OER Blogs
New prof rating system - Olivia Koester, Manitou Messenger
In an unanimous vote by the Student Senate on Tuesday, the Student Government Association officially proposed that St. Olaf have its own way of rating professors and courses called the Course and Teaching Evaluation (CATE). This idea is generating a copious amount of attention from St. Olaf students and faculty. To shed light on the the issue, a Senate committee headed by Mohn Hall Senator Jon Laven ’12 has been promoting the proposed system.
“[CATE is] a classy version of ratemyprofessors.com [that] would allow students to evaluate courses and view ratings via SIS,” Laven said, referring to the Student Information System.
“[CATE is] a classy version of ratemyprofessors.com [that] would allow students to evaluate courses and view ratings via SIS,” Laven said, referring to the Student Information System.
Categories: OER Blogs
Online Learning: Merrill schools to go virtual - Charles Menchaca, Wausau Daily Herald
Merrill Area Public Schools next year will expand its course options beyond traditional classrooms. The district will offer classes from three online programs for students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12. Merrill Superintendent Lisa Snyder has invited all interested families to a meeting on the courses Monday at Merrill High School. The district wanted to provide a computer-based way of learning to Merrill families that would attract more students than its current enrollment. There are about 3,000 students in Merrill public schools.
Categories: OER Blogs
Cathy Mincberg Speaks to Gates Foundation Panel About Online Learning as a Disruptive Innovation
Cathy Mincberg recently spoke to school innovators from around the country as part of a Bill and Melinda Gates conference on "Creating a Literacy Spine by Design". The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding partner school districts and charter management organizations around the country to rapidly build and scale innovations that ensure that students leave high school truly ready for college or careers. To expand thinking about innovation, a panel entitled "What Will Disrupt Literacy Learning / Instruction as We Know It?" provoked attendees by illustrating how innovative ideas can disrupt education in a way that makes quantum, rather than incremental, improvements possible. Dr. Cathy Mincberg talked about how online learning will provide half of all high school courses by 2020.
Categories: OER Blogs
The internet of things
The internet of things will likely have a greater impact on humanity than social media. The creation of a “central nervous system” for the earth or a “global data field” is well underway. As more devices connect to the internet – cars, home security systems, utility monitoring – and as more objects include RFID tags, the physical world begins to merge with the digital world. I can search for my car keys the same way I search for a research paper. Social media is an overlay of socialization on top of our physical worlds. The internet of things is an integration of physical and virtual worlds, permitting the most desirable elements of each to exist in the other. Here’s a short introduction to the concept of the internet of things. See also 8 better ways to understand the internet of things.
Categories: OER Blogs
Games as model for grading
Grading is an attempt to offer a statement of competence/knowledge about an individual in relation to a particular subject area. Many other statements of competence exist: personal opinion from colleagues, portfolio of work completed, success/impact in a particular field, etc. In games, competence is expressed (represented) by activities completed or levels achieved. So why not use a game model as a replacement for grading?
Last year, Sheldon replaced the traditional grading system in two of his game design classes with a system that is based on experience points (XP), which were typically used to track progress in role-playing games.
Students commenced the program as avatars at level one, which corresponded to zero XP and a grade of ‘F’. They gained XP by completing ‘quests’, ‘fighting monsters’ and ‘crafting’– in other words, giving presentations, sitting quizzes and exams, and handing in projects.
