50 Time Saving Firefox Add-ons

Now that delicious is going away, sometime, probably, I'll probably be adding more links here.

This looks interesting. I wish it were 5 instead of 50. 50 Time Saving Firefox Add-ons

HOW TO: Use Social Media to Enhance Your Event

From Mashable HOW TO: Use Social Media to Enhance Your Event. It is good to start the conversations early, and keep them going. Social media can help with that.

Software testing - RSS feeds in Webmail

Did a search on testing, and this came up - Software testing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Because I got a question about whether or not you can read RSS posts in the web-version of Outlook, webmail. So, I'm testing to see if this works.

Twitter in Education - Academic Excellence in 140 Characters

Reports on Rey Junco's use of Twitter in the classroom. YouTube - Academic Excellence in 140 Characters

He finds that students can connect / interact more and better, by using different channels of communication.

Conference includes lots of interesting topics

Things are moving faster in education. Take a look at what the featured speakers are talking about in this K-12 education conference. FETC 2011 Featured Speakers -- FETC Events

Sessions like - I'm Leading, Is Anyone Following? Preparing Students for the Future
We need to start by understanding that we are preparing students for the world that is their future, not the world that is our past. Educational leaders must understand that the jobs of tomorrow are going to depend on students who can use technology to efficiently create, persuade, collaborate, communicate, innovate, and evaluate in knowledge-driven workplaces. This session will guide you in the process of changing our “Educational Environment” that include the 21st century skills that will be required for students to thrive in the future.

and

Build it or They Will Come
Social networks, web-based communication and collaboration tools, and “powered-up” student challenges are not only engaging, they teach 21st century skills while delivering core curriculum. Bring all your machines and mobiles to participate as this session becomes a giant classroom with challenges and resources reaching across boundaries --and time. Virtual environments, Web 2.0, and a network of contacts will be available and tapped for the challenges—and replicable in a classroom. Learn why bricks and mortar districts need to adopt these strategies quickly or risk the erosion of their enrollment base.

(I think I might have title this one "build it or they will leave")

eSchool News & eCampus News - June 2010 [S7]

eSchool News as recommended by Charles James.

New Horizons Presentation - Google Docs

New Horizons Presentation - Google Docs - so you can see the presentation, go to http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfs58668_338g56dr4hr

making your facebook pages more engaging

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/197503?utm_source=smt_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

Boook on higher ed - Marketplace of Ideas

Joshua Kim gives us http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology_and_learning/10_questions_for_discussing_menand some questions to start a discussion about Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University.

KCTCS New Horizons Attendees

How are you going to make your classes more engaging?

Any thoughts / ideas / criticisms you want to share.

The comments are yours.

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com

When in doubt, just watch Sir Ken Robinson on schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com and try to make it better.

Possible metaphor - information distribution like water systems

An still-forming metaphor to help talk to faculty about the growing communication gap.

Let's imagine that information is distributed like water.

When most of our faculty were growing up, water came from the well at the center of town. The mayor and government made sure the well was working and good.

Then came the early days of the Internet, which was described as the firehose. It provided raw water at astounding rates, but was not very useful.

Then came the time of living near the ocean, where water was plentiful and fascinating, like the World Wide Web is today. But it is not good to drink, but very fun to play / swim / surf in.

Then comes the time of rain: the ubiquitous, mobile Internet. Where all information is available wherever you are on your smart phone.

And the people who grew up only drinking from the town well have trouble imagining drinking rain (is it safe?), and the people who have grown up in rain can't imagine why you would want to go to the well: all you need is always available.

Who's talking about you or your school?

You might want to look into Online Reputation Management, here are is a posting that points to some possible tools http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/05/21/tools-manage-online-reputation/ - thanks to PJ Bentley in Meredith Farkas's class for reminding me to think about this.

I've already got a Google Alert set up for my college & library. A Google alert on my too-common name (I would get the White Sox pitcher and Stone Cold Steve Austin, as well as a science fiction artist long before me) might not be useful, but maybe in conjuction with "librarian" or "education".

