Searching for "education technology"
Free Webinar for K–12 Educators and Administrators to Cover Best Tech Practices
https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/07/19/free-webinar-for-k12-educators-and-administrators-to-cover-best-tech-practices.aspx
Best Practices for Effective Curriculum Management (Vimeo)
PowerPoint Slides (PDF)
Attention: sponsored by itslearning (take information with a grain of salt)
The cloud-based learning platform itslearning will host a free tech webinar for K–12 educators and administrators at 1 p.m. EST (10 a.m. PST) Wednesday, July 27. The webinar, available on the itslearning website, will examine best practices in selecting and implementing learning technologies.
Implementation consultant Libby Lawrie will direct the webinar. She’s a former teacher and school administrator, and she frequently presents nationally on instructional technology and virtual education. She’s also a founding member of the International Association for K–12 Online Learning (iNACOL).
The webinar is designed to give education leaders the insight and tools they need to select the right tools for their tech situations. There are many products and choices out there, and Lawrie will provide strategies for choosing the best products and partners, as well as details about the discovery and implementation process. She will share insights and best practices from U.S. districts large and small.
While not mandatory, registration is recommended. Visit itslearning’s webinar site to sign up.
Badging: Not Quite the Next Big Thing
While badging and digital credentialing are gaining acceptance in the business world and, to some extent, higher education, K-12 educators — and even students — are slower to see the value.
By Michael Hart 07/20/16
https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/07/20/badging-not-quite-the-next-big-thing.aspx
That’s when the MacArthur Foundation highlighted the winning projects of its Badges for Lifelong Learning competition at the Digital Media and Learning Conference in Chicago. The competition, co-sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation, had attracted nearly 100 competitors a year earlier. The winners shared $2 million worth of development grants.
Evidence of Lifelong Learning
A digital badge or credential is a validation, via technology, that a person has earned an accomplishment, learned a skill or gained command of specific content. Typically, it is an interactive image posted on a web page and connected to a certain body of information that communicates the badge earner’s competency.
Credly is a company that offers off-the-shelf credentialing and badging for organizations, companies and educational institutions. One of its projects, BadgeStack, which has since been renamed BadgeOS, was a winner in the 2013 MacArthur competition. Virtually any individual or organization can use its platform to determine criteria for digital credentials and then award them, often taking advantage of an open-source tool like WordPress. The credential recipient can then use the BadgeOS platform to manage the use of the credential, choosing to display badges on social media profiles or uploading achievements to a digital resume, for instance.
Finkelstein and others see, with the persistently growing interest in competency-based education (CBE), that badging is a way to assess and document competency.
Colorado Education Initiative, (see webinar report in this IMS blog https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/06/20/colorados-digital-badging-initiative/)
There are obstacles, though, to universal acceptance of digital credentialing.
For one, not every community, company or organization sees a badge as something of value.
When a player earns points for his or her success in a game, those points have no value outside of the environment in which the game is played. For points, badges, credentials — however you want to define them — to be perceived as evidence of competency, they have to have portability and be viewed with value outside of their own environment.
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More on badges in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=badges
A New Great Communication Tool for Teachers and Parents
https://plus.google.com/+Educatorstechnology/posts/1J72fQCDqM7
July 7, 2016 Appletree is a new educational platform that was recently introduced at ISTE 2016. Apple tree is a classroom communication tool that makes it super easy for teachers to communicate with parents and enhance students learning.
12 Tips for Gamifying a Course
Leila Meyer
https://campustechnology.com/Articles/2016/06/01/12-Tips-for-Gamifying-a-Course.aspx
1) Begin by Defining Goals and Objectives
2) Start Small and Develop Iteratively
3) Network With Other Educators Using Games
4) Use Simple Game-Creation Tools
5) Get Students to Develop Games
6) Take Advantage of Existing Games
7) Use K-12 Games for Remedial Education Courses
8) Make It Fun
9) Don’t Forget About the Pedagogy
10) Collect Data
11) Consider Accessibility
12) Play Games
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more on gamification in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=gamification
Education in the ‘Fourth Wave’ of Science-Driven Economic Advancement
By David Nagel 07/06/16
https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/07/06/education-in-the-fourth-wave-of-science-driven-economic-advancement.aspx
fourth wave, one driven by nanotechnology, biotechnology and artificial intelligence.
