The University of Mary Washington has started a project called Domain of One’s Own. Now before you jump to the conclusion that each student will get a domain name this year, read a little about this pilot project after the break:
Continue reading “University of Mary Washington gives domain names and web hosting”
3 Ways to Maximize Instructional Time With Screencasts
As educators in the 21st century, one of our goals should be to design student driven experiences that offer flexible learning paths, using a variety of tools to meet the diverse needs of all students. Of course, with limited instructional time, loads of content to uncover and varying comfort levels with the technology itself, implementing these types of learning experiences can be overwhelming. It’s safe to say that If educators are going to effectively use technology as a tool for learning, then the learning focus has to be on the content, not the technology.
How do we keep the focus of technology powered learning experiences on content and avoid being consumed by teaching students how to use the technology? A tool that I’ve found to be particularly effective is the use of screencasts. A screencast is a narrated video that captures what takes place on a computer screen. Let’s explore some powerful ways to use screencasts to maximize instructional time and keep the focus on the content.
1. Provide built-in tech support with quick video tutorials
2. Create Efficient and Effective Engaging Student Presentations
3. Step into the Flipped Classroom with Google Flip Packs
Read full article here.
Semester Online – a consortium of 10 schools offers for-credit online courses to its students and the world
The New York Times, Inside Higher Ed, and The Chronicle of Higher Education today all reported on Semester Online, a collaboration between 10 top-tier universities that, starting fall 2013, will offer fully online, credit-bearing undergraduate courses through a partnership with 2u (formerly known as 2tor). The institutions currently in the consortium are Duke, Emory, Washington University, Brandeis University, Northwestern University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, University of Rochester, Vanderbilt University, and Wake Forest University.
Why is this news? For two reasons. First, unlike MOOCs, Semester Online courses will be small (enrollment will be limited to 20 students per course) and comparable to the experience a student would get in a classroom. The Inside Higher Ed article states “2U and its partners are promising a high-touch virtual classroom experience that approaches, if not equals, the social and intellectual rigor of a typical course at Duke or any of the company’s other partners…The idea is to replicate not only the content and assessment mechanisms of traditional courses, but also the social intimacy…The sections will aim to mimic a seminar-like environment where students can look their classmates and instructors in the face and engage with them directly.”
Second, also unlike MOOCs, students will receive credit for the courses from the institution offering them.
So why are the schools doing this? One reason is to enable students to take courses not available at their home institution but that are available at a partner institution. Another is to give students flexibility – “students will be able to work, travel, participate in off-campus research programs or manage personal commitments that in the past would have meant putting their studies on hold,” says a news release. The Chronicle article singles out study abroad students as a potential audience for this type of coursework, particularly science students who may in the past have chosen not to study abroad because they could not take required classes while abroad.
It should be noted that this is not the first consortium to offer online courses for its member institutions – the Associated Colleges of the South has been experimenting with Chinese and Arabic courses online for its members.
Multiuser geodatabases anyone?
Greetings from your friendly neighborhood GIS guy!
I’m pleased to announce that the Keck GIS Commons is now hosting and supporting an ArcSDE for Server Workgroup environment for use in long term research projects. SDE, short for Spatial Database Engine, is a core component of a GIS server platform that aims to enable the usage of Relational Database Management Systems (RDMS) for spatial data. This is possible by the use of MS SQL Server Express 2008 R2 and ArcGIS Desktop 10.1.
This technology allows many users to edit the same spatial data at the same time. We can also track these changes and the editors through “versioning”. The days of having many duplicates of a dataset on many file servers and local computers are now in the past. Workflows can now be streamlined from the production phase right to publication. Stakeholders can witness updates and changes to shared data as it happens.
Our current server supports up to 10 simultaneous connections to a multiuser geodatabase. Each geodatabase can be up 10GB in size. And the server has a total capacity of 1TB. As needs change these offerings can change in number of users and total size.
Please contact me in the GIS lab if you have any questions.
Google Releases “Course Builder,” an Open Source Platform for Building Your Own Big Online Courses
Adding to the theme of “online courses” Google releases Course Builder, “[their]experimental first step in the world of online education.” But beware, in the video below the 70’s-styled-gentleman in the cerulean blue video mentions “Web Master” and their skill-set to set up a course. I think it’s a great start and it’s a testament to the direction online learning is moving, but as an instructional technologist looking for easy and useful tools for the higher-ed environment, I would rather invest my time (and data) into something like Lore; a pre-made, easy-to-use learning community.
Article via Open Culture:
Earlier this year, we saw Udacity and Coursera take flight, two online ventures dedicated to offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and democratizing education. Caught off-guard, traditional universities have scrambled to get a foothold in this brave new world of e-learning, and 16 universities have already signed agreements to offer their own MOOCs through Coursera. We welcome that trend. But, if you talk with profs at these universities, they often ask these questions: Why are we paying good money to develop courses that will build Coursera’s business (which is for-profit and VC-backed)? Or why are we creating courses for a platform that we don’t control or have a stake in? They ask these questions when they’re not otherwise asking “what will happen to our jobs and beloved universities in 20 years?”
