Group items tagged

Wiley shows how astronomical the cost of online textbooks is.

"The infographic below, while simply designed to show students who are taking a MOOC for university level Spanish what the components of their class will be, does an excellent job showing a) just how online language learning can be (even if you're sitting at home alone) and b) how well language learning lends itself to online learning"

"Evidence shows that engaged students perform better academically than disinterested students. Measurement of engagement with education is difficult and imprecise, especially in large student cohorts. Traditional measurements such as summary statistics derived from assessment are crude secondary measures of engagement at best and do not provide much support for educators to work with students and curate engagement during teaching periods. We have used academic-related student contributions to a public social network as a proxy for engagement. Statistical summaries and novel data visualisation tools provide subtle and powerful insights into online student peer networks. Analysis of data collected shows that network visualisation can be an important curation tool for educators interested in cultivating student engagement."

Analytics and Recommendations block uses charts and tables which are colour coded so students can quickly see they participation. Students can see single analytics about their participation in the course. Teachers can see single, comparative analytics and global analytics (all students together) too. Morover, the block shows recommendations for students about what activities they should work to improve their final grade. It shows too a estimate final grade according with a reference course.

"A total of 125 students taking a first year seminar course for pre-health professional majors participated in this study (70 in the experimental group and 55 in the control group). With the experimental group, Twitter was used for various types of academic and co-curricular discussions. Engagement was quantified by using a 19-item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement. To assess differences in engagement and grades, we used mixed effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, with class sections nested within treatment groups. We also conducted content analyses of samples of Twitter exchanges. The ANOVA results showed that the experimental group had a significantly greater increase in engagement than the control group, as well as higher semester grade point averages. Analyses of Twitter communications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the learning process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities."

For the second consecutive year, the eLearning Guild survey, which measures use of over 100 professionally-developed LMS products and excludes in-house created sys­tems, shows that Moodle™ is ranked as the #1 LMS product among eLearning Guild members with over 24% of respondents selecting it as their primary LMS.

For the second consecutive year, the eLearning Guild survey, which measures use of over 100 professionally-developed LMS products and excludes in-house created sys­tems, shows that Moodle™ is ranked as the #1 LMS product among eLearning Guild members with over 24% of respondents selecting it as their primary LMS.

College students love their smartphones. They use them in a myriad of ways and there's the data to prove it. A new infographic visualizes the current state of smartphone usage by college students and it's a sight to see. The infographic below from Online Degrees shows the 12 most popular ways students are using smartphones as well as the types of news they're reading, and more.

Leaderboarded - interesting little tool to allow comparisons or display of data. I think it can get used with more dynamic data than this video shows.

Short video 'tips and and tricks' stuff for Google Apps - created by Google, all videos in the the 4 - 6 minutes range

"The student digital experience tracker, a pilot scheme to provide first-hand insight into learners' expectations and views on technology in an education setting, showed that 72% of HE and 70% of FE and skills learners believe that when technology is used effectively by teaching staff it enhances their learning experience - giving credence to the argument that practitioners need to develop their own digital skills to deliver learning and teaching."

Guardian Article. "As the demise of the Sopa anti-piracy act showed, established arguments for protecting the rights of content creators are almost impossible to apply to a digital world"

Report on a change in Internet traffic post-copyright law changes.

Interesting research by @Waikato researchers showing the impact of the new file sharing law change on internet traffic. Conclusion: little net-change in traffic, users have simply shifted to more secure protocols.

Interesting chart showing the negative effect "in copyright" has on book sales. Also talk by Prof Paul Heald explaining the effect.

Google's intro to Glass. Exciting although it really only shows its camera and wireless ability. Watch the video.

Mark Smithers shows some linkages between Connectivism and learning theory and MOOCs

The government of Switzerland has issued a statement declaring that it will not take action to alter current copyright laws allowing the downloading of music and movies for personal use. The statement is the result of a lengthy study conducted by the Swiss government into the impact of so-called "piracy" on the entertainment industry. Despite the industry's claims that downloading undermines their business, this study shows that the effect of unauthorized downloading on the industry's bottom line is negligible. One key finding of the study is that downloaders spend as much if not more to acquire content legally as those who do not download. Researchers found no change in amount of disposable income spent on music and movies, despite the fact that roughly one third of Swiss people engage in some form of downloading. The government concluded, then, that no change to the current legal structure was necessary, and urged the entertainment industry to grow and adapt with the changes in technology and in consumer habits, rather than trying to suppress progress.

A new Twitter guide published by the LSE Public Policy Group and the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog  seeks to answer this question, and show academics and researchers how to get the most out of the micro-blogging site. The Guide is designed to lead the novice through the basics of Twitter but also provide tips on how it can aid the teaching and research of the more experienced academic tweeter.

"Based upon the results of this study, for the advanced learner there is no significant difference in achievement whether you show the course navigation continually or not, and no significant difference in the amount of time to complete the course."

Dated now (last post 2007) but shows Scott Wilson's thinking in the PLE Project.

Though we keep hearing about a huge increase in sales of e-books, a recent survey shows that, for students, that needle has not really moved much.