Online Syllabi Using Google Calendar

Time management has always been a critical skill for a student to poses in order to effectively balance their academic and personal lives. Students must constantly be aware of their agenda for each class and how much time to set aside to complete assignments and prepare for exams. Syllabi have always been around to dictate the pace of each course and alert students of upcoming deadlines. But is there a more effective and innovative way?

After numerous discussions with my colleagues and students, I have come to the realization that there definitely is. Professors due their best to remind students about upcoming deadlines and students use their own daily planners and online tools to keep up-to-date. However, there is a more cohesive and technologically friendly way to accomplish these goals.

Professors should consider creating a Google Calendar in the form of their syllabus for each of their class sections. Exam blocks should be scheduled out in addition to project reminders, suggested group meeting times, and most importantly, class times. By then sharing the Google calendar with their students’ - every student would have an extremely useful calendar to keep them up-to-date with everything going on in the class. More importantly, this calendar can be accessed from any computer and most mobile devices 24/7/365.

If all professors employed this method at their institution, each student would have a calendar of their personal appointments and agenda in addition to an overlay of all their classes, assignments, and tasks. Professors often change their syllabi throughout the semester and hand out additional hard copies or upload another online version which can be confusing and inaccurate for some students. This Google- approach scheme allows professors to make modifications to their curriculum on the fly and insures that every student is always up-to-date with latest agenda. A bonus to the student is that each student only has to reference one online file for all their classes and avoid having to sort through multiple hard copies and online syllabi for each class.

To learn more – go to: http://support.google.com/calendar/

Benefits and Challenges of Using Tablets in Classrooms

The incorporation of digital devices for students and instructors is becoming a major trend in education. The recent appearance and early adoption of tablets by young people is pushing the acceptance of these devices into the classrooms which, in turn, have been broadly presented (at least by the media) as the “next step” or the “natural evolution in the wave of future education.” Even though there are potential promises of educational impacts of tablets, educators should weigh the potential challenges as well before utilizing tablets into teaching and learning. Below is the list of some of the benefits and challenges of using tablets in classrooms with the resources where they were discussed.

Benefits:

1. Tablet computers, like the iPad, are interactive communicator and book-reader tools. They are also an imminent second wave of “must-have” technology for students. Their large screens (about 10 inches diagonally) and large memory (16 GBytes minimum) and similar processing power to Netbook PCs differentiate them from mobile phones and give them a different IT dimension: they are not just communicators, or toys, they are computers. http://www.bsrlm.org.uk/IPs/ip31-1/BSRLM-IP-31-1-20.pdf

2. A Tablet’s functionality potentially allows it to behave as a paperless combined textbook/notebook/test-paper/progress-record. A textbook may be downloaded and stored for use as needed. The Tablet’s interactive property allows the textbook to function as a notebook- meaning the user can make notes, highlight, and even look up the meaning of words. The progress/recorder allows attempted work to be automatically logged and all marks awarded to be automatically entered from the instructor’s machine. http://www.bsrlm.org.uk/IPs/ip31-1/BSRLM-IP-31-1-20.pdf

3. An Extensive library of apps are available either free or reasonably priced, as compared to computer software which is usually quite costly, allowing the student experience to be easier and more affordably accessed. http://www.pcmag.com/reviews/software

Challenges:

1. Drawbacks of usage. A seven-week-long study by the University of Notre Dame found that students did indeed like learning with the tablet computers, but that they used the devices differently than was expected. The students also identified some drawbacks of bringing iPads into the classroom, such as the difficulty of taking notes on the tablet. The auto correct typing function can create very interesting passages as well as frustrations. In the study, more than half the students reported feeling frustrated when highlighting text and taking notes within e-books on the iPad. Another drawback was the fact that multiple “windows” or files couldn’t be kept open, side-by-side, on the iPad, unlike a full-fledged computer. http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethwoyke/2011/01/21/pros-and-cons-of-ipads-in-the-classroom/

2. Monitoring use.  Though tablets allow students to learn at their own pace, some educators are worried about how to handle a classroom full of independent learners.  Many educators expressed concern about monitoring students while they use their tablet. The biggest problem with tablets is students’ visiting sites other than those for learning. http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/top-3-problems-with-tablets-in-the-classroom/

3. Incompatible Applications - Until all tablets can use all applications/websites there are limits to how well the tools can be used in the classroom. (http://chronicle.com/article/iPads-for-College-Classrooms-/126681/). As faculty, we must select tools that are compatible with the greatest number of devices – especially if one allows a BYOD environment.

