26
Apr
2021
Apr
2021
Is SAMR Dead
Is SAMR Dead?
https://www.techlearning.com/news/is-samr-dead
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more on SAMR in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=samr
Searching for "cms"
24
Dec
2020
Dec
2020
Assessment Is a Waste of Time?
categories: assessment, learning
Assessment Is an Enormous Waste of Time
https://www.chronicle.com/article/assessment-is-an-enormous-waste-of-time/
The assessment industry is not known for self-critical reflection. Assessors insist that faculty provide evidence that their teaching is effective, but they are dismissive of evidence that their own work is ineffective. They demand data, but they are indifferent to the quality of those data. So it’s not a surprise that the assessment project is built on an unexamined assumption: that learning, especially higher-order learning such as critical thinking, is central to the college experience.
the Lumina Foundation’s Degree Qualifications Profile “provides a qualitative set of important learning outcomes, not quantitative measures such as numbers of credits and grade-point averages, as the basis for awarding degrees.”
article in Change, Daniel Sullivan, president emeritus of St. Lawrence University and a senior fellow at the Association of American Colleges & Universities, and Kate McConnell, assistant vice president for research and assessment at the association, describe a project that looked at nearly 3,000 pieces of student work from 14 institutions. They used the critical-thinking and written-communication Value rubrics designed by the AAC&U to score the work. They discovered that most college-student work falls in the middle of the rubric’s four-point scale measuring skill attainment.
Richard Arum and Josipa Roska’s 2011 book, Academically Adrift, used data from the Collegiate Learning Assessment to show that a large percentage of students don’t improve their critical thinking or writing. A 2017 study by The Wall Street Journal used data from the CLA at dozens of public colleges and concluded that the evidence for learning between the first and senior years was so scant that they called it “discouraging.”
not suggesting that college is a waste of time or that there is no value in a college education. But before we spend scarce resources and time trying to assess and enhance student learning, shouldn’t we maybe check to be sure that learning is what actually happens in college?
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more on assessment in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=assessment
and critical thinking
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=critical+thinking
27
Oct
2020
Oct
2020
Hyflex experiment
Our HyFlex Experiment: What’s Worked and What Hasn’t
Armed with a can-do spirit, faculty members leaped into hybrid teaching this fall. The results have been decidedly mixed.
By Kevin Gannon OCTOBER 26, 2020
https://www.chronicle.com/article/our-hyflex-experiment-whats-worked-and-what-hasnt
The flexibility afforded to students by HyFlex courses has been evident this semester, but the style of teaching required has proven more difficult to maintain than anticipated. Moreover, that same flexibility has been the proverbial double-edged sword when it comes to student success.
HyFlex courses are hard to build, and even harder to teach.
Designing effective online courses is hard work and differs significantly from in-person teaching. HyFlex courses essentially braid the two together. Moreover, the braiding is even more complicated because the online strand is further divided into synchronous and asynchronous paths.
What seems clear is that institutions using the HyFlex model need to find more and different ways to support faculty members than before. Hire work-study students to wrangle Zoom? Improve the integration and workflow of these various tools? At the very least, we have to acknowledge the significant burden now on classroom instructors, a burden for which very few of us were prepared.
HyFlex’s origin story matters. HyFlex courses were initially developed for graduate students in an educational-technology program.
we needed more in the way of introducing students to HyFlex — more clearly and specifically outlining how the courses work and how to navigate them most successfully.
HyFlex works better for some types of classes than others. It’s no coincidence that faculty members who are finding HyFlex a difficult fit are those whose classes are either completely or mostly discussion-based, perhaps even student-led.
We need to help students learn to become online learners.
Faculty members cannot hide from structural racism and economic inequality any more, because our students were never able to in the first place.
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more on hyflex in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=hyflex
01
Oct
2020
Oct
2020
Coursetune on Future Trends
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my notes from the meeting:
CMS do not cut it anymore
class sections are obsolete in online environment
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more on future trends in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=future+trends
15
Aug
2020
Aug
2020
students videos and presentations
https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/teaching/2020-08-13
worked together to analyze scientific information and visually represent it in a way that demonstrated their understanding.
When he tested his students, the scores among those who had created videos and visualizations were about 25 percent higher than those who had done traditional note-taking summaries.
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more on effective presentations in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=presentations
16
Jan
2020
Jan
2020
meditation and stress
categories: contemplative pedagogy
Participating in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress. from r/science
a team led by Harvard-affiliated researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)
“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany.
Amishi Jha, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training’s effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, “These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training.
22
Jun
2019
Jun
2019
bluetooth and surveillance
Did you know that companies use the Bluetooth capabilities on your phone to track your movements in retail stores, gyms, airports, and more? I didn’t.
Turning Bluetooth off doesn’t stop them.
