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Podcast by Derek Bruff and his Vanderbilt center team. A podcast on educational technology in higher education.

"I started composting at our summer place in 2009, and now I'm a convert. In the summer, we live on an island that's mostly rock covered with something the locals call "organic matter." Growing anything this far north on this soil base is challenging, but compost has made a big difference. My bleeding hearts, campanulas, delphinium, phlox, and coral bells are far more impressive than they used to be."

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.

1. For complex written assignments that require synthesis of material from the entire semester, divide the assignment into phases and have students submit interim deliverables for feedback. 2. Use rubrics to guide student activity on the discussion board as well as in written assignments. 3. For courses that teach dense, technical material, self-check quizzes can be very effective to oblige students to complete the required reading and help them (and instructors) gauge their understanding of the material. 4. Make use of synchronous technologies, where appropriate. Many of the challenges instructors face when teaching online are the result of the distant, asynchronous nature of most online learning. Web conferencing and telephone conferencing can help "close the gap" that asynchronous communication introduces. 5. Explore the use of peer-assessment strategies to foster community development and give students chances to learn through analyzing and critiquing the work of others. Rubrics are a must for this kind of activity. 6. Look for appropriate opportunities to address the entire class so as to reduce the time spent giving the same feedback to multiple students. After a big assignment, post an announcement summarizing some of the trends in the submissions, along with recommendations for next steps. Maintain a "Q&A" discussion board to which students can post questions for everyone to see. Monitor the board regularly, but also urge students to assist one another when appropriate.

"The Science of Online Discussions Our working knowledge regarding distance education suggests that productive discussions are essential to learning in an asynchronous online environment. Online discussions effectively take the place of face-to-face classroom discussion. It has even been suggested that, if well facilitated, online discussions may allow for more in-depth and thoughtful learning than is possible in a face-to-face setting (Hawkes, 2006). Gao, Wang, and Sun (2009) contend that in a productive online discussion, it is essential for participants to embrace the following four dispositions:"

A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills -- Jon Mueller "...Engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field." -- Grant Wiggins -- (Wiggins, 1993, p. 229). "Performance assessments call upon the examinee to demonstrate specific skills and competencies, that is, to apply the skills and knowledge they have mastered." -- Richard J. Stiggins -- (Stiggins, 1987, p. 34).

"Guidelines for designing teaching and learning for a digital age The book examines the underlying principles that guide effective teaching in an age when everyone,and in particular the students we are teaching, are using technology. A framework for making decisions about your teaching is provided, while understanding that every subject is different, and every instructor has something unique and special to bring to their teaching."

How the library guides image searches . . .

Quoting Mr. Russell from the introduction to his book,

"These studies tell me that there is nothing inherent in the technologies that elicits improvements in learning. Having said that, let me reassure you that difference in outcomes can be made more positive by adapting the content to the technology. That is, in going through the process of redesigning a course to adapt the content to the technology, it can be improved."

This idea is reflected in the history of the No Significant Difference literature. Over the last 50 years, the question for media comparison studies (MCS) has evolved from, "Can students learn at a distance?" to "What is the effect of distance delivery on student outcomes?" Over the years, especially since the internet revolution, the conviction that distance delivery is necessarily inferior to face to face instruction has faded a bit. As we accept that it is not the technology itself, but the application of technology, that has the potential to affect learning, it is our hope that future research will strive to identify the instructional methods that best utilize technology attributes to improve student outcomes.

"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.

data visualizations for the art world

Interesting. My first thought: if music can throw off one's moral compass, what does that mean for listening to music while driving.