
Alexandra Samuel,
Harvard Business Review, June 17, 2011.
People are pretty quick to cheer for the use of social media to advance human rights and democracy, as in the care of the right to drive campaign underway today in Saudi Arabia. But why the hesitation when the wrongdoing is on the other side? Alexandra Samuel, for example, calls the citizen surveillance of the riots in Vancouver "troubling" and she argues, "I don't think we want to live in a society that turns social media into a form of crowdsourced surveillance. When social media users embrace Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs as channels for curating, identifying and pursuing criminals, that is exactly what they are moving toward." Well - I disagree. It's the very same act to record a police officer beating a helpless civilian at the G20 protests and to record a thug in a Canucks shirt smashing a car window with a newspaper vending machine. And my response - to protect the right - is and ought to be the same. See more from Dvaid Eaves, the public shaming website, and the identify the rioters page.
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Bob Sprankle,
Tech & Learning, June 17, 2011.
Bob Sprankle describes the LiveScribe pen, which does three things:
- takes notes on a special pad of paper
- records audio in the environment as notes are being taken
- replays the associated audio when you tap the pen at the right position on the notes
Great idea, he writes, but what happens when the teacher (or anyone else) says "you can't record me?" What are the copyright implications? Will people hesitate to speak openly if they know they're being recorded? Or even, "Are we lumping tools like the LiveScribe pen in a 'Wiretapping Law' legal category, when they should be seen instead as Assistive Technology tools protected by laws such as IDEA?" Via Sylvia Martinez.
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by eCampus News
More than 100,000 students have been recruited to online classes in Texas since 2007. Several Texas public universities have turned to private companies to help enroll thousands more students — not for classes on campus, but online. Some state leaders want to explore expanding that model. They see potential to educate more Texans at lower cost.
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Today I wrote about state universities, including the University of Texas at Arlington, partnering with for-profit companies to deliver online classes. It’s an approach that’s gaining interest and traction in Texas, among people like Gov. Rick Perry and Jeff Sandefer, who has proposed some controversial “breakthrough solutions” in higher ed. There’s an interesting regulatory angle to this story, too. I spoke recently with Trace Urdan, a research analyst at Signal Hill investment bank in San Francisco. “More and more of these creative arrangements are being struck,” said Urdan, who studies the for-profit higher ed sector. One big reason, he said, is investors have shied away from for-profit universities as they’ve come under greater federal scrutiny and regulation.
http://educationfrontblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/06/online-learning-for-profits-an.html
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When we library staff members are struggling to respond to incoming phone calls, email, text/instant messages, tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn updates, and people stopping us in hallways to ask for help, it’s easy to forget that we, too, need learning resources and communities of support. Many of us who are responsible for organizing and providing learning opportunities recognize that one of our greatest challenges is making the time to continue our own professional development so that we can better serve those who learn from what we provide. We tend to fall into the same trap that our learners encounter: As we keep up with our daily workload, we don’t seek the learning opportunities that are at the heart of our own continuing professional and personal development.
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We write a lot on here about using Social Media (along with other online tools etc.) to help with your learning. But what about getting to that point? What if you’re not in school yet? Have no idea what to study? Or where? Or how? 99.9% of us would go straight to Google and start Googling up a storm… “online school,” “going to college,” “online classes,” “online degrees.” The list goes on and on and on. BUT… have you considered moving your search over to Social Media?
http://onlinelearningtips.com/2011/06/03/3-ways-to-use-social-media-to-pick-a-school/
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University of Southern California (USC) is set to become, “the country’s largest not-for-profit teacher prep program by 2013,” according to The Atlantic. All due to their online Masters of Arts in Teaching program – MAT@USC. USC now graduates 1500 teachers, many of whom attend classes via video chat. According to Margo Pensavalle, Professor of Clinical Education at the Rossier School of Education at USC, and a member of the faculty for the MAT@USC program, insists that the program is really top notch. “We didn’t want to be like DeVry – this is USC and we wanted to do a really good job… The syllabi for the courses are identical and the faculty are identical [to the on-campus courses],” she said.
