Monthly Archives: August 2012
It’s often difficult to know which interactive tools help foster or improve student learning and which are merely flashy, distracting gadgets. But the folks at Getting Smart put together a list of 50 of the most useful tech tools that serve as educational aids in the online classroom. Some of them, such as Twitter, YouTube and Google Docs, are extremely well known and frequently utilized, whereas others are more obscure despite the fact that they offer plenty of value to … Continue reading
The timeless debate of quantity vs. quality has cropped up in the realm of online education, this time with regard to online discussion forums. And it appears that less is more. Piazza, a social Q&A web service, analyzed over 18 months the behavioral trends of students in 3,600 online courses at more than 500 institutions, and the fledgling company shared the results of its analysis with The Chronicle of Higher Education this week. Out of the study comes evidence that … Continue reading
Noted online course developer Debbie Morrison discusses in her latest blog entry the ways in which instructors can help curb what many in the field of online education know to be true: cognitive overload is rampant among online students. This entry is the first in what Morrison says will be a four-part series “that presents instructional strategies addressing the unique needs of online students.” And the greatest of those needs, she argues here, is support. Morrison’s post provides a learner … Continue reading
Chicken sandwiches and presidential politics aside, perhaps no topic is as divisive in the United States these days as the future of higher education and its relationship with the Internet. The results of a recent nationwide survey underscore that notion. More than 1,000 Internet experts, researchers, observers and users were polled in the Pew Internet/Elon University survey, called Bricks and Clicks: What is the potential future of higher education and the Internet by 2020? In their responses, some technology stakeholders view … Continue reading