Categories: OER Blogs
Ontario universities to adopt e-learning
It's a blast from 1999: Ontario will be adopting e-learning, a new and untried technology with much promise but great risk! That is the basic tenor of this gee-whiz article by CBC complete with the obligatory sceptic there to close it out: "If I had a brain surgeon who took his degree online, I probably wouldn't want that guy anywhere near me." Are you kidding me? Canadian Press, CBC, March 19, 2010 [Tags: Online Learning] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
The Pad – Trends, drivers and a scenario from 1998
Dave Cormier and George Siemens are mounting a course on the future of technology and education. This will result in great fun here later on, but for now what we have - as Dave prepares to travel to Singapore next week to deliver the first version of it - is this post and discussion of one of my predictions, the Pad. At the heart of it is a ten minute interview by Dave of me in which I describe what I was thinking - what I was really thinking - when I came up with the prediction. They've also asked for contributions from other people, and so we are beginning to see things like Martin Weller's slide show on the subject. Dave Cormier, Dave's Educational Blog, March 19, 2010 [Tags: Connectivism] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
Browser-Based IDEs (programming environments)
Integrated development environments (IDEs) have been around for a while, but browser based IDEs has the promise of making them a lot more widely accessible. "These are websites where you can edit code, run your application, and sometimes even instantly share your application for others to try. This is much more convenient than the typical process of downloading and installing a huge IDE such as Eclipse or Netbeans, and then compiling and packaging and distributing/hosting an application on your own." Yes, they're not full-fledged systems like the desktop equivalents, but they may well be working their way to primetime. Doug Holton links to a bunch here (including, interestingly, Yahoo Pipes, which only sort of qualifies). Doug Holton, EdTechDev, March 19, 2010 [Tags: Accessibility, Yahoo!] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
Ages: Social Networks
Ages of social network users reviews how the various social networks (Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc) break down in terms of age categories. Of the 19 services covered, the 35-44 age group is tops in 11. While this fits into the “interesting” category. I’d like to see better data on the online activities of different age groups (Pew did a study of internet activities in general, not confined to social networks), which age groups show the fastest growth in participation, how online habits differ between novice and experienced users of the service, and perspectives of privacy/security by different age groups.
Categories: OER Blogs
Steal It and Other Internal YouTube Emails from Viacom's Copyright Suit
Now that information is becoming public we're seeing a nasty fight between Google and Viacom over YouTube. In a nutshell, Viacom is saying that Google is practicing piracy on a massive scale, while Google is responding that requiring it to police user-uploaded content as it comes in would destroy the user-generated internet. This Fast Company article has excepts from a bunch of emails between YouTube founders during the website's early days. Also worth reading is Google's response to Viacom arguing that Viacom is suing it, in part, over video Viacom uploaded itself! "Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site... there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site." Related: TechDirt, on how these lawsuits may have slowed down internet video. Kit Eaton, Fast Company, March 19, 2010 [Tags: File Sharing, Viacom, Video, Google, YouTube] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
You Have to Break Connections to Get Your Ideas to Spread
While there is no doubt that connections break as well as form, there is something wrong here. Part of it, no doubt, resonates from the unstated assumption that ownership (of, say, a car) constitutes a connection. This leaves me uneasy. Another part of it is that the author confuses mass-media marketing - getting your ideas to spread - with network formation. Basically, the author is using network terminology to talk about the well-known phenomenon of vendor lock-in. And in this way it confuses personal habits with social connections. "Even if you're introducing a simple new way of doing things, you have to get people to disconnect from the old ways too." Tim Kastelle and John Steen, Innovation Leadership Network, March 19, 2010 [Tags: Networks, Wikipedia, Marketing] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
Our iPhone for Moodle web application aks for your feedback
Moodle developers who have released a prototype iPhone app for the LMS are looking for feedback. Also worth noting in this post is the description of the five steps involved in the development of the product. Inge de Waard, Ignatia, March 19, 2010 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
The iPad and the LMS
In a breathless endorsement of the iPad for learning Joshua Kim looks at how LMSs will adapt. The take-off point is Blackboard's purchase of TerriblyClever, an e-learning app company, for the surprisingly low price of $4 million. "I'm betting that we will quickly see amazing LMS apps for the iPad," writes Kim. "Our rate limiting step will not be the companies that produce the LMS platforms, or Apple and their control over the app store and the device, but rather the content polices of higher ed." Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed, March 19, 2010 [Tags: Apple Inc., Online Learning, Blackboard Inc.] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
College 2.0: More Professors Could Share Lectures Online to Extend Learning Opportunities. But Should They? - Jeffrey R. Young, chronicle of Higher Ed
"Camera shy" is not the first phrase that comes to my mind for Siva Vaidhyanathan. The University of Virginia faculty member commands healthy fees for his lively presentations on media studies and law at conferences, and he has even appeared on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. But he's not sure if he should record his lectures—or if he does, whether he should share them freely online.
