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"Producers of web-video instruction need to negotiate old and new rules of video grammar to remain credible (to the traditional video grammar) as they also strive to be cool (in the new media video grammar). The goal is to avoid violating traditional video grammar while tapping into new video aesthetics to gain ethos with web-savvy audiences (like students). This tutorial explains the best old and new practices in creating talking heads web video for maximum impact and effectiveness."

"Google Docs is an online suite of digital tools that provides teachers with some powerful features to help students develop 21st century writing skills. Since Docs are collaborative and available 24/7, the tool is well-suited for facilitating digital writing workshops that combine peer editing with cooperative grouping and small group fine-tuned writing instruction."

The Flipped Classroom IS: A means to INCREASE interaction and personalized contact time between students and teachers. An environment where students take responsibility for their own learning.  A classroom where the teacher is not the "sage on the stage", but the "guide on the side". A blending of direct instruction with constructivist learning.

Powerful Instructional Tools for Instructors and Students Delivers an automatic grading solution for math and science courses. Reinforces student learning through practice and instant feedback. Offers instructors a wide selection of textbooks and advanced teaching tools.

New data from a long-term study by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College suggest that some of the students most often targeted in online learning's access mission are less likely than their peers to benefit from -- and may in fact be hurt by -- digital as opposed to face-to-face instruction.

"Digital Storytelling 106--better known as "ds106"--sprouted in 2010 as a computer science class on digital storytelling at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Founded by Jim Groom, educational technology consultant Alan Levine, and instructional technologists Martha Burtis & Tom Woodward, ds106 has evolved into a model for all instructors and students who aspire to experience, explore, and extend connected learning."

For these reasons, the SUNYCoW opposes the prospect that MOOCs--or any other form of massive-scale instruction--might be accepted for credit in writing, especially in satisfaction of SUNY's Basic Communication requirement. Completion of the Writing requirement should always involve close work with a faculty member who can provide students mentorship, careful assessment and a genuine sense of a human audience.

"A quick search for "edtech communities" returns thousands of results. Here's a helpful list of some of the best communities for professors, administrators and IT workers. "

"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."

"The lack of teacher training in education schools has also been borne out recently by a new report by the National Council on Teacher Quality, entitled "Training Our Future Teachers." The question the group asked was a simple one: Do education schools teach classroom management? The answer was: not very much. The group examined 122 teacher-preparation programs and found that while most programs could say they had classroom management as part of their curriculum, classroom management strategies rarely received "the connected and concentrated focus they deserve." What's more, "instruction is generally divorced from practice (and vice versa) in most programs, with little evidence that what gets taught gets practiced." Education schools, says Kate Walsh, who leads the group, "don't see their job as training teachers. They see their job as creating professional identity.""

The authors lay out four "pillars" of practice, conveniently chosen to form FLIP as an acronym: Flexible environment (Students are allowed a variety of modes of learning and means of assessment) Learning culture (Student-centered communities of inquiry rather than instructor-centered lecture) Intentional content (Basically this means placing content in the most appropriate context - direct instruction prior to class for individual use, video that's accessible to all students, etc.) Professional educator (Being a reflective, accessible instructor who collaborates with other educators and takes responsibility for perfecting one's craft)

Although faculty and students are the primary learning management system users, administrators and IT experts often select the system. This article stresses the importance of involving all stakeholders in the selection process, offers a step-by-step guide to LMS selection, and enables readers to develop a customized list of LMS features that align with their institution's instructional and learning priorities.

we'll be offering a free 4-week professional development course designed to help instructors, trainers, and instructional designers learn how to better use social media to support learning, whether in an informal networking sense or by embedding social media into more formal learning contexts. The course will be hosted on Blackboard Coursesites and is open to anyone, anywhere in the world, at no charge.

"This post is part of a series of 11 posts in which we're sharing the syllabi for all 11 courses in the Instructional Technology and Digital Media Literacy (IT&DML) program. Please keep in mind the materials we're sharing here are the documents and specifics as approved when we initially launched the program. The "real" implementation of these courses is a bit different as we embrace new digital texts and tools."

"Of all the challenges facing online learning, I believe the need to train faculty properly to be the most difficult. Without adequate training in teaching methods, I don't see how learning technologies can be used effectively. We cannot afford to go on creating a whole parallel industry of instructional designers to hold the hands of faculty who can't teach effectively. Higher education is costing too much to have amateurs doing the teaching."

"For the past five Mondays, Mr. Musselman and Mr. Schersten have been holding an after-school coding club for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. The students used Hopscotch, a free, introductory coding app using visual programming "blocks" to instruct the behavior of objects on screen."

"If administrators really wanted to improve the quality of any particular online course, they would cut the professor a check and walk away.  No, I'm not talking free money here.  There'd be a call for proposals, and reports at the end to demonstrate that the professors who got the money did what they said they'd do.  All the usual accountability measures.  If the professor needs help making this happen, then they can call the instructional designers rather than the other way around.  If administrators wanted to find a place to fund these checks, they could just cut out all the money going to for-profit Silicon Valley startups rather than the actual educational experience and give it to faculty instead."

"We contend that the real issue - and the one that largely goes unaddressed - is that the majority of people who teach online are given virtually no assistance in learning how to teach online. Professional development for these instructors is limited to lunch 'n' learns, basic learning platform support, and other technology-related resources, but generally fails to expose instructors to the best techniques for online instruction."

"students have to (first) be comfortable with the technology, (second) they have to understand the educational use of the technology, and (third) they have to adjust to new instructional methods that use technology. Expecting that they will quickly and easily make the transition to blended learning is a recipe for failure."

"MIT is taking perhaps its biggest step yet to combine free online classes with its traditional on-campus instruction. The university announced Wednesday at its Solve conference that it will allow students to obtain one of its master's degrees by doing half of the coursework online-from anywhere, for free, without any admissions tests-and then doing the other half in a single semester on campus."