Blogging in Higher Education

Guardian Unlimited > Inside the Ivory Tower: "Blogging is allowing academics to develop and share their ideas with an audience beyond the universities. But as Jim McClellan reports, not everyone is convinced."



education blogging social+software learning student+blogs educational+weblogs

Rapid E-Learning

Macromedia >> the Edge Newsletter >> Rapid E-Learning: A New Approach to Courseware

Technology Grants from Samsung

Hope for Education: "Samsung Electronics America is launching Hope for Education – a distinctive new philanthropy program that will benefit American elementary, middle and high schools and their students. Samsung’s Hope for Education program will donate a over $1 million in Samsung Electronics products to selected U.S. schools from September 22nd through October 31, 2004. Awards will be based on 100 word essays, describing education in your community."

Blogging Resources and Tools

Educational Bloggers Network: Learn more about blogging than you could possibly learn in a lifetime. You could get lost in this site for months.

Edublog News: Teachers are using blogs to collaborate with each other, share curriculum and ideas. This weblog, published by an Ohio teacher, is a site devoted to educator weblogs.

Biz Stone, Genius: Keeping a Professional Blog. What is a blog. Why you need one.



education blogging social+software learning student+blogs educational+weblogs

Smithsonian Gateway

Smithsonian.TV: " A guide to the latest live and archived streaming media content available for viewing from the comfort of your home. The Smithsonian hosts a wide array of performances, lectures, and other events that bring to life the everchanging exhibits found in our museums and traveling the country."

This Smithsonian portal also offers virtual tours of many of their holdings, as well as places of interest in and around Washington D.C. In addition, they have webcams set up at the National Zoo, and the museum of the American Indian.

Generational Learning Styles

Diana Oblinger: Boomers, Gen-X'rs and Millennials: Understanding the "New" Students (pdf)

I think this is an important factor to consider when using technology in teaching. Younger generations--the Gen X'rs and Millenials (born after '82) have no qualms or fear using technology.

They will jump in and just bricolage, whereas older students sometimes view using technology as an impediment to their learning and as something to avoid at all costs. This will become an increasingly important issue as learning is viewed as an ongoing, lifelong process and we, as instructors, have multi-generational studentbodies in the classroom.

Or even as we-as life long learners collaborate in classes (online and F2F) we will have to learn how to work around our peers and their perceptions (good and bad) of technology and how that effects our ability to complete projects/assignments. (via)


Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+communities online+learning pedagogy teaching learning net+generation digital+pedagogy digital+learning+styles

Articles on Educational Blogging

Syllabus:Technology For Higher Education:

• Blogs: A Disruptive Technology Coming of Age?
• Campus Communications & the Wisdom of Blogging
• TrackBack: Where Blogs Learn Their Places

education blogging social+software learning student+blogs

Educational Blogging

Elizabeth Lane Lawley, Assistant Professor of Information Technology at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and danah boyd, Ph.D. student at SIMS-UC Berkeley, have compiled a list of educational blogging resources and examples. (via)

Dr. Lawley has also written extensively on the use of weblogs in academia. You can access her thoughts on blogging , and all things technology via her weblog.


education blogging social+software learning student+blogs educational+weblogs

New Tools for the Classroom

EDUCASE Review: New Tools for Back-to-School: Blogs, Swarms, Wikis, and Games

A special series of articles focusing on helping teachers integrate new media into the classroom. Some of the topics covered include:

• Educational Blogging
• Mobile Learning in Higher Education
• Game-Based Learning

educational+weblogs

Copyright Crash Course

The University of Texas Library System has put together a Copyright Crash Course, which covers the use of multimedia, images, and just about everything else on the web. They also specifically address the use of digital resources in online/distance learning.

Learning & Publishing Digital Photography

I thought these two resources work well together. Fuji provides teachers with the digital photography curriculum and resources, and if you qualify--a product donation. JPG Magazine can provide an opportunity for students to have their work published. A win-win!

Fuji Film: "Our Products for Learning program is Fujifilm's way of rewarding the creativity of individual educators who understand the value of integrating imaging and information technology into everyday classroom lessons. Your class may qualify for a Fujifilm product donation. Please read the Guidelines to see if your school is eligible to receive a donation."

JPG Magazine: "JPG Magazine is for people who love imagemaking without attitude. It's about the kind of photography you get when you love the moment more than the camera. It's for photographers who, like us, have found themselves online, sharing their work, and would like to see that work in print." (via shellen.com)

Get FIT

Fluency with Information Technology (FIT): "FIT is a no-cost, online, self-study course that provides you with a command of three essential areas of IT knowledge: contemporary skills, foundational concepts, and intellectual capabilities, to more fully exploit IT. This course is sponsored by the University of Washington, with a grant from the National Science Foundation."