In sum, it is worth experimentation and identifying whether or not a tablet will help your students consume course content and learn. Even though there are potential promises of educational impacts of tablets, educators should weigh the potential challenges as well before utilizing tablets into teaching and learning. At the end of the day, if using a table is helpful to facilitate student success, we should embrace it to the extent it facilitates the learning process and causes no harm.

Zeen is a smart, new way to share what matters

Whether you are a creator, a curator or a casual surfer, Zeen makes it easy for you to create something beautiful. Zeens are portable, bite-sized pieces of content that are easy to make and fun to share.

Tell A Story: Zeen makes it easy for you to tell a story and create something beautiful.

Make It Shine: Your Zeen can include words, images, galleries, links, music, videos, maps and lots more.

Take it anywhere - Portable: Zeens are portable. Post them to Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. Or embed and share them on your blog

Fun Ways To Use Zeen

• Create photo albums of your Facebook, Instagram, Flickr or Picasa photos – or upload pics directly from your computer!
• Share your favorite restaurant recommendations with friends
• Gather some songs to share with your friends
• Publish a travel journal about a recent vacation
• Compile a cookbook of your favorite recipes
• Create a visual report for a class or assignment

To sign-up and start creating go to: http://zeen.com/

Four Useful Resources

Reposted from: The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2013.

Below find four instructional resources to help you in your academic or creative work.

BioDigitalHuman -https://www.biodigitalhuman.com/

BioDigital Human presents a virtual 3D body that brings to life "thousands of medically accurate anatomy objects and health conditions in an interactive web-based platform." Visitors can get started by clicking on the appropriately named Get Started button. Here they will have access to hundreds of interactive features and customized views that look through all of the body systems. Moving on, the Annotated Screenshots area will teach users how to save and share these powerful tools for use in a range of settings. It's worth noting that while the Basic version is completely free, there are other levels of functionality available for a fee.

GetBodySmart - http://www.getbodysmart.com/

This remarkable online textbook was created by the folks at McGraw Hill Higher Education to complement several of their physical textbooks. The site contains eleven subject areas, including Skeletal System, Muscle Tissue Physiology, and Nervous System. Each of these fascinating areas contains interactive animations, along with elaborate links to additional resources, such as quizzes, fact sheets, and so on. Visitors should also note that the site contains other versions of this same material designed to be used on the iPad. The site is rounded out by a collection of anatomy and physiology quizzes that cover everything from the clavicle to the lumbar vertebrae.

Codeacademy - http://www.codecademy.com

Have you ever had a problem or found coding complicated? Allow Codeacademy to lift the veil on the mystery behind coding. On the site, visitors can immediately get started by typing in a username. After this, visitors can click on a Learn area to find out more about programming for JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and jQuery. An area at the bottom of the main page links to HTML/CSS lessons. Visitors with adroit skills can click on the Teach area to get involved with creating new code teaching modules. The site also contains a link to After-School Programming which will help young people get started with creating a programming club at their school. Finally, the site also features a Stories area, which features inspirational stories from people who have used the Codeacademy website.

BrowserBite - http://www.browserbite.com/

The BrowserBite application gives web designers the ability to test out their designs on different browsers without much fuss. This application uses complex image processing algorithms to detect differences in snapshots captured through different browsers. It's a rather useful tool, and the free version gives users access to browsers such as Chrome and Firefox. This version is compatible with all operating systems.

Web 2.0 Tools and Resources for 2013

Word Clouds - graphically display textual information based on word frequency.

Wordle -  http://www.wordle.net/

Uses: Summarizing articles, highlighting key points, summarizing course notes.