Golf Cart Lecture Circuit: Building Community Online | LIBR 246-04/13 Web 2.0 (Spring 2010)

Lots of great stuff from Meredith Farkas's LIBR 246-04/13 Web 2.0 (Spring 2010) class, here PJ Bentley points to an interesting Golf Cart Lecture Circuit: Building Community Online video.

Find a great e-book to read online with these sites | Webware - CNET

Find a great e-book to read online with these sites | Webware - CNET for your summer reading needs.

What administrators think of libraries

Here is an interesting article on what administrators think of libraries.

Weblogg-ed » Teach. Facebook. Now.

Will Richardson urges educators to Weblogg-ed » Teach. Facebook. Now.

I agree. The students want to learn about it, and don't realize how much they don't know.

Cognitive biases - watch out for them

From Boing Boing, a reminder of cognitive biases.

Link didn't work extremely well for me, but I'm guessing it is swamped because it is a new bb link.

Making good PR videos

Via iLibrarian, this post gives 16 tips for successful online video marketing

Old-school Collaboration Tools That Rock

From web worker daily, a reminder that not all collaboration has to be web 2.0, there are some Old-school Collaboration Tools That Rock

Community College 2.0

Community College 2.0 from Center for American Progress.

The IT Infrastructure in Education -- THE Journal

The IT Infrastructure in Education -- THE Journal might have some interesting suggestions for IT support of education. Might be K-12 oriented, but surely ideas for higher ed as well.

CC in Education - Creative Commons

CC in Education - Creative Commons is an overview of more nuanced, shareable copyright in education.

People seem to like the short video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FMnVIofuE0 as a quick intro.

Blog U.: First Thoughts on "Frontline" - Confessions of a Community College Dean - Inside Higher Ed

Dean Dad raises some interesting ideas based on his watching of the Frontline episode on for-profit colleges:

Abandon the ridiculous "tenure or adjunct" model in favor of something closer to regular employment.
And for the love of all that is holy and good, abandon the credit hour and go to outcomes-based measures.

Blog U.: First Thoughts on "Frontline" - Confessions of a Community College Dean - Inside Higher Ed

Networked individuals are re-shaping learning

A slideshare presentation on how Networked individuals are reshaping social life and learning from Pew's Internet & American Life Project.

Perhaps disruption is the way to go

Will Richardson says that it is time to transform learning.

We could improve, supplement or re-invent, but maybe it is time to take a bigger step back and go for big changes.

Brighter Futures from Walmart

Walmart is supporting a Brighter Futures project through the League for Innovation in the Community Colleges to "help dislocated workers acquire 21st century job skills and obtain jobs that require these skills". Could yield some interesting results, depending on how "21st century skills" are defined.

6 technologies that will shape education

From THE - geared more to K-12, but higher ed students come from somewhere - six technologies that will shape education

And, five challenges:

1 Inadequate digital media literacy training for teachers;
2 Out of date learning materials and teaching practices;
3 Lack of agreement on how education should evolve, despite widespread agreement that change is needed;
4 A failure of education institutions to adapt to informal education, online education, and home-based learning; and
5 Lack of support for or acknowledgement of forms of learning that usually occur outside the classroom.

Based on the Horizon Report for K-12.

There is also a Horizon Report for Higher Education.

11 good ideas from Josuha Kim

He may be wrong, but he has 11 ideas that are interesting to think about.

I think he is right about most of them (do I have to read the whole thing before I point to it, late on a beautiful spring day? if so, then I'm gonna quit blogging).

6 tools to try

A Half-Dozen Tools to try including dropbox, jing, feedly and podbean.

They are all new to me.

What libraries could do, what they are lacking in

Stacey Greenwell passes along a link to UVa's Scholar's Lab as something libraries can be doing to support learning.

Which is a nice antidote to the depressing article from Inside Higher Education on the eroding library role.

Twitter cheat sheet

Twitter Cheat Sheet from Web Worker Daily, via iLibrarian http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/.

Best Educational Podcasts? Any suggestions

There is

Ed Tech Talk at http://www.edtechtalk.com/

(and here is one I need to refer to more for an upcoming talk http://www.edtechtalk.com/node/4727 about social presence in online courses - check about 11 min. in on using twitter, and about 19 min in, question about "opt out")

Educause Podcasts at http://www.educause.edu/podcasts

What else?