Categories: OER Blogs
New Web site offers career courses via online learning for Michigan's out-of-work baby boomers - AnnArbor.com
If they choose to stay in the state, thousands of unemployed Michigan factory workers will need to re-brand their careers, experts say.
But how?
Online, non-credit courses with the LEARN program aim to help baby boomers laid off from manufacturing industry jobs answer that question, said University of Michigan professor Lynn Wooten, who helped to develop the program's curriculum.
But how?
Online, non-credit courses with the LEARN program aim to help baby boomers laid off from manufacturing industry jobs answer that question, said University of Michigan professor Lynn Wooten, who helped to develop the program's curriculum.
Categories: OER Blogs
High school summer school learning goes online - Tim Troglen, Hudson Hub Times
District students looking for a few extra credits during the traditionally academic downtime of summer will soon be able to move a step closer to graduation without leaving their homes.
Students can sign up now for several online summer school class offerings, including health, U.S. government, geometry and algebra. The classes will be offered June 14 to July 23, with registration ending June 7. The price per class ranges from $170 to $300.
Students can sign up now for several online summer school class offerings, including health, U.S. government, geometry and algebra. The classes will be offered June 14 to July 23, with registration ending June 7. The price per class ranges from $170 to $300.
Categories: OER Blogs
Social Learning Environment Manifesto
Matt Crosslin reinvents the personal learning environment, and calls it the social learning environment. Not to sound snarky, but isn't that what this sounds like: "This class will be assigned a unique tag, such as 'eng1301sp10.' This tag will be connected with the class on the SLE server.... The SLE will then troll through all of the RSS feeds for each connected service the student has added, looking for unique course tags." It's still a good idea, but I thing Crosslin would benefit from talking to people like Scott Wilson, Graham Attwell and Tony Hirst (and maybe looking at how we ran the Connectivism course. Or maybe this PLE paper, one of the many resources reposted by D'Arcy Norman's blog today (heh). Matt Crosslin, EduGeek Journal, March 18, 2010 [Tags: Connectivism, RSS] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
Design Intersections: How Games Can Help Us Solve the World's Biggest Problems
Pretty good slide show on the impact and potential of games to support learning and change. The slides, by Jane McGonigal, refer to "World Without Oil" and "Evoke" (which I've been following as it moves into its third week online) as examples of massive multiplayer games that can support change. But what change? Whose change? I see the stamp of the World Bank all over Evoke, which to me creates challenges of bias and perspective. And there is the danger that these presumptions are implicit in games (see my post Sensitize / Desensitize for a summary of these concerns). More slide shows from McGonigal. If you have lots of time for TED eye-candy you can watch a video of one of her talks. Here's her most recent post on Evoke. Jane McGonigal, Slideshare, March 18, 2010 [Tags: Online Learning, Video] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
Learner Centered Methodology – A New Approach to Effective Learning
What I like about this paper is that it is a clear and fairly detailed description of how learner input can be incorporated into an instructional design process. And I think that the author makes the case that the methodology can be used to create a pretty good course. What it leaves me wondering, though, is what happens when the current set of learners moves on and a new cohort moves in. Do you redesign the course from scratch? Probably not (to judge by the description of the process as a "one-time cost"). But then, is the course "learner centered" from the perspective of this new cohort? Geeta Bose, learnability matters, March 18, 2010 [Tags: Traditional and Online Courses] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
Personal knowledge management & wisdom
Harold Jarche offers some useful clarifications to his model of personal knowledge management. In particular, he takes pains to say "there is no procedural method to go from data to wisdom... Data does not create information; information does not create knowledge and knowledge does not create wisdom. People use their knowledge to make sense of data and information. People create information that represents their knowledge, which can then be more widely shared." Harold Jarche, Weblog, March 18, 2010 [Tags: Knowledge Management] [Link] [Comment]
Categories: OER Blogs
