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Winter 2013 AJET Opinion Exchange Meeting | AJET
"From 2020, there will be 2 major changes to the current education model: 1. English education at elementary school will begin in the 3rd and 4th grade, with ‘Foreign language activities’. 2. For elementary school 5th and 6th grades, English will be taught as a subject in 3 lessons per week. MEXT is developing curriculum content and textbooks for the English subject to be taught in the 5th and 6th grades. One of the goals of this new system will be for students to progress through the Eiken test levels to the second and pre-first level by the time they graduate from senior high school. In addition, to support this goal, English language classes at junior high school will be conducted primarily in English, as they are done now at the senior high school level" (Changes in English Education, ¶¶ 2-4).
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HowStuffWorks "10 Wrong Grammar Rules Everyone Knows"
In this post, Kershner explained two hands-full of grammar points on which prescriptions and usage often are at odds.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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Prezi - Blog - The #PreziTop100 Online Resources Every Presenter Should See
Folks at Prezi have compiled a list of popular and high quality resources for presenters and presenters-to-be, and used bold typeface to flag those they deemed to be the best in each of four categories: Articles and BlogsBooksPresentationsPodcasts and Videos
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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Learn to Type | Keyboarding | Free Typing Tutor and Typing Lessons
"TypingWeb is a free online typing tutor & keyboarding tutorial for typists of all skill levels. TypingWeb includes entertaining typing games, typing tests, and free official typing certification" (deck, 2014.06.13).
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Referencing sof[t]ware (University of Birmingham)
This publicly accessible intranet library resource introduces Endnote, Reference Manager, RefWorks, and other software
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Literature searching - University of Birmingham
Includes a "Step by step guide to an effective search strategy"
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MedlinePlus - Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
"A service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health"
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Blogging as Pedagogy: Facilitate Learning | Langwitches Blog
In this post, Tolisano stipulated, "Blogging should not be an add-on, not an isolated project, but should be seen as PEDAGOGY" (¶1, emphasis in original). She lauded blogging for its affordances facilitating learning through reading, writing, reflecting, and sharing.
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This page introduces four guides for student writers: a Research Guide, a Writing Guide, a Citation Guide, and a Topics Guide.
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Reflective Writing | UNSW Current Students
This UNSW Academic Support page is one in a series of short pages defining and exemplifying reflective writing. Topics include:What is reflective writing?How do I write reflectively?Examples of reflective writingThe page entitled "How do I write reflectively?" lists resources for learning about mind-mapping.
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Motivating kids to learn English is vital for the country's future growth - The Nation
This is an opinion piece that highlighted findings from a case study of 9th graders in Bangkok, Thailand. The study focused on students levels of motivation to develop their abilities to communicate in English.
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10 Tips to Transform Your Presentations - Presentation Software that Inspires | Haiku Deck
Nested under tip number nine are ten more tips to keep in mind for every presentation (9. 10 Tips).
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Changes to visa language testing | Neos Kosmos
This June 6, 2014, article pointed out two English language test options for Australian visa applicants, namely the TOEFL Internet-Based Test (iBT) and the Pearson Test of English (PTE) Academic version. Those are in addition to the Advanced Cambridge English Exam (CAE).
Sunday, June 08, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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The guidelines, model citations, and formatting tips in this section of EasyBib resources cover a range of reference types from books to websites: Fundamentals How to format an APA works cited list Quick Guide Parenthetical Citations Web Rules Bible Blog Book Chapter Database Dictionary Encyclopedia Film / Online Interview Journal Lecture Magazine Musical Recording Newspaper Photo / Digital Image Report Thesis/Dissertation TV/Radio Broadcast Website (2014.06.02)
Sunday, June 01, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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Leanpub uses imports and markdown to create PDF, ePub, and Mobi versions of your work, which you may publish at any stage of development.
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53+ Free Image Sources for Your Blog and Social Media Posts | Courtney Seiter
Courtney Seiter listed dozens of repositories and tools for finding and creating images and media.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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Taking a stand against spam (Wikispaces Blog, 2012.07.09)
"f your account is not verified and you would like to have publicly viewable wikis, you’ll see a prompt when you try to make a wiki Public asking you to verify your account. This will require you to pay $1. The $1 is one-time only and covers your user account and all the wikis you create. It’s the easiest and most effective way for us to identify you as not being a spammer."