YouTube - lots of interesting discussions

A young man named Dan Brown has uploaded "An Open Letter to Educators" and it has had more than 100,000 views, and has generated 56 responses. Interesting discussions of matters that are usually only talked about in education classes.

Newly uploaded by Wendy Drexler who uploaded The Networked Student, a 7th grader discusses her personal learning environment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEls3tq5wIY

At Open Textbook training

At KCTCS we are members of the Open Textbook Initiative and Connexions (http://cnx.org/.

Learning more about it in Lawrenceburg.

Interesting discussion at ACRL wiki

Enjoyed the discussion at the ACRL Science Information Wiki Facebook Group where people talk about issues of interest to the reader/writers of http://wikis.ala.org/acrl/index.php/Science_Information_Literacy.

Facebook is not really designed to host a real-time discussion. Be aware that your activity notifications/emails will go up substantially. Glad I have my FB notifications go to gmail, and not work email.

Other good blogs / resources

Might like to look at Digital Education Space or the associated wiki - http://thedigitalclassroom.wetpaint.com.

"Professional Development" in YouTube

Searching for "The Networked Student" in Youtube, I saw this suggestion for Professional Development. So, I will have to look at those sometime (can't now, have to run to talk to a class).

Facebook size vs. size of U.S. Population

Mashable compares the U.S. and Facebook in population terms. Facebook is growing fast, but not quite representative of the U.S. population.

Learning with Brains

Josh Kim talks about the brain and learning which discusses that brain research has progressed quite a bit in the last few years, and we know more about how the brain works now.

He has read these books:

Books I've read and enjoyed about the brain include:

--Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, by John Medina. Check out Medina's great Web site.

--Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life, by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang.

--Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, by Gary Marcus.

--Mind Wide Open, by Steven Johnson.

--The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine, M.D.

and is asking for suggestions of any others that might help instructors teach (and students learn).

Social Media in Higher Ed from NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/education/31iht-riedsoc.html is an article from the New York Times about social media in higher ed.

Got pointed to it by the Resource Shelf http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/03/31/universities-use-social-media-to-connect-arxiv-org-used-as-an-early-example/

"Library Thing" a tool to talk about books

From the Easily Distracted blog - My Books, My Selves talks about using LibraryThing to track, discuss, share what you have read/are reading and helps you find the next book you may be interested in.

Also discusses how it can be used in a teaching setting.

Taking care of your career

Taking Care of Your Career Discussion Session NOTES nice notes on a presentation of things you should be working on in your work.

The world of work is changing, and even education is not immune.

Here are some of the points:
"10. 3 Top Things You Should Do For Your Career – Greg. Greg mentioned 3 thing you should do on a regular basis:

i. Take someone to Lunch. Greg mentioned to take someone to lunch who has helped you in your career and say thank you. This can be used to foster long term long relationships.

ii. Be Out There. Greg mentioned that you must believe things will happen, be confident and make sure you are visible in your organization.

iii. Reputation. Greg mentioned that you must remember your reputation is key to your future work. Your reputation is not owned by you rather your customers and peers own it. You must be conscious at all times how you handle situations, how your treat people and how you complete your tasks. Your reputation is what will make or break you and this is something you should guard and protect at all times.

11. Take 30 Seconds – Greg. Greg asked the group for 30 seconds of silence to reflect on where there want to be in the career and where want to go. He encourages everyone to take charge of their careers."

How to teach students to evaluate Wikipedia

Inside Higher Eduation has an article on Does Wikipedia Suck? and how you can help your students separate good information from bad.

Sample paragraph:
"The most valuable lesson of all took place in the debriefing discussion the day papers were handed in. Students shared their concerns about Wikipedia’s virtues and deficiencies with each other and saw that it was a peer consensus, not a professor’s rant. I then asked them how they could evaluate all sources — electronic and print — in the same fashion as they judged Wikipedia. Within a week I had to but ask of any source “Is it sufficient?” in order to trigger thinking about evidence, logic, and data."

