August 10

Google Earth to Educators

"Google Earth icon remake" by Jcpag2012 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Google_Earth_icon_remake.png#/media/File:Google_Earth_icon_remake.png

“Google Earth icon remake” by Jcpag2012 – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Google_Earth_icon_remake.png#/media/File:Google_Earth_icon_remake.png

Here is a nice post on the Digital Explorer blog on “40+ ideas on using Google Earth and Maps in the classroom,” which includes suggestions for lesson activities in pretty much every academic discipline. For even more ideas and resources, check out Panoramio and Google Maps for Education.

Category: Spotlight on Ed Tech | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 6

St. Cloud Alumnus Champions Free Textbooks

 

Screenshot credit: http://www.kare11.com

Screenshot credit: http://www.kare11.com

We mentioned David Ernst in our previous article on the MN eLearning Summit.  Ernst happens to be not only CIO at the U of M’s College of Education and Human Development but also Executive Director of the Open Textbook Network where he created the Open Textbook Library. What’s more, Dave is a St. Cloud alumnus! Please see yesterday’s news video and article about the Open Textbook Network on KARE 11.

Reference

Xiong, B. (2015, August 5). U of M explores free textbooks for students. KARE 11. Retrieved from http://www.kare11.com/story/life/family/take-kare/money/2015/08/05/u–m-explores-free-textbooks–students/31187033/

Category: Open Educational Resources | 1 Comment on St. Cloud Alumnus Champions Free Textbooks
August 5

How Digital Badges Work

Here is a neat infographic about how digital badges work. For some reason, I thought these badges I kept hearing about were more complicated than this. But no. They really are this simple. I even have one myself. I clicked a button after completing a MOOC last week, and it was magically added to my LinkedIn account. Pretty cool.

Image credit: http://coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/

Image credit: http://coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/

Watch this webinar recording by the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) at the University of Texas, Austin if you would like to learn more about how one can create and issue badges.

Category: How Does It Work?, Open Educational Resources | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 5

Hippocrat-E-learning

Creative Commons "2008 White Coat Ceremony 5” by Penn State (CC-BY-ND 2.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ www.flickr.com

Creative Commons “2008 White Coat Ceremony 5” by Penn State (CC-BY-ND 2.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
www.flickr.com

Hippocrates is an OER (open educational resource) developed by the University of Bristol to help 3rd year medical students become more familiar with various clinical practices. The modules, which are designed to be used in a blended/flipped approach, include tutorials, case studies, videos, and links to external resources, interspersed with engaging and interactive formative assessments.

Screenshot credit: https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/institution/Faculty%20of%20Medicine%20and%20Dentistry/MB%20ChB/Radiology/MRI%20e-tutorial/page_12.htm

Screenshot credit: https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/institution/Faculty%20of%20Medicine%20and%20Dentistry/MB%20ChB/Radiology/MRI%20e-tutorial/page_12.htm

Screenshot credit: https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/institution/Faculty%20of%20Medicine%20and%20Dentistry/MB%20ChB/Hippocrates%20Year%203%20Medicine%20and%20Surgery/Abdomen%20-%20Abdominal%20radiology/page_08.htm

Screenshot credit: https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/institution/Faculty%20of%20Medicine%20and%20Dentistry/MB%20ChB/Hippocrates%20Year%203%20Medicine%20and%20Surgery/Abdomen%20-%20Abdominal%20radiology/page_08.htm

Anyway, I thought these e-tutorials might be of interest to our faculty and students, particularly in the School of Health and Human Services. Also, the developers of Hippocrates hope to collaborate with other institutions around the world in creating freely available resources for teaching clinical medicine.

 

Category: Open Educational Resources | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 31

Minnesota eLearning Summit 2015

Image credit: https://cceevents.umn.edu/minnesota-elearning-summit

Image credit: https://cceevents.umn.edu/minnesota-elearning-summit

Last week, the Academic Technologies Team, as well as several other members of SCSU faculty, attended the 2015 Minnesota eLearning Summit which had a record number of participants (+400). There were too many wonderful presentations to mention, but you can click here to access the many of them!

For those of you interested in OER (Open Educational Resources), please check out Lumen Learning (co-founded by keynote speaker, Dr. David Wiley) and the Open Textbook Library (set up by David Ernst, Chief Information Officer at the University of Minnesota).

Relating to some of our previous posts on game-based learning, our very own Dr. Plamen Miltenoff (Learning Resources Services) gave a presentation on Gamification and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) based on his constructivist research in which he created mobile interface templates for gamifying library instructions and tested them in educational leaderships classes. For more details about Dr. Miltenoff’s research, please view his web page on Library Instruction Using Mobile Devices.

Category: Game-Based Learning, Open Educational Resources, Professional Development | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 21

Learning to Teach Online

Photo credit: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/learning-to-teach-online

Photo credit: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/learning-to-teach-online

By Paul Keyworth

LTTO (Learning to Teach Online) is “a free professional development resource designed to help teachers from any discipline, whether experienced in online teaching or not, to gain a working understanding of successful online teaching pedagogies that they can apply in their own unique teaching situations” (COFA.online Gateway, 2015). Currently, I am participating in a MOOC of the same name via Coursera, which is still accessible if you are interested. It is also available freely through iTunes.

Award Winning Resources

The project is the work of COFA Online, part of the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia, and is supported by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd. Co-creators, Simon McIntyre and Karin Watson from UNSW, have won the following awards for LTTO:

2012 MERLOT Award for Exemplary Online Learning 
Resources – MERLOT Classics (USA) 
Faculty Development Editorial Board Award - 
Learning to Teach Online 
McIntyre, S., Watson, K.
2011 Ascilite Innovation and Excellence Award
Exemplary and research informed use of technologies 
for teaching and learning in tertiary education - 
Learning to Teach Online
McIntyre, S., Watson, K.

Learning to Teach Online Episodes

So far, I have discovered a wealth of resources and pedagogical information relating to implementing and evaluating OERs (Open Educational Resources) and institutionally-supported technologies. In particular, you may find these LTTO Episodes to be a valuable resource as you plan your online or blended courses. The instructional videos are compiled into three categories: “Context, Planning and Teaching,” “Case Studies,” and “Technical Glossary“ (COFA.online Gateway, 2015).

References

Learning to teach online. (2015). Retrieved from http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/

Category: Online and Distance Education, Online Teaching Pedagogy, Open Educational Resources, Professional Development | LEAVE A COMMENT