Washington State Library Digital Best Practices
A great online resource for educators planning on creating digital presentations for their classrooms. From project management to step-by-step guides, educators can explore new best practices for digital technology in the classroom.
cogdogblog: Rip. Mix. Feed. Objects? EDUCAUSE 2004 Seminar
The long scrolling title for today's pre-conference Seminar was "Decentralization of Learning Resources: Syndicating Learning Objects Using RSS, Trackback, and Related Technologies" where we initially planned to focus on using RSS, Trackback, etc to connect learning objects (someone done before). [...] We spun it around recently to more of a take on the Rip Mix. Feed concept for collecting information from numerous sources (via RSS?), using social filtering tools or RSS to "mix" them into new forms, and then Feed the, back as new content or re-syndicated content.
by Sean Silverthorne, Editor, HBS Working Knowledge
Managing the Gamer Generation: "They are different from you and me, this generation born after 1970. They grew up with a finger on the keyboard and an ear to the cell phone, and in a world where the forces of globalization have broken down national barriers like no time in history."
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4429&t=innovation&nl=y
Clark Aldrich has come up with this synthesis [PDF] of this research into educational simulations:
“Specifically, there are six criteria that are emerging as critical, and ultimately not just to simulations but all educational experiences. Three criteria, linear, systems, and cyclical, describe content. And three, simulation, game, and pedagogy, describe delivery.”
http://www.learningcircuits.org/NR/rdonlyres/F2ED000A-7A59-4108-A6CB-1BE4F4CC1CA5/4719/clark_e2.pdf
EDUCAUSE REVIEW | September/October 2004, Volume 39, Number 5
Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not
It’s risky to talk about wikis as if they’re all the same. In practice, the term wiki (derived from the Hawaiian word for “quick”) is applied to a diverse set of systems, features, approaches, and projects. Even dedicated wikiheads engage in perpetual arguments about what constitutes true wikiness. But some fundamental principles (usually) apply.
- Anyone can change anything.
- Wikis use simplified hypertext markup.
- WikiPageTitlesAreMashedTogether.
- Content is ego-less, time-less, and never finished.
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Newcomers to the medium may find it easiest to start with simple tasks. Wikis work great as shared online sketchpads or as spaces for brainstorming. They are perfect for creating perpetually updated lists or collections of links, and most users can instantly grasp their utility as informal bulletin boards. Because it takes only a couple of seconds to set up a new page, no purpose is too trivial.
One common way to use wikis is to support meeting planning: a provisional agenda is drawn up, and the URL is distributed to the participants, who are then free to comment or to add their own items. Once the meeting is under way, the online agenda serves as a note-taking template, and when the meeting is completed, the notes are instantly available online, allowing the participants or anybody else to review and annotate the proceedings.
With some planning, more complex processes can easily be supported.
[...]
Wikis are already making their mark in higher education and are being applied to just about any task imaginable. They are popping up like mushrooms, as wikis will, at colleges and universities around the world, sometimes in impromptu ways and more often with thoughtful intent.
Wink is "tutorial and presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software. Using Wink, you can capture screenshots of your software, use images that you already have, type-in explanations for each step, create a navigation sequence complete with buttons, delays, titles, etc., and create a highly effective tutorial for your users. . . . Similar applications sell for hundreds of dollars, while Wink is free with unrivaled features."
EDUCAUSE REVIEW | September/October 2004, Volume 39, Number 5
Educational Blogging
The Web is by now a familiar piece of the educational landscape, and for those sites where personal publishing or chronologically ordered content would be useful, blogs have stepped to the fore. Crooked Timber’s Henry Farrell identifies five major uses for blogs in education.
First, teachers use blogs to replace the standard class Web page. Instructors post class times and rules, assignment notifications, suggested readings, and exercises. Aside from the ordering of material by date, students would find nothing unusual in this use of the blog. The instructor, however, finds that the use of blogging software makes this previously odious chore much simpler.
Second, and often accompanying the first, instructors begin to link to Internet items that relate to their course.
Third, blogs are used to organize in-class discussions.
Fourth, some instructors are using blogs to organize class seminars and to provide summaries of readings. Used in this way, the blogs become “group blogs”—that is, individual blogs authored by a group of people.
Finally, fifth, students may be asked to write their own blogs as part of their course grade.
By Ryan Tansey
At the end of the last school year my son made an interesting comment: "My teachers are finally learning how to use Blackboard." The statement immediately struck home as a missing component to our explorations of eLearning. Here are his current thoughts on the impact of the CMS on his education. --Frank Tansey
http://www.campus-technology.com/news_article.asp?id=10122&typeid=155
How do we understand the dynamics of sorting out useful ideas from the general chatter of a community? What does the productivity of a community depend on? From a theoretical perspective, models of information within networks help us to understand how information spreads and is aggregated, and that determines the speed with which individuals and organizations can act, innovate and plan their future activities. This talk will describe new mechanisms for automatically identifying communities of practice within large networks and for elucidating the spread of information within those communities. In addition, I will describe a novel methodology for information aggregation that leads to accurate predictions of uncertain events in the real world.
http://murl.microsoft.com/LectureDetails.asp?1107
Online learning environments (OLEs) are now critical to teaching and learning across Australian higher education. Their influence impacts on the availability of content, the design of courses and, perhaps most pedagogically significantly, the nature of communication. The discussion board is the ubiquitous communication tool within these OLEs and hence significantly shapes the kind of communication that takes place. In light of this, the degree to which a successful community of inquiry can be facilitated through the use of discussion boards is examined and compared to the possibilities afforded by weblogs in the same role. Weblogs, it is argued, offer new opportunities in the development of social, cognitive and teacher presence online and should be considered in the development of or alongside established OLEs.
