Group items tagged

"The paper's authors measured two types of goal setting, performance based and task based. After surveying close to 4,000 college students in two field experiments, they found that performance-based goals -- setting a goal to earn a certain grade in the class used for the survey -- didn't have a statistically significant effect on whether a student actually got that grade. But when students set their goals on the tasks required to earn those grades, they performed better over all, even though that wasn't explicitly their goal."

"Organize your tasks, plan projects and sync with your team, without email."

"Understanding how time "works" in online courses can be a challenge for instructors: How do I determine the total time on task expected of students? How can I calculate the time students will need to complete course work? What should students be doing to accomplish course goals and learning outcomes? What should I be doing with my time as online instructor?  "

"To nudge students toward job-friendly degrees, the governor's task force on higher education suggested recently that university tuition rates be frozen for three years for majors in "strategic areas," which would vary depending on supply and demand. An undergraduate student would pay less for a degree in engineering or biotechnology - whose classes are among the most expensive for universities - than for a degree in history or psychology."

Every so often, you may need to record multiple things simultaneously for your audio projects. Without the right equipment, this can be a daunting task, but with the right software tricks, you can get back on track quickly.

"We are creatures of habit, and now we can't seem to slow down.  We're constantly on the run, trying to meet numerous deadlines, multi-tasking our way into oblivion (OK, I exaggerated a little bit here). But when do we actually get to slow down and enjoy our lives?  How can we find our peaceful inner voice, when we're so busy being overwhelmed by the anxious chatter of our running (there's that word again) internal dialogue?"

"Regardless of the goal of MOOCs - be it for profit or idealism - there are genuine educational concerns that need to be closely monitored. A course with 10,000 (or even 1,000) students enrolled cannot foster any significant discussion. Yes, teaching assistants (TAs) can be employed to groups of 100-200 students for online questions etc, but that may not be so simple. About 100 TAs would be needed for a modest-sized MOOC of 10,000 students. Even for the lecturer to organise 100 TAs would be a Herculean task. Another serious concern is evaluation. How can one evaluate 20,000 students taking a course? Yes, electronic quizzes and multiple-choice tests can be given to monitor progress - if the material is suitable for such types of questions. But what about material in the social sciences and humanities that might be harder to evaluate (than science) without essay-style answers? I've already seen that companies are attempting to write computer programs that will grade essays. But as one educator put it, how can a programmer include wit and style for evaluation in such a program?"

"But come Saturday, you'll have to break the law to unlock your phone. If you want to get in under the gun, you can search the Internet for the code to enter to unlock the phone or find a tool that will help you accomplish the task."

ABSOLUTE GARBAGE. AND OTHER WORDS THAT I WILL NOT USE ON A MOOC.

Lecturers in higher education often consider the incorporation of web technologies into their teaching practice. Partially structured and populated course site templates could aid them in getting started with creating and deploying webbased materials and activities to enrich the teaching and learning experience. Discussions among instructional technology support staff and lecturers reveal a paucity of robust specifications for possible course site features that could comprise a template. An attempted mapping from the teaching task as understood by the instructor to the envisaged course website properties proves elusive. We conclude that the idea of an initial state for a course site, embodied in a template, remains useful and should be developed not according to a formula but with careful attention to the context and existing pedagogical practice. Any course template provided for the use of lecturers should be enhanced with supporting instructions and examples of how it may be adapted for their particular purposes.

In order to fulfill the task of analyzing and presenting their Twitter activity, students would need to use an alternative to Storify. Unfortunately, I did not have a backup plan (i.e. a selection of other curation tools for them to use.) So we took this list of 40 curation tools, divided it up among the students in the class (each student tackled 2 of the items on the list), and quickly evaluated each one to see if it would fit our needs. If you'd like to take a look at the results of this evaluation, you can view the GoogleDocs spreadsheet that resulted from my students' work.

"The Teacher Challenge is made up of free professional learning challenges where educators are stepped through weekly tasks that increase their skills while being supported by mentors. The Challenge is open to any educator who wants to increase their skills."

"Integrating a complex set of technological tools in delivering a class results in "digital pain" as the professor talks, brings up video, monitors live chat, and performs a number of other tasks simultaneously, often without support. Responding to technical problems experienced by individual students is not possible in real time during the classes. Dr. Matrix does provide extensive one-on-one technical support before and after classes."

"In a fascinating article in Scientific American, teachers Jody Passanisi and Shara Peters make the case that, while kids today have a seemingly innate facility with technology, they are quick to become impatient and discouraged when faced with complex tasks involving digital tools"

Great quote: "Just because a child jumps at the opportunity to program a TV to record his or her favorite shows does not mean that he or she will approach a classroom learning tool with the same zeal."

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), an international alliance of academic and research libraries, applauds Governor Pat Quinn for signing into law the Open Access to Research Articles Act. The bill, which was spearheaded by State Senator Daniel Biss, requires each Illinois public university to create an open access task force with the goal of making its research available to the public online and free of charge.

Part of the reason for that is that we might consider someone skilled if they need little or no documentation to accomplish a certain task. A skilled chef can make a meal without requiring a recipe, for instance, and a skilled network admin can make major changes to production switches and routers without calling up a CLI reference guide to check syntax. A talented chef, on the other hand, may think along different lines and construct an entirely unique dish for which there is no recipe. A talented system administrator may do much the same, assembling various tools in a unique way and devising a method around a problem that hadn't been attempted before. This may require some research and reference instead of rote knowledge, but the end result is something that wouldn't have otherwise existed, and is something for which there are no guidelines.

"Social collaboration is the reason our business is able to remain connected, agile and profitable in multiple markets. It does this by acting as an unbreakable thread which connects each and every person, 24/7, 365 days a year. The prevalence and value of our social interactions has resulted in all employees regarding the intranet as their 'home base'. Company HQ. The central point from which they start and finish their days, and coordinate their individual tasks. It's also the place where they build real relationships with colleagues in other locations and gain awareness of activities occurring in and around the business."

"As director of technology for Groton-Dunstable Regional School District in Groton, MA, as well as a teacher of high school courses in digital and information literacy, Andrew Marcinek knows what it takes to effectively implement tech in the classroom. One of Marcinek's recent discoveries is Google Hangouts, a free video chat service that enables one-on-one chats and group chats with up to 10 people at a time. For Marcinek, Hangouts provides a new way to connect students beyond the four walls of the classroom. Where students used to need permission slips and school buses to get that "out of classroom" experience, tools such as Hangouts (which educators can join simply by setting up a Google+ page and signing up for the Hangout feature) allow instructors to do all of the following tasks:"

Once we become aware of our multitasking, the number of tasks we're juggling doesn't change. What changes is our attention level to the juggling itself and, in the taxi example, our anxiety about the consequences of the juggling.

"The problem is that we get interrupted frequently in the modern workplace. Rituals become habits, and that means we run through the transition cycle every time we stop doing what we're doing. One famous 2007 study found that when people responded to email or instant messaging alerts, it took them 10 to 15 minutes beyond time spent on the interruption to really get back into their original tasks. Those 10 to 15 minutes of headline checking add up."

Every institution should develop and  implement a strategy for the support  and on-going improvement of  the quality of teaching and learning,  devoting the necessary level of human  and financial resources to the task, and  integrating this priority in its overall  mission, giving teaching due parity  with research.