Group items tagged

"The period - the full-stop signal we all learn as children, whose use stretches back at least to the Middle Ages - is gradually being felled in the barrage of instant messaging that has become synonymous with the digital age"

"All you social dystopians can unclutch your pearls; no linguist thinks this bodes the end of writing. Text is our most powerful, go-to communication tool. For most people, these ideograms are an upgrade. And what an unusual one! Language always changes, of course; slang is born, prances, and dies. But it's exceedingly rare-maybe unprecedented-for a phonetic alphabet to suddenly acquire a big expansion pack of ideograms. In an age where we write more than ever, emoji is the new language of the heart. Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article. "

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.

""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.""

"The idea behind Open Lab Hours is simple: create a space for students interested in journalism and technology to gather and work on projects. All are welcome. Some students come with the most basic questions, like "What's the internet?", while more advanced students come to debug projects, or hack on interactive and data stories for student publications. The key has been to create a community for people who want to learn. With a safe space for beginners, rookies and advanced folks to work together, relationships are naturally formed between students with varying skill levels. These relationships help newbies learn while providing more advanced students with the capacity to teach and develop new project ideas."

What we're trying to do with Agora: "The idea behind Open Lab Hours is simple: create a space for students interested in journalism and technology to gather and work on projects. All are welcome. Some students come with the most basic questions, like "What's the internet?", while more advanced students come to debug projects, or hack on interactive and data stories for student publications. The key has been to create a community for people who want to learn. With a safe space for beginners, rookies and advanced folks to work together, relationships are naturally formed between students with varying skill levels. These relationships help newbies learn while providing more advanced students with the capacity to teach and develop new project ideas."

"In Unflattening, Nick Sousanis writes that we need to "discover new ways of seeing, to open spaces for possibilities. It is about finding different perspectives." Stereoscopic vision reveals "that a single, 'true' perspective is false." "

"Interdisciplinarity -- of any stripe or variety -- depends on disciplines."

Assessment: What are students really learning?

How Tiny, Struggling Southern New Hampshire University has become the Amazon of Higher Education http://t.co/a8WbHl8n3K via @slate

"Traditional courses have long focused on tools and techniques for the presentation of content. Traditional concerns from faculty focused on covering the material, getting through the book and meeting expectations so that faculty in other courses won't muse and wonder,  "Didn't you learn these concepts from faculty X?"   And "Didn't you study the work and contributions of  ____ (Fill in your favorite who)"  A major drawback with designing for content as a priority is that it focuses attention on what the faculty member is doing, thinking and talking about and not on the interaction and engagement of students with the core concepts and skills of a course. The new focus on learners encourages a focus on learners as a priority. The new focus on the learner is to develop a habit of asking, what is going on inside the learner's head? How much of the content is being integrated into their knowledge base? How much of the content and the tools can he/she actually use? What are students thinking and how did they arrive at their respective positions? Additionally, we are seeing a shift to looking at the student no only as an individual, but as an individual within the learning community. Other questions that we are now considering include: How is the learner supporting the community of learners and contributing to the overall growth of the group? "

Pretty interesting example of public undergrad research writing about the impact of depleted uranium in Iraq and Kuwait.

Society for News Design winners, including some data viz examples.

VCU School of Music putting grant funds toward innovative pedagogy.

"Product designer Eben Bayer reveals his recipe for a new, fungus-based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture, plasma screens - and the environment."

"We teach a lot that isn't going to matter, in a significant way, in students' lives, writes Professor David Perkins in his new book, "Future Wise." There's also much we aren't teaching that would be a better return on investment."