Flipped learning skepticism: What about technology?

To continue the blog post series I’ve been doing (installments one, two, and three) that addresses skepticisms about flipped learning, I wanted to dip into something other than my own comment sections, and go to a general class of skepticisms I’ve heard when I do workshops. Those skepticisms involve technology. Specifically, although I've never heard a single formulation of this skepticism, there are two ways it can occur:

By Robert Talbert

Read more.
http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines

Promoting Students’ Self-Efficacy in the Online Classroom

As online education enrollment increases, (Allen & Seaman, 2011), innovative practices are needed to improve quality instruction. One area that needs further exploration is that of promoting online students’ self-efficacy. In this article we examine the concept of self-efficacy, as it pertains to the online classroom, and offer practical suggestions for online instructors. 

In Albert Bandura’s (1997) thorough examination of self-efficacy, he defined the concept as a person’s beliefs about his/her abilities to complete specific actions. Thus, self-efficacy is a major factor in how a person approaches a particular task or challenge, especially one that is new. For the nontraditional student, beginning an online course can be a daunting challenge that can possibly lower their sense of self-efficacy, as this modality can trigger different responses in students compared to the traditional face-to-face environment (Hauser, Paul, & Bradley, 2012). With that in mind, it is important to examine the factors that influence an individual’s sense of self-efficacy and apply these concepts directly to online educational practices.

By: Ben Vilkas and Crystal McCabe

Read more.

http://www.facultyfocus.com

A Marvelous Little Wearable That Tracks Your Activity and Vitals

You know what’s great to have on your wrist? A watch. It is, you might even say, wearable. You know what else is Wearable? This activity tracker from Withings, the Pulse O2.

I loved the first Pulse tracker from Withings. It had some neat features that weren’t found on most activity trackers, like on-demand pulse tracking, elevation, and the ability to differentiate runs from walks. It also had a great on-device interface, and one of our favorite smartphone apps to boot. The app could also suck in data from other Withings products, like its smart scale and blood pressure cuff, as well as other apps like RunKeeper. It was great!
BY MAT HONAN
Read more.
http://www.wired.com

Johns Hopkins Schools Collaborate to Offer Business of Health Care Program

Johns Hopkins Schools Collaborate to Offer Business of Health Care Program


May 27, 2014

The Johns Hopkins University is launching a new online leadership and management training certificate program for professionals working in medicine and health care. The Certificate in the Business of Health Care is a collaborative, interdisciplinary program that draws upon the strengths of the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, Carey Business School, School of Medicine, and School of Nursing. The joint certificate will be offered online and is designed to serve individuals in leadership roles that lack formal training in business and those leaders who seek formal training in leadership.

Types of online lectures

Video: May be used to engage learners and to present content. Video should be an integral part of the course design and not an add-on or mimicking face-to-face lectures.

• Lecture capture: This is a recording of a live lesson or class.

• Talking Head: Recording of the instructor usually at their desk.

• Voice over presentation: This is usually a PowerPoint with audio that explains the slides.

• Interactive lecture: This is a presentation that includes the instructor video, and other

• material (charts, slides, images) on the screen.

Audio: This is an audio lecture.

Presentation: This may be composed of PowerPoint slides with text and visuals.


Documents: This is usually a document such as a PDF displayed on the screen. This could also include webpage lectures.


Mashup: This is a video with other visuals on the side.

By Charles Wachira

U.S. Online Degrees Pose Challenges for International Students

International students may face cultural or linguistic barriers when it comes to studying online.

The lure of earning an online degree from a U.S. college was strong for Magdy Reda, a manager with the state-owned company that controls air traffic for Italy in Rome. Like many international students, he hoped to earn a well-respected degree while avoiding the costs of moving to another country or leaving his job.

By Devon Haynie

Read more.
http://www.usnews.com/education

What make a successful online instructor?

Teaching in itself can be a challenge. Adding an online component to your teaching could be a daunting task. The following suggestions may help prepare and develop you into a successful online instructor

• Able to communicate effectively especially in writing
• Set expectations early
• Respond to students questions and needs
• Know your course (participate in design and development)
• Know the technology (technological competency)
• Have a contingency plan
• Patience, flexibility, and adaptability
• Moderate discussions and intervene when necessary
• Learner centered instruction
• Be motivated

By Charles Wachira

What makes a successful online student?