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A new degree program offered by the University of Iowa this fall will encourage students who can’t come to campus to go online instead. The university is unveiling a business degree through the Henry B. Tippie College of Business that students can obtain entirely through online classes. The program is meant for those people already working but wanting to get their degree, many of whom may have families and are unable to move to Iowa City to take classes on campus, said David Hensley, executive director of UI John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Programs.
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20110603/NEWS01/110603006/UI-offer-online-only-business-degree-
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Central Texas College has already started to get the ball rolling on complying with upcoming federal mandates that put tighter regulations on schools and universities with online classes. For CTC student Sharon Blakly, taking classes online is the best option for her busy schedule. “I work four days on, four days off, 12-hour shifts so it works better in my plan,” she said. “I don’t have to drive back and forth, saves gas. I can do it at home in my pajamas.” However, federal regulations may soon change the way Blakly, and even out of state students, take CTC courses online.
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If you’re a teacher considering creating an e-learning course, put together a list of helpful resources and guidelines for creating an effective online learning experience. People choose e-learning courses for many reasons, including accessibility and flexibility. The cost effectiveness of online learning is another huge plus for many students. Learning can happen any time, anywhere, whether it’s squeezed in between work and dinner, or even on the treadmill at the gym. Creating quality online courses that motivates students and interacts with them is key to success.
http://coggno.com/learning-management-system/e-learning-course-checklist-for-teachers.html
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Technology is changing the way we communicate, as well as the way we learn. The Internet has made online learning almost instant: students can interact with each other through e-mail, online chat, and other communication software. For both students and teachers, it is important to set rules for how classmates and instructors interact with each other online. The rules for online teaching and learning shouldn’t be all that different than those for a physical classroom. Courtesy and attention are essential, but online interaction requires a few specific rules to make the experience valuable—even fun—for everyone involved.
http://learningonlineinfo.org/2011/06/01/internet-etiquette-online-learning/
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In a push to attract more students and generate money, Arizona State University is plunging deeper into online education, hoping that more than a quarter of its students will be exclusively in virtual classes within a decade. ASU, one of the nation’s largest public universities, projects 30,000 students will attend fully online by 2020, a tenfold increase from today. Tens of thousands of additional, on-campus students would attend partly online. Most of the online-only students would be older and attend part time, but a significant share, including younger students, are expected to go entirely online.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/06/05/20110605arizona-state-online-classes.html
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This study investigated the relationship between students’ motivation and their participation in asynchronous online discussions during a 16-week online course. Fifty-six students participated in online discussion activities as a normal part of their classes. Their motivation for participating in online discussions was self-reported three times throughout the semester. The findings continue to indicate that students’ motivation has a significant relationship with their participation in online discussion activities at time two and time three. Students’ perceived value, autonomy, competence, and relatedness have different levels of impact on their online discussion behavior. This study also found that students’ intrinsic motivation and their perceived value of online discussions remained at a moderate-high level over time, although the perceived value had a significant drop from the mid-point to the end of the semester.
http://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no1/xie_0311.htm
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This study explored how instructional audio feedback was perceived by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as Second Language (ESL) students who participated in a collaborative online project involving two classes, one in Russia and the other in the US. Specifically, it examined: 1) the possible differences between EFL and ESL students’ perceptions of audio and text feedback when receiving audio feedback from a non-native speaker (NNS) and 2) the possible differences in their perceptions of the sense of presence (teaching, social, and cognitive) as determined by the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework when receiving audio feedback from the NNS instructor. A mixed methods research design was utilized. The two groups preferred receiving both written and audio feedback, but their perceptions of teaching presence differed. This study has broad implications not only for online learning environments but any learning environment that includes EFL/ESL students.
