Blackboard Learn Gets Dropbox Integration
By David Nagel 10/25/2016
https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/10/25/blackboard-learn-gets-dropbox-integration.aspx
Announced at the Educause 2016 conference, Blackboard Learn users will now be able to collaborate on documents using the cloud sharing platform Dropbox.
My note: BB is only catching up with Google, which has Google Drive (~ Dropbox) and Google Classroom (~ BB). It doesn’t matter how much hype BB is trying to produce, the fact is that BB is behind.
D2L is even farther behind, without an integration of any video tool. Google has Google Hangouts and BB purchased several video conferencing tools until it got “the right one.”
D2L announce in 2010 an integration with Skype but it has not happened. Now, D2L will be double behind without integration of a cloud-based file space.
++++++++++++++++++
more on LMS in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=lms
International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL)
Editor-in-Chief: David Parsons (The Mind Lab by Unitec, New Zealand)
Published Quarterly. Est. 2009.
ISSN: 1941-8647|EISSN: 1941-8655|DOI: 10.4018/IJMBL
Description
The International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL) provides a forum for researchers in this field to share their knowledge and experience of combining e-learning and m-learning with other educational resources. Providing researchers, practitioners, and academicians with insight into a wide range of topics such as knowledge sharing, mobile games for learning, collaborative learning, and e-learning, this journal contains useful articles for those seeking to learn, analyze, improve, and apply technologies in mobile and blended learning. The journal spans theoretical, technical, and pedagogical issues in mobile and blended learning. These embrace comprehensive or critical reviews of the current literature, relevant technologies and applications, and important contextual issues such as privacy, security, adaptivity, and resource constraints.
Topics Covered
- Comprehensive or critical reviews of the current literature
- Evaluation of mobile or blended learning in practice
- Future of mobile or blended learning
- Knowledge Sharing
- Learner interaction/collaborative learning
- Mobile games for learning
- Mobile or blended learning applications
- Mobile or blended learning applied at different levels of education from pre-school to tertiary and beyond
- Pedagogical and/or philosophical underpinnings of mobile or blended learning
- Privacy and security issues
- Related research in learning, including e-learning and pedagogical approaches
- Resource constraints in the delivery of mobile or blended learning
- Reviews of the application of mobile or blended learning in multiple contexts
- Role of Wikis, blogs, podcasts, messaging, other online tools, and Web 2.0 components in learning delivery
- Roles of mobile, pervasive, and immersive technologies in education
- Technologies that directly or indirectly support mobile or blended learning systems (devices, networks, tools etc.)
- Theoretical approaches to mobile or blended learning solutions
- Use of mobile or blended learning in professional environments
Mission
The primary mission of the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL) is to provide comprehensive coverage and understanding of the role of innovative learning theory and practice in an increasingly mobile and pervasive technological environment. As technology enables a more seamless experience of device supported learning worlds that may integrate mobile, embedded, augmented, and immersive technologies, we may expect to see increasing interest and activity in blended approaches to learning. IJMBL brings together researchers at the forefront of this field, in both technology and pedagogical practice and assists them in the development and dissemination of new approaches to both mobile and blended learning.
+++++++++++++++++++++
More on mobile and blended learning in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mobile+learning
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=blended+learning
International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL)
Editor-in-Chief: Patrick Felicia (Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland)
Published Quarterly. Est. 2011.
ISSN: 2155-6849|EISSN: 2155-6857|DOI: 10.4018/IJGBL
Description
The International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL) is devoted to the theoretical and empirical understanding of game-based learning. To achieve this aim, the journal publishes theoretical manuscripts, empirical studies, and literature reviews. The journal publishes this multidisciplinary research from fields that explore the cognitive and psychological aspects that underpin successful educational video games. The target audience of the journal is composed of professionals and researchers working in the fields of educational games development, e-learning, technology-enhanced education, multimedia, educational psychology, and information technology. IJGBL promotes an in-depth understanding of the multiple factors and challenges inherent to the design and integration of Game-Based Learning environments.
Topics Covered
- Adaptive games design for Game-Based Learning
- Design of educational games for people with disabilities
- Educational video games and learning management systems
- Game design models and design patterns for Game-Based Learning
- Instructional design for Game-Based Learning
- Integration and deployment of video games in the classroom
- Intelligent tutoring systems and Game-Based Learning
- Learning by designing and developing video games
- Learning styles, behaviors and personalities in educational video games
- Mobile development and augmented reality for Game-Based Learning
- Motivation, audio and emotions in educational video games
- Role of instructors
- Virtual worlds and Game-Based Learning
Mission
The mission of the International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL) is to promote knowledge pertinent to the design of Game-Based Learning environments, and to provide relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings in the field of Game-Based Learning. The main goals of IJGBL are to identify, explain, and improve the interaction between learning outcomes and motivation in video games, and to promote best practices for the integration of video games in instructional settings. The journal is multidisciplinary and addresses cognitive, psychological and emotional aspects of Game-Based Learning. It discusses innovative and cost-effective Game-Based Learning solutions. It also provides students, researchers, instructors, and policymakers with valuable information in Game-Based Learning, and increases their understanding of the process of designing, developing and deploying successful educational games. IJGBL also identifies future directions in this new educational medium.