Most students have been exposed to some form of online learning. This may be blended learning, flipped classroom, or online learning. This could be challenging to some learners, given that each student has their own learning style. The key to becoming a successful student is the ability to adjust your learning style into the type of learning. Capitalize on your strengths while improving your weaknesses.

• Take ownership of your learning
• Able to communicate effectively especially in writing
• Self motivated and disciplined
• Effective time-management skills
• Basic technical skills
• Access to a computer
• Access to internet connection
• Ability to communicate with peers via online discussions
• Engage your instructor and fellow students via discussions and asking questions
• Class participation

• Netiquette

By Charles Wachira

Tools I Use: Online Noise Generators

We’ve written before at ProfHacker about choosing your playlist to change your life, about creating a soundtrack for the semester, about choosing songs for the pace of your desired daily run, and about noise-cancelling headphones when you just want silence. 

But sometimes you don’t want either music or silence, but just the right sort of background noise. Many people love Coffitivity, a site (and also mobile app) that offers the background noise typical of a coffee shop. Although I often work really well in coffee shops, I personally don’t like Coffitivity because it contains a lot of vocal sound which my brain finds too distracting.

by Natalie Houston

Read more.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker

Middlebury Faculty Seeks to Cut Ties With Online-Education Company

The faculty at Middlebury College last week took a stand against the Vermont institution’s partnership with K12, an online-education company that has been helping the college turn its reputation as a language-instruction mecca into a business venture.

The professors voted, 95 to 16, to end the relationship with the company.

“The business practices of K12 Inc. are at odds with the integrity, reputation, and educational mission of the college,” wrote Paula Schwartz, a professor of French, in her rationale for introducing the motion.

by Steve Kolowich

Read more.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus

Using Badges in the Classroom to Motivate Learning

Gold stars, Girl Scout badges, and Boy Scout badges—when we think about motivating our students to assist them in their learning and development, using badges in the classroom have a similar function as many of the rewards we were offered as young learners in primary schools (Ash, 2012). As a motivational tool, badges can be added to your college classroom using a fairly streamlined process, and with little or no cost to you at an individual level, or at an institutional level. 

By: Holli Vah Seliskar

Read more.
http://www.facultyfocus.com

ROI on Blended Learning

How do you measure ROI (return on investment) on your blended course approach?

So the course has ended, you have spent quite a bit of time and resources converting your course into a blended course. The student grades are in, as is your end-of-course evaluations or SPOTs.  Now what?

What to consider:

• Has your teaching improved
• Has your students learning and knowledge retention improved
• Were your students more engaged
• Was there an increase in collaboration
• Were you hoping to reach a wider student base
• Was cost a factor
• Were you able to develop digital content
• Were you able to experiment and explore new pedagogy and technologies

BlendKit2014 Chapter 5 - Reading reaction

How to tell if your blended course is a success or flop

You've probably been in a class that was so terrible, you had to ask yourself, "How did I end up here?" or maybe your designed a course that was a total bust. It would be helpful to identify certain "red flags" during the course that would help the instructor and students change course or modify the course.

So, what makes a blended learning course good or bad?

They are the usual measures such as unbalanced face-to-face and online sessions, wayward students, and technology malfunctions.

A course slated as "blended" should include both online and face-to-face components. The balance should also be determined before the course begins as a way of setting student expectations. In most cases the online component is seen as an add-on to traditional face-to-face instruction. A good blended course should treat the online component as an integral part of the course with the same seriousness and rigor as the face-to-face component.

A good blended course should allow for flexibility and minor modifications to cater to the student needs. These changes may be necessary to accommodate students experiencing technology difficulties and other unforeseen issues.

The "course and a half" workload is another area of importance. Students may feel over burdened by the additional work allocated to the online component. Balancing the workload should be a course design priority.

In conclusion, remember to put enough emphasis on course design, whether you are designing a new blended course, converting a traditional course into a blended course, or simply reevaluating an existing blended course. Bad design will only result in bad courses.

By Charles Wachira

Blended Learning Infographic
Blended learning is a disruptive innovation in education that can take many forms.

Read more.

Educause 7 things. Cloud Storage and Collaboration

Educause 7 things.
Cloud Storage and Collaboration

BlendKit2014: Week 5

Week 05: Quality Assurance

• Week 5 reading: completed 05/16/2014
• Reading Reaction: Chapter 05:   completed 05/13/2014
• Week 05 Blog: completed 05/13/2014
• Week 05 Info Stream: completed 05/13/2014
• DIY Task 05: completed 05/27/2014
• Week 05 Webinar: completed 05/27/2014

By Charles Wachira

05/15/2014: What did you learn today?

