Do any of you have game consoles in your libraries?
We currently offer PS3 and xBox but recognize there’s a whole new generation available.
Our issue is that xBox1 works best connected to the Internet. This allows full game play but opens up some issues in a library environment. Is anyone already offering these? How do you deal with patrons logging into their personal accounts on the consoles and perhaps forgetting to log our therefore leaving them exposed? These accounts store credit card info and game winnings. What’s a library to do?
Thank you,
Madeleine Sturmer
IT Manager
Teton County Library
(307) 733-2164 x143
IT Dept x192
The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that Università degli Studi di Padova (the University of Padua) is the official host of the 6th European Immersive Education Summit (EiED 2016). The prestigious academic and technical conference will run in parallel with the inaugural IMMERSIVE ITALY “general public” conference from June 21 through June 23.
Lexxi Seay, a senior, was skeptical. “I actually never believed really in meditation. … I thought it was a joke,” she said during an interview.
Students “are just craving for ways to handle and cope with their stress” in healthy and nondestructive ways, said Gueritault. “It becomes sort of like instinctive and intuitive for them to just search for alternative ways to cope with their stress that have nothing to do with drugs or alcohol or whatever destructive behavior.”
More on mindfulness in education in this IMS blog:
Steven Butnik’s article Understanding, Diagnosing, and Coping with Slow Processing Speed.
Consider whether the student is being held back by anxiety, a learning disability that is making the content difficult to process, a condition like dysgraphia that makes handwriting especially challenging, eyesight issues that make the board or papers hard to read, or auditory processing difficulties that make working in a busy, noisy classroom very difficult.
In The Power of Validation, Karyn Hall and Melissa Cook define validation as “the recognition and acceptance that your child has feelings and thoughts that are true and real to him regardless of logic or whether it makes sense to anyone else.”
Students who frequently get stuck on school work may lack the problem-solving skills they need to get unstuck. So whenever you can, model your own strategies with teacher think-alouds, and get other students to do the same thing.
Michael Dunlea finds that in many cases students get hung up on one specific aspect of an assignment, so if he is able to figure out what’s confusing them, he can help them continue.
For some people, simply setting a time limit for a task is enough to get them moving more quickly, so it’s worth a try with your slow-paced students. Use this one carefully, though: For some students, it could cause even more anxiety and make them shut down completely.
Break Large Tasks into Small Ones
Offer a “Can Do” and a “Must Do”
Provide Estimated Times for Each Activity
WIRMI Problem-Solving Strategies for Writing by Linda Flower.
“What I really mean is…” and continue in whatever language you would use if you were describing the idea to a friend.
Establish a Bare-Minimum Goal for Formative Assessment
Mix Low-Stakes with High-Stakes Tasks
Mark Problem Items for Later: instructional coach Gretchen Schultek Bridgers advises students who get stuck on an item, especially on a test, to mark it with a small post-it note, a highlighter, or a star as a reminder to come back to the item later. This kind of strategy will be useful to everyone, not just your slow working students.
Assessment exercises for institutional libraries are frequently a double-edged sword; they’re as readily used to justify cuts as they are to bolster budgets. This NISO virtual conference provides expert insights into how data gathered in the normal course of activities can be leveraged to demonstrate value to the parent institution. Data represent the raw material for building your case. What data are available? How is their quality? What is the appropriate context for persuasively presenting that data to deans, provosts and other administrators? This virtual conference will address the very hot topic of library assessment in the context of a changing educational environment and features a complete roster of expert speakers, including:
Steven J. Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University
Nancy Turner, Assessment and Organizational Performance Librarian, Temple University
Jocelyn Wilk, University Archivist, Columbia University
Elisabeth Brown, Director of Assessment & Scholarly Communications Librarian, SUNY-Binghamton
Ken Varnum, Senior Program Manager for Discovery, Delivery, & Learning Analytics, University of Michigan
Jan Fransen, Service Lead for Researcher and Discovery Systems, University of Minnesota
Kristi Holmes, Directer, Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University
Starr Hoffman, Head, Planning & Assessment, University of Nevada – Las Vegas
Carl Grant, Chief Technology Officer and Associate University Librarian for Knowledge Services, University of Oklahoma
The preliminary agenda and pricing information for this event may be found at:
As a bonus, register for the virtual conference and receive an automatic registration for the follow-up training webinar, Making Assessment Work: Using ORCIDS to Improve Your Institutional Assessments, on Thursday, April 28!
