Group items tagged

"The right LMS is the one that most closely aligns with empowering students to create and collaborate.  This is contrary to most learning MANAGEMENT systems.  Managing learning is the last thing that is really needed.  Tasks and abilities are limited so that the process can be managed.  Learning is a messy process. Managing learning frustrates the learner and the instructor. "

""I think this next generation of systems is really going to be about data and analytics and relationship management," LeBlanc said. "The whole shift in conversation, it seems to me, is about student-centeredness."" How to reconcile those two statements?

"It's what he has identified as the move from course management to course networking. "

"When I first began teaching, I assumed my anxiety in each of these domains would eventually dissipate. I was certain that there had to be an approach to grading that was simultaneously meaningful, moral, and manageable, and that, with enough time and experimentation, I would eventually discover it. Yet the more I tried to get a handle on anxiety in one domain, the more I seemed to increase my anxiety in another. [1] I came to believe that the system was stacked against us. It had trapped us into a corner where, at best, we could maximize two goals at the expense of the third. Mirroring the "fast, good, cheap" meme that designers love so much, my pessimistic grading meme might look something like this:"

""We do not face a choice between tradition and change, between the familiar and the new. We face an opportunity and an imperative both to embrace thoughtful change and to affirm our core values in ways that fulfill this extraordinary university's enduring promise to its students and to the world.""

A group of renowned disability studies scholars are seeking to clarify what makes a book accessible with a set of guidelines that authors can use to help publishers make their books readable by anyone.

The guidelines, a one-page template letter, read a little like an ultimatum. The letter opens by asking a would-be publisher to confirm in writing that print books and accessible formats will be made available simultaneously, then launches into an explanation of how publishers should handle everything from digital rights management to authoring software.

Lennard J. Davis, professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the letter is meant less to threaten a boycott and more as a public service announcement. Some authors may not budge from the demands in the letter, he said, but others are likely to use it as a way to spread awareness about accessibility.

Twitter lists are incredibly useful. Making them has been incredibly painful. This is a good step forward...

"Stephen Downes, a co-creator of the first Connectivist learning environments, offers an even more radical framing: he argues that the content is a MacGuffin, the plot device in a Hitchcock movie that starts the story but ultimately proves unimportant. "

"When you look around an office, nine times out of 10 you can tell if it was designed for fear. How does fear manifest in space? High walls. No windows. Closed spaces. By extracting management from the doers and makers of the company, there's plausible deniability. When conversation is inhibited by high-walled cubicles, information is controlled. And to effectively instill fear in office culture, you have to control information. You have to make sure teams are segmented into departments, information is transmitted linearly and power is centralized."

Via Stephen Downes's recent post; a nice accessible summary discussion for non-techies about how technology is changing teaching. Good teaching resource, I think.

"The concept of meta-communication suggests that the form of the communication, its nonverbal elements, begin to define the teacher-student relationship. So what relationship do I want with my students? What kind of first impression am I interested in making through my syllabus?"

What a great resource, and yes, the all important first impression is the syllabus. A good way to look at it.

Nice acknowledgement of the hurdles with teaching 'student centered, project-based investigations'. 'Rowdy' classrooms and undefined teaching rubrics are just a few.

focuses on Moodle but has some interesting points on the general effect of course introduction videos on online student engagement/participation "Studies point to an introductory course video from the instructor welcoming students as being able to cause shifts in course evaluations and discussion postings. For that reason, instructors should consider creating short videos greeting the students"

Jody, I've used Moodle as a student. It's free and open source. You'd just need a place to host it. Not sure if AltLab does that--but they should! I liked it, but didn't do a ton with it. This might be useful: http://elearning.guru/which-learning-management-system-comparing-blackboard-canvas-moodle-part-1-course-content/

AH! Thank you, this is tremendous!

Tagged for awareness of this product for possible classroom interaction