Group items tagged

Vol 14, No 2 (2013)

"Many people ask me how I manage my social media accounts (and others make stuff up rather than figure out what I do). Here are the gory, inside-story details. Perhaps you may find some of my methods useful to help you get the most out of social media, too. I wrote this article for my friends at Hubspot in May, this is the June 2013 update."

In October 2011, the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges launched the Open Course Library, a collection of high-quality, low-cost educational materials to correspond with the 81 largest-enrollment courses in the state. The first 42 courses are available immediately, and the remaining 39 are slated for development in 2012 and release in 2013. In conjunction with the release of the first 42 courses, the Student PIRGs conducted this informal study to evaluate just how much the Open Course Library could reduce costs for students. Based on a survey of 22 of the program's 42 course authors, all of whom had agreed to adopt the materials in their own teaching, we have preliminary estimates for the impact of these courses.

"Sometimes free costs too much. As of January 1, 2013, Flat World Knowledge, which used to describe itself as the world's largest publisher of free and open textbooks online, will no longer offer content at no charge."

There is no such thing as a "Free Lunch"

A to Z conflicts thru recorded history. Browse fast, as the site will be coming down to revamp its interactivity. Becoming a non-Flash site in 2013. I wonder if it will show the Apple vs Adobe war over Flash and how Adobe lost.

"If you want humans to fear and respect their robot overlords you have to start early. Elementary school children in Korea in the cities of Masan and Daegu are among the first to be exposed to robotic teachers. "

This is the course blog for the section of ETAD 470 that I teach for the College of Education. The current iteration of this site is for the term starting in January 2013.

EverFi, Inc. the leading education technology company for critical skills, today announced that it has built Sash, the first open-source badging platform that enables education companies to use badges to encourage and recognize student achievement. EverFi launched t open-source badging technology across its K-12 learning platform in the 2012-2013 academic year. The technology behind Sash allows organizations to integrate badge creation, management, and display into their own products. The badging platform follows the metadata format established by the Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure.

Online enrollment growth, while still substantial, is slowing. The 2013 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group reveals the number of higher education students taking at least one online course has now surpassed 7.1 million. The 6.1 percent growth rate, although the lowest for a decade, still represents over 400,000 additional students taking at least one online course.

"Out of 841,687 registrants in 17 courses offered in 2012 and 2013 by the universities' joint EdX program, 43,196 saw the classes to conclusion, according to an e-mailed statement from the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based schools. Some of the students signed up for multiple courses, according to the statement."

This report is the result of a National Science Foundation-Sponsored Computing Research Association Workshop held at MIT on January 9-11, 2013. This workshop developed a framework for understanding current disruptive change in higher education learning delivery models and outlined steps towards a research agenda for realizing possible benefits while avoiding future pitfalls.

"Here is a consolidated look at some of the most poignant and pertinent information about Google & Google for Business available. This content was originally provided and curated by none other than +Denis Labelle. There is content a plenty here folks, most images lead to pages and every link displayed is active, so just click away to dive deeper. From video production and Google Plus to Maps and Google Enterprise, these slides should have enough info for anyone to satisfy all their Google urges."

"In January 2013, Leuphana University ventured into global online learning with the launch of Leuphana Digital School's prototype course "ThinkTank - Ideal City of the 21st Century", a cost-and-barrier-free academic platform that offered collaborative web-based learning led by distinguished scholars and experts. This new program introduced a fresh, unique approach to collaborative learning - a university project open to participants from all over the world, regardless of where they live and what they do."

"Twitter with its short and snappy messaging is very dependent on mobile usage and smart phones. The rise of the visual web is making Pinterest and Tumblr the fastest growing social networks on the planet. Google+ is no longer an afterthought and is embedded in Google's web assets including Gmail, local checkins and the mobile Android ecosystems."

The Blended Schools Network is hosting a massive open online course (MOOC). Starting on Monday, October 21, 2013 this course is designed for educators who wish to Learn the fundamentals of being a quality online teacher using a pre-built online course. Note: This course is designed for educators that have access to online course content via a course management system of their choosing (e.g. Blackboard, Canvas, Edmodo, Moodle etc.). If you do not have access to an online course the Blended Schools Network can provide you with a sample online course for use during the MOOC. This MOOC is an online course consisting of: Weekly online lesson content that can be completed at any time during the assigned week Weekly online collaboration activities that can be completed at any time during the assigned week Weekly online presentation and discussion sessions that can be attended live or viewed as a recording

This looked interesting - very interesting.....

"Preliminary results of a study of 16 massive open online courses offered through the University of Pennsylvania show that only a small percentage of people who start the courses finish them-and that, on average, only half of those who register for the courses even watch the first lecture. The study, conducted by the university's Graduate School of Education, is reviewing data from about a million users of the courses, which Penn offered on the Coursera platform, from June 2012 to June 2013. Two of the seven researchers involved-Laura W. Perna, a professor of higher education, and Alan Ruby, senior fellow for international education-described the study on Thursday in a presentation at the MOOC Research Conference now under way in Arlington, Tex."

"the report also says that students prefer that faculty themselves provide instruction in how to use technology, rather than rely on the help desk or online-only documentation, which suggests that for the foreseeable future, faculty who incorporate technology in interesting or significant ways will need to continue to budget class time to cover how to use the tech."

"According to the recently released 2013 Speak Up National Research Project findings, Flipped Learning-defined in the survey as using lecture videos as homework while using class time for more in-depth learning such as discussions, projects, experiments, and to provide personalized coaching to individual students-is surpassing all other digital trends, including mobile apps and technology…at least, that is, in K-12."

"Last fall, Alberta Education sent two 2013 diploma-exam questions along with nearly 1,900 student essay answers that had been graded by teachers to LightSide, a Pennsylvania company that develops computer software to score student essays. LightSide's automated algorithms outperformed human reliability in the Alberta study by about 20 per cent, said the company's January 2014 report to the government."