AAEEBL (The Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based learning) starts the Baston Blog
Blockchain Credentialing: What Impact Will it Have?
Posted By Trent Batson Ph. D.
blockchain credentialing, big news since the MIT Media Lab offered an open source means of credentialing using blockchain technology (the technology behind bitcoin).
Blockchain credentialing makes verification of credentials much simpler and less time consuming, according to the articles I’ve collected below. Even IBM has entered the arena.
As with badges, we in the eportfolio world need to be aware of the trend toward blockchain credentialing. I’ve sorted through the links below so I could select those I thought would be most useful for you.
Do you use lecture capture in your courses? If you do, please join us in one-hour information session.
Lecture/course capture may have different formats and dimensions, from a simple recording of the lecture, to elaborate interactive use of hardware and software.
In an attempt to offer more psychological support, they reached out to Grossman who is a teacher and co-founder of Mindful Schools. The definition of mindfulness, says Grossman, is to “pay attention, on purpose, to the present moment.”
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more on mindfulness and storytelling in this IMS blog
In scholarly and scientific publishing, altmetrics are non-traditional metrics[2] proposed as an alternative[3] to more traditional citation impact metrics, such as impact factor and h-index.[4] The term altmetrics was proposed in 2010,[1] as a generalization of article level metrics,[5] and has its roots in the #altmetrics hashtag. Although altmetrics are often thought of as metrics about articles, they can be applied to people, journals, books, data sets, presentations, videos, source code repositories, web pages, etc. They are related to Webometrics, which had similar goals but evolved before the social web. Altmetrics did not originally cover citation counts.[6] It also covers other aspects of the impact of a work, such as how many data and knowledge bases refer to it, article views, downloads, or mentions in social media and news media.[7][8]
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more on analytics and metrics in education in this IMS blog
Among the instructors who had taught using a synchronous classroom, two thirds (66 percent) had received training specifically on how to do that. A quarter (27 percent) received a month or more of training; a third (32 percent) received less than a day. A remarkable 55 percent took their training before going into a virtual classroom.
Half of the respondents were primarily self-taught; only 24 percent received formal training; and the remaining 26 percent did their learning through informal conversations with peers who teach synchronously. The training included lots of reading, video tutorials and listening to lectures — in other words, as the report’s authors noted, “sage on the stage” activities that are “antithetical to effective virtual classroom pedagogy.” Forty-one percent of people said synchronous activities “played little or no role in their virtual classroom training”; only 30 percent found that synchronous activities did play a substantial role.
What didn’t exist in training for almost four in five respondents were any of the following:
“Shadowing” of an experienced online instructor;
Teaching or co-teaching in a classroom being monitored by a trainer or experienced online instructor; or
Reviewing recordings of their own performances in a virtual classroom.
Also helpful, the survey found:
Peer coaching from colleagues;
Reviewing recordings of the instructor’s performance; and
Consulting with an instructional designer.
my note: another glaring proof that faculty IS needed in the process.
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more on synchronous online instruction in this IMS blog
The data shared in June by the Office for Civil Rights, which compiled it from a 2013-2014 survey completed by nearly every school district and school in the United States. new is a report from Attendance Works and the Everyone Graduates Center that encourages schools and districts to use their own data to pinpoint ways to take on the challenge of chronic absenteeism.
The first is research that shows that missing that much school is correlated with “lower academic performance and dropping out.” Second, it also helps in identifying students earlier in the semester in order to get a jump on possible interventions.
The report offers a six-step process for using data tied to chronic absence in order to reduce the problem.
The first step is investing in “consistent and accurate data.” That’s where the definition comes in — to make sure people have a “clear understanding” and so that it can be used “across states and districts” with school years that vary in length. The same step also requires “clarifying what counts as a day of attendance or absence.”
The second step is to use the data to understand what the need is and who needs support in getting to school. This phase could involve defining multiple tiers of chronic absenteeism (at-risk, moderate or severe), and then analyzing the data to see if there are differences by student sub-population — grade, ethnicity, special education, gender, free and reduced price lunch, neighborhood or other criteria that require special kinds of intervention.
Step three asks schools and districts to use the data to identify places getting good results. By comparing chronic absence rates across the district or against schools with similar demographics, the “positive outliers” may surface, showing people that the problem isn’t unstoppable but something that can be addressed for the better.
Steps five and six call on schools and districts to help people understand why the absences are happening, develop ways to address the problem.
EBSCO Information Services has debuted Stacks, a hosted content management system for libraries, and Stacks Mobile, a native app for iOS and Android devices.
Social media integration, including Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn;
