Educational Technology
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What? A Menu of Assessment Options?
[social_share/] [social-bio] I have recently come upon a few interesting ideas about the conditions we create for assessment in higher education, especially with respect to deterring academic dishonesty. Standing out to me right now is a 2013 book I’ve been reading by James Lang titled “Cheating Lessons.” This book provides inspiration, encouragement, and practical advice to teachers in higher education. Lang’s premise is that cheating is an inappropriate response by students to environments that convey an emphasis on performance within the context of extremely high stakes and where extrinsic motivators overpower the “intrinsic joy or utility of the task itself” (p. 30). Lang points his readers to an innovative assessment…
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Visual Note Taking As A New Way of Listening
[social_share/] [social-bio] Text notes are not the best method of note taking for many students. Some do better simply listening and taking it in, while others thrive on visual representations of what is being said. I just watched Giulia Forsythe at Brock University describe her visual note taking. The video is about 4 minutes long and brings together the why and the how of this technique. It makes great sense from a “how the brain learns” perspective, and can be viewed below. After watching the video I did a little digging and came upon this resource that is indeed comprehensive if you want to learn more—a LOT more about visual note-taking using…
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Pedagogy First When Selecting Learning Technologies
[social_share/] [social-bio] I teach the Introduction to Learning Technologies course from the GMCTE. In the past, I’ve also taught a similar course for undergraduate students in the College of Education and over the past several years I’ve given a number of workshops on to the topic. I always give the same one bit of advice and the same caveat related to learning technologies. The advice is to never put post anything online, including in an email that you wouldn’t want your mother, your boss or your grandchildren to see. You don’t want to embarrass Mom or get fired from your job, and your content will be out there long enough…
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Shall I Google That For You?
[social_share/] [social-bio] A vital skill for faculty and students alike is to make effective use of search tools. Google is used millions of times every minute yet most folks are using only a tiny fraction of Google’s ability. In particular, when we wish to use Google for supporting our scholarly work, there are particular strategies, tactics, and features that everyone ought to know. I recently came across a blog post at LifeHacker.com on “Google tips and tricks every student should know” The best part of this post was the 41 minute video resource (embedded below) on making effective use of Google Scholar. A default Scholar search results are normally sorted by relevance,…
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What Do We Mean by ‘Open’?
[social_share/] [social-bio] As I wrote about in an earlier post, the GMCTE is launching what we believe is the first “open” online course from the University of Saskatchewan. Introduction to Learning Technologies is being offered simultaneously to both a small blended cohort (mostly online, with five face-to-face sessions) and a much larger open group of participants. This course is designed for faculty, instructors and grad students who wish to learn more about effective uses of learning technologies. Participants will explore pedagogically-informed use of blogs, podcasts, social bookmarking and a host of other tools, in addition to considering the implications of copyright and Creative Commons, digital citizenship and digital literacy for…
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Supporting Your Flipped Classroom with Open Resources
[social_share/] [social-bio] We’ve talked about flipped classrooms in this space before. In a nutshell, flipped classrooms involve taking the regular lecture style content out of the classroom and assigning it as homework prior to coming to class. The majority of the time, this involves having the students watch videos, often created by the instructor, to prepare for class. Recently I came across the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) and have considered how it would couple with a flipped classroom. The Open Learning Initiative “is a grant-funded group at Carnegie Mellon University, offering innovative online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach. [Their] aim is to create high-quality courses and contribute…
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GMCTE to Launch First Open Online Course From USask
[social_share/] [social-bio] On January 21, 2014, the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness (GMCTE) will launch the first open online course (OOC) from the University of Saskatchewan, Introduction to Learning Technologies. This course, aimed at novices, will invite participants to explore pedagogically informed use of blogs, podcasts, social bookmarking and a host of other tools, in addition to considering the implications of copyright and Creative Commons, digital citizenship and digital literacy for their teaching practice. The course was initially designed to be a blended course with a small group of participants coming in for face-to-face class meetings five times throughout the term, but with the bulk of the materials being open to…
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An Update on Open Courseware at the U of S
[social_share/] [social-bio] Last year we ran a blog post about the Open Courseware (OCW) initiative which is a joint venture of ICT, SESD and the ULC at the U of S. This portal offers a gateway to every course offered at the UofS and provides a space where instructors may choose to open up course information or learning resources to the world. There has been a lot of talk around the university lately about syllabi being open through OCW, which is now in accordance with the Academic Courses Policy. I thought that these conversations make it an appropriate time to write another post on this initiative. Instructors have the option to…
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Fair Dealing, Contracts With Publishers and Linking to Journals
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Charlene Sorensen The Copyright Act contains a clause that allows for “fair dealing” in formal educational settings. This means that a non-substantial portion of a published work can be re-distributed to students enrolled in a class provided that neither password protection nor digital locks are circumvented. Non-substantial roughly means an article from a journal volume, a chapter of a book, or short excerpt (less than 10% of the overall work). Similarly, “direct linking” or “deep linking” to a particular piece of content within a website (i.e. giving the exact URL of a PDF file containing a paper within a journal) is acceptable provided that neither password protection nor…
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Using Google Forms for Student Feedback
[social_share/] [social-bio] My colleague here at the GMCTE, Kim West introduced me to integrating formative feedback into my classes. Through this I get some valuable feedback from students about my teaching and the course in general, and it goes a long way in helping to build rapport between me and the students. Following Kim’s lead I would print out sheets of paper that had four instances of a feedback form asking questions like, “What’s one thing you learned today?” or “What questions do you have after this week’s classes?”. I would cut them into four and take them to class. They were voluntary, but students completed them in high numbers. Students…