The 5 mistakes outlined in this article are

1. "Ineffective contextualization" (not thinking about the best way to use blogs, usually self-reflection)
2. "Unclear Learning Outcomes"
3. "Misuse of the environment" (treating blogs like wikis or discussion forums)
4. "Illusive grading practices" (lacking clear rubrics)
5. "Inadequate time allocation" (both for students to write and instructors to grade and give feedback)

Schemas for categorizing the use of pedagogies, learning theories, and technologies. For example, Table 1 maps learning theories (behaviorism, cognitive constructivism, social constructivism, and situated learning) against types of technologies. Online communication tools offer more potential for social constructivist interaction and joint construction of knowledge.

This article also suggests a way to map tool use along three dimensions:

• Individual - Social
• Information - Experience
• Passive - Active This isn't a simple framework where a single tool always is used the same way. Blogs can be more social or more based on individual reflection, and could be at different places in that framework depending on the actual learning activities.

Sloan-C report on online learning in US higher ed. Among the findings:

• 12% growth in the last year
• 20% of students took at least one online course in fall 2007
• Current economic problems (rising unemployment and fuel costs) are predicted to increase demand for online learning

Vision for what Sakai could look like in the future. The authors envision an LMS based on widgets with lots of flexibility, social networking, and content creation tools. The proposed changes to the organization (doing away with sites) would make Sakai much more flexible outside of a traditional academic course environment. The ability to have groups persist outside of courses would allow cohorts to be part of a group together, which creates some interesting possibilities.

"In summary, our ambition is not merely an incremental improvement of Sakai nor is it to copy Google. Our goal is not simply to create a better and cheaper version of Blackboard. It is time to arrive at a clearer understanding of the capabilities that represent needs unique to education and for the Sakai community to focus its development effort on providing these capabilities while taking advantage of established open‐source efforts to provide more generic capabilities. We should, in short, strive to create a different type of academic collaboration system."

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"

Literature review with guidelines for using multimedia effectively for learning. Quick summary of practical tips for educators.

(also found at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1027892)