In at least one presentation, he referred to the American education system as “the worst educational system known to science.”
Although there will be a “perfect” and direct transfer of information to everyone with or without educators, students will still need to come to class to benefit from the wisdom and experience of their teachers.
“So in the future, there’s going to be a balance, a balance between ‘e-instruction’ and mentoring. And teachers, more and more, will be in the business of mentoring [and] personal experience because you cannot get that on the Internet.”
Those aspects of “mentoring” and “career guidance” are especially important to Kaku, who said that teachers must push students to where the jobs will be in the future.
Tenure Track Position in Gamification Tampere University of Technology
http://www.computeroxy.com/announcement,a2945.html
Tampere University of Technology (TUT) is an active scientific community of 2,000 employees and more than 10,000 students. The University operates in the form of a foundation and has a long-standing tradition of collaboration with other research institutions and business life. Many of the fields of research and study represented at the University play a key role in addressing global challenges. Internationality is an inherent part of all the University’s activities. Welcome to join us at TUT!
The University of Turku is a world-class multidisciplinary research university which offers interesting challenges and a unique vantage point to national and international research and education.
Tenure track (Gamification)
The tenure track position is shared between Tampere University of Technology and the University of Turku. It supports the co-operation in teaching and research in the area of gamification between the two universities.
The professorship is especially associated with the TUT Game Lab (Pori Department, TUT) and the Digital Culture research group of the Cultural Production and Landscape Studies degree programme (School of History, Culture and Arts Studies, UTU). These research groups currently have five on-going research projects related to games and playing.
The TUT Game Lab brings together learning scientists, developers and humanists to conduct research and develop new ways of utilizing games in learning. The aim is to develop and study high-impact digital games that address real world challenges.
The main research objectives of TUT Game Lab are:
– Developing scientifically justified games to demonstrate and conduct research
– Studying the impact of educational games
– Exploring ways to combine learning and assessment in games
– Studying and modelling the playing experience
The Digital Culture research group (UTU) has three research focuses:
– cultural appropriation of technologies
– social media
– game cultures.
The Digital Culture research group specializes in the study of the cultural history of digital games and the uses of digital game histories in contemporary culture (so-called “history culture”). Furthermore, the research group has participated in various digital game exhibition projects as well as practical game design and gamification projects combining digital and non-digital elements. Digital Culture is a part of the Cultural Production and Landscape Studies degree programme which also incorporates two other major subjects: Cultural Heritage Studies and Landscape Studies.
Job description:
We invite applications for one (1) tenure track position in the area of Gamification.
The area of gamification covers:
– research of games and gamification
– games and playing as a cultural phenomenon
– game mechanisms, edugames and pervasive playing
– utilization of games in business, e.g. in new products and services
The emphasis of the position can be tailored according to the specific expertise of the candidate. Suitable educational and research backgrounds for the position include e.g. media studies, cultural studies, information technology and business and management.
The successful candidate is expected to:
– pursue and supervise scientific research in the field
– lead, conduct and develop education in the field
– participate in the activities of the national and international scientific communities
– acquire external funding
– interact with society
– commit to the strategies of TUT and UTU.
The successful candidate will participate in teaching both in the master’s degree programme in Management and Information Technology (TUT) as well as the subject of Digital Culture (UTU) by integrating the gamification theme into the existing course selection, in particular. Supervising theses and conducting doctoral seminars are also essential areas of responsibility.
The position will be filled at the level of Associate Professor.
The successful candidate will be employed by TUT. For more information on TUT’s tenure track career system, please refer to tut.fi/openpositions – Tenure track.