++++++++++++++++++++
more on gaming and gamification in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=gaming+and+gamification
A Return to Best Practices for Teaching Online
10/25/16
https://campustechnology.com/Articles/2016/10/25/A-Return-to-Best-Practices-for-Teaching-Online.aspx
Judith Boettcher book, The Online Teaching Survival Guide (second edition, Jossey-Bass 2016). In chapter three, “Best Practices for Teaching Online: Ten Plus Four,” you and your co-author Rita-Marie Conrad provide a list of 14 best practices for teaching online. How can these best practices help faculty?
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z5PqDAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Boettcher%2C%20The%20Online%20Teaching%20Survival%20Guide&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Boettcher,%20The%20Online%20Teaching%20Survival%20Guide&f=false
when faculty are first asked to teach online, most do not have a lot of time to prepare. They are seldom given much coaching, mentoring, or support — often they are just kind of thrown into it,
Personalized learning means that while all students master core concepts, students ideally practice increasingly difficult use of those core concepts in contexts and settings desired by individual students.
we really need to step up to much more effective use of rubrics. Rubrics can define intellectual outcomes in several key areas, such as critical thinking, for example.
great course design is at the core of creating great online learning experiences. We need to ensure that the desired learning outcomes, the course experiences, and the ways we gather evidences of learning are all congruent, one with the other. Course experiences should help students develop the knowledge and expertise that they desire, and the evidences of learning we require of students should be meaningful and purposeful and where possible, personalized and customized.
+++++++++++++++++
more on online teaching in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+teaching
Stanford VR Project Shows Students Oceans of the Future
By Dian Schaffhauser 10/19/16
https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/10/19/stanford-vr-project-shows-students-oceans-of-the-future.aspx
A new, free virtual reality program allows users to explore just what happens as climate change kills off coral reefs. The Stanford Ocean Acidification Experience is a free science education tool that takes students to the bottom of the sea and then fast-forwards their experience to the end of this century, when, as scientists predict, many coral reefs are expected to corrode through ocean acidification. By putting the experience in VR, the collaborators say they are hoping to change people’s behavior in the real world.
The project came out of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, which created a related 360-degree video project that also examines the problem of global warming and its impact on the ocean’s life forms. But it’s the VR version that allows the viewer to deep-sea dive and collect samples off of the ocean floor.
The lab created the software in partnership with marine biologists Fiorenza Micheli from Stanford and Kristy Kroeker, formerly at Stanford and now at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as Roy Pea, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. The development process took two years to recreate a virtual replica of an actual rocky reef around the Italian island of Ischia
A related video, “The Crystal Reef,” filmed in 360 degrees and developed as part of a master’s degree project by a lab member, premiered during the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. There, people could watch the film on VR headgear. “We had a line of dozens of people for 11 hours a day, six days straight,” said Bailenson, in a Stanford article about the project.
The VR project has also gone to Washington, where lawmakers and staffers tried it out during a Capitol Hill event organized by non-profit Ocean Conservancy.
+++++++++++++++++++
more on virtual reality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=virtual+reality
NMC Releases Horizon Project Strategic Brief on Digital Literacy
Anaheim, California (October 25, 2016) — The New Media Consortium (NMC) has released Digital Literacy: An NMC Horizon Project Strategic Brief in conjunction with the 2016 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference.
This project was launched because there is a lack of consensus across the field about how to define digital literacy and implement effective programs. A survey was disseminated throughout the NMC community of higher education leaders and practitioners to understand how digital literacy initiatives are impacting their campuses. The NMC’s research examines the current landscape to illuminate multiple models of digital literacy — universal literacy, creative literacy, and literacy across disciplines — around which dedicated programs can proliferate a spectrum of skills and competencies.
p. 8-10 examples across US universities on digital literacy organization
p. 12 Where does support for digital literacy come from your institution? Individual people
p. 13. campus libraries must be deeply embedded in course curriculum. While libraries have always supported academic institutions, librarians can play a more critical role in the development of digital literacy skills. Historically, these types of programs have been implemented in “one-off” segments, which are experienced apart from a student’s normal studies and often delivered in a one-size-fits-all method. However, an increasing number of academic libraries are supporting a more integrated approach that delivers continuous skill development and assessment over time to both students and faculty. This requires deeper involvement with departments and agreeing on common definitions of what capacities should be achieved, and the most effective pedagogical method. Librarians are tasked with broadening their role in the co-design of curriculum and improving their instruction techniques to work alongside faculty toward the common goal of training students to be savvy digital researchers. University of Arizona Libraries, for example, found that a key step in this transition required collaborating on a common instructional philosophy.
