Group items tagged

"In this blog, I will suggest a methodology for encouraging more innovative uses of technology for teaching and learning."

Great guide put together from a series of blog posts. Talks about various techniques for blogging, podcasting, photo work, etc and takes a no-nonsense view of learning these tools and taking responsibility for yourself when using technology. Most things are valid outside of journalism so this is useful for all.

In 2008, the M3 project set out to explore the potential of the VLE, Moodle, a Microblogging tool, (Twitter) and the MUVE, Second Life, with three different groups of users within the educational community and compare integrated use of these tools and environments. A key aim was to investigate effective ways of embedding synchronous online tools, which are already establishing themselves as effective for social networking, and exploring the use of others that offer a 3-dimensional opportunity for learning. A Twitter plug-in for Moodle was to be one key deliverable of the project.

One of the activities we are currently all engaged with is mapping our existing curriculum design processes and developing a baseline document of curriculum design which we can use as a benchmark of progress achieved on the projects. A key issue for all of us is how to represent curriculum design - what representations might be useful, for what purposes and for whom?

"..we brainstormed ideas (using an Etherpad shared document) for a video scavenger hunt. Based on the input and suggestions of students, I created the following activity which provides several options for students working in partner teams."

Reviews of Moodle plugins from a usability perspective - Is it simple to install?Is there documentation for it?Does it do what it promises?Is it easy for the teacher/admin to use?Is it easy for the learner/student to use?

"In this seminar, Alan Cann of the University of Leicester considers the potential of social tools for researchers, based on both his own extensive experience and those of researchers interviewed as part of a study for the publication 'Social Media: a guide for researchers.'"

Digital capability for TEL Overarching principles: 1 start with pedagogy every time 2 recognise that context is key 3 create a digital capability threshold for institutions 4 use communities of practice and peer support to share good practice 5 introduce a robust and owned change management strategy 6 develop a compelling evidence-informed rationale 7 ensure encouragement for innovation and managed risk-taking.

great for keeping in touch with all students | Moodle News possible extra plugin block for UoW Moodle

8 Step process for leading change - includes establishing a sense of urgency, creating the guiding coalition, developing a change vision, communicating the vision for buy-in, generating short-term wins, never letting up, and incorporating changes into the culture.

For Ref (Google) Force Chrome to fully kill a session when a user signs out or closes their browser i.e. don't run in background or save data to a users profile.Only for Apps domains and set at admin level as a policy. Needs Sync to be set too to be effective.

Google Doc templates for science and math teaching.  Aimed at secondary school, there may be examples that can be reworked for higher levels or used with bridging programmes.

Google Refine is a power tool for working with messy data sets, including cleaning up inconsistencies, transforming them from one format into another, and extending them with new data from external web services or other databases. Version 2.0 introduces a new extensions architecture, a reconciliation framework for linking records to other databases (like Freebase), and a ton of new transformation commands and expressions.

Ewan McIntosh on taking a harder look at iPads for learning and what that means in a wider context of internet enabled and student led education.

A development framework for building iPhone (or mobile?) apps for education. This is a review which notes it is a low barrier to entry, is simple (this is a plus and minus point) and mentions adding RSS, lectures, images, links, event lists and YouTube to your schools app.

Seems like this is a paid for app rather than something we build ourselves. They build and then we can use their CMS to add / change content. Aimed at marketing so maybe we should pass it to them.

"This paper describes the implementation of a quantitative cost effectiveness analyzer for Web-supported academic instruction that was developed in Tel Aviv University during a long term study. The paper presents the cost effectiveness analysis of Tel Aviv University campus. Cost and benefit of 3,453 courses were analyzed, exemplifying campus-wide analysis. These courses represent large-scale Web-supported academic instruction processes throughout the campus. The findings were described, referring to students, instructors and university from both the economical and educational perspectives. The cost effectiveness values resulting from the calculations were summarized in four "coins" (efficiency coins=$; quality coins; affective coins; and knowledge management coins) for each of the three actors (students, instructors and university). In order to examine the distribution of those values throughout the campus assessment scales were created on the basis of descriptive statistics. The described analyzer can be implemented in other institutions very easily and almost automatically. This enables us to quantify the costs and benefits of Web-supported instruction on both the single-course and the campus-wide levels. "

"In a pioneering move to give impetuous to media and information literacy (MIL) and civic participation, UNESCO has released a model Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers."<--useful for digital literacy project?

Example of a formal university module aimed at 'digital literacy' for university students. Maybe could be adapted for UoW?

5 little things about Twitter for educators - well myths dispelled. You already know these but could be handy for a PD session.

"For as long as eLearning has been around, it has been haunted by the voices of those who aim to criticize its authenticity, viability, and quality. But is it true? Do students of traditional institutions boast more success than those who've chosen distance learning? It's time for some of these myths to die."