Topics: Assistive and adaptive technologies, Augmented reality, Learning spaces, Mobile learning, Tools
the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, which aims to develop expert learners. In addition to removing barriers and making learning accessible to the widest varied of learners possible, UDL addresses many of the metacognitive and self-efficacy skills associated with becoming an expert learner, including:
Executive functions. These cognitive processes include initiation, goal setting, attention, planning and organization.
Comprehension skills. This skillset encompasses knowledge construction, making connections, developing strategies and monitoring understanding.
Engagement principles. These soft skills include coping, focus, resilience, effort, persistence, self-assessment and reflection.
QR codes
AR apps : two types of AR apps: those for experience and for creation. Experience AR apps, such as Star Walk, are designed to provide the user with an AR experience within a specific content or context. Creation AR apps, such as BlippAR and Aurasma, allow users to create their own AR experiences.
Posters : To support comprehension and metacognitive skills, images related to classroom topics, or posters related to a process could serve as the trigger image.
iBeacons : Beacon technology, such as iBeacon, shares some similarities with QR codes and AR, as it is a way to call up digital content from a specific spot in the physical world. However, unlike QR codes and AR, you do not have to point your device at a code or use a trigger image to call up content with iBeacon. Your device will automatically sync when it is near a beacon, a small device that emits a low-power Bluetooth signal, if you have an iBeacon-enabled app. The beacon then automatically launches digital content, such as a video, audio file or webpage. Beacon technology is well suited for center-based activities, as you can set up the app to trigger instructions for each center, exemplars of what the finished work will look like and/or prompts for the reflection when the center’s activity has been completed.
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More on QR codes in this IMS blog:
The Conference at Notre Dame May 12-13 is intriguing as you can see from some of the session titles below. It’s time to register and book lodging.
How do we know they are learning? Digital Evidence of and for Learning
Peruse the titles below to get an idea of the dynamism of this eportfolio conference:
Balancing Summative, Formative, and Transformative ePortfolio Functions within Participatory Learning and Assessment
Competency Based Badging and ePortfolios for the Youth and Adult Workforce in Philadelphia
Show your SPuRS: Bridging Academics and Co-Curricular Professional Readiness
Buckeye Badges: A Pilot Project at Ohio State University
Developing an Integrative Toolkit for Engagement at Michigan (iTeam)
Ethics, ePortfolios, and Badges: Envisaging Privacy and Digital Persistence in Student-Level Learning Evidence
Balancing Summative, Formative, and Transformative ePortfolio Functions within Participatory Learning and Assessment
Plus 15 other sessions.
The keynote address will be given by Daniel T. Hickey on Open Digital Badges + ePortfolios: Searching for and Supporting Synergy. an internationally-known speaker and leader on the changes in higher education around digital technologies.
Here is a description of another session:
By sharing challenges, practices, and examples of maker portfolios, we highlight the importance of makerspaces and community development in the design of portfolios that capture rich learning.
These are the institutions represented in the program:
Grand Valley State University
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Indiana University
Notre Dame
University of Michigan
IUPUI
Ohio State University
Kendall College; Laureate Universities
Boston University
Western Michigan University
Drexel University
University of Charleston
The full program will be posted by late Thursday of this week. This is a must-attend event to know about the latest developments in the eportfolio field.
Registration rates (note that AAEEBL members receive a $100 discount on registration; a student rate is available as well):
Registration Fees:
Non-Member Registration
$250 before April 25
$290 after April 25
Member Registration
$150 before Aprial 25
$190 after April 25
Student Registration
$75 before Aprial 25
$115 after April 25
Includes 2 breakfasts, one lunch and one reception. One and a half days of sessions.
Register now. Book lodging. Notre Dame is just outside of Chicago in Northern Indiana. Midway Airport is probably the closest major airport to the Notre Dame campus. Conference facilities at Notre Dame are excellent — lodging and conference space are adjacent.
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More on badges in this IMS blog: