Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• The Potential for Online Learning: Promises and Pitfalls (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE.edu

  • At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves where all of this is heading and what the real consequences will be—not just for the privileged but for society writ large.

• Higher Education in the Connected Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE.edu

  • In the connected age, it doesn't matter where the information is, where the student is, or where the faculty member is. What matters is the value that comes from the connection.

• Top-Ten IT Issues, 2013: Welcome to the Connected Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE.edu

  • Institutions that invest in the technologies must make parallel investments in faculty development and ongoing support
  • Challenges include helping faculty in the identification and selection of quality resources, or in the creation of new ones, in support of their course learning outcomes
  • Research shows that students with a sense of connection to their campus, program, and classmates are much more likely to persist and succeed in their academic pursuits
  • Does the institution have the technologies, staff expertise and levels, facilities, and funding required to improve student outcomes?
  • Does the institution provide adequate and timely instructional design assistance and services to encourage both students and faculty to leverage technology in the classroom? Does it take into account current and emerging technologies that are available to faculty?
  • Do the institution's reward systems for faculty encourage or impede faculty use of technology to optimize their instructional materials and techniques?
  • How are accounts de-provisioned after someone exits the institution?
  • What guidance do faculty, staff, and students receive for the use of cloud services?
  • Faculty, staff, and students are bringing new devices, environments, and apps to their academic and administrative work and are looking to the IT organization for help in integrating these tools with existing enterprise systems.
  • A key question is whether the IT organization can shift from a focus on being the experts to a focus on being "accomplished novices"¹⁴ who collaborate with their constituents to find the right IT solutions for a given need.
  • How do security practices inhibit collaboration and the implementation of the newest applications, particularly those using social media?
  • How does the IT organization create a community of well-informed, vigilant users who question every e-mail request and value the efforts of keeping authentication credentials private and secure?
  • An institution's success in online courses and programs will depend on its ability to grow and maintain such offerings and the ability of faculty to adjust to new ways of instructing learners. The current trend of blending or merging classroom and online would appear to be one of the best strategies for sustaining the precepts of online learning in post-secondary institutions.
  • Any discussion regarding sustainability of online offerings is coupled to the quality of those offerings in terms of both design and support.
  • Are faculty actively engaged in the discussion regarding the benefits and challenges of online learning for both traditional and nontraditional learners on campus and off?
  • Does the institution have a coherent plan for identifying courses or programs that could be adapted to or created for the online venue?
  • Does the institution provide adequate resources and incentives for faculty and support personnel to create and maintain high-quality online learning experiences?
  • What assessment techniques are in place to evaluate changes in classroom and/or online learning strategies across the institution? Are they adequate to give good information that will sustain the initial effort?

• 1997 Fall Newsletter - Mortal Sins in Poster Presentations

  "or How to Give the Poster No One Remembers"

  tags: posters presentations tips

• LIST OF PUBLISHERS | Scholarly Open Access

  Updated list of "Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers"

  tags: academic writing journals lists open access predatory publications publishers publishing research venues for publication

• LIST OF STANDALONE JOURNALS | Scholarly Open Access

  An updated list of "Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals"

  tags: academic writing journals lists open access predatory publications publishers publishing research venues for publication

• Mobile-assisted Language Learning | The International Research Foundation for English Language Education

  "TIRF has commissioned five [or six] papers to explore the current state of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). It is our hope that these papers provide an accurate account of how MALL is impacting the landscape of English language education, and what challenges lie ahead for language learning teachers and students, administrators, business professionals, and others" (¶3, 2014.02.18). This page provides a menu of links to summaries and downloads of those papers.

  tags: education language learning mobile learning papers research resources technology TIRF

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• Write Before You’re Ready: First Steps to Avoiding Writer’s Block — Academic Ladder

  tags: academic writing guidelines informal writing outlining preliminary writing research & writing revision

• “Irrational Exuberance”: The Case of the MOOCs | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

  tags: attrition education higher education learning MOOCs online education satisfaction

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• Persuasion principles

  "How we change what others think, feel, believe and do"

  tags: action change persuasion principles thought

• TypingWeb Educator Review

  "This review of TypingWeb was written by Erin Brereton"

  tags: online practice tools typing

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• PC Support: Free Computer Support & Repair Help

  Great site for troubleshooting tips! Helps Mac users understand Windows fixes for iTunes and related program installation errors.

  tags: Mac software technology tips Windows

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• 936 Write Before You're Ready: First Steps to Avoiding Writer's Block

  This Tomorrow's Prof. post provided "great advice on avoiding writer's block" (preface, ¶1).