We need to provide students with opportunities to interact with the information and make their own decisions. We can't tell them that Google or Wikipedia is bad, we have to show them, or better, have them discover it for themselves.

Developing a course collaboratively, at a distance

How do you best develop a course among geographically-separated people?

Best Practices for Distance Design and Deployment of an Online Course begins to answer.

Blurb:
The Society for Clinical Data Management (SCDM) in developing online courses for students globally has created an effective process for carrying out the design of these courses by virtual teams working at a distance. This session will include an examination of issues related to coordinating the work of multiple teams of instructional designers and content experts from across the United States, developing instructionally sound courses informed by experts, using Moodle to make courses broadly, yet cost-effectively available, providing support for course facilitators, and orienting and engaging international students in instructor-led online learning communities.

Benchmarking Community Colleges

I haven't had time to look at the whole engagement survey of Community College students, but here it is Survey of Entering Student Engagement (PDF file).

Or read a summary from Inside Higher Education Missed Connections.

Listen to EDUCAUSE at your desk

You can listen to presentations from conferences, such as this one "Collaboration is Strategy"

Here's the blurb: As open content, "above campus" economies of scale, and cloud services shape the environment for education and research, effective collaboration becomes an essential tool for IT leaders and leading institutions. Collaboration is more than guarded partnerships or money—it requires a cohesive vision, new attitudes, principled trust, and execution to achieve valued outcomes for institutional goals. Collaborative capabilities cannot be bought; they are developed through behavior.

This session is presented by Brad Wheeler, Vice President for IT, CIO, and Professor at Indiana University.

http://www-cdn.educause.edu/sites/default/files/e09-collaborationisstrategy.mp3 - this is an audio stream, be ready to listen (or download for later enjoyment)

He recommends this article Open Content and the Emerging Global Meta-University, from 2006.

And points to Connections - cnx.org and talks about (Sukai - don't know how to spell it)

Homework:
* keep working with Educase "uncommon thinking for the common good"
* use our connections
* got to get a federated identity done - join inCommon
* do NOT use the "cloud" word - there are too many policies that still need to be worked out - "above campus services" might be another way to approach it - outsource things to Microsoft, Google, etc. like you outsource printing W-2s


side note - anyone remember buying cassette tapes from conference sessions? This technology is MUCH better.

Discussion about Online Learning

from Joshua Kim March 29, 2010 11:23 pm

Lots of discussion going around IHE today about online learning. Steve Kolowich kicked off a discussion about one academic's attempt to add "the human element" to the LMS by integrating Skype and Elluminate Live with Moodle. Dean Dad connected his lousy experience with webinars to online courses by asking, "have you learned anything from the earthly purgatory of webinars that helped you improve an online class?"

Read more at The Online Learning Discussion

Joshua continues "And yes, in my experience I have witnessed instances in which online programs/courses were superior to face-to-face. These instances all shared the following attributes:

1) The online program / course was aimed at adult working professionals who would not have been able to receive their degrees (undergraduate and masters) without having the online option.

2) Significant resources were devoted to course development, faculty training, and student support.

3) The courses were project based, with an emphasis on collaboration, strengths based learning, student support, and developing competencies."


Find out whether or not Dean Dad likes webinars.

Connected Teaching

Wil Richardson is writing great things about how K-12 is using technology.

Here is a new post about Connected Teaching which explores some of the demands on teachers in a more networked learning environment, where outside experts, parents and others may be much more active in the learning, even if they are not present physically in the classroom.

Profit / Not for Profit cooperation

I almost always enjoy the postings from Dean Dad over at Inside Higher Eduation.

This time he talks about a new program where if a student is accepted to a not-for-profit nursing program, but waitlisted, they can pay more, and get into a for-profit program. He talks about how cooperation between profit and non-profit is a win-win.

NetVibes to create a webpage for students

Want to send your students to webpages that you have selected. NetVibes may be a good tool to try - Chris Clark tells you why you might want to get started with NetVibes

Joshua Kim on attention

Joshua Kim has an interesting post about On Facebook, Video and Attention that talks about the myriad distractions, and how/why we chose what to focus on.