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Popularity of English as foreign language grows
News from Finland, the Helsinki Times
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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Tomorrow's Professor eNewsletter: 1324. Mindsets Toward Learning
- In addition to adopting the strategies and techniques that will help you grasp and remember information, you need to understand something about yourself as a learner that we believe will result in a fundamental change in the way you learn
- The next time you take a class on a subject you fear because you think you are not "smart" in that area, keep in mind that practice can make a huge difference in your learning success. The class may not be easy for you, but if you have some background knowledge in the subject or take the time to learn some background information (e.g., through learning development courses or tutoring) and you work hard (keep a growth mindset), there is no telling what you will achieve
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Monday, April 21, 2014
If you're talking 'bout a learning revolution, count Steve in!
Celebrating failure itself, of course, makes no sense; nor does never allowing for it. Education is a choice we make in how we think about learners. If we want learners who will take risk, build their skills and talents, and then learn to live their lives fully as contributors and creators, we'll recognize that they need to learn to prepare [for] and take risks, and that failures are an inevitable part of that process.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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SHERPA/RoMEO - Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving
"a wonderful search engine that has been around for over a decade now, providing information to authors who want to learn more about the copyright and open access policies of journals" (Lawson, Ask RoMEO…, ProfHacker blog, 2012.10.16)
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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Humanising Language Teaching Magazine: A Case Study of Team Teaching Perspectives
Okamoto, Michael. (2014). A case study of team teaching perspectives. Humanising Language Teaching Magazine, 16(2). Retrieved April 10, 2014, from http://www.hltmag.co.uk/apr14/mart01.htm
- the results from the survey are based on t-test, ANOVA, and frequency of replies and not on Spearman’s Rank-order correlation method due to the fact that there were not an adequate number of participants to ensure accurate results
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Sunday, April 06, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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The Mindset list is "a globally reported and utilized guide to the intelligent if unprepared adolescent consciousness" (home page, Welcome to the Beloit College Mindset List for the entering class of 2017, ¶2, 2014.04.01). Previous Lists are available through a link in the sidebar on the home page.
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Tomorrow's Professor eNewsletter: 1317. Writers Groups: Composing a Balanced Faculty
Though focused primarily on "faculty learning communities ... on two-year college campuses," this article may help a wide range of group types envision benefits and get started.
- Writers groups can bring faculty members together for dedicated individual writing time, team brainstorming sessions, reading and discussions of books designed to improve writing productivity, and peer review of works in progress. By creating a supportive interdisciplinary group for idea exchange, writers groups rely on internal expertise, inspire interdisciplinary discussions, and create community (Benson-Brown, 2006). In addition, scheduled writing time that leads to peer review of works in progress creates accountability that helps some faculty finish writing projects that otherwise might have languished.
- Writers groups raise awareness in participants by helping them to see challenges faced by student writers and by offering them an opportunity to reflect on teaching through their writing activities.
- One basic success has been use of a facilitator to set meeting schedules, obtain meeting space, and keep group members on task via their commitment to participate at regular times.
- At colleges where a writers group is faculty driven, the leader is unlikely to be compensated by anything more than a line on his or her curriculum vitae, though perhaps this is not insignificant, given that leadership roles are frequently considered in tenure and promotion.
- While some faculty in writers groups participate because doing so helps them to schedule time to work on projects, others need something different from the community: a group of peers who can review drafts and offer feedback for editing and revision. Even in interdisciplinary FLCs, the peer-review function can be very useful to members, providing them with commentary from a variety of perspectives.
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Sunday, March 30, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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"Vischeck is a way of showing you what things look like to someone who is color blind. You can try Vischeck online- either run Vischeck on your own image files or run Vischeck on a web page. You can also download programs to let you run it on your own computer" (What is it, ¶1, 2014.03.28).
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Designing conference posters - Colin Purrington
Purrington, C. B. (n.d.). Designing conference posters [blog page]. Retrieved March 28, 2014, from http://colinpurrington.com/tips/academic/posterdesign
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Learned Helplessness | Education.com
Fincham, Frank. (2009, December 23). Learned helplessness. Retrieved Mach 25, 2014, from http://www.education.com/reference/article/learned-helplessness/
- Learned helplessness results from experiencing uncontrollable events that cause individuals to expect future lack of control. It is characterized by decreased motivation, failure to learn, and negative emotions such as sadness, anxiety, and frustration.
- Learned helplessness is formally defined as a disruption in motivation, affect, and learning following exposure to noncontingent (uncontrollable) outcomes. There are three crucial elements to its definition: contingency, cognition, and behavior.
- Children who display learned helpless versus mastery oriented patterns perform equally well prior to encountering failure, but those who are mastery oriented show superior performance following a failure experience.