  tags: academic writing outlines pre-writing revision Tomorrow's Professor writers writer's block

• How to give a scientific presentation (PDF)

  How to give a scientific presentation by Kevin D. Lafferty (US Geological Survey, UC Santa Barbara) Though these guidelines (Lafferty, n.d.) focused on outlines, slides, text, and style for _scientific_ presentations, they include plenty of advice useful for other sorts of presentations as well.

  tags: guidelines outlines presentations sciences slides

• How to write an effective title and abstract and choose appropriate keywords | Editage Insights

  "The title, abstract, and keywords play a pivotal role in the communication of research. Without them, most papers may never be read or even found by interested readers" (The title, abstract, and keywords: Why it is important to get them right, ¶1, 2014.01.23).

  tags: abstracts academic writing keywords writing

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• Compare Mendeley | Mendeley

  "Mendeley uses the latest technology to continually improve the product and deliver features that you need most." This chart compares Mendeley to Endnote, Papers, RefWorks, and Zotero.

  tags: academic writing charts Mendeley references research software tools writing

• Academic Writing & Research | Mendeley Group

  "This is now an "Open" group. It collects published resources relating to academic writing and research -- including "how to" guides for academic writers (both students and faculty), as well as studies about/on the processes of research and of writing about research" (About this group, ¶1, 2014.01.16).

  tags: academic writing groups Mendeley research writing

• Text and Academic Authors Association: Author Resources

  The TAA maintains this list collectively. Some information in it may not be up to date (Copyright 2010 as of 2014.01.16).

  tags: academic writing associations authors online resources

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• UltraKey 2014 | Best Typing Software - TopTenREVIEWS

  • The software recommends lessons and performance goals based on an initial skills assessment. You can also repeat any lesson or typing exercise for additional practice
  • Other critical training tools include warm-up exercises to mentally and physically prepare you for lessons, and timed typing tests that last up to five minutes
  • The software also teaches you proper typing ergonomics in its first lesson. In fact, the software places such a strong emphasis on proper typing technique that it reminds you of proper positioning at the beginning of each exercise and frequently prompts you to take stretching breaks between exercises to prevent fatigue and poor posture
  • UltraKey provides versatile management controls for administrative users, such as teachers, employers and even parents
  • Bytes of Learning (UltraKey's manufacturer) informed us that the typing software is currently being developed to become entirely cloud-based

• 株式会社 日本ビーコム | タイピングソフト | Gold Finger School

  "「Gold　Finger　School　2010」が　Windows 7対応にバージョンアップしました "

  tags: 日本 タイピング ソフト Windows

• TESOL Connections - January 2014

  "IRIS holds data collection instruments from a wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. These include, for example, questionnaires about motivation, attitudes, learning strategies, and intercultural understanding; experimental teaching methods; classroom observation and interview schedules; teaching tasks; sound and video files; word lists; pictures for encouraging learners to use specific structures; language tests for different skills and types of knowledge… and many more besides" (Materials on IRIS, ¶1).

  tags: action research data collection instruments learning materials methods questionnaires repositories research second languages foreign languages

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• The Other Things Matter: T-DAD
  "3 or 4 ideas of things a teacher can do to decrease the anxiety around extensive reading"
  tags: learning reading teaching tips
• The ABC’s of Blogging | Mervik Haums
  Haums focuses on accord, basics, an[d] consistency.
  tags: blogging blogs tips writing wink_students

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• An Effective Poster | Creating Effective Poster Presentations

  Here is the top end of the directory (sidebar) for this site by George Hess, Kathryn Tosney and Leon Liegel: "An Effective Poster / Define Your Message / Know Your Audience(s) / An Effective Abstract / Create Your Poster / ...."     :: Focus     :: Layout     :: Headings     :: Graphics     :: Text     :: Colors     :: Editing     :: Software Present Your Poster Examples of Posters Resources Video Library"

  tags: posters presentations tips

• http://www.csun.edu/plunk/documents/poster_presentation.pdf

  Tips on poster presentations at professional conference[s], by Scott W. Plunkett (n.d.), includes pointers to other sites as well.

  tags: PDFs posters presentations psychology tips

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• speech accent archive: how to

  Weinberger, Steven. (2013). Speech Accent Archive. George Mason University. Retrieved from http://accent.gmu.edu

  tags: accent archives audio language linguistics speech resources

• IPA_chart_2005.png (1656×2144)

  Chart of International Phonetic Alphabet symbols with unofficial extensions

  tags: charts IPA phonetics pronunciation

• The Hourglass

  "The Hourglass: a dynamic organisational model" for essays, investigative reports, and narratives.

  tags: essays graphics models narratives organization reports writing

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks (weekly)

• Choosing the right international journal in tesol and applied linguistics | Willy A Renandya - Academia.edu

  "Renandya, W. A. (2012). Choosing the right international journal in TESOL and applied linguistics: a guide for novice writers. Unpublished manuscript. Singapore: National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University Singapore."

  tags: journals Peer Support Group tips venues for publication writing

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

European etymology maps of common words

Check out this colorful album!

