Group items tagged

"This post is for teachers and students who want to learn more, get going, and start using OER this year."

"In essence, it is a just a distributed ledger to record transactions. What makes it special is that it is durable, time-stamped, transparent and decentralized. Those characteristics are equally useful for managing financial transactions as for a system of reputation. In fact, you can think of reputation as a type of currency for social capital, rather than financial capital."

"The Delaware Department of Education (DDE) recently joined a national movement to use high-quality, openly licensed educational resources in schools. In support of the #GoOpen campaign, launched by the United States Department of Education's Office of Education Technology, Delaware will build a statewide repository of open educational resources (OER). "

"How can companies get a better idea of which skills employees and job candidates have? While university degrees and grades have done that job for a long time, they've done it imperfectly. In today's rapidly evolving knowledge economy, badges, nanodegrees, and certificates have aimed to bridge the gap - but also leave a lot to be desired. While HR departments are eager for better "people analytics," that concept is still fuzzy. And simply collecting data is not enough - to be used, data has to be presented usefully."

"Why do practitioners in higher education, student affairs, and students services always go to the "tool" question first? Why do we want to know what's "hot" with the digital, social technologies?"

"Along the way, we should encourage learners who have been raised on a diet of compliance and social control to take a critical mind-set. But that doesn't mean that we should teach them that all arguments are equally valid and that the truth is whatever you decide it is at that moment. Just as we learn to raise our standards when analyzing the claims of others, we also need to apply high standards to our own thinking. That's why critical thinking can be an important part of self-improvement. It can help you get what you want, but it can also help you decide what you want to want."

"The Digital Framework is a comprehensive collection of digital capabilities, skills and competencies that NTU has identified as relevant across the institution. The Framework consists of a variety of areas of practice and each area is split into four levels of development. See both the CPLD website and the new NOW NTU Digital Framework learning room for further information about the Framework."

"Responding to calls for additional resources to support postsecondary instructors, many vendors and organizations now offer online educational development resources. The ultimate goal is to improve instruction and student learning, but to get there, higher education institutions must examine and evaluate these tools, as well as consider the specific needs of diverse campus stakeholders. After research and discussion, the Professional and Organizational Development Network developed eight principles to guide institutions as they explore and select online educational development resources for their campus communities."

"Jeannette M. Wing actually phrases it, "computational thinking" in her article on the subject, and writes that "Computational thinking is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just for computer scientists. To reading, writing, and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child's analytical ability.""

" I'm sure many teachers would happily outsource homework grading and assessment to the droids. Blended learning will likely continue to make advances across classrooms as a substitution of teachers' time, though I see it unlikely to dominate instruction, particularly in elementary grades."

"The course was the last eight weeks of the first semester, and the last eight weeks of the spring semester.  It was a good experience, and I'll be continuing next year, especially now because I've done it once (though it is tough teaching for three hours in the evening after being at high school all day!)"

"I'm delighted that there's some very smart and committed people working on the technical side of the Open Badges ecosystem. For example, yesterday's community call (which unfortunately I couldn't make) resurrected the 'tech panel'. One thing that's really important is to ensure that the *user experience* across the Open Badges ecosystem is unambiguous; people who have earned badges need to know where they're putting them and why. At the moment, we've got three services wrapped up together in badge issuing platforms such as Open Badge Academy:"

"While eTextbook use is increasingly common, the reasons appear logistical (lower cost and convenience) rather than for pedagogical. The pedagogical side cannot be ignored. Publishers and providers of digital content need to increase the interactivity of the content in order to go beyond simple digital facsimiles of print versions. Additionally, instructors need to select eTextbooks with high quality features, as well as model the use of the eTextbook to show how to read and study effectively from the digital resource."

" humans are more important than technology, but inspiring faculty should be our goal. Our organizational cultures need to embrace online learning as unique. We need to be supporting faculty by immersing them in engaging, meaningful online classes as part of their preparation to becoming great online instructors. When our organizational practices convey a hierarchy between face-to-face and online classes, that hierarchy will translate into the attitudes of the instructors who teach those classes."

"Are you using add-ons for Google Apps? These wonderful tools - available for Documents, Sheets and Forms - make Google Apps even better. One of my favorite add-ons is Doctopus. This tool lets teachers create, manage, organize and evaluate student projects in Google Drive."

"Additional information for Apps administrators*: The classic version of Google Sites will remain fully functional for at least one year. In the future, we will provide options for moving content from classic Google Sites."

"The launch of SUNY OER Services should make high-quality educational resources more accessible and affordable to more students in the New York state higher education system."

"The key to unlocking a brighter future for students lies within the understanding and application of learning science. As a data scientist and edtech developer, I believe our job is not about inventing the next shiny digital device; it's about improving education outcomes for students, and doing so demonstrably and empirically with research. And the starting point for that is looking at what we already know from the science of learning."

"Now, any teacher - including clueless ones like me - can experiment with a new Minecraft Education Edition for free over the summer."