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20 tips and resources for using learning technology in higher education

20 tips and resources for using learning technology in higher education
Allison Littlejohn, director of the Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University Blended learning should transform learning, not just replicate teaching: Companies want graduates who can source, filter and use existing knowledge to create new knowledge, and the university is key to equipping students with these skills. Yet we seldom see technology tools being used in radically new ways in HE. They are usually used to replicate lectures - think of websites or podcasts - rather than enabling students to learn in new ways. Massive Open Online Course is one example of transformational learning. The courses are semi structured, decentralised, and (crucially) open. Learn from industry: There are lots of examples of collaborative and collective learning in industry. Other useful examples: • iSpot, UK Open University - where students, experts and members of the public share ideas on botany Ben Scoble, learning development specialist, Staffordshire University Resources:

Weavly: Create Mashup Videos With Ease! I stumbled across Weavly the other day and was astonished by the simplicity and creativity it allowed. It is fun, fast, and requires no downloading or uploading of files. Plus, the interface is simple and user-friendly, as you can see from the screenshot below: Best of all – it’s very easy to use! Once you find a video or audio file you like, you can drag-and-drop it into the timeline and adjust the length of the clip. There are a couple of different options for publishing the video. Weavly would be a great creativity tool for students, who could practice editing video and audio to create their own masterpieces. Happy remixing, y’all! Like this: Like Loading...

25 Ways To Use iPads In The Classroom by Degree of Difficulty In case you haven’t heard the news, we’re putting out a special mini-issue early next week. It’ll be available in the Edudemic Magazine iPad app and, best of all, FREE to subscribers! If you’re not (yet) a subscriber, it’ll be just $0.99. The following is an excerpt from just one of the articles in the mini-issue. It’s all about iPads in education, Apple’s role in the future of learning, and much more than that. So you’ve got one or a few iPads that you want to use in the classroom. Interactivity and British Library Sounds - Sound Recordings Have you recently visited the new British Library Sounds website and tried out its new features? The British Library Sounds website ( now has 50,000 sound tracks, all freely available for listening online. It represents the most diverse online collection of scholarly sounds anywhere, and now has improved interactive features, including tagging, favouriting, playlist generation and timed annotation features. Simply register on then those features are enabled. Registering allows you to make notes, add tags and personally manage items using favourites and playlists. An example of timed annotations is here: (& see the screen grab image below), but please do register yourself and add your own notes to other tracks. Watch this space over the next few weeks as we announce more collections that have recently been digitised and copyright-cleared for public access.

A teacher’s complete guide to using Google Voice to collect classwork and homework This entry will guide you through the process of setting up and using a Google Voice account for the purpose of collecting spoken homework, such as for a language class. After reading this guide, you will be ready to configure your Google Voice account and collect your first round of homework. The focus of this entry is not to give an exhaustive list of all the contexts and ways in which Google Voice can be used in education, however! Use your creativity and share your ideas in the comments. Google Voice is a completely free service which gives you a local telephone number with voicemail service. Students can call your Google Voice number from their own phones, be directly connected to voicemail, and record messages up to three minutes long. To create an account: Go to into a Google account. To set up your outgoing voicemail message: To share recordings with your students: Things to consider when implementing Google Voice in a language course: Further Reading:

25 TED Talks Perfect For Classrooms The 50 Best Sources of Free STEM Education Online 12.05K Views 0 Likes Colleges, universities, and other educational forums in your community can be excellent places to learn more about a variety of STEM topics, but there is also a wealth of educational material available on the web for those who prefer to learn at their own pace or take a more individual approach. Cloudworks - JISC 50 Popular iPad Apps For Struggling Readers & Writers Whether you’re the parent of a child with a reading disability or an educator that works with learning disabled students on a daily basis, you’re undoubtedly always looking for new tools to help these bright young kids meet their potential and work through their disability. While there are numerous technologies out there that can help, perhaps one of the richest is the iPad, which offers dozens of applications designed to meet the needs of learning disabled kids and beginning readers alike. Here, we highlight just a few of the amazing apps out there that can help students with a reading disability improve their skills not only in reading, writing, and spelling, but also get a boost in confidence and learn to see school as a fun, engaging activity, not a struggle. Note: See also 15 Of The Best Educational Apps For Improved Reading Comprehension & 20 iPad Apps To Teach Elementary Reading Helpful Tools Speak It! Fundamentals Reading Writing Spelling

Interactive Presentation Tool | LectureTools LectureTools is the only presentation tool designed from the ground up to meet the communication needs of instructors in the classroom. The system provides real-time access to information about student activity and comprehension levels. With LectureTools you can monitor the pulse of the classroom and modify your lectures to better reach your students. Prepare Interactive Lectures LectureTools provides you with the resources to quickly augment your existing PowerPoint® slideshows with interactive questions to engage your students. Hide Specific Slides Hide specific slides from students and reveal them at the appropriate time during class. Convey Learning Objectives Create an objectives slide for the beginning of your presentation by defining the lecture's goals when importing slides. Import Existing PowerPoint Files Upload .PPT and .PPTX slides into our intuitive interface. Publish With a Single Click Your presentation remains hidden until you decide to publish it. Present Engaging Slideshows

Is Peer Input as Important as Content for Online Learning? Culture Digital Tools Teaching Strategies Flickr: Incase By Nathan Maton Back in 2001, MIT launched OpenCourseWare, a bold idea to put world-class MIT professors’ lectures, syllabi and resources online to the world for free. Today, Open Education Resources (OER) industry leaders are arguing that the free content is only the starting point. The next stage of the open education movement has evolved into Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) — the key word being “massive,” as in drawing tens or hundreds of thousands of students. But at such a huge scale, what are the digital methods of teaching that work best? “It was totally clear to me [several years ago] that content is only the starting point,” Schmidt said at recently at a SXSW session. The Stanford professors readily admit that some of the students who participated in their online courses provided their peers with deeper, more comprehensive answers than they were able to. You’d expect MIT to tout its content as the solution. Related

Hot Potatoes Home Page - To this day I remain a big fan of the overhead projector. I truly believe it was more effective a tool for teaching than the projected Powerpoint slides will ever be. I stood facing the students, watching their expressions, which I could see since the lights were sufficiently bright. I could draw on the screen and change directions as questions arose. In fact I will argue that the ‘golden age of college teaching’ if there was one was stimulated by the addition of the roller to the overhead projector. It allowed the combining of student response, just-in-time teaching, constructivist development and several other educational buzz terms in one simple device. It’s been downhill ever since, …until this semester. This semester I’ve purchased an iPad2 and a software application called SplashTop Remote Desktop. To reach this new level of teaching nirvana I have found at least two routes (so far): Google+ Like this: Like Loading...

Techshops Elevate Product Overview Help Struggling Readers Reach New Heights Helping struggling readers and English Language Learners learn to read is extremely important, but also very challenging. Because these students have always struggled – they often believe they always will. These students don’t enjoy the classroom and either act out or avoid it altogether. Research-Based Reading Instruction for Struggling Readers Aside from misbehavior and absenteeism, these students are difficult to teach because they typically have a processing or language-based issue, making reading and language tasks extremely difficult – the very reason reading is a challenge for them to begin with. Research has found that struggling readers and ESL students have the most success learning to read when taught with instruction that is explicit, systematic, and multi-sensory in nature. Guide Students to Reading Success

Hyviä ja asiallisia vinkkejä joita voi itsekkin käyttää kuka tahansa. Antti suosittelee. by anttikuusela Dec 5

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