[Sorry, the embedding code from Europe etymology maps 1 - Imgur doesn't seem to work here; try viewing it at the source.] Album source: http://imgur.com/a/iVK8a/all

[30 words]

Notes for JP

For a collaborative blog, I'd suggest either a Blogger or Wordpress blog. Though Blogger is getting tangled up with Google+, for students with Gmail accounts already, the single log-in is advantageous. You could be the blog owner, and students could be contributors (co-authors), or, to ease them in, they could have only commenting privileges that you could moderate. However, screening comments in advance can impede interactions and responses among contributors, especially if you're not monitoring the blog 24/7.

I believe students would have to have Diigo installed on their computers to facilitate cooperative bookmarking of Internet sites. You'd probably want to set up (a) Diigo group(s) for them, with recommended tags. For example, I own a Weblogging in Kumamoto (WinK) group, and have an RSS feed for bookmarks tagged "wink_students" in the sidebar on a writing course blog. However, students don't do the bookmarking for that; other teachers and I do. You and other group members can share annotations and highlights publicly or privately (with particular groups).

With a Diigo group, and student invitees, discussion forums also will be available. So course blogs might be unnecessary, if you go the Diigo route. Carefully threaded discussion posts may be better than flat comment threads on target blog posts. (I'm not sure yet, but Blogger may have begun threading replies to particular comments.)

I hope this responds satisfactorily to most if not all of your recent inquiries. If not, please let me know in (a) comment(s) on this post.

How Creativity Works: Animated video - Wow!

IMAGINE: How Creativity Works from Flash Rosenberg on Vimeo.

Thanks to Language Teaching Professionals for pointing this out!

Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really. | Granted, and...

Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really. | Granted, and...: "...[T]hough we often lose sight of this basic fact, the point of learning is not just to know things but to be a different person – more mature, more wise, more self-disciplined, more effective, and more productive in the broadest sense" (Wiggins, 2012.03.12)

'via Blog this'

After Google Reader: Getting organized in Feedly

The transition into Feedly from Google Reader is seamless, and what you can do there is amazing! Once you have your feeds in Feedly, you can add them to new categories, and reorganize them into multiple categories.  All will backwash to Google Reader, till it goes belly up on the first of July:

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. (Official Blog, A second spring of cleaning, 2013.03.13)

For example, in the screenshot below, there is a Language . . . feed in a topic grouping (Languages and Learning), as well as in another source grouping (Facebook). Likewise, there are social groupings, such as KGUW_13-14, new mash-ups for an instructional cohort, and Learning with Computers, connections from a series of professional development workshops.

It is also possible to rename feeds in Feedly displays. For example, in the Wikispaces (source) category feed  listing above, all five current items look the same. The feed names need to be trimmed back to the essential wiki titles, for ease of reading at a glance in Feedly displays.

[212 words]

Notes on Schleicher's TED Talk

Schleicher, Andreas. (2012, July). Use data to build better schools. TED Global 2012 [posted February 2013]. Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/andreas_schleicher_use_data_to_build_better_schools.html

measuring performance in terms of:
extrapolation,
application, and
preparation for change

PISA (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/)
79 school systems
delivering equity and excellence
spending explains less than 20% of the differences
how money gets spent matters a lot more

range of factors
making "choices that value education, their future, more than consumption today"
embracing "diversity with differentiated pedagogical practices"
personalizing "learning opportunities"

maximizing quality of teachers
recruitment, selection, training, … and beyond

Sources of info. on social collaboration

In the sidebar, MindStream | FCG MindLink . . . points to a number of sites related to social collaboration:

1. Beagle Research Group, LLC
2. The Social Workplace
3. blogs.technet.com/b/drrez/rss.aspx
4. Jeff Schertz's Blog
5. OpenEnded
6. The BrainYard - RSS
7. www.dowbrook.com/blog/feed
8. Social Business Advisor: Enterprise Collaboration Strategy
9. ITSinsider
10. Andrew McAfee's Blog
11. feeds2.feedburner.com/GilYehuda
12. ZDNet | Enterprise Web 2.0 Blog RSS
13. ZDNet | Collaboration 2.0 Blog RSS
14. The BrainYard - News RSS

'via Blog this'

Google Search for "online teaching"

A Google Search this morning (online teaching), turned up a couple of interesting hits. That is, they were interesting enough for me to review and then tag them in Diigo, a social bookmarking system that I use for micro-blogging instead of Twitter. I've replicated the two tagged entries below.