Library Blogs

These library themed web logs have lots of good technology resources for campus librarians and teachers:

• Blog Without a Library
• McMaster University Library Web log
• Library Stuff Web log
• Vast Active Library and Information Science (VALIS) Web log
• Tame the Web

education blogging social+software learning library+blogs

Justice Learning

Justice Learning: "Justice Learning is an innovative, issue-based approach for engaging high school students in informed political discourse.

The web site uses audio from the Justice Talking radio show and articles from The New York Times Learning Network to teach students about reasoned debate and the often-conflicting values inherent in our democracy.

The web site includes articles, editorials and oral debate from the nation's finest journalists and advocates."


Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+communities online+learning pedagogy teaching learning

Acts of Kindess Foundation

Acts of Kindness Foundation: "Want to encourage kindness on campus? See our free Teacher's Guide, lesson plans, activity ideas, and other materials ."

Campus-Wide Information Systems

Campus-Wide Information Systems: The International Journal of Technology on Campus: "Publishes cutting-edge research and case studies relating to administrative, academic and library computing, as well as other educational technologies. The journal analyses the latest theories, applications and services relating to planning, developing, managing, using and evaluating information technologies in higher education."


July 2005 Update: View my article on design strategies to enhance the online student experience in Vol 22 of Campus-Wide Information Systems: An International Journal of Learning and Technology.

Online Education Seminar

Macromedia Education Conversation Series: "A seminar program featuring guest experts who share their techniques for successfully applying web technology on campus. Join us for these interactive, online presentations covering topics from e-learning to the emergence of wireless."

LearningTimes Online Community

LearningTimes: "Join the fastest growing online community of education and training professionals! LearningTimes.org is an open community for education and training professionals.
Members have free access to a wide range of opportunities to interact and network with peers from across the globe.

Member activities include live webcasts and interviews with industry leaders, online debates and discussions, live coverage of industry conferences, and international working groups."


Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+communities professional+development

Teacher's Guide & Political Cartoons

Professional Cartoonists Index: "This is the Teachers' Guide for using the Professional Cartoonists Index web site in your classes.

We have developed lesson plans for using the editorial cartoons as a teaching tool in Social Sciences, Art, Journalism and English at all levels."


Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+learning pedagogy teaching learning

Classbrain

Classbrain: "Each of our sections has been tailored to the informational needs and skill levels of the various age groups. These changes include navigation, reading levels, and age appropriate content.

We have a wonderful assortment of tools and information that we will be making available to you over the next few months. Please come back frequently to see what we’ve added, and tell your friends and colleagues to drop by as well.."

Portfolio of Case Studies

Crossroads Research Project: "Faculty Investigators have begun reflective case studies about their experiences with integrating technology into their teaching. Some of the case studies take an "ecological" approach, considering an entire semester-long course. Others focus upon a single aspect of a course, like a specific assignment or project that incorporated new media technology. " (via)

Ethics, Copyrights, and Digital Resources

One thing that is very important to keep in mind when integrating multimedia--text, images, audio, video, blogs--are the intellectual property laws that may or may not apply to the materials you are using. Here is a link, sponsored by the University of Texas, which gives a pretty good outline of Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia.

Another digital copyright resource to review is Creative Commons.

These are just a couple FYI's, for students and teachers, to keep in mind when using multimedia resources gathered from the WWW!

Computers and Composition

"Computers and Composition Online is the refereed online companion journal to Computers and Composition: An International Journal, now in its 20th year and published by Elsevier. Our goal is to be a significant online resource for scholar-teachers interested in the impact of new and emerging media upon the teaching of language and literacy in both virtual and face-to-face forums.

As part of this goal, we wish to foster a sense of community and collegial sharing of ideas by providing an online space where select features, announcements, and community resources work together to promote a virtual exchange for the latest and best work in the field."

Computers and Composition Online Blog /XML Feed

Tips for Teaching with Blackboard

Evan Davis & Sarah Hardy: "Those of us interested in the effects on student writing of computer technologies —especially email, word processors, and synchronous communication—usually consider those technologies as if they were discrete from one another. But with the rapid rise of course management systems (CMS) like Blackboard and WebCT, students are more likely than ever to enter a virtual space that requires them to move among those technologies.

Our essay has two aims: first, to analyze the space of Blackboard with an eye toward the ways that students negotiate its technologies, and second, to provide concrete suggestions for writing teachers whose students inhabit that space."

Teaching Writing in the Space of Blackboard: Hampden-Sydney College, Department of English and Rhetoric

Case Study | Introducing New Technologies

David Silver : But I'm an English Major!: Introducing New Technologies into the Humanities Classroom.

"...students can use such courses to overcome often mild, often deep-rooted fear of computers, the Net, and the Web.

Indeed, with proper introduction, integration, and application, instructors can help once-technophobic students like Jerry feel not only more comfortable around computer technology but actually flourish with it."



Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+communities professional+development online+learning pedagogy teaching learning

Tips for Developing Web-based Learning

Sonoma State University : Center for Teaching and Professional Development, Tips for Developing Web-based Learning Activities & Assignments


Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+communities professional+development online+learning pedagogy teaching learning

Social Studies Resources

Social Studies School Service: "This Web site affords us the opportunity to expand our service to social studies educators. You will find:

• A searchable online database containing all our products, as well as sample lessons from activity books, RealVideo previews of videocassettes, and classroom-ready Web-based activities

• Links to other sites across the Web edited especially with the social studies educator in mind."

Gender and the Online Classroom

Daphne Desser: Who's Online?: Gender Morphing in Cyberspace

"Initial reports from pedagogical studies were hopeful, emphasizing the positive aspects of electronic writing for women's discursive authority...

Such early optimism, however, has given way to more discouraging studies, such as a recent analysis of on-line discourse by Sullivan and Hawisher (1997), which suggests that women on line make fewer and shorter contributions, and that both men and women respond more frequently to men's postings, thus reinforcing women's off-line status.

Similarly, analyses of on-line participation in non-educational settings such as chat groups suggest that women, even when men and women choose to mask gender through the use of pseudonyms, remain vulnerable to harassment, violence, and deception." (via)

Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+communities social+climate+learning gender cyberculture womens+studies pedagogy

Collaborative Learning Model

Tomoko Hamada & Kathleen Scott: Anthropology and International Education via the Internet: A Collaborative Learning Model

"Unlike Shon and others who focus on individual-centered learning, however, we argue that sociality is a core aspect of knowledge co-creation and knowledge-sharing (Greeno 1988).

We argue that learning is fundamentally a social activity, embedded in ongoing domains of practice, and that these empirical activities, in turn, give rise to new theoretical problems that drive learning to a new level of mental, affective, and behavioral responses and endeavors.

By sociality we mean mental, affective, and behavioral aspects of symbolic relations among actors in situ." (via)


Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+communities online+learning pedagogy teaching learning

New Designs for Learning

Dr. Margaret Riel: New Designs for Connected Teaching and Learning

"Technology is not the solution to the complex problems that face our schools but it can dramatically increase the community of participants designing solutions.

Fundamental change in the next decades will result from participation in education by a larger community of people who the Internet brings together, rather then from access to technology.

This is because education is a human enterprise. It is dependent on the relationship between teachers and learners in a specific social, political, and historical context.

My paper focuses on this context and way in which changes to the learning environment alters the relationships between teachers and learners, and between school and society." (via)


Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+communities professional+development online+learning pedagogy teaching learning

Grants

Up to $5,000 in Digi-Block Math Learning Materials

Grant Title: Digi-Block Grant Program
Organization: Digi-Block Inc.
Eligibility: Teachers
Value: Up to $5,000 in equipment and training
Deadline: October 15, 2004

The Digi-Block Grant program allows teachers and groups of teachers to apply for Digi-Block Learning System materials and training valued up to $5,000. Funded programs may include curriculum development and implementation projects, staff development and training, after-school programs or co-curricular activities, and innovative assessment techniques that use the Digi-Block Learning System. Applicants must describe how the Digi-Block Learning System will be used in the classroom or school.

Contact: http://www.digi-block.com/grant

* * * * *

$25,000 for Community Improvement

Grant Title: Christopher Columbus Awards
Organization: The Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation
Eligibility: Middle school students
Value: U.S. Savings Bonds and $25,000
Deadline: February 14, 2005

Teams of middle school students are invited to enter the Christopher Columbus Awards, a free awards program that challenges students to explore opportunities for positive change in their communities. Teams of up to four students and a coach must identify a community issue and use the scientific process to solve it. Finalist teams win an all-expenses-paid trip to Walt Disney World, where they will compete for U.S. Savings Bonds and the $25,000 Columbus Foundation Community Grant to help bring their idea to life. Coaches may be teachers, parents, community leaders, or mentors. Teams do not need to be affiliated with a school to enter.

Contact: (800) 291-6020 or http://www.christophercolumbusawards.com/

(via)

Online Learning Resources

• University of Maryland: Teaching and Learning on the Web
• Stanford University: Center for Online Learning and Pedagogy
• One Pipe: Online Facilitation, Moderation, and E-Learning
• Maricopa Community College: Teaching and Learning on the Web
• Teachers College @ Columbia University: Technology in the Classroom (free, but requires registration)

Technorati Tags: education+technology education online+communities professional+development online+learning pedagogy elearning

Dreamweaver MX Tutorial

The University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire has put together a series of web-based tutorials for many popular sofware programs including, Dreamweaver MX, HTML Coding, Basic Scanning, as well as other applications.