Requirements:
All candidates considered for a tenure track position are expected to:
– hold an applicable doctoral degree
– demonstrate a record of achievement in research that meets high international standards in the field of gamification
– demonstrate the capacity for independent scholarly activity
– possess the teaching skills required for the successful performance of their duties and
– have the ability to co-operate in a multidisciplinary university environment and with industry.
We appreciate experience and a track record in acquiring research funding, along with collaboration and leadership positions in research networks and industry.
For more information on the criteria for each level of TUT’s tenure track, please refer to tut.fi/openpositions – Tenure track.
We offer:
Both TUT and UTU have ambitious and challenging goals in effective, high-quality research, education and social influence. We offer an active research community with a good team spirit, intense cooperation with industry and business, public organizations and students, and opportunities for growth and advancement in academia. Our international cooperation is active and recognized, both in research and education.
We offer the successful candidate an opportunity to contribute to the creation of a new research area that combines gamification with areas such as cultural studies, information technology and business.
TUT offers a wide range of staff benefits, such as occupational health care. Since 2014, TUT has held the European Commission HR Excellence in Research recognition.
For more information, please visit tut.fi/en – About TUT – Careers at TUT
(http://www.tut.fi/en/about-tut/careers-at-tut/index.htm)
(http://www.tut.fi/en/about-tut/quality-assurance/hr-excellence-in-research)
Salary:
The salary will be based on both the job demands and the employee’s personal performance in accordance with the Finnish University Salary System (YPJ).
The advertised position is typically placed on the job demand level 7 (Associate Professor). In addition, the employees receive performance-based salary and they are covered by TUT’s bonus system.
Trial period:
The appointment is subject to the satisfactory completion of a trial period of four months.
Other:
The position will be filled for a fixed-term period of four years. The appointment is expected to begin on 1 December 2016 or as mutually agreed.
The duties are mainly located on the Pori campus in close co-operation with the main campuses in Tampere and Turku.
For the candidates with the most potential for the position, the selection process will involve an external assessment, individual interviews, aptitude assessments and a trial lecture.
For more information, please contact:
Director of University Consortium of Pori, Professor Jari Multisilta, e-mail: jari.multisilta@tut.fi, tel. +358 40 826 2910. Best availability for enquiries: 7 July–15 July and 1 August- 10 August.
In questions concerning the recruitment process, please contact HR Specialist
Eveliina Nurmi, e-mail. eveliina.nurmi@tut.fi, tel. +358 50 3015253. Best availability for enquiries: 15 June – 8 July and 8 August-10 August.
How to apply:
Applications must be submitted through TUT’s online employment system. The closing date for applications is 10 August 2016 (10:00 pm UTC). All applications and supporting documents must be submitted in English.
The applications must include the following documents prepared according to TUT’s instructions:
1. Curriculum Vitae (.doc or .pdf)
2. Research plan
3. List of publications
4. Teaching portfolio
5. References
Additional information on TUT’s tenure track system and attachments to applications.
State-of-the-art education software often doesn’t help students learn more, study finds
2 lessons from the most rigorous study to date of “adaptive-learning” courseware at colleges and universities
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sought to find out, and gave money to 14 colleges and universities to test some of the most popular “adaptive learning” software in the marketplace, including products from a Pearson-Knewton joint venture, from a unit of McGraw-Hill Education called ALEKS and from the Open Learning Initiative. Most of the universities combined the software with human instruction, but a few courses were delivered entirely online. Almost 20,000 college students and 300 instructors participated in the experiment over the course of three terms between 2013 and 2015. It’s probably the largest and most rigorous study of adaptive learning to date.
Although the study was conducted exclusively at colleges and universities, Means said she suspects researchers would find similar results with adaptive software used at elementary, middle and high schools.