The first, Starter.co.nz, I thought may be of interest to teachers of young learners, who can browse previews of available resources, and decide whether such a subscription service would be of value to them or their schools. So I posted it to the Classroom 2.0 group, as I was adding it to my list of Educational Technology items.

Home | starters.co.nz

A follow-on to the no longer active http://www.teachingonline.org/ site, "starters.co.nz is a web-based subscription resource for schools featuring over 1600 quality pdf, ready-to-use lesson plans including digital resources such as videos and websites that enhance and add depth to the lessons. / Our lessons are based on and cover all areas of the New Zealand Curriculum and are grouped for Yrs 1–4 and Yrs 4–9+. / starters is particularly useful for printing out easy-to-follow quality lessons for relieving teachers" (deck, 2013.02.03).

more from www.starters.co.nz 

- Not Cached - Edit - Delete -

Share▼ 

- Preview

education lessons New Zealand resources schools starters&strategies subscriptions teachers teaching videos websites

in group: Classroom 2.0

in list: Educational Technology

The second, from the Designing for Learning website, has an intended audience of university faculty members new to online teaching, or interested in imporving their online teaching practices. So I decided to post it to the Moodle4Teachers group, as well as two others to which I belong, and cross-listed in both my Educational Technology and my Faculty Development lists.

Designing for Learning: Ten Best Practices for Teaching Online: Quick Guide for New Online Faculty

On this page, Boettcher explains, "ten best practices for anyone just getting started in the online environment. Research and experience suggest that these practices contribute to an effective, efficient and satisfying teaching and learning experience for both faculty and students" (para. 2, retrieved 2012.02.03 ["Minor revisions May 2011"]).

more from www.designingforlearning.info 

- Cached - Text View - Edit - Delete -

Share▼ 

- Preview

activities communities discussions education feedback faculty groups hints learning online personalization practicessocial presence support teachers teaching universities

in group: LearningwithComputers, Moodle4Teachers, Classroom 2.0

in list: Faculty Development, Educational Technology

When I returned again to the Google Search page, I noticed Google also had spotted "49 [other] items in ... [my] Diigo Library." Please feel free to check them out, too, and if you have any favorites or hot picks of your own, please share them in return.

Two articles, one after the other: 1 + 1 = 0.5?

Toward the end of last year, two extremely similar articles about one study showed up in social media networks for language educators worldwide. Both articles splashed on sensational headlines to make it sound almost like the findings represented everyone in Japan – population: 127 million (2010 estimate, WolframAlpha). 

1. Nearly 90% dissatisfied with Japan's English education: survey – The Mainichi, December 3, 2012; and
• Arama, they didn't! LiveJournal, December 4, 2012
• 21st Century English Langauge Learners, Teachers and Administrators: Ajaan Rob Hatfield, Scoop.it, December 5, 2012
• TESOL Intl Assn, Twitter, December 5, 2012
2. Japanese highly unhappy with English education quality in the country – Ida Torres, The Japan Daily Press, December 4, 2012
• TESOL International Association, English Langauge Bulletin; December 12, 2012
• ELT Professionals around the World: Ian Butler, LinkedIn, c. December 15, 2012

Neither of those two articles cites the Rakuten Research study in a way that enables readers to find it easily. Nor do any of the other as-is social media representations of the articles shed any additional light on the subject.

If you're interested in reading either the original Rakuten Research press release, or the online report, both dated November 21, 2012; they're here:

• 楽天リサーチ、「日本の英語教育」に関する調査を発表 (press release)
• http://corp.rakuten.co.jp/news/press/2012/1121_02.html
• Apparently not published in English (press releases [2012])
• 日本の英語教育に関する調査 (report)
• http://research.rakuten.co.jp/report/20121121/
• PDF: http://research.rakuten.co.jp/report/pdf/english_20121121.pdf
• Though the filename seems to suggest that the PDF is in English, it isn't.

At best, both articles cherry-picked findings from a Rakuten Research report covering only 1000 subjects, parents of children whom the articles describe variously as "underage" (Mainichi) or simply "young" (Torres). The survey actually involved 1000 16- to 69-year-old men and women with non-adult children (report, ¶1). The prospective population from which those 1000 responses derived included approximately two and a quarter million subscribed monitors (report, ¶1) earning points redeemable for Rakuten services – a response rate of approximately 0.04%.