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The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Evidence of Learning Online: Assessment Beyond The Paper Assessment | Viewpoint Evidence of Learning Online: Assessment Beyond The Paper Discussions of technology strategy and planning for new media at colleges and universities are informed by many factors of higher education culture and the way its core constituents--faculty and students--work and learn. In designing courses for online environments we have been somewhat successful at scuttling closed-book exams for assessing student learning--largely due to the challenges of monitoring exams. Why is the traditional paper so prevalent in assessment, and how can we move beyond it to alternative evidence of student learning? Students often dread writing papers and respond enthusiastically to alternatives that demonstrate what they know and understand. We also know this: While we may want choices beyond the classic research papers, we don’t want to move beyond writing. So it is time, I think, to update our thinking towards “writing assignments.”

Aiming for the Young Crowd, Google Pitches a Google+ Summer Camp - Mike Isaac - Social Kids driving you nuts, now that school is out? Google announced an online summer camp on Monday, a collaboration with Make magazine that matches teens with maker-movement celebrities through the Google+ social network. Using the company’s Hangouts video group chat tool, kids age 13 through 18 can watch makers create projects online, many of which are composed of stuff lying around the house (think Mentos and erupting Coke bottles). It’s one in another series of moves by Google to bolster Google+, its heavily pitched yet questionably populated social network. There’s potential to reach a large, lucrative market by targeting teens: To “attend” the camp, the kids must have a Google+ account. Not to mention that teens are one of the most-engaged groups using social media online today. Video could be Google’s key to winning teens over. Now all Google needs is to get them to sign up.

How Technology Wires the Learning Brain Kids between the ages of 8 and 18 spend 11.5 hours a day using technology — whether that’s computers, television, mobile phones, or video games – and usually more than one at a time. That’s a big chunk of their 15 or 16 waking hours. But does that spell doom for the next generation? Not necessarily, according to Dr. “Young people are born into technology, and they’re used to using it 24/7,” Small said. “The technology train has left. The downside of such immersion in technological devices, he said, is that they’re not having conversations, looking people in the eye, or noticing verbal cues. But that’s not the headline here. Video games, for example, aren’t just about repetitive tasks – many of them have built-in social components that allow kids to communicate. “Texting is an expression of what it means to be human,” Small said. That’s why one well-liked teacher Small knows gives her students a five-minute texting break in the middle of class. “We can train empathic behavior,” he said.

Exploring edX 1.0 When Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced their intention last month to provide free, online education, the world listened. The unveiling of edX, the universities’ joint open-source platform for web-based learning, garnered buzz around the globe. The next question was obvious. On Thursday, Anant Agarwal, edX’s first president, offered some early answers at Harvard’s second annual IT Summit. “This really is an exciting time for all of us to be in IT and education, and it’s a particularly exciting time to be at Harvard in IT,” said Anne Margulies, Harvard’s chief information officer, who kicked off the summit at Sanders Theatre. Anne Margulies, Harvard’s chief information officer, kicked off the summit at Sanders Theatre. Agarwal, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, led development of MIT’s earlier platform, MITx. “Immediate feedback is huge,” he said.

Student Research: Can Googling Replace $168 Intro to Psych Textbook? Electronic Textbooks | News Student Research: Can Googling Replace $168 Intro to Psych Textbook? By Dian Schaffhauser02/16/11 Students are taking the battle against high-priced textbooks into their own hands. This week, 11 University of Cincinnati seniors in the psychology program presented at an Educause event a comparison of the content of traditional college texts, one of which costs $168, to content they found for free on the Web. The research effort was undertaken as part of the Digital Bookshelf Project, the University System of Ohio's effort to make textbooks more affordable. For the latest research project, which took place in fall 2010, the students compared the value and educational quality of two current textbooks with the draft of a new textbook they found free online, along with what they could find through online search engines. They found that materials from Wikipedia were accurate and thorough, though "perhaps excessively thorough for an introductory course," they reported.

JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching Jacqueline A. Gilbert Professor of Management Department of Management & Marketing Jennings A. Jones College of Business Murfreesboro, TN 37130 USA jgilbert@mtsu.edu Ricardo Flores-Zambada Director Recursos Humanos del Sistema Tecnológico de Monterrey Monterrey, Neuvo Leon MX 64849 riflores@itesm.mx Introduction Online and hybrid learning environments are relative newcomers to the world of higher education. As Graham (2006) explains, there is now an emphasis on introducing a “human” dimension to technologies, like virtual communities, portable digital devices, instant messaging, and blogging. Eveleth and Baker-Eveleth (2003) present a compelling framework and design for the inclusion of an online component inside a traditional face-to-face classroom. In the course described within this manuscript, students developed a set of core competencies which were designed to give them a strategic workforce advantage over individuals who had not had similar exposure. Step by Step Design

App Fusion: Learning Face-off with Facebook by Terrence Wing "This is not to say that Facebook is the end-all and that you should abandon your LMS. There are privacy concerns with proprietary information that you need to consider. This learning option should not be considered in every situation. However, there are great opportunities for Facebook to be a great learning catalyst that keeps everyone from the learner to the bean counter happy." Wikipedia reports that there are over 500 million users now on the social networking giant, Facebook. This appears to be great news for Mark Zuckerberg and his army of investors. It’s all in the context Let’s get some definitions out of the way to establish a consistent context for this thesis. A content management system (CMS) is the collection of procedures used to manage workflow in a collaborative environment. Many social media sites fall into the CMS category. A LMS provides a higher level of administration because it enables you to measure the effects of your learning initiatives. Does this really work?

MERLOT Pedagogy Portal The Lairds of Learning How did academic publishers acquire these feudal powers? By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 30th August 2011 Who are the most ruthless capitalists in the Western world? Everyone claims to agree that people should be encouraged to understand science and other academic research. You might resent Murdoch’s paywall policy, in which he charges £1 for 24 hours of access to the Times and Sunday Times. Of course, you could go into the library (if it still exists). Murdoch pays his journalists and editors, and his companies generate much of the content they use. The returns are astronomical: in the past financial year, for example, Elsevier’s operating-profit margin was 36% (£724m on revenues of £2 billion)(8). More importantly, universities are locked into buying their products. What we see here is pure rentier capitalism: monopolising a public resource then charging exorbitant fees to use it. It’s bad enough for academics, it’s worse for the laity. www.monbiot.com References: 1. 2. 3.

Journal of Educational Technology & Society MIT Now Granting Official Certificates For Their Free Online Courses This is big. M.I.T., the hub of education and technology where innovations seem to happen on an hourly basis… has just unveiled the future of online education. Basically, you can now earn official credits toward an M.I.T. certificate by taking their free and online courses. The school is calling the program “MITx” reminiscent of TEDx. I wouldn’t be surprised if the trend-setting M.I.T. pushes brick-and-mortar schools to also grant official certifications to those that can demonstrate a mastery of the subjects being taught online. MITx While students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pay thousands of dollars for courses, the university will announce a new program on Monday allowing anyone anywhere to take M.I.T. courses online free of charge — and for the first time earn official certificates for demonstrating mastery of the subjects taught. M.I.T. led the way to an era of online learning 10 years ago by posting course materials from almost all its classes. Mr.

Infographic: How Has the Internet Changed Education? Email Share December 23, 2011 - by Sarah Cargill 0 Email Share At Getting Smart, we discuss often how the Internet, personal digital learning, social media and other technology tools are changing the face of education. Faculty and students in higher education are using social media, online videos, blogs and more to instruct students in classes. For more, view the infographic below:

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