1. The software in and of itself isn’t a magical teacher
2. Universities aren’t monitoring whether the technology they’re using is working
Webinar: Text and Data Mining: The Way Forward, June 30, 10am (EDT)
LITA announcement. Date: Thursday, June 30, 2016, Time: 10am-11:30am (EDT), Platform: WebEx. Registration required.
a critically important means of uncovering patterns of intellectual practice and usage that have the potential for illuminating facets and perspectives in research and scholarship that might otherwise not be noted. At the same time, challenges exist in terms of project management and support, licensing and other necessary protections.
Confirmed speakers include: Audrey McCulloch, Executive Director, ALPSP; Michael Levine-Clark, Dean of Libraries, University of Denver; Ellen Finnie, Head, Scholarly Communications and Collections Strategies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Jeremy Frey, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Head of Computational Systems Chemistry, University of Southampton, UK.
Audrey McCulloch, Chief Executive, Association of Learned Professional and Society Publishers (ALPSP) and Director of the Publishers Licensing Society
Text and Data Mining: Library Opportunities and Challenges
Michael Levine-Clark, Dean and Director of Libraries, University of Denver
As scholars engage with text and data mining (TDM), libraries have struggled to provide support for projects that are unpredictable and tremendously varied. While TDM can be considered a fair use, in many cases contracts need to be renegotiated and special data sets created by the vendor. The unique nature of TDM projects makes it difficult to plan for them, and often the library and scholar have to figure them out as they go along. This session will explore strategies for libraries to effectively manage TDM, often in partnership with other units on campus and will offer suggestions to improve the process for all.
Michael Levine-Clark, the Dean and Director of the University of Denver Libraries, is the recipient of the 2015 HARRASOWITZ Leadership in Library Acquisitions Award. He writes and speaks regularly on strategies for improving academic library collection development practices, including the use of e-books in academic libraries, the development of demand-driven acquisition models, and implications of discovery tool implementation.
Library licensing approaches in text and data mining access for researchers at MIT
Ellen Finnie, Head, Scholarly Communications & Collections Strategy, MIT Libraries
This talk will address the challenges and successes that the MIT libraries have experienced in providing enabling services that deliver TDM access to MIT researchers, including:
· emphasizing TDM in negotiating contracts for scholarly resources
· defining requirements for licenses for TDM access
· working with information providers to negotiate licenses that work for our researchers
· addressing challenges and retooling to address barriers to success
· offering educational guides and workshops
· managing current needs v. the long-term goal– TDM as a reader’s right
Ellen Finnie is Head, Scholarly Communications & Collections Strategy in the MIT Libraries. She leads the MIT Libraries’ scholarly communications and collections strategy in support of the Libraries’ and MIT’s objectives, including in particular efforts to influence models of scholarly publishing and communication in ways that increase the impact and reach of MIT’s research and scholarship and which promote open, sustainable publishing and access models. She leads outreach efforts to faculty in support of scholarly publication reform and open access activities at MIT, and acts as the Libraries’ chief resource for copyright issues and for content licensing policy and negotiations. In that role, she is involved in negotiating licenses to include text/data mining rights and coordinating researcher access to TDM services for licensed scholarly resources. She has written and spoken widely on digital acquisitions, repositories, licensing, and open access.
Jeremy Frey, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Head of Computational Systems Chemistry, University of Southampton, UK
Text and Data Mining (TDM) facilitates the discovery, selection, structuring, and analysis of large numbers of documents/sets of data, enabling the visualization of results in new ways to support innovation and the development of new knowledge. In both academia and commercial contexts, TDM is increasingly recognized as a means to extract, re-use and leverage additional value from published information, by linking concepts, addressing specific questions, and creating efficiencies. But TDM in practice is not straightforward. TDM methodology and use are fast changing but are not yet matched by the development of enabling policies.
This webinar provides a review of where we are today with TDM, as seen from the perspective of the researcher, library, and licensing-publisher communities.
| Please develop a one hour workshop for faculty on using a new (or old but new to them) technology tool. The aim is not to only show the technical operation, but the pedagogical use of the tool helping faculty think about what this might mean in their own teaching.
