Archive of ‘learning’ category

first SCSU lecture capture meeting

Dear Colleagues,

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.

We created a dedicated blog for the methods and technology of lecture capture:
http://blog.stcloudstate.edu/coursecapture

Please use the hyperlink and feel welcome to share with us your thoughts before, during and after the session, scheduled for

Thursday,  October 6, 2016, 3:00PM in MC 205.

We welcome your materials, suggestions and questions!

MC 205 is the Professional Development Room on the second floor of the Miller Center (http://www.stcloudstate.edu/campusmap/default.aspx).
To find MC 205, please use this virtual tour. Open in Google Chrome browser the following link: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/vr_library/virtual_guide.mov. File will download and you can open it in QuickTime application.

If you need assistance to find us, please let us know.

For any other information, please do not hesitate to contact us:

Kannan Sivaprakasam,  ksivaprakasam@stcloudstate.edu
Plamen Miltenoff: pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu

Looking forward to working together…

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more on lecture capture in this blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=lecture+capture

google phones

Google Phones

the media of this morning is filled with reports about google phones:

New Leak Reveals Everything About Google’s Pixel And Pixel XL Phones

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2016/10/03/new-leak-reveals-everything-about-googles-pixel-and-pixel-xl-phones

Everything there is to know about Google’s new Pixel phones just leaked

Everything there is to know about Google’s new Pixel phones just leaked

http://bgr.com/2016/10/03/google-pixel-specs-pixel-xl-specs-release-date/

and much more on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/search/google+phones

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more on mobile devices for education in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mobile+devices

mindfulness and storytelling

How Mindfulness and Storytelling Help Kids Heal and Learn

How Mindfulness and Storytelling Help Kids Heal and Learn

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

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mindfulness
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=storytelling

synchronous online learning

Most Faculty Tackle Synchronous Online Instruction Ill-Prepared

By Dian Schaffhauser 09/22/16

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/22/most-faculty-tackle-synchronous-online-instruction-ill-prepared.aspx

a new report from the Online Learning Consortium, a non-profit professional organization that aims to help educators integrate best practices into their online instruction. The OLC researchers involved in developing “What Can We Learn From Our Colleagues? A Framework for Virtual Classroom Training” solicited online responses from 733 people with “substantial” experience in teaching and “significant” experience in online.

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

bid data and school abscence

Data Can Help Schools Confront ‘Chronic Absence’

By Dian Schaffhauser 09/22/16

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/22/data-can-help-schools-confront-chronic-absence.aspx

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.

The report links to free data tools on the Attendance Works website, including a calculator for tallying chronic absences and guidance on how to protect student privacy when sharing data.

The full report is freely available on the Attendance Works website.

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more on big data in education in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=data

Stacks CMS for libraries

EBSCO Launches Content Management System for Libraries

By Leila Meyer 09/26/16

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/26/ebsco-debuts-content-management-system-for-libraries.aspx

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;

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more on technology in libraries in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=library

education issues around election and charter schools

Peter Greene: What This Election Means for Schools

Trump’s education proposal is short but simple:

More school choice (a.k.a. “open the corporate charter floodgates”).

Merit pay for teachers (a.k.a. “we’ll pay them just what we think they’re worth and they’ll like it”).

End tenure (a.k.a. “You’re fired whenever the mood hits me”).

If Hillary is elected, we can expect more of the Obama style of reform. He deduces this from the advisors who are close to her, mostly from the Center for American Progress.

Bottom line: Trump will run over the schools like a steamroller, flattening them along with their teachers. He endorses vouchers, charters, online charters, anything goes.

Clinton is likely to be akin to Obama/Duncan in advancing charter schools and testing.