Language iApp: Duo Lingo

Rhizomatic learning

• Type of learning promoted by Dave Cormier
• http://davecormier.com/edblog/2011/11/05/rhizomatic-learning-why-learn/

Conventional Online Higher Education Will Absorb MOOCs, 2 Reports Say

Massive open online courses will not fundamentally reshape higher education, nor will they disappear altogether. Those are the conclusions of separate reports released this week by Teachers College at Columbia University and Bellwether Education Partners, a nonprofit advisory group. 

Neither report contains any blockbuster news for those who have followed the decline of the MOOC hype over the last year or so. But they support the theory that the tools and techniques Stanford University professors used in 2011 to enroll 160,000 students in a free, online computer-science course will be subsumed by broader, incremental efforts to improve higher education with technology.

By Steve Kolowich

Read more.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus

Frictionless Formative Assessment with Social Media

In a seminal experience sampling study (EMS), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi gave beepers to teenagers with instructions to write down what they were feeling and thinking whenever the devices went off. This simple technique, randomly checking in with students throughout the day, led to an epiphany about performance psychology, something Csikszentmihalyi defined as flow. Also a discovery about assessment was derived: 

Quick check-ins over time can reveal an extraordinary amount about an individual or collection of individuals. 

By Paige Alfonzo 

Read more. 
http://www.edutopia.org

Rhetoric Check

The faculty leaders behind the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education continued their barrage against massive open online courses on Tuesday, challenging the providers to come clean on “overblown, misleading or simply false” rhetoric.

In letters blasted off last week to the founders of Coursera, edX and Udacity, the organization expresses its concern that the MOOC providers are motivated not by the “needs of our students, but the needs of [their] investors.”

By Carl Straumsheim

Read more.
Inside Higher Ed 

MOOCs’ disruption is only beginning

JOURNALISTS, AS 2013 ended, were busy declaring the death of MOOCs, more formally known as massive open online courses. Silicon Valley startup Udacity, one of the first to offer the free Web-based college classes, had just announced its pivot to vocational training — a sure sign to some that this much-hyped revolution in higher education had failed. The collective sigh of relief from more traditional colleges and universities was audible.

The news, however, must have also had the companies that had enthusiastically jumped on the MOOC train feeling a bit like Mark Twain. When newspapers confused Twain for his ailing cousin, the writer famously quipped, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Undoubtedly pronouncements over MOOCs’ demise are likewise premature. And their potential to disrupt — on price, technology, even pedagogy — in a long-stagnant industry is only just beginning to be seen.

By Clayton M. Christensen and Michelle R. Weise

Read more.
http://www.bostonglobe.com

Can MOOCs and Universities Co-Exist?

A generation of young Americans is bearing the brunt of decades of runaway college costs. Graduates are entering the workforce with staggering student loans that are inhibiting their ability to buy homes, cars and start families.

Massive open online courses—or MOOCs—hold the promise of bending that cost curve down. The genius of MOOCs is that they can reach millions of students. Their Achilles' heel, if they have one, is that they are impersonal.

By DOUGLAS BELKIN

Read more
http://online.wsj.com

Teaching and Learning w/Tech blog Wordle

Teaching and Learning w/Tech wordle

05/14/2014

Pearson Releases Report on Best Practices for Implementing Successful Online Programs at Higher Education Institutions

Online learning continues to provide unprecedented, flexible opportunities for individuals to pursue their higher education goals. To demonstrate measurable impact of online learning services, Pearson today released a report, titled, "Implementing Comprehensive Online Learning Programs that Improve Student and Institutional Outcomes in Higher Education."

The paper, which is based on partnerships with Pearson Embanet, a unit of Pearson Online Learning Services, shares specific best practice examples, observations, and outcomes from six leading institutions, gathered through their experience creating and managing several online programs, which have given thousands of students the opportunity to achieve their higher education goals. Institutions featured in the report include: The George Washington University, Abilene Christian University, Champlain College, University of Cincinnati, Washington State University, and Norwich University.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1910651#ixzz31c19VtRS

BlendKit2014 Chapter 4 - Reading reaction

Week 4 Reading: Blended Content and Assignments

How can specific technologies help you present content, provide meaningful experiences, and pitch integration to students in your blended course?