Visualization Tools - provides alternate means to display information, temporally, graphically, or spatially.

The Visual Thesaurus -  http://www.visualthesaurus.com is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that bloom with meanings and branch to related words. Its innovative display encourages exploration and learning.

Infogr.am - is an online service that lets you create, share, discover infographics and online charts http://infogr.am/

Uses: language and vocabulary development, definitions, brain storming, collaboration, presentation.

File Conversion/exchange- convert, compress, synch and share file types between different formats via the Internet.

Zamzar - allows users to convert files for free without downloading a software tool. http://www.zamzar.com/

Yousendit – Send, synch and securely send your files. https://www.yousendit.com/

Youconvertit - allows users to convert and share files. http://www.youconvertit.com/ConvertFiles.aspx

Uses: file conversion, video extraction, file compression

Concept/Mind Maps- Allows users to brainstorm ideas, organize information, solve problems, plan projects, write, study, collaborate, and communicate more effectively. Shows relationships between entities (words, ideas, tasks)

Webspiration™ - http://mywebspiration.com

Mindmeister - http://www.mindmeister.com

Bubbl.us - https://bubbl.us

Uses: setting objectives, brainstorming activities, organizing information, identifying cues, summarize notes, visual thinking, collaboration, process management, write, study, and communicate.

Screencasting—record and share your computer screen with voice, mouse movements.

JingProject.com - http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

Screenr.com - http://www.screenr.com/

ScreenCastle.com - http://screencastle.com/

Screen-o-matic - http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

Uses: share ideas instantly, create demos for repeated activities; demonstrate grading policies, review quizzes, class summaries/announcements, helpdesk support, advising, and registration.

URL Shortened- take really long URL's and shorten them for easier consumption and redirection. Bookmark, organize, and share.

TinyURL - http://tinyurl.com/

bit.ly- https://bitly.com/

Uses: URL shortened for online assignments, share links in class, soft assessments (track number of students who accessed link), organize and bookmark.

Document Sharing—tag, share, and annotate documents with others. These sites and applications allow you to upload documents, share, annotate, and collaborate via the Internet.

Slideshare.net - http://www.slideshare.net/

Scribd.com - http://www.scribd.com/

annotate.com - http://a.nnotate.com/

Google Docs

Uses: sharing, collaborating, annotation skills, class resources, providing supplemental materials.

Blogs - An online journal or collaboration tool which allows users to share media as well as text with minimal HTML experience.

Blogger.com- www.blogger.com

wordpress.com – http://wordpress.com/

ning.com - http://www.ning.com/

posterous.com - https://posterous.com/

PBWorks - http://pbworks.com/

Edu Blogs - http://edublogs.org/

Uses: Assignment self-reflections, posting supplementary materials embedding sound, video, documents critical response, course notes and build community.

Wikis—a website which allows for the creation and editing of linked web pages by multiple users simultaneously. Collaboration and participation allow multiple people to have access to a shared workspace.

Eduspaces.net - http://www.eduspace.r18esd.org/

Wikispaces - http://www.wikispaces.com/

Uses: Peer review, collaborative writing assignments, resource collections, group work, reading summaries.

Social Bookmarking/Online Notebooks – create, store organize, and share online repositories of URLs, clippings from web pages, images, and more, all accessible via the web Sites.

Digg.com - http://www.digg.com/

evernote.com - http://evernote.com/

delicious - https://delicious.com/

diigo.com - http://www.diigo.com/

Google Reader

Uses: Peer review, collaborative writing assignments, resource collections, storage, organization, reading summaries, literature reviews, and data aggregation.

Visual Communication/Collaboration-- Use media to collaborate with students and vice versa. The ability to manage these efforts is made easier.

Scribblar.com - http://www.scribblar.com/

voicethread.com - http://voicethread.com/

tokbox.com - http://www.tokbox.com/

Uses: Peer review, collaborative writing assignments, resource collections, reading summaries

Feedback Tools-- facilitate the collection of data from students in an online environment. The participatory nature of the Internet mandates two way communications.

zoomerang.com - http://www.zoomerang.com/

poll everywhere - http://www.polleverywhere.com/

polldaddy.com - http://polldaddy.com/

Doodle - http://www.doodle.com/

Socrative - http://www.socrative.com/

Google Forms

Uses: Gather student/group responses, assess progress/readiness, collect student data, rapid feedback,  assessments/reflection, and scheduling.

Comic Creations - The fastest way to build comics strips.

Toondoo - http://www.toondoo.com/

Uses: express creative works, student community building, and online introductions.

Speaking Avatars - Create voice over animated discussions or voice threads.

Voki - http://www.voki.com/

Uses: Motivate students, increase participation, Improve comprehension, address language skills, increase comfort using technology.

Scavenger Hunts

Goose Chase - https://www.goosechase.com/

Scvngr - http://www.scvngr.com/

Uses: Team Building, Reinforce Course content, Fun

Flashcards - collaborative flash card web app that allows users to create flashcards for review. There are ready made flash cards in a pool, often organized by topics. Some may be used on smart phones.

Cobocards - http://www.cobocards.com/en/

Quizlet- - http://quizlet.com/

Used: reinforces learning through study, games, and memorization.

Video Creation – Create videos

Animoto- http://animoto.com/

Uses: Users are able to mix relevant messaging, statistics and quotes among the pictures or videos to educate and inspire.

Screen Sharing - Opportunity to share your desktop and screen with others.

Join.me - https://join.me/

TodaysMeet - http://todaysmeet.com/

Uses: Help service, narration, navigation and resource sharing.

 

STAYING CURRENT

— Gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com to stay on top of Apps and new tools to the market.

— Mashable - http://mashable.com to learn about technology in general.

— Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies http://c4lpt.co.uk to understand the pedagogy of teaching with new technology and to quickly identify the latest and newest ranked applications.

Online Dictation Made Easy

Happy New year! Are you looking for an online dictation program to start your New Year off right? If so, look no further than Online Dictation for use with Google Chrome. This FREE dictation program allows users the ability to convert their spoken voice into digital text with little fuss. Visitors to the application just need to attach a microphone to their computers to allow the program to pick up their voices. This version is compatible with all computers running Google Chrome. What a great way to create a transcript to pair with your spoken words - especially useful for online, hybrid, and computer enhanced traditional classes. Use it to write a long email, narrate an essay or speech, provide student feedback, or transcribe any message. For more information, go to: http://ctrlq.org/dictation/

Organizing Research Efforts With Zotero

Those of us reading these words live in a world where information is plentiful. Whatever your search is, finding something isn’t such a challenge. The many subscription resources available to students and faculty at the University of the District of Columbia Learning Resources Division will give thousands and thousands of results. Finding the right thing can be more difficult. Sometimes it can feel like a full-time job just keeping track of all the information you need for the many projects you are working on each semester.

There are tools that can help researchers and scholars with this. Zotero is a free plug-in for the Firefox browser (no others at this point, but Firefox is free too!). It does three important things. It helps you collect different kinds of citations from a variety of sources all in one place; it lets you organize and annotate those citations; and it works with your word processor to create references and bibliographies, all formatted according to the style you choose. There’s much more it can do, but those are just the top three.

Wherever you find it — whether in the library catalog, one of our many subscription databases, or on Amazon, YouTube, or somewhere else — the information can be collected and stored in Zotero and will be ready for you to use later in papers and projects so you can cite your sources appropriately. Notecards were a good idea, but they are so last century. Zotero does all that and much more.

The award-winning Zotero software was developed by the Center for New Media and History at George Mason University, one of our partners in the Washington Research Library Consortium.

There’s more information available, including video tutorials on using Zotero. As part of its information literacy services, the UDC Learning Resources Division offers instruction on Zotero. If you are interested in a session, please fill out our online form. We look forward to helping you move forward with this cutting-edge tool.