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REIGN OF ERROR By Diane Ravitch
Ravitch writes that the “the transfer of public funds to private management and the creation of thousands of deregulated, unsupervised, and unaccountable schools have opened the public coffers to profiteering, fraud, and exploitation by large and small entrepreneurs.”
The public school system, Ravitch argues, is under attack from corporate interests and Wall Street crusaders seeking to make a buck off the American taxpayer. The reformers, Ravitch writes, are an insurgency in America’s schools, “a deliberate effort to replace public education with a privately managed, free-market system of schooling.”
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Accountant Reconsiders Plea in Online Charter School Founder’s Tax Fraud

By Richard Chang 09/19/16

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/19/accountant-reconsiders-plea-in-online-charter-school-founder-tax-fraud.aspx

TurnitIn

We know that many of you have been interested in exploring Turnitin in the past, so we are excited to bring you an exclusive standardized price and more information on the roll out of Feedback Studio, replacing the Turnitin you have previously seen. We would like to share some exciting accessibility updates, how Feedback Studio can help faculty deliver formative feedback to students and help students become writers. Starting today thru December 31st non-integrated Feedback Studio will be $2.50 and integrated Feedback Studio will be $3 for new customers! Confused by the name? Don’t be! Turnitin is new and improved! Check out this video to learn about Feedback Studio!

Meet your exclusive Turnitin Team!

Ariel Ream – Account Executive, Indianapolis aream@turnitin.com – 317.650.2795
Juliessa Rivera – Relationship Manager, Oakland jrivera@iparadigms.com – 510.764.7698

Juan Valladares – Account Representative, Oakland
jvalladares@turnitin.com – 510.764.7552
To learn more, please join us for a WebEx on September 21st. We will be offering free 30 day pilots to anyone who attends!
Turnitin Webinar
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
11:00 am | Central Daylight Time (Chicago) | 1 hr
Meeting number (access code): 632 474 162
https://mnscu.webex.com/mnscu/j.php?MTID=mebaec2ae9d1d25e6774d16717719008d

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my notes from the webinar

I am prejudiced against TI and I am not hiding it; that does not mean that I am wrong.
For me, TurnitIn (TI) is an anti-pedagogical “surfer,” using the hype of “technology” to ride the wave of overworked faculty, who hope to streamline increasing workload with technology instead of working on pedagogical resolutions of not that new issues.

Low and behold, Juan, the TI presenter is trying to dazzle me with stuff, which does not dazzle me for a long time.
WCAG 2.0 AA standards of the W3C and section 508 of the rehabilitation act.
the sales pitch: 79% of students believe in feedback, but only %50+ receive it. HIs source is TurnitIn surveys from 2012 to 2016 (very very small font size (ashamed of it?))
It seems to me very much like “massaged” data.
Testimonials: one professor and one students. Ha. the apex of qualitative research…

next sales pitch: TurnitIn feedback studio. Not any more the old Classic. It assesses the originality. Drag and drop macro-style notes. Pushing rubrics. but we still fight for rubrics in D2L. If we have a large amount of adjuncts. Ha. another gem. “I know that you are, guys, IT folks.” So the IT folks are the Trojan horse to get the faculty on board. put comments on
This presentation is structured dangerously askew: IT people but no faculty. If faculty is present, they will object that they ARE capable of doing the same which is proposed to be automated.
More , why do i have to pay for another expensive software, if we have paid already Microsoft? MS Word can do everything that has been presented so far. Between MS Word and D2L, it becomes redundant.
why the heck i am interested about middle school and high school.

TI was sued for illegal collection of paper; paper are stored in their database without the consent of the students’ who wrote it. TI goes “great length to protect the identity of the students,” but still collects their work [illegally?}

November 10 – 30 day free trial

otherwise, $3 per student, prompts back: between Google, MS Word and D2L (which we already heftily pay for), why pay another exuberant price.

D2L integration: version, which does not work. LTI.
“small price to pay of such a beauty” – it does not matter how quick and easy the integration is, it is a redundancy, which already can be resolved with existing tools, part of which we are paying hefty price for

https://d2l.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1668/

Play recording (1 hr 4 min 19 sec)
https://mnscu.webex.com/mnscu/ldr.php?RCID=a9b182b4ca8c4d74060f0fd29d6a5b5c

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