I’m messing around with my new SlideRocket account. Here’s my first stab at using it — a talk for an online mini course we’re teaching this spring. What do you think? What ideas would you add? Suggestions welcome over on our Facebook page.
K-State sociologist and 5 million hit YouTube celebrity Michael Wesch has released a new video on “Rethinking Education.” Intended as a “discussion starter” companion to The Tower and the Cloud: Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing, start discussions it should.
An interesting list of characteristics of “free agent” learners:
BGSU students argue that the web is making us smarter via VoiceThread.
The Innovative Educator blog shares process suggestions for schools in evaluating policies and practices related to mobile devices (e.g. smart phones) in this post.
Shocking/sad stat: 63% of teachers surveyed said these devices have “no place” in schools.
The NYTimes provides a graphic history of classroom technology, from the writing slate to the electronic tablet.
Abstract:
Social networking and communications tools have become widely used in entertainment and social applications and there is growing interest in their use in formal education applications. Distance education and especially those types that are based on self-paced programming models may be the biggest beneficiaries of the use of these new tools to provide previously unavailable capacity for student-student and student-teacher interaction. However, little is known about students’ interest, expectation and expertise using these tools. In this study the results of an online questionnaire (n=967) completed by undergraduate students enrolled in self-paced distance education programming are presented. The paper concludes that these students have very diverse views and experiences - however a majority are interested in using these tools to enhance their learning experiences. We also describe the relationship between expertise and expectation - the greater use and experience of learners, the more they expect and desire to have educational social software used in their formal education programming.
The results show that while 72 per cent of respondents used course- management systems such as Blackboard, many did not use any other technology in their academic lives.
What percentage of students will use Blackboard to support their lifelong learning once they’ve graduated?
Derek Wenmoth of CORE Education charts the evolution of schools from “traditional” to “connected” to “networked.”