http://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no1/olesova_0311.htm
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Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (NC-05), Chair of the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, today introduced legislation (H.R. 2117) to repeal two Department of Education regulations that inject the federal government into issues that are traditionally academic or state affairs. The bill repeals a new federal credit hour rule that sets a federal definition of a credit hour and it also repeals what are known as “state authorization” regulations. “These two regulations are a classic case of federal government overreach, which will unnecessarily restrict colleges and universities and will result in fewer choices for students,” Foxx said. “Plus, by curbing choice and making it difficult for institutions to expand their programs, these regulations will stifle job creation within the higher education sector at a time when we need new jobs more than ever.”
http://foxx.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=55§iontree=54,55&itemid=1639
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Dave Winer,
Scripting News, June 9, 2011.
I resubscribed to Dave Winer recently and I must say I'm really enjoying the new Dave Winer. There's a sense of history and perspective to his writing that wasn't there, say, five years ago. This post is a case in point, reminding people that freedom of speech is not an absolute and that Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' of the marketplace is a myth. Both have to do (in different ways) with network structures, and network structures are not a given. We build them, we shape them, we determine how they function. "We need to have a collective consciousness that isn't completely insane." Quite right. And sometimes - sometimes - when we tweak the rules of how our networks operate, it's so we can keep ourselves on an even keel, preventing the disruptions, distortions and disturbances that impair, rather than aid, cognitive function.
[Link] [Comment]
Eric Hellman,
Go To Hellman, June 9, 2011.
Eric Hellman is a bit sceptical of the new initiative. "On June 2, our Metadata Overlords spoke. They told us that they'll only listen when we tell them things using a specialized vocabulary they've now given us at the schema.org website. Although we can still use our stone tablets if that's what we're using now, we're expected to migrate to a new Microdata Thingy, assuming that we really want them to pay attention to our website metadata supplications." Well, yeah, it's a bit high-handed. On the other hand, we've been needing embedded metadata forever now. Microformats didn't catch on, RDFa had a niche following - maybe this will turn the tables. If this gives us a widespread implementation of an open graph, then there is plenty of goodness there. On the other hand, do read the notes below the video.
[Link] [Comment]
Brian Kelly,
UK Web Focus, June 9, 2011.
Because colleges and universities are not distributing usage data, the sector "is failing to demonstrate how collectively we are making use of innovative IT developments " - whether in the area of social media, institutional repositories or in other areas " - to support its teaching and learning and research activities." So argues Brian Kelly, suggesting that the failure to support its position with data leaves the sector vulnerable to attacks like "Universities spending millions on websites which students rate as inadequate," which Kelly described last year. " "Let's open up access to our usage data," he argues, "so that the value of use of IT across the higher education sector can be demonstrated."
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Adam Warren,
TELic, June 9, 2011.
This will apply especially to British readers but will be of interest to the wider lecture capture community. "JISClegal have released a series of seven short videos, orginally presented as a live webcast. They cover the legal, technical and accessibility issues, and include an instructional 'How To' segment, panel discussion and Q&A with experts from JISC Legal, JISC Digital Media and JISC Techdis." The seven videos range in length from 4 to 32 minutes.
[Link] [Comment]
by Suzanne C. Wagner, et al; JOLT
This article presents a longitudinal comparison of online versus traditional instructional delivery methods. Significant research had been conducted comparing online and traditional courses. However, there is no consensus regarding student performance considering the two instructional methods. Additionally, previous studies have focused on a limited number of courses or a short time period. This research study involves a single introductory business application software course, delivered as a traditional course and as an online course, offered over a period of ten years. The course was taught by the same instructor using the same criteria and standards across all classes, however, new versions of the software were utilized. Student performance was analyzed across 30 sections of the course from the years 2001 to 2010. Results indicate that there was no significant difference in student performance between the two modes of course delivery.
http://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no1/wagner_0311.htm
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