(Re-tweeting because my last tweet contained an error.)https://t.co/qRdcpErVb4
— Susan Fowler (@susanthesquark) June 14, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluetooth-wireless-tracking-privacy.html
Recent reports have noted how companies use data gathered from cell towers, ambient Wi-Fi, and GPS. But the location data industry has a much more precise, and unobtrusive, tool: Bluetooth beacons.
Most people aren’t aware they are being watched with beacons, but the “beacosystem” tracks millions of people every day. Beacons are placed at airports, malls, subways, buses, taxis, sporting arenas, gyms, hotels, hospitals, music festivals, cinemas and museums, and even on billboards.
Companies like Reveal Mobile collect data from software development kits inside hundreds of frequently used apps. In the United States, another company, inMarket, covers 38 percent of millennial moms and about one-quarter of all smartphones, and tracks 50 million people each month. Other players have similar reach.
What is an S.D.K.?A Software Development Kit is code that’s inserted into an app and enables certain features, like activating your phone’s Bluetooth sensor. Location data companies create S.D.K.s and developers insert them into their apps, creating a conduit for recording and storing your movement data.
Beacons are also being used for smart cities initiatives. The location company Gimbal provided beacons for LinkNYC kiosks that provoked privacy concerns about tracking passers-by. Beacon initiatives have been started in other cities, including Amsterdam (in partnership with Google), London and Norwich.
Familiar tech giants are also players in the beacosystem. In 2015, Facebook began shipping free Facebook Bluetooth beacons to businesses for location marketing inside the Facebook app. Leaked documents show that Facebook worried that users would “freak out” and spread “negative memes” about the program. The company recently removed the Facebook Bluetooth beacons section from their website.
Not to be left out, in 2017, Google introduced Project Beacon and began sending beacons to businesses for use with Google Ads services. Google uses the beacons to send the businesses’ visitors notificationsthat ask them to leave photos and reviews, among other features. And last year, investigators at Quartz found that Google Android can track you using Bluetooth beacons even when you turn Bluetooth off in your phone.
Companies collecting micro-location data defend the practice by arguing that users can opt out of location services. They maintain that consumers embrace targeted ads because they’re more relevant.
You can download an app like Beacon Scanner and scan for beacons when you enter a store. But even if you detect the beacons, you don’t know who is collecting the data.
The Times’s guide on how to stop apps from tracking your location. For Android users, the F-Droid app store hosts free and open- source apps that do not spy on users with hidden trackers.
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More on surveillance in this IMS Blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=surveillance
09
Apr
2019
Apr
2019
The Post-LMS World
categories: Desire2Learn (D2L)
The Post-LMS World: Social, Simple, Modern, Mobile and Student-centric
SPONSORED CONTENT FROM AMBI
By Saad El Yamani Apr 7, 2019
My note: the author repeats a LinkedIn post from 2017 https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/03/28/digital-learning/
Despite its name, the Learning Management System (LMS) is not about learning. The LMS was originally the CMS—Course Management System.
The LMS succeeds as a core productivity tool for educators because it allows institutions to extend their academic capacity and transcend the constraints of time and space. However, the Learning Management System was never able to deliver on the promise of its new name because it was created for a completely different purpose: course management. Learning doesn’t happen within the digital space of the LMS; it happens beyond its borders.
Today’s generation of students is deeply social and collaborative. They rely on real-time online interaction, collaboration and sharing to feel supported, confident and successful. Having grown up on iPhone, Snapchat and Instagram, this generation expects seamless experiences that are deeply social and collaborative.
In the post-LMS world, learning technology is student-centric in its design because today’s students are vocal, creative and eager to share their blue sky ideals and ideas.
The post-LMS world is also social by nature. in the post-LMS world, learning technology is simple, modern and mobile.
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more on learning environments in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/07/06/next-gen-digital-learning-environment/
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/02/01/trends-tomorrows-teaching-and-learning-environments/
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/03/28/digital-learning/
19
Feb
2019
Feb
2019
Facebook Digital Gangsters
Facebook labelled ‘digital gangsters’ by report on fake news
Company broke privacy and competition law and should be regulated urgently, say MPs
See also: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2019/02/20/digital-destruction-of-democracy/
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more on Facebook in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=facebook
02
Oct
2018
Oct
2018
MOOC and online learning discussion
Bryan Alexander’s Future Trends Forum
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Special Guest:
Anant Agarwal, CEO and founder of edX as well as Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT
An interactive discussion on MOOCs, online learning, and the goal of 100 million learners by 2022
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The Future Trends Forum welcomes
Anant Agarwal , the founder and CEO of edX, a non-profit venture created by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focused on transforming online and on-campus learning through groundbreaking methodologies.
He aims to help bring quality education to everyone, everywhere. Anant has also been a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT for 30 years.
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more on MOOC in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mooc