Change and Technology in America's Schools

Education Leadership Toolbox: "A project of the National School Boards Foundation implemented by NSBA's Institute for the Transfer of Technology to Education with a grant from the National Science Foundation."

Middle School Resources

MiddleWeb: "MiddleWeb provides a wealth of resources for schools, districts, educators, parents, and public school advocates working to raise achievement for all students in the middle grades.

In addition to MiddleWeb's large collection of reform-oriented materials, this site includes hundreds of articles and links about curriculum, teaching strategies, teacher professional development, parent involvement, classroom assessment, and much more." (Also see mentoring resources)



Technorati Tags: education+technology education teaching digital+learning+styles pedagogy net+generation

California Technology Assistance Project

CTAP: "The California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP) is a statewide educational technology leadership initiative, providing assistance to schools and districts in integrating technology into teaching and learning." (Ed Tech Training & Professional Development Resources)

Education Place

Education Place: "Find or share collaborative classroom projects for use over the Internet."

NCSA HTML Guide

National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA): "Many people use the NCSA Beginner's Guide to HTML as a starting point to understanding the hypertext markup language (HTML) used on the World Wide Web. It is an introduction and does not pretend to offer instructions on every aspect of HTML. Links to additional Web-based resources about HTML and other related aspects of preparing files are provided at the end of the guide."

Online Community Resources

Learning Ecology, Communities And Networks: Extending The Classroom: "Learner-centered, lifelong learning has been the cry of knowledge society visionaries for the last decade. Yet learning continues to be delivered with teacher-centric tools in a twelve week format. Society is changing. Learners needs are changing. The course, as a model for learning, is being challenged by communities and networks, which are better able to attend to the varied characteristics of the learning process by using multiple approaches, orchestrated within a learning ecology."

Shirky.com : Clay Shirky’s Writings About the Internet, Economics & Culture, Media & Community, Open Source

Technology Wales 2005 Conference

The fourth annual Technology Wales Conference is being held at the Cardiff International Arena on the 13th May 2005. The conference is aimed at IT Directors, CEO's, and senior managers and will bring together IT Professionals, developers, industry leaders and academics to explore and share information on new and innovative technology trends and exchange ideas on best practice.

Access Art

AccessArt: "A valuable resource bank for teachers, gallery educators and artists as well as a fun, creative and dynamic learning tool for pupils across all the key stages, and for home-users of all ages. From this site, you can access:

• A series of visually exciting and innovative 'online workshops', specially created by AccessArt.
• The online workshops condense and articulate artist-led teaching which has taken place in schools, museums and galleries.
• Teachers Notes and Learners Print-Outs.

Each online workshop is accompanied by explanatory notes for the educators and printable resource material which can be used directly by the learner." (via)

The Hyper University

The Digital Revolution and the Coming of the Postmodern University
Carl A. Raschke (Falmer Press, 2002)

From the RCCS Book Review:

"At the center of Raschke's postmodern prototype is the notion of a "hyper-university" which is comprised of a new anthropological knowledge space. He writes, "digital learning is radically reconstituting our intuitive, or common sense, views of the 'space' in which education takes place . . .

Instruction [was] something conducted by a particular person in a particular place at a particular time" (7). Hyperspace, though not a new concept for our friends in the computer labs or philosophy departments, has not found a large following in higher education for obvious reasons." (via)


Technorati Tags: education+technology education teaching digital+learning+styles pedagogy net+generation

Atomic Learning

"Atomic Learning provides software training using a unique, just-in-time approach. Our library of thousands of short tutorials on dozens of applications are focused on answering the common questions teachers, students and anyone else may have when learning software. We like to call them "atoms of learning" and they are easy to access whenever and where ever you need them. A subscription to Atomic Learning provides you access to all of the tutorials and other valuable educational resources. Click here to learn more about Atomic Learning and find out how to get a free trial account." (via)

Atomic also has several free tutorials available on their site, so be sure to click either the Mac or PC tab for more information. You will also need the Quicktime plug in to view the tutorials.

Cognitive Approaches to Instructional Design

Cognitive Approaches to Instructional Design
Wilson, B. G., Jonassen, D. H., & Cole, P. (1993)
The ASTD Handbook of Instructional Technology (pp. 21.1-21.22)

Abstract

1. To introduce you to some innovative methods for doing instructional design (ID), such as rapid prototyping and automated design systems.
2. To survey some examples of training models based on cognitive learning principles, such as cognitive apprenticeships and minimalist training.
3. To offer a set of guidelines for designing cognitive-based training. (via)


Technorati Tags: education+technology education instructional+design online+learning

Adult Learning and Teaching

The Dublin Institue of Technology (DIT) has put together some exceptional data on adult learning and teaching. These resources are available in both MS Word and PDF format.

Here's a sample of some of the topics covered:

-30 Thi