http://incsub.org/blog/index.php?p=3
The IMS ePortfolio public draft specification was created to make ePortfolios interoperable across different systems and institutions. The ePortfolio specification: - Supports the advancement of lifelong learning important to many government initiatives. - Makes exchanging portfolios from school to work transitions easier. - Allows educators and institutions to better track competencies. - Enhances the learning experience and improves employee development
http://www.imsglobal.org/ep/index.cfm
By Stephen Acker
Course management systems offer powerful support for teaching, but they truncate student learning at the end of every term. ePortfolios offer a longitudinal learning environment in which a student can organize and maintain learning connections, but they may lack the orchestrated vision of an experienced educator. These alternate structures for capturing, evaluating, and reflecting on student work should intersect on the student’s desktop to deliver a powerful multiplier effect to an institution’s eLearning environment.
Read more at:
http://www.campus-technology.com/news_article.asp?id=10041&typeid=155
"Innovate is a peer-reviewed e-journal that lives up to its name in both content and design."
"These pages feature cutting-edge research and practice in the field of information technology, but Innovate invites you to do more than simply read. Use our one-button features to comment on articles, share material with colleagues and friends, and participate in open forums. Join us in exploring the best uses of technology to improve the ways we think, learn, and live."
A Content Developer’s Approach
Ellen Dornan, University of New Mexico
Introduction
I came into the field of Instructional Technology through the field of public lands interpretation. Interpretation is an informal educational method used to communicate the meaning and value of resources, and is used widely in museums, zoos, and parks. Interpretation is terrifically effective in a short time period, and results in affective, behavioral, and cognitive outcomes ranging from decades-long retention (Barrie, 2001) to societal impacts, such as participation in advocacy groups or shifts in basic societal values (Beck and Cable, 2002).
In practice, interpretation skillfully blends the environmental experience of a museum or park visit with high-quality communication provided at teachable moments, such as when a visitor is feeling awe of the surroundings or interest in the artifacts. My burning question is whether this technique still works if you take away the environmental and human elements, as with computer-based interpretation?
The answer is a definite yes, although computer literacy certainly impacts the ability of a user to learn and enjoy computer-based media (Goldman and Schaller, 2004; Chadwick, 1998), and remains a serious obstacle when designing for older audiences. In discovering how to translate the interpretive model to a digital realm, I developed this approach to instructional design for multimedia. I have interspersed the fifteen guiding principles of interpretation throughout the text, to clarify the goals of each section of the design process.
Complete article at:
http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper80/paper80.htm
By Gerry McGovern
Universities, heed this finding: “Many university websites are poorly organized, and filled with out-of-date content that has been directly published from print. Delivering a better service to students and staff faces challenges because of decentralized management structures and concepts such as academic freedom.”
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2004/nt_2004_09_20_university_websites_less_is_more.htm
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing
Headquartered at UCLA, the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing has pioneered the development of scientifically based evaluation and testing techniques during its long history. Given the recent emphasis that has been placed on the importance of education throughout the United States, this site affords visitors a true cornucopia of material about their research activities, along with policy briefs, reports, and newsletters. The materials will not just be of interest to persons involved in educational research, as there are sections devoted to providing more pragmatic information on testing and assessment both for parents and teachers. Visitors can browse the center's newsletter archive all the way back to 1991 and download over 100 reports. Finally, the site also contains contact information and biographies for staff members who work at the Center.
http://cresst96.cse.ucla.edu/index5.htm
Special Needs Technologies: An Administrator's Guide
By Terry Lankutis The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires every school to provide its special needs students with whatever technologies are necessary for a "free and appropriate education." Yet many schools struggle with the task of identifying which technologies will actually work for this population of students. Outside consultants can provide technical knowledge and experience, but they may not know all the details of a particular student's needs, and parents or school personnel may feel a solution has been forced on them without their input. A better, and often less expensive, solution is for school leaders to develop a systematic process that considers the input of all stakeholders, calling upon the expertise of the entire Individual Education Plan team and outside expertise as needed. The following steps will help you implement a collaborative, long-term approach to selecting assistive technology, whether you are starting from scratch or analyzing the effectiveness of your current procedures.
For the complete article see:
http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=47204593
Best Practices for Administrative Evaluation of Online Faculty
Thomas J. Tobin
Instructional Development Librarian
Southern Illinois University
thomas.j.tobin@att.net
* This paper was one of three selected as a "Best Paper" among DLA 2004 proceedings, Jekyll Island, Georgia, May 23-26, 2004.
Abstract
This introductory-level presentation demonstrates how to evaluate the materials and teaching in online courses. Topics covered include similarities with evaluation of on-ground teaching, factors unique to online courses, technological considerations, helping administrators unfamiliar with online courses, and national standards, rubrics, and benchmarks.
http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/summer72/tobin72.html
The pedogogical concepts and theories used in traditional education apply to online education as well. We've developed a tool to graphically navigate the complex relationships between schools of thought, theorists, theories and concepts. The exploration covers Behaviorist, Cognitivist and Constructivist Schools of thought. It includes a comprehensive list of theorists from Piaget to Guilford, theories including Metacognition and Andragogy and concepts such as Scaffolding and Learner Centered Education.
http://www.nyucolp.org/pedagogy.shtml
Thanks to students in the Diploma in Adult Education Program at Vancouver Community College for researching and annotating these web sites.
Brain-based learning hasn't been very prominent recently. The central argument of proponents is that our brain functions best under certain conditions...and when we factor these conditions into the design and learning process, we increase the success of the learning experience. Brain links offers many articles and resources.
http://instructordiploma.com/core/Bob'%20folder/websites.htm