Blog posts
Ajax Animator Open Source Flash
Web-based open source application for creating animations. Allows for the creation of multiple layers and uses a timeline. Not much documentation or support since it's early in development, but looks like it's worth playing with if you don't have the budget for Flash and do have some time.
The Changing Face of Education in Iowa: 21st Century Skills = fluff?
Reflection on recent discussion about the value of 21st century skills in education, arguing that 21st century skills are more critical to success than much of the deep content knowledge currently expected in schools
Our problem is not that we can't teach 21st century skills unless it is content specific, it is rather that <span style="font-style: italic;">we are content specific to begin with.</span> When we compartmentalize our content in an effort to put it on a pedestal, we compartmentalize our learning of it, so that it has no relevance to the larger picture. 21st century skills, like the term or not, have that ability.
At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard - NYTimes.com
Success story of getting rid of lectures in favor of more active learning for science courses at MIT
The physics department has replaced the traditional large introductory lecture with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning. Last fall, after years of experimentation and debate and resistance from students, who initially petitioned against it, the department made the change permanent. Already, attendance is up and the failure rate has dropped by more than 50 percent.
“Just as you can’t become a marathon runner by watching marathons on TV,” Professor Mazur said, “likewise for science, you have to go through the thought processes of doing science and not just watch your instructor do it.”
Essential Elements in Designing Online Discussions to Promote Cognitive Presence — A Practical Experience | The Sloan Consortium
JALN article on supporting cognitive presence through designing effective online discussions. The authors goal was to support meaningful interaction in the discussions rather than just playing an "assessment game" where students post the minimum required for grades. The found that discussions did promote cognitive presence and critical thinking. Registration required to read the full PDF article.
Student Experiences Of Using Weblogs: An Exploratory Study | The Sloan Consortium
JALN article summarizing student reactions to using blogs for learning. Some recurring themes in the survey responses were that blogs helped with learning by showing other viewpoints, providing space to organize and collect thoughts, and prompting thorough analysis of the content. Registration required to read the full PDF article.
Facilitating Critical Thinking through Online Courses | The Sloan Consortium
JALN article on 10 strategies to help students improve their critical thinking skills. Registration required to read the full PDF article.
"The following ten strategies are proposed: (1) ask questions that can be answered through information seeking, (2) expect students to describe the meanings of their required readings in their own words, (3) motivate students to use effort through grading criteria, (4) stimulate students to give examples of concepts or theories being studied, (5) provide case studies or other examples for application of class content, (6) prompt students to ask questions of each other and the instructor; (7) phrase questions so that additional independent research or reading is required, (8) promote student debates on controversial subjects within the discipline, (9) require students to use journaling, and (10) reinforce students’ use of critical thinking"
The Development Of A Community Of Inquiry Over Time In An Online Course: Understanding The Progression And Integration Of Social | The Sloan Consortium
JALN article on creating a community of inquiry through online discussions, with positive results for students' perceived learning and satisfaction. Specifically, the authors found that, at least in this context, cognitive and teaching presence were correlated with both learning and satisfaction, but social presence only improved satisfaction. Registration required to download the PDF.
Reinventing Project-Based Learning Ning
Ning community set up by the authors of Reinventing Project-Based Learning, used for a course. The group is currently dormant, but the archived discussions still have some interest and will likely provide some inspiration for the project-based learning with multimedia course I'm revising.
Principles for a New Media Literacy
Media literacy principles for consumers and producers. Much of this is about information literacy--learning to be skeptical of sources, learning to filter out the unimportant, watching for credibility, providing accountability, active participation.
Weblogg-ed » Response to Jay Matthews at the Washington Post
Will Richardson responds to a Washington Post article that calls 21st century skills a "doomed pedagogical fad."
With access to the Internet, and with an understanding of how to create and navigate these online, social learning spaces, opportunities for learning widely and deeply reside in the connections that we make with other people who can teach or mentor us and/or collaboarate with us in the learning process. That, I think, is where we find 21st Century skills that are different and important. Sure, those connections require a well developed reading and writing literacy, and critical thinking and creativity and many of the others are skills inherent to the process. But this new potential to learn easily and deeply in environments that are not bounded by physical space or scheduled time constraints requires us as educators to take a hard look at how we are helping our students realize the potentials of those opportunities.
To me, that’s what 21st Century Skills are all about, teaching our kids to navigate the world as they are experiencing it, not the world we experienced.