- There is some evidence that the learned helpless and mastery oriented patterns are socialized by parents.
- Effort attribution feedback is likely most successful in the early stages of learning and for difficult tasks, when greater effort can produce better results and its credibility is high. However, Dale Schunk has found that ability feedback (e.g., “You're good at this”) given when children succeeded early in the course of learning enhanced achievement better than effort feedback.
- (Implications of learned helpless for educators, ¶1)
- Although feedback that focuses on controllable attributions (e.g., effort, strategy use) is widely recommended, research suggests that focusing students' attention on the goal of learning rather than on showing how well they can perform has beneficial effects in combating helplessness.
- (Implications of learned helpless for educators, ¶2)
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How the Brain Processes Visual Communication
Great tips for presentation building
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MultiBrief: Learned helplessness in the classroom
- In an educational setting, students may feel that any effort is fruitless, as they do not understand the content, and so refuse to make any effort whatsoever. Learned helplessness may also result from low expectations of students, and students not being held accountable in the classroom to engage in academic tasks or activities.
- When everyone is seen as a learner with diverse skills, strengths and areas of need, students are more likely to thrive and attempt to progress.
- Students can and should also clarify directions and instructions with their peers. This is becoming increasingly important as we ask students to read and access more complex text, and as students are asked to complete more complex tasks, having a finished product is helpful for students, as well as a rubric or clear evaluation criteria.
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Sunday, March 23, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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- successful online students
- The Illinois Online Network (ION) highlights the qualities online students should possess to succeed in the online learning environment.19
- Table 3 outlines the connections between the eight characteristics of successful online learners and the four True Colors
- In this study, we defined "success" as earning an A or B in the course
- In general, then, projects assigned throughout the semester should be designed with a communication component, scheduled with deadlines, and challenge students to gain knowledge, but they should also be flexible, allowing students to use creativity in completing the assignment.
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Google+ Communities – Where I’m At |
Interesting possibilities here for course-based G+ community pages and sites.
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Commonwealth of Learning - Perspectives on Distance Education: Towards a Culture of Quality
"[T]his third publication on the theme of quality in the COL Perspectives on Distance Education series widens the discussion beyond external quality assurance processes to a more generic focus on a "culture of quality." It is a logical extension of the earlier two publications, which came out in 1994 and 1997 and drew our attention to quality assurance concerns, clarifying the basic concepts and documenting the various quality assurance practices as well as the diverse challenges they pose in different contexts" (Description, 2014.03.18).
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Getting Reading Done With Sente (Tools We Use) | Savage Minds
A getting-things-done based review of the Sente for Mac and iOS, and a few other reference management options.Friedman, P. Kerim. (2013.09.24). Getting Reading Done With Sente (Tools We Use) [blog post]. Retrieved March 18, 2014, from http://savageminds.org/2013/09/24/getting-reading-done-with-sente-tools-we-use/
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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The global pressure on education | Inquirer Opinion
Opinion piece by Randy David for the Philippine Daily Inquirer (2014.03.09).
- All over the world, there is a growing recognition by governments of the need to produce graduates equipped with global competency—individuals who not only can live and work in foreign cultures but can also navigate the complexities of a world society
- Japanese industry worries that its own universities are turning out graduates who cannot function in the global system
- The global pressure on education is exerted primarily by industry but is also coming from families. It takes the form of a demand for high-quality graduates with global knowledge, skills, and values, who can find high-paying jobs and pursue stable careers in the world economy
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John Dewey: The Need for a New Party | New Republic
"[A] statement of the nature of the need and an account of why it is so generally felt are necessary preliminaries to any discussion of how a new party may grow up and what its program will be" (1931.03.18, ¶1).
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Serif vs. Sans: What’s Right for Your Presentation?
"if you are going to pursue offline efforts with your deck, then go the Serif route. If you are doing everything online, go the Sans route. If you are unsure, Sans is presently the most modern and popular style of typeface."
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Higher Education and the Japanese Disease | Nippon.com
"In an age calling for an increasingly globalized workforce, there is widespread alarm about declining standards in the Japanese education sector. Where do the problems lie? Kariya Takehiko, a sociology professor who has taught at universities in Japan and England, analyzes the current situation."
- Japanese universities have become places in which no learning goes on outside the classroom.
- Japan has suffered a clear decline in the talent and skills of its workforce, precisely when these things are more crucial than ever in an increasingly globalized environment. Although many people realize what is wrong, companies, universities, and the society as a whole have been unable to act to change the system.
- it is likely that the short-sighted competition for advantage will lead to a further decline in educational standards and a loss of equal opportunities.
