MediaCore, the cloud-based video education platform, is announcing at Campus Technology 2013 a new plug-in for Moodle the most widely-used Learning Management System in the world. Visit MediaCore at Booth 1211 to see how universities and colleges are using video to engage students, encourage peer-to-peer learning and support learning beyond the lecture hall.
The State University of New York (SUNY) Information Technology Exchange Center (ITEC) today announced its acquisition of the Ensemble Video platform. Ensemble Video will provide streamlined video content management and publishing capabilities throughout the nation’s largest comprehensive system of higher education.
Critical thinking is defined as a reflective and reasonable thought process embodying depth, accuracy, and astute judgment to determine the merit of a decision, an object, or a theory (Alwehaibi, 2012). Creative thinking involves analysis, evaluation, and a synthesizing of facts, ideas, opinions, and theories. Possessing the capacity to logically and creatively exercise in-depth judgment and reflection to work effectively in the realm of complex ideas exemplifies a critical thinker (Carmichael & Farrell, 2012).
Blended learning does not simply involve shifting portions of face-to-face instruction online. Ultimately, a blended course will require reconceptualization of the entire learning process. That’s where ADDIE comes in. The ADDIE method is an acronym that stands for analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. It is a critically important tool for designing blended courses.
AcademicPub(TM), the world's largest provider of copyright-cleared content for digital and printed course packs in higher education, today announced the launch of Express Books(TM), enabling professors to self- publish. The announcement was made by Caroline Vanderlip, CEO, of AcademicPub parent SharedBook Inc.
The Internet flipped learning before instructors did. Want to find out something? Google it. Wikipedia it. Use your laptop or smartphone or iPad. That’s where the “answers” are. Some of us initially reacted to this cyber-democratization of information asserting, “This isn’t right! The Internet is full of incomplete and simply wrong information.” But the challenge to the classroom was more profound. It has raised questions among students and even administrators about the need for face-to-face classrooms at all, as if correct information and unchallenged “opinions” were all that was needed.
Your institution may have department meetings and may even have communities of practice, but does it have faculty learning communities (FLCs)? An effective FLC can positively impact its members’ engagement in and involvement with both their discipline and their institution.
i>clicker, one of the most widely used student response systems in higher education, today announced the release of i>clicker GO, a mobile response solution that transforms laptops, smartphones and tablets into student response devices. i>clicker GO is available for purchase at https://www.iclickergo.com or as an app from the iTunes and Google Play app stores.
I began my teaching career as a resident (classroom) instructor teaching Army officers about leadership. My teaching techniques are based on Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model (ELM) that involves the following steps: (1) Concrete Experience, (2) Publish and Process, (3) Generalize New Information, (4) Apply, and (5) Develop. ELM, which has worked very well for me in the classroom, directly emphasizes that adults learn when they: - Discover for themselves - Take responsibility for their learning - Have a venue to receive experience and feedback - Understand why the lesson is beneficial to their personal and/or professional lives.
I mostly teach basic technical writing, and I face the same problem that confronts many of us who teach writing. It’s hard enough getting students to do the assignments, and almost impossible to get them to do a first draft. But writing takes practice, and if you require students to practice, that leads to an inevitable mountain of papers to grade. At my college, the trend is toward bigger classes and fewer course hours in English. This makes giving students the chance to practice all the more important, and providing the necessary feedback all the more challenging. I’d like to share a couple of solutions I’ve devised that help me deal with both these problems.