Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: May 2012

• “Who Needs a Publisher? Exploring Self-Publishing From Content Creation to Distribution“
• “Turnitin: 10 types of unoriginal work #turnitin #edtech“
• “Turnitin Analyzes the Spectrum of Plagiarism“
• “5 Tips for Conducting Semantic Keyword Research“
• “Design Methodologies: Instructional, Thinking, Agile, System, or X Problem?“
• “Semantic Search Demystified“
• “Is Academic Plagiarism Truly on the Rise?“
• “7 Things You Should Know about Flipped Classrooms“
• “Exploding the Lecture“
• “[Infographic] The Flipped Classroom“
• “Flipped learning: Professor tested, student approved“
• “Flipping the College Classroom“
• “UDL and The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture“
• “Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Higher Education“
• “Why Flip The Classroom When We Can Make It Do Cartwheels?“
• Presentation:  “Flipping the College Classroom“
• “The Future of Undergraduate Teaching“

Universal Design in Higher Education edited by Sheryl E. Burgstahler and Rebecca C. Cory

If you’re looking for a manual on how to apply universal design in your college/university classes, don’t bother reading Universal Design in Higher Education (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard Education Press, 2008).  Chapter authors do a good job of explaining what universal design is, but the book is theoretical rather than practical despite the subtitle:  From Principles to Practice. The principles predominate, and there is little on actual practice.

It also focuses more on meeting the needs of students with disabilities over those with varied learning styles, which faculty members are more likely to have in class.

The book has chapters on implementing universal design in instruction, services, information technology, and physical spaces in higher education.  There is also a chapter on institutionalizing universal design.

Video: “Flipping the Classroom – Simply Speaking”

Video:  “Flipping the Classroom – Simply Speaking“

Video: “Best Practices Through Universal Design for Learning”

Video:  “Best Practices Through Universal Design for Learning“

Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: April 2012

• “Workshop, E-Learning or Video? A question of strategy“
• “What Instructional Designers Do-Updated“
• “TP Msg. #1157 Use of Laptops in the Classroom: Research and Best Practices“
• “Does Higher Ed Notice How Tech Is Transforming Learning?“
• “Using Wikis for Learning and Collaboration“
• “Teaching technology: we need a digital revolution in the classroom“
• “Google Scholar Metrics for Publications“
• “Plagiarism and the Web: A Comparison of Web Sources for Higher and Secondary Education Students“
• “Becoming an Art Connoisseur“

Infographic: turnitin Plagiarism Report

Video: “[BBC] A Renaissance Education”

Video:  “[BBC] A Renaissance Education“

Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: January 2012

• “Strategies for Blog-Powered Instruction“
• “Scoop This: A Comprehensive Guide to Scoop.it for Content Curation“
• “Sloan-C’s Definition of ‘Online Course’ May Be Out of Sync with Reality“

The Online Learning Idea Book, Vol. 2 edited by Patti Shank

Patti Shank of Learning Peaks has included some good ideas in The Online Learning Idea Book, Vol. 2:  Prove Ways to Enhance Technology-Based and Blended Learning (San Francisco:  Pfeiffer-Wiley, 2011).  I particularly liked these:

• “Survival Skills,” which includes some good “Tips for Online Learners” submitted by Susan Barber of Stephen F. Austin State University (pp. 48-51)
• “Reading Guide,” which provides an example of a reading guide for online courses submitted by Saul Carliner of Concordia University (pp. 82-86)–a good idea especially if you discover as I have that online students don’t always buy the textbook
• “Learning Log,” which explains how Kate Cobb of Blended Learning Zone suggests having online students complete “an online learning log at the end of each module” (pp. 91-94), a good reflection exercise
• “Project Grading Checklist,” which was submitted by Kathleen Chatfield of Clark College and resembles peer review checklists and rubrics that I have used (pp. 95-100)
• “Comments, Please,” which shows how Nancy Linger of Moraine Park Technical College uses free tools at Collab and VoiceThread “to facilitate peer feedback on learner documents” (pp. 140-142)
• “Who Are You” Alternative Online Meet-and-Greet Tactics,” which discusses how Joanna Dunlap and Patrick Lowenthal have their students use various web 2.0 applications like Tinysong, VoiceThread, Xtranormal, Flickr, Wordle, and Animoto to get to know each other (pp. 149-52)
• “Online Classroom Clickers,” which explains how to use polling tools “to easily and effectively poll their learners on a variety of topics and then instantly display the results,” was also submitted by Lowenthal and Dunlap (pp. 171-74)
• “Word Me,” which shows how Karen Hyder of Kaleidoscope Training and Consulting uses word searches (pp. 199-201)
• “Word Clouds,” which shows how Terry Morris of Harper College uses web-based applications to create word clouds (pp. 305-08)

Video: “Poet’s Corner and Globe Theatre”

Video:  “Poet’s Corner and Globe Theatre“

This video, which is a tour of the Poet’s Corner and the Globe Theatre on Renaissance Island in Second Life, was created using Screencast-O-Matic.