Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: February 2013

• “Eight Brilliant Minds on the Future of Online Education“
• “Woman with Parkinson’s Reports Significant Physical Recovery After Using Second Life – Academics Researching“
• “Higher Education Trends to Watch for in 2013“
• “Research to Improve Retention“
• “NMC Horizon Report: 2013 Higher Education Edition“
• “14 Articles on MOOCs“
• “5 Reasons Why MOOCs Provide Little Real Value“
• “A Flipped Classroom Primer“
• “Five Trends Shaping Digital Publishing in 2013“
• “The Content Curator’s Toolbox“

Video: “Intro To Advanced Podcasting”

Video:  “Intro To Advanced Podcasting“

Video: “Flipping the Classroom – Simply Speaking”

Video:  “Flipping the Classroom – Simply Speaking“

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“

Video: “The Elf Knight & The Faerie Queene”

Video:  “The Elf Knight & The Faerie Queene“

Part of this video was filmed at Lagswell Manor on Renaissance Island in Second Life.  I believe it was the dance scenes.

How to Design and Teach a Hybrid Course by Jay Caulfield

When I found Jay Caulfield’s book How to Design and Teach a Hybrid Course:  Achieving Student-Centered Learning Through Blended Classroom, Online, and Experiential Activities (Sterling, VA:  Stylus Publishing, 2011) on WorldCat, I was excited because I thought I have found a manual that would help me convert face-to-face and online courses to a hybrid format.

If that’s what you’re looking for, don’t bother buying or borrowing this book, which focuses more on theory and generalities.

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.

Video: “‘A Princess to a Dragon’”

Video: “‘A Princess to a Dragon‘”

I created this video of me reading my sonnet with Screencast-O-Matic, which I want to use to create screencasts for my classes.  I’ve tried using Jing before, but I couldn’t convert the file to upload to YouTube, though it works well for screenshots.  I also downloaded CamStudio to try, but it seems pretty complicated.

Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: August 2011

• “Proving a Learner’s Plagiarism“
• “Emerging Trends in LMS / Ed Tech Market“
• “Another Look at the Weaknesses of Online Learning“
• “Teaching with the Cloud“
• “The Promise Of 3D Learning“
• “Are MOOCs the Future of Online Learning?“