As in any course, initiating and maintaining student engagement is crucial and challenging. Leveraging your Learning Management System (LMS) is probably your best bet. While numerous and sometimes sophisticated software may exist outside your LMS, keeping your students while the LMS has many benefits. Building community and familiarity will help facilitate learning and collaboration. Collaborative tools that you may consider include your LMS inbuilt discussion board, messaging, and assessments. External discussion board tools such as Piazza may be incorporated into your LMS via building blocks or plugins. Video software may be used to create student generated videos for assignments and video reflections. Tools such as YouTube, Kaltura, and Panopto may help accomplish this. 

In most cases, software selection may be done prior to beginning the course. However, low-level software decisions may be done together with the students. They are the ones who will be using the tools; why not let them pick the tool? Tools with small learning curves, straight forward navigation, and ease of use are most ideal. As with all technologies in the classroom, the moment the students stop noticing the technology, the emphasis will switch to teaching and learning.

By Charles Wachira

BlendKit2014: Week 4

Week 04: Blended Content & Assignments

• Week 4 reading: completed 05/12/2014
• Reading Reaction: Chapter 04: completed 05/12/2014
• Week 04 Blog: completed 05/13/2014
• Week 04 Info Stream: completed 05/13/2014
• DIY Task 04: completed 05/19/2014
• Week 04 Webinar: completed 05/19/2014

By Charles Wachira

Google Developing Free LMS as Part of Apps for Education

Google is now taking applications for a limited preview of a new app called Google Classroom — a tool that brings learning management functionality to the Google Apps for Education suite.

According to Google Apps for Education Product Manager Zach Yeskel, Google Classroom is designed "to give teachers more time to teach [and to] give students more time to learn" by helping them avoid "some of the busywork" that's part of the process of teaching. Yeskel said Classroom has been piloted in about a dozen schools around the country so far, including institutions in New York, California and Illinois.

By David Nagel

Read more.
http://campustechnology.com

Technology Provides Foreign-Language Immersion at a Distance

In an Internet-era version of pen pals, some foreign-language professors at American colleges are using free or low-cost technology to match their students with partners in classes in other countries and to provide authentic language-­immersion experiences.

Teletandem, or telecollaboration, as the practice is known, uses video­conferencing—whether Skype, Google Hangouts, or Adobe Connect—to complement both in-person and online language courses. For example, students in a Spanish class here are paired with students in an English course abroad. To minimize intimidation, professors try to pair students of the same proficiency level. The idea is a simple one—I teach you my language, you teach me yours.


By Danya Perez-Hernandez

Read more.
http://chronicle.com/section/Home/5

Who Should Own Online Courses?

There’s a lot of talk about MOOCs and online courses in the higher education space. While issues of quality, access and cost fuel heated discussions around the subject, the individuals and institutions who embrace online courses sometimes still find themselves at odds over the tricky subject of who should own the copyright.

Depending on how you look at the situation, both sides can make a pretty strong case. For those convinced universities should own online course materials, the role of the faculty looks much like that of any employee who creates a product they’re paid for. If a company pays a graphic designer for a logo, the logo obviously belongs to the company and not the designer.

By Kristen Hicks

Read more.

http://edcetera.rafter.com

The Benefits of Using Podcasting in Higher Education

In the 1985 comedy Real Genius, there’s a jokey montage that includes the image of tape recorders little by little taking the place of students in the seats of a lecture hall. The punch line: by the end of the montage, the lecturer has also been replaced by a large tape player.

While the tech has evolved, the image is pretty prescient in terms of the role audio has come to play in higher education. As technology has made audio recordings easier and easier, faculty and students are finding ways for podcasting to help enhance the educational experience. While they still trail behind most other forms of social media, nearly 20% of faculty say they’ve used podcasts professionally.

By Kristen Hicks

Read  more.
http://edcetera.rafter.com

A Push for Closed Captioning in the Digital Age

As digital video continues to disrupt the traditional TV world, there are complications beyond just those affecting the business model.

The move of video to the Net also has caused problems for viewers who need captions. Whether deaf or hard of hearing, or speakers of an obscure language, it’s often difficult for these users to access online entertainment because there aren’t regulations requiring accurate, timely captions on digital content as on cable and broadcast.

By Angela Washeck

Read more.
http://www.pbs.org

Flipped learning skepticism: Do students want to have lectures?

This article continues a look at some of the skepticisms I’ve seen about flipped learning and the flipped classroom. Previously, we discussed whether flipped learning means having students learn everything on their own and whether students can even learn on their own in the first place.