Short link: : http://bit.ly/UNCGpres
Alternatives to the pedagogical use of BYOD
Who: students, faculty and staff
Where: TBD
When: Friday, June 17, 2016. 10-11:30 AM |
 |
5 min introduction of workshop presenter Plamen Miltenoff and workshop participants
5 min plan of the workshop
5 min introduction to the topic:
Outline
In financially-sparse times for educational institutions, one viable way to save money is by rethinking pedagogy/methodology and adapt it to the burgeoning numbers of mobile devices (BYOD) owned by students, faculty and staff.
In 5 min,
we will be playing a game, using Kahoot (https://kahoot.it). Kahoot is an application from Norway, which is increasingly popular in K12 and gradually picking momentum at higher ed.
Why Kahoot and not any of the other similar polling apps (AKA formative assessment tools), such as PollEverywhere, PollDaddy etc. (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/01/13/formative-assessment-tools/)?
1. Kahoot has gained momentum; at least one third of your undergraduates have used it in high school and are familiar with the interface.
2. I personally like Kahoot for the kahoots. J
3. I like badges as “badges in gamification.” Let me know, if you want to work on this topic some other time and lets schedule work time after this session (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=badges).
In 10-15 min,
lets try to create an account and build our first kahoot (https://getkahoot.com/). You can use any topic and focus on the features, which Kahoot provides. Split in groups and help each other; if you feel stuck, please let me know and I will do my best to help advance further.
Here are two YouTube lectures how to create an account and a kahoot quiz (5 min) and how to play a kahoot (3 min): https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/06/13/how-to-kahoot/
In 5-10 min,
let’s display 1-2 kahoot’s to the entire audience and think about situations, when and where such kahoots can be used for educational purposes.
Let’s think about the implications, which the use of kahoots on BOYD may trigger in the classroom
Let’s think about the preparation needed for the smooth use of the kahoots (is your WiFi in that particular classroom robust enough to hold the action of 20? 200? Students?
Let’s think about students’ engagement: what constitutes it? would a kahoot on their BYOD will be sufficient to pick their interest and if not, what else must be added to the magic elixir?
In 5 min, lets discuss Kahoot’s similarities with other educational technologies used in the classroom
Let’s assess the potential of Kahoot.
how does it compare
how does it transfer
is it compatible with Canvas
Survey: Instructional Designers ‘Pivotal’ in Tech Adoption
By Dian Schaffhauser 05/09/16
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/05/09/survey-instructional-designers-pivotal-in-tech-adoption.aspx
Managing projects is the most common task instructional designers undertake during their days, followed by technology and pedagogical training. Their biggest obstacle to success on the job is faculty resistance. The most important expertise they possess as a whole is the ability to learn new technologies, followed by project management and learning science or theory. Their favorite tools to work with are Camtasia and Adobe products; their least-favorite are Blackboard and learning management systems in general.
- Consider adding more resources in the area of instructional design. If that isn’t possible, at least consider involving instructional designers “early” and “often” during technology transitions.”
- “Incentivize” faculty to work with instructional designers “from the get-go” in order to help them learn how to engage with their students and expand class time through the use of online tools.
- Technology providers should work closely with instructional designers in the selection of digital tools.
The report, “Instructional Design in Higher Education,” is freely available on the Intentional Futures website here.
Instructional Design in Higher Education
http://intentionalfutures.com/reports/instructional_design/
p. 4 Graph: median number of instructional designers by type of institution. According to the graph, SCSU must have between 3 and 16 instructional designers.
p. 10.“While a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ can get by in instructional design, the best instructional designers are ‘aces-of-many-trades’,with authentic experience and training in all aspects of the process.”
p. 12“Management choose[s] tools that are cheap and never ask[s] about integration or accessibility.Then we spend enormous amounts of time trying to get them to work.”
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more in this IMS blog on instructional design
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=instructional
