Archive for the ‘Learning Spaces’ Category

Sarah Kessler at Mashable discusses 8 Ways Technology Is Improving Education. These are ten ways that tech is helping teachers engage students and expand the curriculum beyond linear, text-based learning. Here are the top five:

1. Better Simulations and Models
2. Global Learning
3. Virtual Manipulatives
4. Probes and Sensors
5. More Efficient Assessment

James Leynse for The New York Times
Martin K. Foys, a medievalist at Drew University in Madison, N.J., created a digital map of the Bayeux Tapestry.

Patricia Cohen at the New York Times writes about A Digital Key for Unlocking the Humanities’ Riches. This engaging article explores how digital humanities scholars are using data and conducting research in the information age.

“Members of a new generation of digitally savvy humanists argue it is time to stop looking for inspiration in the next political or philosophical “ism” and start exploring how technology is changing our understanding of the liberal arts. This latest frontier is about method, they say, using powerful technologies and vast stores of digitized materials that previous humanities scholars did not have.”

via Gerry McKiernan

Online Colleges & Universities gathers up 50 Excellent Open Courses on Teaching With Technology. This is a mega-list of free courses on how to use technology such as blogs, wikis, instructional gaming, and more to reach out and engage students. It is divided into the following categories:

• Technology and Learning
• Online Education and Distance Learning
• Tech Tutorials
• Secondary and Higher Education

Chris Mautner at The Patriot News asks What’s good about texting? This quick and helpful article discusses the educational uses of texting.

“Let’s say you’re doing a lecture and you want to find out if the audience is “getting it.” Programs such as Poll Everywhere will let you pose questions to the audience, who can then text back their responses. Their answers are then calculated live and you can see instantly what percentage of the classroom understands the material. “You get instant feedback,” Palmer says. “In a classroom of students no one wants to raise their hand and say ‘I don’t understand.’ But if they can anonymously text in, you can figure out what percentage of the class is having trouble.””

Via @Gerry McKiernan

Mark Sample at The Chronicle’s ProfHacker blog presents A Framework for Teaching with Twitter. If you’re interested in classrom adoption of microblogging, you’ll want to check out this article.

Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers writes about 11 Techy Things for Teachers to Try This Year. These are eleven goals that would benefit any teacher’s skill set. Be sure and read the full article for his commentary on these helpful suggestions:

1. Build a Blog or Build a Better Blog
2. Build a Wiki With Your Students
3. Build a Website
4. Create Videos Without Purchasing any Equipment
5. Create Maps to Tell a Story
6. Try Backchanneling in Your Classroom
7. Join a Social Network for Your Professional Development
8. Use an Online Service to Save Your Bookmarks
9. Get Your Students Searching More Than Just Google.com
10. Have Your Students Create Podcasts
11. Eliminate Inbox Overload

Marco Masoni at Mashable tells us Why Online Education Needs to Get Social. He discusses the need for innovation in today’s course design including incorporating real-time events and concentrating on course quality rather than quantity.

“All too frequently, providers meet the challenge of satisfying the rising demand for online education by simply throwing courses up on the web and seeing what sticks, without catering to student needs. This amounts to a loser’s gamble since it risks pushing away students looking for schools that boast high online student retention rates. After all, why would you want to spend valuable tuition dollars on a school that isn’t likely to hold your interest long enough to earn a degree?

What’s required are innovative approaches to course design that set aside old models of instruction where theory often trumps actuality. Online course providers must embrace the web’s potential to match students with the kinds of timely knowledge and skills that address current issues head-on, and enable them to thrive in the global marketplace.”

The folks at Making Teachers Nerdy have put together a list of the Top 20 Websites No Teacher Should Start the 2010-2011 Year Without. If you’re an educator you’ll want to check out this list as it has a lot of great suggestions such as:

• Dropbox
• Prezi
• BeFunky
• Google Tools for Educators
• Zamzar

The folks at Educause have put together a new “7 Things” guide, covering 7 Things You Should Know About LMS Alternatives. As usual, the quick reference source answers the following questions, this time about Learning Management Systems:

1. What is it?
2. How does it work?
3. Who’s doing it?
4. Why is it significant?
5. What are the downsides?
6. Where is it going?
7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?

Cynthia Harvey at Datamation has put together a mega-list of 50 Open Source Tools That Replace Popular Education Apps. This excellent list offers apps in each of these categories:

• Astronomy
• Art
• Chemistry
• Classroom Management
• Educational Games
• Foreign Language
• Flashcards
• Geography
• Library
• Logic/Debate
• Math
• Miscellaneous
• Music
• Physics
• Online education/eLearning
• Religion
• Report Authoring
• Student Information System
• Testing
• Typing

Tanveer Ali blogs about 4 Tips for Integrating Social Media Into the Classroom. This is a quick guide to using social networks in K-12 education. Here are the main discussion points of the article:

1. Let Down the Filters, Cautiously
2. Add “Digital Citizenship” to the Curriculum
3. Keep One Eye on Student Conduct, the Other on the Law
4. Teach With Social Media

The folks at Educause have put together another of their “7 things” guides, this time focusing on 7 Things You Should Know About Mobile Apps for Learning. As usual the brief report addresses the following questions:

1. What is it?
2. How does it work?
3. Who’s doing it?
4. Why is it significant?
5. What are the downsides?
6. Where is it going?
7. What are the implications for teaching and
   learning?

Peter Bromberg offers Five Tips For Successful Webinars at the ALA Learning Round Table. If you’re planning or presenting an upcoming webinar, you’ll want to check out these valuable tips:

1. Write for the medium
2. Know your platform
3. Test, Test Test
4. Practice, Practice, Practice
5. THE ACTUAL EVENT

Ruth Reynard, Dean of Faculty Services for Career Education Corp, writes for Campus Technology about creating effective learning communities using social networking websites in Beyond Social Networking: Building Toward Learning Communities.

“Much has been written recently about the impact of social networking tools in teaching and learning and how educators can build on the skills of their students in using these tools. My discussion here does not negate that good work but introduces the idea that social networking is only the beginning of a longer and more complex process of socially constructed learning and ultimately collaboration and knowledge building. That is, if educators only integrate the ability of students to connect and socialize, deeper points of learning will be missed. While good teaching and learning rests on effective relationships (Cummins, 2000), in an active learning community, those relationships should evolve into actual idea exchange and knowledge construction.”

Laura I. Gómez, online media executive and former college language instructor, writes for Mashable about How To: Learn and Practice Languages Using Social Media. This quick and useful guide provides the following types of website recommendations for people who wish to learn a new language through today’s new media sites:

• Community
• Video/Interactive
• Blogs
• Twitter