For schools asking those questions, Google might have an answer. According to an announcement yesterday, Google is releasing the code base for Course Builder, a new open source platform that will give individual educators and universities the ability to create MOOCs of their own. As Peter Norvig, Google’s Director of Research, explains above, the company gave the platform a test drive this summer when it offered Power Searching with Google, a course attended by 155,000 registered students. Now you can try it out too and bring MOOCs in-house, under your own control. You can finddocumentation to get started here. But, as Norvig warns, you’ll need some tech skills in your toolkit to make initial headway. In the future, you can almost guarantee that the software will become user-friendly for everyone straight out of the box.
Already schools like Stanford, Indiana University, and UC San Diego are giving Course Builder a look.
Stanford reports today that it is trying out its own open source platform. It’s called Class2Go. Learn more about it here.
A compiled list of free online courses
If you’re interested in trying a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) head over to Open Culture where you can find over 550 free online courses from great universities.
In addition, Open Culture has compiled a list of free courses offering certificates, here. Most of these courses offer “certificates” or “statements of completion.” (See their key to understand the credentials offered by each course.) Courses are arranged by start date, while evergreen courses, which can begin whenever you wish, are found at the bottom.
Why is [Technology] So Hard?
Vinton G. Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet, recently wrote about software accessibility in Communications of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), November 2012. He explores why it’s so difficult to get software engineers to create software that is accessible to people with various disabilities.
This is similar, I think, to technology and education. Why is it so difficult to implement technology in teaching and education? The answer to both questions lies in the fact that there are far more people creating technology than need accessible technology or teaching technology.
The comments on Cerf’s article are especially worth reading, as several come from users who require software to be accessible.
Continue reading “Why is [Technology] So Hard?”
Using online mapping tools [GIS] to explore electoral history for the past 56 years.
Greetings from your friendly neighborhood GIS guy!
Online teaching tools are becoming more readily available and are now a permanent fixture in our teaching curriculum. This is no different in the world of spatial analysis and inquiry. The days of plugging away in front of a highend pc in a very complex and comprehensive program is no longer a requirement. One of the biggest advances in this realm is the use of ArcGIS Online, hosted by our friends over at Esri (the creators of ArcGIS Desktop). Not only can you create custom content and publish it online for anyone to use (Mac or PC) but you can also use content and lessons created by others for your classroom activities. They have offered up this service so you can have access to a rich collection of basemaps, demographic maps, image services, and other data. ArcGIS Online gives you an easy-to-use and intuitive work space for collaborating with others in your classroom. Users can create groups and invite others to work together on projects of common interest. Groups can be either private or public, and group members can share maps, data, and other content with each other efficiently and quickly.
As a prime example of the power and ability to foster discussion and investigation in the classroom by using this spatial tool, Joseph Kerski, Education Manager at Esri, has created an online spatial dataset containing the electoral history for the past 56 years. With the upcoming election this will no doubt aid in the discussion about some of the greater issues that the U.S.A has faced over the years and into the future Joseph’s goal was to foster a platform for interaction, teaching, and the exploration of patterns of our electoral history.
An accompanying lesson is also available available here. This lesson will guide you on analyzing historical electoral votes by state from a spatial perspective using ArcGIS Online.
Any questions or interest you may have for your classroom please feel free to contact me.
Matt Gottfried, GIS Tech. Director. x6130
Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative – course materials for blended learning with a proven track record of success
With all the recent hype about MOOCs, it is unfortunate that a tool with a much longer and proven track record of increasing student success, Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, has received almost no coverage in the academic or mainstream press. OLI has been in operation for several years, and with its not-for-profit blended learning model, has enabled students in courses like statistics to master material faster (8 weeks vs 16 weeks) and more thoroughly than students in traditional classrooms. OLI currently offers courses in anatomy and physiology, argument diagramming, biology, biochemistry, chemistry, elementary French, logic and proofs, psychology, and statistics and probability, and it enables faculty on any campus to use some or all of the OLI materials in their own courses. OLI has partnered with community colleges and other institutions (Bryn Mawr among them) to help them incorporate its tools into courses on their own campuses, and it has published several research papers documenting the positive effects of their courses on student learning.
Although OLI hasn’t appeared much in the academic or mainstream press, it was featured in a chapter of the recently published Educause book “Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies.” The chapter provides an excellent overview of the problems with the traditional educational model and describes ways that OLI addresses them.
Chapter 15 Game Changers: Education and Information Technology
http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/chapter-15-open-learning-initiative-enacting-instruction-online
Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
Electronic textbooks
There are many sources for online textbooks, which are generally cheaper than physical textbooks. This can be an option for the budget-conscious student, as the College Board reports that the average students spends more than $1000 a year on books and supplies. Vitalsource, Pearson’s MyEducationLab (Pearson-published books only), and CourseSmart are a few I’ve used. Of course, there are several others available as well. Continue reading “Electronic textbooks”
