pointing to the internet so you can go back online to follow links to other pages and sites.)
priyanshu1

5 Great Tricks to Improve Your Grades without Studying Extra Hours - 0 views

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    Hard work and smart work are two sides of a coin so together we can say, work hard and smart. Both are equally important to achieve the workflow - Swiflearn.
priyanshu1

5 Best Tips Improve Grades without Studying Extra Hours | Swiflearn - 0 views

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    Hard work and smart work are two sides of a coin so together we can say, work hard and smart. Both are equally important to achieve the workflow - Swiflearn.
alexandra m. pickett

The Flipped Class Revealed - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education. - 0 views

  • Discussions are led by the students where outside content is brought in and expanded.  These discussions typically reach higher orders of critical thinking.Collaborative work is fluid with students shifting between various simultaneous discussions depending on their needs and interests.Content is given context as it relates to real-world scenarios.Students challenge one another during class on content.Student-led tutoring and collaborative learning forms spontaneously.  Students take ownership of the material and use their knowledge to lead one another without prompting from the teacher.Students ask exploratory questions and have the freedom to delve beyond core curriculum.Students are actively engaged in problem solving and critical thinking that reaches beyond the traditional scope of the course.Students are transforming from passive listeners to active learners.
alexandra m. pickett

Web Ink Now: Friending cats and following eggs: On social networks you ARE your photo - 0 views

  • the default "egg" on Twitter and silhouette Facebook. The default says: “I can’t be bothered to upload an image.
  • But when somebody has an image that is not an actual photo of them, I hesitate and usually do not connect. Why are they hiding? Why use a dog or flower or building, or famous person, or logo instead?
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