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Chomsky: How America's Great University System Is Getting Destroyed | Alternet
- costs are multiplied by the number of users
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The Wrong Way to Teach Grammar - Michelle Navarre Cleary - The Atlantic
"Just as we teach children how to ride bikes by putting them on ... bicycle[s], we need to teach students how to write grammatically by letting them write. Once students get ideas they care about onto the page, they are ready for instruction—including grammar instruction—that will help communicate those ideas" (¶5).
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Predicting who will publish or perish as career academics
"Unequivocal" findings are precipitating "strong reactions" (Picking winners and losers, ¶4).
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Language Magazine » Let Learning Emerge
Introductory article by Diane Larsen-Freeman (March 2014) about lessons to learn from complexity theory, prior to speaking in Portand, OR, at TESOL 2014.
- Although the components that make up a complex system may be many and may be different from each other, what makes a system complex is the quality of emergence. Emergence is “the spontaneous occurrence of something new” (van Geert, 2008, p.182) that arises from the interaction of the components of a complex system, just as a bird flock emerges from the interaction of individual birds.
- The inert knowledge problem, given its name by Alfred North Whitehead many years ago, refers to the fact that students appear to be able to do something in the classroom at one time but not at a later time. In other words, what they have acquired has become inert — unavailable to use for their own purposes at a later time and place.
- The power law of practice reflects the fact that the effect of practicing something declines over time. In other words, the immediate benefits of practice of the right kind can be considerable, but as time passes, the effect of continuing to practice falls off dramatically and only makes a more modest contribution to proficiency. This is a nonlinear phenomenon.
- Sometimes complex systems are referred to as “complex adaptive systems.” Calling them adaptive recognizes their capacity to change in response to a changing environment. One way that I think this characteristic applies to language is through what is called co-adaptation (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008). Just as children benefit from speech customized for them, second language learners can benefit from the modifications or adaptations that are made in speech to them in order to enhance its comprehensibility for them. But notice I wrote co-adaptation. The language resources of both conversational partners are changed by the interaction.
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Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing | Council of Writing Program Administrators
"This Framework describes the rhetorical and twenty-first-century skills as well as habits of mind and experiences that are critical for college success" (Executive Summary, ¶2).
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The Case for Academics as Public Intellectuals | AAUP
In this article, Nicholas Behm, Sherry Rankins-Robertson, and Duane Roen argue, "Talking only to one another is never enough."
- Doug Hesse, a rhetorician at the University of Denver, has argued in the Washington Post that machine grading is not capable of measuring how well a piece of writing “fits a given readership or audience; how well it achieves a given purpose; how much ambition it displays; how well it conforms to matters of fact and reasoning; and how well it matches formal conventions expected by its audience.”
- Les Perelman, research affiliate with MIT’s comparative media studies program and president of the Consortium for Research and Evaluating of Writing, has shared his insights about the weaknesses of machine scoring in interviews that have appeared in such venues as the New York Times and Inside Higher Ed. Perelman stated in a May 5, 2013, interview with the Australian Broadcast Network that artificial-intelligence programs cannot match human raters because computers can count but they cannot understand meaning. He said, “Language is much more complex, and until we can get a computer that can actually understand the meaning of words, it’s not going to be able to analyze argument or the important parts of writing.”
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Tomorrow's Professor eNewsletter: 1313. The Case for Academics as Public Intellectuals
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- Fostering a healthy democracy, ¶3
- Les Perelman, research affiliate with MIT's comparative media studies program and president of the Consortium for Research and Evaluating of Writing, has shared his insights about the weaknesses of machine scoring in interviews that have appeared in such venues as the New York Times and Inside Higher Ed. Perelman stated in a May 5, 2013, interview with the Australian Broadcast Network that artificial-intelligence programs cannot match human raters because computers can count but they cannot understand meaning. He said, "Language is much more complex, and until we can get a computer that can actually understand the meaning of words, it's not going to be able to analyze argument or the important parts of writing." These scholars and others have drawn on numerous research findings and a policy statement on machine scoring published by the National Council of Teachers of English.
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"First of all, blogging is writing, 21st-century style, plain and simple. Blogging constitutes a massive genre. It comes in many forms, addresses myriad topics, and can certainly range in quality. For my money (which usually means free), blogging provides the best venue for teaching student writing. As bloggers, young people develop crucial skills with language, tone their critical thinking muscles, and come to understand their relationship to the world" (¶1, 2014.03.11).
