It must be the season for predictions! Jes posted yesterday about the Horizon Report, and there is more to come! In the meantime, our neighbors to the north have some thoughts as well. Sir John Daniels of Ontario’s Distance Education Network Contact North introduces three trends he thinks will have a high impact on higher…Continue Reading Trends in Online Education: More predictions
Revisiting the Horizon
Report that is! It has been a few years since we reviewed the Horizon Report and I thought it would be a good time to double back take a look at the predictions from 2010 and continue forward to the Horizon Report 2012. Just as a recap, The Horizon Report is published each year as a joint…Continue Reading Revisiting the Horizon
The Pluses and Minuses of Sharing Your Stuff in Google Hangout
It’s not even a year into Google+’s life, and it already has a storied existence of battling Facebook. But in the social media ruckus, a useful tool seemed to pop out over all the +1s—Google Hangout. Hangout is Google’s take on a conferencing web application—with it, you can create a virtual space to share video,…Continue Reading The Pluses and Minuses of Sharing Your Stuff in Google Hangout
Think green!
As we approach the Sustainability poster competition, held during April – or “Earth Month” – I thought it would be appropriate to have a “green” blog post. (Plus, even though I’m not Irish, St. Patrick’s Day is this coming weekend!) So, how can you adopt more environmentally friendly practices into your teaching and research? There…Continue Reading Think green!
Motivation and the medium
In the book “Distance Education: A Systems View”, authors Michael Moore and Greg Kearsley discuss the various ways to deliver instruction. One statement that particularly resonated with me was the idea that “Motivation is a more critical variable than the medium…” The variety of instructional tools that are present today can provide both instructors and…Continue Reading Motivation and the medium
Seven Principles at WPI: Technology as a Lever
Several years ago – dare I say it – before blogging took off, I wrote a short piece for our TTL team e-newsletter on applying the “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education” (Chickering and Gamson, 1987) based on the follow-up “Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as a Lever” (Chickering and Erhmann, 1996). Since…Continue Reading Seven Principles at WPI: Technology as a Lever
Introducing Video Workshops in the Classroom
I teach workshops on media production, often focusing on empowering students to create videos and web pages of their own, and I have plowed through all sorts of snags along the way. I’d like to take a few minutes to share with you some of the things I’ve run into, some strategies I’ve devised, and some thoughts about how all of this works. I’d also really like to hear your thoughts, ideas, and methodologies!…Continue Reading Introducing Video Workshops in the Classroom
3, 2, 1…Explain!
My favorite “Explainer”, Lee Lefever, just posted a new blog about the new age of the video explanation. In it, he postulizes that perhaps 2012 will usher in a new genre for video: “Drama, comedy, documentary, advertising and explanation.” Lee does a great job of explaining (no surprise there) why this trend is being enabled and adopted globally,…Continue Reading 3, 2, 1…Explain!
Wikipedia! Wikipedia… Wikipedia??
While we all acknowledge that Wikipedia is not primary literature and should not be cited as a resource in most academically oriented works, we also are cognizant that Wikipedia is the first stop for many of our students on the way to more in depth research. Not today! Today Wikipedia’s English language site is in blackout mode! Why you might ask? It political…Continue Reading Wikipedia! Wikipedia… Wikipedia??
How are our students communicating? Let me count the ways!
As the new term approaches many faculty across campus are beginning to reach out to their students. This got me thinking about the what tools our students using for electronic communication. According to the 2011 ECAR National Study of Students and Information Technology in Higher Education (http://www.educause.edu/library/ERS1103), Email and Texting are students’ two most common electronic communication tools…Continue Reading How are our students communicating? Let me count the ways!