+++++++++++++++
more on digital literacy in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=digital+literacy
Save
Teaching Critical Thinking: Some Practical Points
By: Linda B. Nilson, PhD
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/teaching-critical-thinking-practical-points/
Critical thinking scholars also agree that questions are central to students acquiring critical thinking skills. We must ask students challenging, open-ended questions that demand genuine inquiry, analysis, or assessment—questions like these:
- What is your interpretation/analysis of this passage/data/argument?
- What are your reasons for favoring that interpretation/analysis? What is your evidence?
- How well does your interpretation/analysis handle the complexities of the passage/data/argument?
- What is another interpretation/analysis of the passage/data/argument? Any others?
- What are the implications of each interpretation/analysis?
- Let’s look at all the interpretations/analyses and evaluate them. How strong is the evidence for each one?
- How honestly and impartially are you representing the other interpretations/analyses? Do you have a vested interest in one interpretation/analysis over another?
- What additional information would help us to narrow down our interpretations/analyses?
Some teaching methods naturally promote inquiry, analysis, and assessment, and all of them are student-active (Abrami et al., 2008). Class discussion may be the strongest, and it includes the debriefings of complex cases, simulations, and role plays. However, debates, structured controversy, targeted journaling, inquiry-guided labs, and POGIL-type worksheets (https://pogil.org/) are also effective.
+++++++++++++++++
more on critical thinking in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=critical+thinking
Book Announcement: Implementing Mobile Language Learning Technologies in Japan
New book: Implementing Mobile Language Learning Technologies in Japan
by Steve McCarty, Hiroyuki Obari, and Takeshi Sato
Publisher: Springer Singapore / SpringerBriefs in Education (107 pages)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction: Contextualizing Mobile Language Learning in Japan
Chapter 2 Mobile Language Learning Pedagogy: A Sociocultural Perspective
Chapter 3 Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Case Study:
Smartphone App LINE for EFL Peer Learning
Chapter 4 Osaka Jogakuin University Case Study:
Mobilizing the EFL Curriculum and Campus Infrastructure with iPods and iPads
Chapter 5 Aoyama Gakuin University Case Study:
Blended Learning and Flipped Classrooms utilizing Mobile Devices
Chapter 6 Conclusion: Implementing Language Learning in a Mobile-Oriented Society
Abstract
This book explores theoretical and practical aspects of implementing mobile language learning in university classrooms for English as a Foreign Language in Japan. The technologies utilized, such as smartphones, iPads, and wi-fi, integrate students’ hand-held devices into the campus network infrastructure. The pedagogical aims of ubiquitous mobile learning further incorporate social media, blended learning, and flipped classroom approaches into the curriculum. Chapter 1 defines mobile language learning within dimensions of e-learning and technology-assisted language learning, prior to tracing the development of mobile learning in Japan. Chapter 2 documents the sociocultural theory underpinning the authors’ humanistic approach to implementation of mobile technologies. The sociocultural pedagogy represents a global consensus of leading educators that also recognizes the agency of Asian learners and brings out their capability for autonomous learning. Case studies of universities, large and small, public and private, are organized similarly in Chapters 3 to 5. Institutional/pedagogical and technological context sections are followed by detailed content on the implementation of initiatives, assessment of effectiveness, and recommendations for other institutions. Distinct from a collection of papers, this monograph tells a story in brief book length about theorizing and realizing mobile language learning, describing pioneering and original initiatives of importance to practitioners in other educational contexts.
Authors
Steve McCarty lectures for Kansai University, Osaka Jogakuin University, KIC Graduate School of IT, and the government agency JICA.
Hiroyuki Obari, PhD in Computer Science, is a Professor at the Aoyama Gakuin University College of Economics in Tokyo.
Takeshi Sato is an Associate Professor at the Division of Language and Culture Studies, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology.
Ordering information from Springer
Paperback (ISBN: 978-981-10-2449-8):
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811024498
eBook (ISBN: 978-981-10-2451-1) or individual chapters:
http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-10-2451-1
++++++++++++++++++++++
more on mobile technologies in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mobile+devices
social media measurement matrix
http://www.affectstrategies.com/files/AFT_SocialMediaSuccess_Measurement.pdf
social media measurement: a step by step approach
https://www.prinz.org.nz/Attachment?Action=Download&Attachment_id=1023
5 Essential & Easy Social Media Metrics You Should Be Measuring Right Now
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/essential-social-media-metrics/
- volume
- reach
- engagement
- influence
- share of voice
http://www.greenlightdigital.com/blog/whitepaper/a-guide-to-social-media-jargon/
**********************
http://beth.libguides.com/c.php?g=20074&p=114056
******************************
more lingo here:
http://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-acronyms/
http://www.techmamas.com/main/2012/02/social_networking_terms_social_shield.html
++++++++++++++++++++++++
more on social media in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=social+media
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Save
