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In this article, Mélanie L. Sisley looks at the pros and cons for the brain of our current information-laden environment, quoting Howard Gardner, Nicholas Carr and others. Her conclusion is that we need to consider how to make this new media environment work for us in a purposeful, positive way.

This site states, "Web 2.0 is providing a stage for anyone to express a digital presence and contribute thoughts and opinions." It suggests that technology is making us be creative and to think for ourselves.

How to make a disucussion board effective. Divide a large group into smaller study sections. Make certain to post application questions, not fact-based or calculation questions. Apply the questions to the students' life/future.

The author describes using discussion boards for his accounting course.

This article highlights some key points about how to successfully integrate online discussions into core subject content. He does this by pairing down the discussion groups much like we are doing in the Web 2.0 course right now ,"When I did discussions with the class as a whole, the students grumbled about having to read repetitive messages. They were much more willing to participate in the study group if there were relatively few messages". He is also looking for an inital post and a follow up post written with correct grammar and spelling.

In this article, Rob Kelly discusses how he uses online discussion boards to enhance the learning in his classroom. Students end up helping one another, and the conversations go beyond accounting so that students really see the applicability of the subject matter to their future lives. Students who really excel in accounting help students who struggle, and the split classroom discussion helps to make it manageable for all students.

This article talks about how to make online discussions work for skills-based courses. Using Professor Roger Gee's practice and approach as an example, the author offers examples to guide students in expressing themselves creatively and persuasively, which engages and motivates them. The class is divided into study groups for the discussions. Each discussion begins with a posting by Professor Gee, the discussions are to begin after students have read the material, viewed the PowerPoint, and taken a quiz. Professor Gee encourages students to work within the study groups to help each other.

This article shows how to let online discussions allow for higher order thinking skills to flourish in a skills-based classroom.

"Making Online Discussion Boards Work for Skills-Based Courses" is an article written by Rob Kelly and posted in a higher education newsletter. The author describes ways on how online discussions can enhance learning in skills-based online courses. He suggests rather than having students resolve math problems for example, steer students to coming up with an opinion supported by facts they have learned. Students should have the opportunity to have read the lesson, PowerPoints and other related resources before a discussion takes place. The discussions should also give students the opportunity to share opinions and how the material may affect their personal life. Like our class, the author suggest each student to post a reply to the instructor's question and reply to at least one other student's reply. The posting should have good spelling and grammar as if they were in the business world. Another way to enhance learning is to have students work collaboratively and help each other out. The suggestions offered by the author are similar to what we have received in this course. Although the article is written for higher education, I would assume, but I have to also wonder if this is valuable information at the secondary level too?

This is a first-rate article on how to run an online discussion for a class on a technical subject. The article elucidates the techniques used by an accounting professor at San Diego Messa College. Issues addressed include whether to focus on calculations or opinions, the size of discussion groups, at what point in the lesson plan students should post, and what role the teacher should play in introducing a topic. Professor Gee advocates that posts focus on opinions rather than facts or calculations, since the latter provides an opportunity to spread error. He also discusses dividing a class of 35 into two groups, having students post after they have reviewed a substantial part of the lesson, and the teacher introducing discussion topics and modeling the first comment.

As a teacher of a 2 year high school accounting program, I enjoyed reading this article about Professor Roger Gee's use of online discussion boards. I introduce my students to several elements of personal finance as it relates to a service business owner's personal finances and wondered how I could engage my students to delve a bit deeper into their own thoughts on their personal finances now and in the future. I will be using Gee's suggestion as it helps students use some critical thinking to plan for their future. Some of the items mentioned actually are part of the "flipped classroom" concept; students already having read the lesson, watched the PowerPoints, and taken the test. Then comes the discussion using the learned skills. I appreciate this information for a skill-based course be it high school or community college. As we articulate with our neighboring community college, and attempt to make our students college-ready, this concept fits the bill.

This report says that students are not using cheat sites and paper mills for their cheating.

The more students are networking, the more they are finding information/ways to cheat. A shift towards plagiarism is heading towards networking sites and less episodes are being found from traditional "cheat sites" or "paper mills" according to "Turnitin."

Example of prezi presentation. Also at the top are tabs to learn how to make a prezi presentation and an explore tab showing other prezi presentations and reasons to make one. Good background for anyone to learn more about Prezi.

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Nowadays IPAD is being used in the classrooms for more and more functions. This article introduced APPs offering 5 new software and assistive technology for special needs kids.They have a lot of other options for a child's particular needs. I am sure IPAD(APPLE) will keep their great contribution in the education in the future.

"We believe the more connected students are with their peers and instructors, the more likely they are to enjoy the overall experience and successfully complete their course. Decades of research from scholars such as Lev Vygotsky and Gabriel Tarde indicate that by making groups more interactive and social, student learning experiences can become more productive and fun. We are working hard to evolve the online learning process from markedly remote to highly collaborative." Original article site: http://adaptcourseware.com/adapt-courseware-delivers-new-social-learning-tools-to-improve-student-engagement/

Online homework is beneficial to students. They get feedback promptly, even more promptly than that provided by very conscientious instructors. Online homework can also be designed so that it allows students to work on areas that frequently cause trouble and/or on areas where the individual student is having difficulty. Original Article site: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/instructional-design/online-homework-systems-can-boost-student-achievement/

This brief article points out that many new online teachers focus on two of the three critical elements identified by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) that support instruction and learning: cognitive presence and teaching presence. The third, social presence, might be overlooked. The article's author, Dr. Oliver Dreon, offers five ways to build social presence in an online class, many of which are familiar to the VHS community.

While this article is about 'flipping' in general, it also describes a team-based learning approach to flipping. The author used this approach at the university level by grouping students into heterogeneous and permanent teams of six or seven. The students then used the author's templates to explore course material.

This article fully explains implementation of blogging in a classroom. The teacher explains: expectations; use of blog posts for classroom discussions, and decorum. She highlights that student blogging enables her to bring to the classroom, without pinpointing a particular student: "insightful responses, inaccurate interpretations, good questions, and lively exchanges". Excellent Information!

This is actually one of the most useful blog things I've seen. It's a solid reminder that teaching an online course is not a checkout for the teacher. Students really want constant feedback - because many things are not verbally explained and the students have to break them down into steps for themselves, it can be overwhelming. They want to know "Am I doing this right? Is this what you're looking for?" so constant feedback and grading reinforcement in more necessary online than in f2f.

This blog really hits home with me. I do get overwhelmed at all the different places I have to navigate to get my work done, so it is important, as the article stated to have an easy-to-access-course - design. Trying to tab to resources , clicking on links, then opening up different websites. I love the videos, which help me, because I am a visual learner. As stated in the article, it is difficult for the teachers to be present all the time.to answer questions, but if students and teachers work together the class can work out. Some students take longer to master a new process than other, so good communication is the key here.