MOOCs: How to Ride the Disruptive Fracture

Introduction: Hundreds of thousands of students worldwide have flocked to enroll and participate in MOOCs, e.g. massive open online courses offered on collaborative networks such as Udacity, Coursera, edX, Udemy, and CourseSites. The courses offered are often generated within universities such Stanford University, the California Institute of Technology, Harvard, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Duke University, University of Michigan, UC Berkeley and others who combine open-source learning content, video lectures, discussion forums, artificial intelligence, and crowd-sourcing. While the courses often include much of the same content offered in the traditional face-to-face version, the free online courses are neither credit-bearing nor are they recognized to the same degree as traditional courses for which students attend in-person and pay tuition. The concept of a MOOC is not new, it has been around for about ten years, but only recently have MOOCs garnered attention to a wide degree in main-stream media. When elite branded institutions pool resources to generate new platforms as a way to flex their reputations and contribute to an effort to offer free education, the outcome could be disruptive.

At present, the MOOC model is in its early stages as educators reshape the landscape of higher education taking advantage of technology, advances in artificial intelligence and open-source course content. The MOOC model opens learning and college courses to anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the world. In fact, enrollments in MOOCs have been especially popular outside of the United States. For example, MIT’s first MOOC is said to have enrolled 154,000 students from 160 countries – where only 15 percent of the learners were from within the United States. Officials at edX concluded that more than 7,000 of the enrolled students passed the course. As another example, during the fall 2012 semester, Coursera was scheduled to be offering 116 MOOCs from 16 universities in diverse disciplines such as medicine, philosophy and artificial intelligence during the fall 2012 semester. Coursera has already partnered with 33 colleges and universities and claims to have enrolled more than 1.3 million students world-wide. That said; opportunities exist to be part of the innovation and part of the disruptive economy.

The emerging landscape is open to innovators to take advantage of the shifting landscape. In a Moody report published in early October, Karen Kedem, VP and senior analyst predicts that regional universities that chiefly attract students from surrounding areas could use MOOCs to broaden their brand recognition if they offer MOOCs while at the same time the report offers a cautionary signal that MOOCs will most hurt the bottom line of low-cost local colleges, primarily commuter campuses, and for-profit colleges. “The real threat is when other institutions are providing credit for MOOCs and really overlapping with the demographics” Ms. Kedem said. Therefore, it is imperative that institutions think strategically to make institutional decisions about teaching, learning, competency, value, market, financials, and need as it related to online education, open source learning, competency-based models, and transfer credit options.

Given the movement of the MOOC arena, the opportunity exists for institutions to position themselves to become part of the paradigm. The Moody report observed that MOOCs are likely to impart at least six major credit effects, one being new revenue opportunities through fee-based services, e.g. licensing, degrees, proctored exams, certificates, or ads. A fee-based opportunity to offer a collegiate value for knowledge gained is transactional. Institutions as such could offer students a proctoring service to demonstrate course competencies in exchange for transfer credit on a fee-for-service model. Proctoring services would need to be secure and limited in scope as not to undermine an institution’s existing business model but expand it. Proctoring for transfer credit in a new and innovative fracture is likely to attract a revenue base while providing a service. In the short-term, institutions that already offer prior learning assessment, are liberal in transfer credit acceptance, and who have proctoring services on-site are most likely to step into the fracture and take advantage of new opportunities that MOOCs bring forward. Some in fact, have already done so in partnerships (See - Chronicle, Colorado State University Global Campus to accept transfer credit for courses on Udacity http://chronicle.com/article/A-First-for-Udacity-Transfer/134162/).

Another opportunity for the not so elite institutions are for faculty who are the campus rock stars to offer-up a MOOC as a means to bring attention to their fine scholarship and the institution as a whole. A successful MOOC from a small regional campus could bring much attention to the top-notch scholarship and teaching while at the same time opening the eyes of the MOOC participants to a campus they may not have ever heard of before. The opportunities are unfolding before our eyes – stay tuned and see where we are in one-years’ time!

Resources:

Kedem, Karen and John Puchalla. 2012. “Shifting Ground: Technology Begins to Alter Centuries-Old Business Model for Universities, Massive Open Online Courses Produce Mixed Credit Effects for the Higher Education Sector.” Moody’s Investor’s Service, September 12.