This time I want to focus on an issue that was the third point in a good comment from a previous post about flipped learning. In that post, I was reporting about a framework for defining what flipped learning is. The authors of that framework laid out four “pillars of practice” for the flipped classroom, one of which was the creation of a learning culture — student-centered communities of inquiry instead of instructor-centered lectures.

By Robert Talbert

Read more.

http://chronicle.com

BlendKit2014 Chapter 3 - Reading reaction

When and when not to use online assessments in a blended course.

It's true that online testing reduces the grading time. While this may be a gained positive for instructors, a negative is the added responsibility on students to navigate through assessments and technology in an online environment. Academic honesty has to be taken into account as well. In most cases, faculty have no option but to offer the online assessments during class time. A more balanced approach would be offering non-graded or non-credit assessments online and leaving the graded or credit assessments in the traditional setting through pen and paper or classroom proctoring.

By Charles Wachira

BlendKit2014: Week 3

Week 03: Blended Assessments of Learning

• Reading Reaction: Chapter 03: completed 05/06/2014
• Week 03 Blog: completed 05/06/2014
• Week 03 Info Stream: completed 05/06/2014
• DIY Task 03: completed 05/12/2014
• Week 03 Webinar

By Charles Wachira

Amid The Device Hype, This Startup Is Taking Wearables To Heart

by Chris Arnold

There's been a lot of talk about wearable devices being the next big thing in the technology world. It's easy for the hype to get ahead of the products, but there's actually some serious innovation going on. 

"What we're going to see over the next couple years is going to be extremely exciting," says Dan Ledger of Endeavor Partners, which consults with the companies that are inventing wearables. "As the technology improves ... we're going to get devices that solve a lot of useful and unique problems for a lot of people out there."

Read more.
http://www.npr.org/

Blackboard Deal Will Make Digital Resources Available

by Danya Perez-Hernandez


Blackboard, the company that produces a leading learning-management platform, has announced a partnership with Discovery Education Higher Ed, an arm of Discovery Communications, the Discovery Channel’s parent. The two companies aim to engage students and faculty members through the use of digital media.

Read more.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/

Professional Learning in Massive Open Online Courses

Professional Learning in Massive Open Online Courses

You may find the paper at:
http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/abstracts/pdf/milligan.pdf

Passive MOOC Students Don’t Retain New Knowledge, Study Finds

by Danya Perez-Hernandez

Students in massive open online courses are apt to take a passive approach to learning, avoiding collaboration with others, seeking only passing grades, and therefore not retaining new knowledge, a new study has found.

Researchers at Glasgow Caledonian University surveyed about 400 students who were taking the Harvard Medical School’s “Fundamentals of Clinical Trials,” a MOOC intended for health professionals and offered through the U.S.-based platform edX.

Read more.

http://chronicle.com

Will Bitcoin and Other Insurgent Currencies Reinvent Commerce?

By David Bollier

Will Bitcoin and other insurgent currencies on the market reinvent commerce? This and other questions are addressed in “The Weightless Marketplace: Coming to Terms with Innovative Payment Systems, Digital Currencies and Online Labor Markets,” a just-released report that I wrote for the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program. The report distills the more salient points raised at the three-day 2013 Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology (also known as InfoTech) last August, which brought together leading players in banking, financial services, and online labor platforms. 

Most of the conference participants are in the business of inventing or adapting to new types of digital payment systems or data-based services. They include major players like JP Morgan Chase, Intuit, and VISA, as well as upstarts such as Bitcoin, ID3, and the identity-management service Personal.

Read more.
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/about/blog

Flipped learning skepticism: Can students really learn on their own?

By Robert Talbert

We’re currently looking at points of skepticism about flipped learning and the flipped classroom. In the last post, we discussed the issue of students objecting to the flipped classroom because it is nothing more than having students teach themselves the subject. My response to that was that flipped learning should never look like the instructor simply giving students reading to do and walking away; like any effective pedagogy, it should involve a partnership between student and instructor that focuses on crucial learning experiences in class, which under the flipped model is wide open for such experiences.

Read more.
http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines

N.Y. Public Library Plans Face-to-Face ‘Classes’ for MOOC Students

April 30, 2014 by Steve Kolowich

In a pilot program with Coursera, the New York Public Library plans to organize meet-ups at which people taking massive open online courses can gather and discuss the courses with help from “trained facilitators.”

The partnership is part the MOOC company’s effort to build an infrastructure for in-person learning around its free online courses. Research has suggested that MOOC students who receive offline help earn higher scores on their assessments.

Read more.

http://chronicle.com