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"I've come to believe that most professors who cling to the lecture format do so because they crave being the center of attention - even when their audience is indifferent or hostile. Faculty get so little respect these days outside the classroom that it seems only natural for us to covet whatever respect we can garner from within it."

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.

"As online content continues to be increasingly consumed through mobile platforms, it's no wonder we're seeing new formats to deliver information more quickly and fluidly. In the past, we've seen Wibbitz present any news story as a visual and dynamic infographic instead of plain old text. But now Spritz believes that humans can read much faster using its system of 'streaming' text at up to 600 words per minute."

We're pretty keen on optimal timing for social media here at Buffer, and I figured it was high time I collected all the information we have about online communication into one place. I've collected research and stats on Twitter, Facebook, email and blogging to help you find the best time to communicate with others in each format.

"L'Université Laval (UL) met les pieds dans l'enseignement du futur. L'établissement offrira à l'automne son premier cours en ligne ouvert et gratuit, inspiré des «massive open online courses» (MOOC), particulièrement populaires aux États-Unis. Au Québec, cette nouvelle offre de formation n'en est qu'à ses balbutiements."

"Video games are playing an increasing role in school curricula as teachers seek to deliver core lessons such as math and reading-not to mention new skills such as computer programming-in a format that holds their students' interests. Some herald this gamification of education as the way of the future and a tool that allows students to take a more active role in learning as they develop the technology skills they need to succeed throughout their academic and professional careers."

"The University of Toronto is committed to exploring new ways of teaching and sharing knowledge in the 21st Century, and its participation in the two platforms Coursera and EdX are an essential part of this. Instructors from the university have already launched very well received "Massive Open Online Courses" on subjects ranging from programming to aboriginal education, statistics to mental health and psychology. To further our understanding of these new course formats, the Office of Online Learning Strategies (OLS), together with the course instructors, have developed an extensive research program around MOOCs and flipped classrooms"

"Do you know the actual theories of learning? A learning theory is an attempt to describe how people learn, helping us understand this inherently complex process. There's sub-levels of each theory, behavior and other categories … it's complex. But it's worth understanding. This helpful infographic does a solid job of breaking down the basics of learning theories in a visual and understandable format. I personally enjoy the part about connectivism in the digital age. "

"The primary thing to keep in mind, the supermagic key, is that HTML is used for meaning and CSS is used for presentation. HTML is nothing more than fancy structured content and the visual formatting of that content will come later when we tackle CSS. You might find different approaches elsewhere on the web but HTML Dog focuses on best practice from the outset and getting into the frame of mind of doing things the right way from the start will lead to much better results in the end."

The working group has heard and received suggestions across a broad range of topics. Here are a few examples: Make an institutional commitment to fostering high-quality hybrid instruction (online and face-to-face) and provide the IT infrastructure to support course development and redevelopment along those lines. Establish an experimental college with the freedom to innovate in different course formats and individualized interdisciplinary majors. Require an e-portfolio of all undergraduate students, connecting the first-year experience and co-curricular activities to their major field of study and career preparation.

"alev Leetaru has been liberating a ton of public domain images from books and putting them all on Flickr. He's been going through Internet Archive scans of old, public domain books, isolating the images, and turning them into individual images. Because, while the books and images are all public domain, very few of the images have been separated from the books and released in a digital format."

"So when we saw the very useful teachbytes graphic above making some noise on pinterest on several different popular #edtech websites, it reminded us of the constant demands changing technologies place on existing ways we do business. When and in what contexts it makes sense to cite social media content is probably a more relevant post than sharing a graphic that simply shows the format, but they're both nice to have, yes?"

"WGU Academy courses will be delivered in an online, competency-based format similar to the WGU learning model. Students will enroll in customized programs of two or more college-level courses that typically include a writing course and one or more courses in math, general education, or introductory-level classes focused on desired degree paths. In addition to college-level courses, WGU Academy offers the Program for Academic and Career Advancement (PACA). Modeled on a nationally recognized social and emotional learning course used by WGU for several years, the course provides group sessions, peer interaction, and one-to-one coaching to build confidence and college persistence."

"Companies are in constant pursuit of building simple and usable products. More features, new technologies, and advanced capabilities but still in a lightweight and simple to use format. More often than not, making it simple is the hardest thing there can be."

"We use this chord diagram in our LMS subscription, offered with MindWires, to show the movement in the LMS market - from the old system to the new system. We got great feedback, so we decided to use the same format to represent the relationship between the LMS market and the SIS market."

The Modern Language Association likes to keep up with the times. As we all know, some information breaks first or only on Twitter and a good academic needs to be able to cite those sources. So, the MLA has devised a standard format that you should keep in mind.

Ms. Wirth had tried to use Google Docs to help the course's 40,000 enrolled students to organize themselves into groups. But that method soon became derailed when various authors began editing the documents. Things continued downhill from there; some students also had problems downloading certain course materials that had been added to the syllabus at the last minute. When the confusion continued, Georgia Tech decided to call a timeout.

This is an interesting article about the potential pitfalls, but no where did I see anything about the spirit of experimentation. When moving forward there are bound to be hiccups.

I really liked Ms Wirth - I was enjoying the lectures. The other students were so enthusiastic and eager to get started in the discussion groups. I guess it needed a different format? Maybe we need a course on how to design a MOOC. When the number of students start getting in the tens of thousands...small discussion groups are a little more complicated...It will be interesting to see how this moves forward.