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In addition to the benefits of using "clickers" (AKA student response systems) in a classroom to foster a more engaged environment (click here for a quick intro), clickers also offer the opportunity to measure how students are understanding and processing information in real time. "Keeping the poll open" and asking students questions while they are listening/watching is a very useful way to find out how they are able to apply theoretical ideas. Although the examples in this essay focus on music, keeping the poll open could be applied to other time-based arts, or even in other disciplines when a teacher wants to observe how students are processing information as it changes.

"There's little reason for typesetting to be such an expensive bottleneck in both time and money when we have better solutions in place. Academia will have to adopt new methods of producing text-based content. This was true when scholars moved from typewriters to word processors like Microsoft Word. Word enabled new capabilities like saving documents and editing them over time, rich text formatting, and the like. Unfortunately, Word arrived in a world before the internet and has never been adapted to work with the internet. As a result, it takes months to get an article into a format that can communicate with the web. Keep in mind that once we have the text in a web-communicable form the innovative things we can do with it are endless in terms of presentation, analytics, and more. We can't reverse that scholarship is moving to the web so we might as well learn how to speak with the web, today."

"I am particularly excited by the plans we have for what we're calling "MOOC-supported learning communities," in which local groups of MOOC participants benefit from and contribute to the overall MOOC experience, as well as our plans to share the materials we develop for the MOOC (videos, assignments, other resources) in an open-source fashion."

Whatever knowledge the students have consists of "small disconnected islets" in a vast sea of ignorance. Those scattered bits don't add up to much: "It was obvious that whatever they knew they had learned in an entirely mechanical manner, and they could only gape in a sort of dull bewilderment when asked to think for themselves."

"As to the future of digital learning, Bailey predicts increasing opportunities for students to take course online or in blended learning environment, more options for state-approved online classes, and a focus on competency-based learning. "State policy can remove roadblocks to students' digital learning opportunities, Bailey said"

Social presence remains the key to a successful learning experience, and understanding social presence, with its critical connection to learning and community building, allows us to better support faculty and students. Understanding a wide selection of tools, media, and reflective activities helps faculty assist students in taking responsibility for their own learning. Providing iterative feedback and mindful assessments helps faculty meet learning outcomes and guide student learning. Implementing change in small steps is the key to understanding which strategies work and which lead to frustration and discontent.

As you beginning to explore online delivery of your courses, a natural question is how do you translate what you currently are doing as you transition your course online?

What's more, 60 percent of the students responding said they saw an overall big positive effect on the classroom atmosphere, and 67 percent said they were able to concentrate a lot better in class without the phones.

"Online course design strategies from an instructor at the University of Oklahoma."

Mr. Henderson and Michael Phillips, a colleague on the education faculty, have been doing it this way for about five years. They say their students prefer video feedback, finding it clearer and seemingly more sincere than written notes, notwithstanding the lack of polish. And making the videos takes the instructors less time, on average, than would writing out comments longhand.

Ken Grant is known as the "Godfather of Delaware Social Media" - or, in his words, the First State's "Designated Pot Stirrer." "I feed off the energy of crowds."

"Hagan writes her own very successful blog, Math = Love, part of the Math Twitter Blogosphere, on which she says she has met wonderful friends - and her boyfriend. She says she never expected her own blog to get almost 3 million page views. It's a combination of project ideas and very cute "Things Teenagers Say." (Sample: "I'll be here all week with the pi jokes. I'm like a baker.") After learning so much from blogs herself, Hagan says, "I felt like I should give something back to the community I'd been stealing ideas from." But for her, it's about more than just exchanging ideas: "It reminds me that I'm not alone.""

"Instructors often kick off a discussion board assignment by asking each student to respond to an assigned reading. To prevent plagiarism, some learning management systems are set up, either by the platform or by policies of the institution or instructor, to only reveal the full contents of a discussion thread after a student has already posted."

"Not everyone will successfully navigate the shifting jobs market. Those most at risk of technological disruption are men in blue-collar jobs, many of whom reject taking less "masculine" roles in fast-growing areas such as health care. But to keep the numbers of those left behind to a minimum, all adults must have access to flexible, affordable training. The 19th and 20th centuries saw stunning advances in education. That should be the scale of the ambition today."