College students & their love for Wikipedia

http://www.dailyillini.com/blogs/on-the-town/2010/03/29/wikipedia-secret-to-college-success talks about how Wikipedia can be the college student's best friend.

I think that this points out that instructors too often take polar extremes when talking about information resources ("microfilm is GOOD" "Internet is BAD"), when we need to talk to our students more about the subtleties of information resources.

For instance, we all have friends that are very good at suggesting movies that we will like, and other friends that are good at suggesting restaurants. But the movie critic is not good at food suggestions, and vice-versa. And you wouldn't take relationship advice from either one of them.

So, Wikipedia is probably unsurpassed in, as this student points out, "Dwight Shrute’s co-worker relations, or if any progress has been made on the “Friends” film idea or the schedule for the first 48 matches of the 2010 FIFA World Cup."

And it may even, as the student points out, do a passable job of explaining the French Revolution in quick and dirty terms. The journal Nature has reported on Wikipedia vs. Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Wikipedia held its own versus Britannica.

So, if you are talking to students about Wikipedia, let's stop saying "don't use it" and start saying "don't STOP at Wikipedia - take what you got there and explore further".

Social Media in Psychology

Three psychology professors from Emerson talk about how they have used social media at EDUCAUSE.

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/SocialMediaforAcademicPurposes/201748

Competencies for the new web

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology_and_learning/10_competencies_for_every_graduate

(cutting to the chase, more in the link above)

I'm going to shamelessly steal from Mindy McAdams, a professor in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida, and her "Reporter’s Guide to Multimedia Proficiency".http://mindymcadams.com/tojou/2009/now-printable-reporters-guide-to-multimedia-proficiency/ I'll share my favorite 10, modified somewhat from the original list.

Grading discussions in Blackboard

Ben Worth, Greg Rickert and others shared easier ways to grade discussions.

Rather than grade each discussion entry as you read them from the discussion board, print out a roster, and make notes on paper, then enter all the grades at the end.

If you do it from inside the discussion board, you have to remember to hit "submit" at just the right time (or something like that)

More from Online Support Group

Next meeting Apr 21, we will think about demonstrating:

Jing - Greg Rickert
Slideshare - Cindy Tucker(?)
Google Docs - Steve
Audacity -
Voice Tools -
Web Cam -
(moving over a course in Blackboard, maybe some other "basics")

At Online Support Group Meeting

Ben Worth shared several things. Discussion of when the Blackboard upgrade should be installed. We may ask for a speaker to come to campus during finals week. He also mentioned that the iPhone app for Blackboard doesn't do anything, really.

Greg Rickert shared some information from a Blackboard training on how to do Exemplary Course program. He shared the course rubrics, and has 81+ PowerPoint slides if you want more.

The rubric itself is at http://kb.blackboard.com/download/attachments/47153583/2010+Blackboard+Exemplary+Course+Rubric.docx
(downloaded a little funky for me, but I did not have the latest Word to view it)

Some good tools:
Slideshare - PowerPoint on the web (perhaps with audio)
Ispringfree - convert PowerPoint to flash
Jing - online video

(screen capture - with control+PrintScreen is very useful)

The new Blackboard may have a table of contents feature (like SoftChalk does)

Some discussion of Time Zones - one instructor somewhere uses GMT for all deadlines, etc. Hope our Blackboard see the times in EST.

Videos on Wednesdays

I'm going to try to put out a video each Wednesday covering web tools that I use that I think are useful for higher education.

Here's a rough map of what I think I'm going to cover first - suggest what you want more of, or what else I should cover.

What do I think college instructors need to know about?

Social networking: Facebook

Online applications: Google Documents

Online video: YouTube

Social Bookmarking: delicious

Radio (lectures) on demand: Podcasting

Microblogging: Twitter

Community writing: Wikis (Wikipedia)

Picture manipulation: Flickr/Picnik/Animoto


Blogs

RSS readers (read lots of web pages/blogs in one place): Google Reader / Bloglines

Online teleconferencing: Skype

Mapping: Google Earth

Mashups: google maps mashups / machinima

Testing Higher Education Web

I'd love to begin a discussion of how we could use "web 2.0" tools in education, particularly higher education.