Group items tagged

Throughout much of the 20th century the getting of wisdom involved a largely one-way transmission of facts, theories and ideas. In school classrooms it was mainly chalk and talk from an authoritative teacher up the front; in universities we had various sages on the (lecture) stage or the less-inspiring drones on the throne. By 2000, 82 per cent of the global population could read and write and the classroom played a critical role in shaping lives worldwide. Knowledge resided in books, publications and educated minds.

The "gamification of education" is very hot at all levels of education. It reminds me of what Keith and I were trying to do by bringing a concept of "play theory" to our QEP model, in our case, through repeated small yet successful writing experiences for the students. Through the repetition of pleasurable experiences, what I call "regenerative value," the students "level up" in their written communication abilities.

So I've put together tips for getting the most out of blogging with your student (you can watch the recorded ETMOOC student blogging session here). For more information I recommend you work through our step by step guide to blogging with students.

Strategies for using student curation in the classroom.

a practical how to attribute Creative Commons licensed material.

Med kharbach

"Sadly, though web searches have become and integral part of the academic research landscape, the art of the Google search is an increasingly lost one. A recent study at Illinois Wesleyan University found that fewer than 25% of students could perform a "reasonably well-executed search.""

Maybe "failure" is too strong a term. Maybe "almost there," "nearly there," "just about there" and other mid-way steps should be incorporated in the Humanities.

A very interesting and useful blog writer whom I found through Dave Cormier (Connectivism advocate). I would like to explore "contract grading" as a concept to share with our QEP faculty at Albany State.

Every college teacher I know is bemoaning the same kind of thing. Whether it's rude behavior, lack of intellectual rigor, or both, we are all struggling with the same frightening decline in student performance and academic standards at institutions of higher learning. A sense of entitlement now pervades the academy, excellence be damned.

This is from March of 2011??? Keith, did you post it because it resonates with what you're seeing in Florida now? I don't think this rudeness describes Albany State U, just the obvious unpreparedness of the students. Our writing lab specialists do encounter demanding students sometimes, but I think it's fairly rare, and I haven't heard of extended bad feelings.

This post has two purposes: (1) Present a model you can use for your own students' portfolios. It is critical to know what you want students to present before you begin. (2) Provide videos that show you, step-by-step, how to set up portfolios using Google sites.

Download hundreds of free audio books, mostly classics, to your MP3 player or computer. Below, you'll find great works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Keith, this is amazing, astounding, and literally science-fiction come to life for us oldsters -- throws the concept of "home schooling" into an entirely new light, not to mention expanding the conventional classroom. In just poking around a little at the site, I also found "gutenberg.org" and "librivox.org" mentioned as sources of more and more treasures. Thanks for this gift!

According to Leuf and Cunningham, a wiki is "a free expandable collection of interlinked webpages, a hypertext system for storing and modifyinh information, a data base, where each page is easily edited by any user." A Wiki can be thought of as a combination of a web site and a Word document. At its simplest, it can be read just like any other web site, with no access privileges necessary, but its real power lies in the fact that groups can collaboratively work on the content of the site using nothing but a standard web browser. The Wiki is gaining  traction in education as an ideal tool for collaborative work.

Let the discussion ensue!!

There's big talk these days about "big data" in education-looking for patterns of behavior as students click through online classrooms and using the insights to improve instruction. One start-up company that manages online discussion forums for thousands of courses recently performed its first major analysis of behavioral trends among students, and found what its leaders say amounts to advice for instructors.

Filtering is what helps us deal with the vast amount of information available to us. We try to filter information so that we end up with something that is relevant to us - it helps us learn something, it helps us solve a problem, it helps us develop a new hypothesis about the world around us. These are all connections - and this is what really drives value creation. However, we can't connect without some filtering going on.

Here are some crucial tips for refining your Googling, as well as some other great places to hunt down that last study you need for your thesis.

Learn how to create enhanced/multimedia eBooks including digital text, hyperlinks, images, and embedded videos.