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
The languages of Japan
- Japan's Endangered Languages Still Considered Mere Dialects (GlobalVoices, 2014.03.01).
I used the DigitalColor Meter app (a Mac app.) to check the area north and east of Korea and Japan [in a map from Before It's News, 2013], both of which were color-coded as isolates. Though it was [coded] the same color, the area to the NE of Korea and Japan may actually be a Yupik branch of Eskimo-Aleut (Wikipedia, Eskimo-Aleut languages, ¶4).
That same area NE of Korea and Japan is color-coded as Paleo-Siberian in another map (Wikipedia, Primary Human Language Families Map). The Primary Human Language Families Map still coded Korean as an isolate, but coded Japonic as a separate family of languages, one which may include Ryukyuan languages (Lewis, 2013).
There is plenty of controversy about relationships among Japanese, Korean, and other languages, for instance: "According to its [Altaic's] proponents, Altaic is a language family comprising at least Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic" (Wikipedia, Classification of Japonic, Altaic hypothesis, ¶1).
The idea of a Japanese-Korean relationship overlaps the extended form of the Altaic hypothesis..., but not all scholars who argue for one also argue for the other. For example, Samuel Martin, who was a major advocate of a Japanese-Korean relationship, only provided cautious support to the inclusion of these languages in Altaic, and Talat Tekin, an Altaicist, includes Korean, but not Japanese, in Altaic....
Pereltsvaig (2012) summed up controversy about an Altaic language family, suggesting similarities [among those languages] might be due to borrowing rather than genetic[, but the matter is by no means resolved]. Lewis (2013) reexamined related issues.
…
References
Lewis, Martin W. (2013). Altaic and Related Languages. GeoCurrents. Retrieved from http://www.geocurrents.info/cultural-geography/linguistic-geography/altaic-and-related-languages
Pereltsvaig, Asya. (2012). The Altaic family controversy. GeoCurrents. Retrieved from http://www.geocurrents.info/place/russia-ukraine-and-caucasus/siberia/the-altaic-family-controversy
Sunday, March 09, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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Two Sides Of The Same Coin: The Employment Crisis And The Education Crisis - Forbes
- Skills like problem solving, leadership, teamwork, empathy, and social/emotional intelligence are still being left out of the curricula of most schools, which contributes to the widening of the talent gap.
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FAQs-III: Groupwork in distance learning (Felder & Brent, 2001)
"Even in traditional classes students may do little or no work but get the same grade as their more industrious colleagues, and serious conflicts may arise between teammates with varying levels of ability and senses of responsibility. The problems may be even worse when groups are virtual and don’t have the self-regulating capability provided by face-to-face meetings. It is therefore particularly important in distance classes to adhere to the defining principles of cooperative learning, especially positive interdependence (if anyone fails to do his or her part everyone loses in some way), individual accountability (all team members are held accountable for all the material in the assignment), and regular self-assessment of team functioning."
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Writing Tips: Using Sentence Length to Mirror Action | Rachel Starr Thomson
"One of language's most fascinating tricks is its ability to mirror the action it depicts" (Thomson, 2006.09.27).
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Prezi - Blog - 10 Most Common Rookie Mistakes in Public Speaking
"Terry Gault ... provides insight into how to become a better presenter by avoiding a few common mistakes" (deck, ¶1, 2014.03.05).
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Avalanche Information, Education and Forecasting for West Central Montana
"This site is sponsored by the West Central Montana Avalanche Foundation (WCMAF), a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Corporation. WCMAF is dedicated to promoting avalanche safety education and awareness by providing information to all interested user groups regarding terrain, weather and snow conditions that contribute to avalanche danger in West Central Montana" (2014.03.04)
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"Looking to publish your research but don’t know exactly how? Dealing with procrastination or stress related to academic publishing? If you are feeling apprehensive about your writing or are becoming interested in publishing scholarly work, Practical Tips for Publishing Scholarly Articles is for you. Rich Furman and Julie T. Kinn have updated this fantastic resource with even more exercises and advice to help you through the writing and publishing process. Furman and Kinn guide readers through each step of publication from idea generation through structuring an article and journal selection to submission, revision, and collaboration" (deck, ¶1, 2014.03.03).
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http://lyceumbooks.com/downloads/PracticalTips4Pub2E_CH05.pdf
PRACTICAL TIPS FOR PUBLISHING SCHOLARLY ARTICLES Writing and Publishing in the Helping Professions Chapter 5: Selecting a Journal
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http://lyceumbooks.com/downloads/PracticalTips4Pub2E_CH03.pdf
PRACTICAL TIPS FOR PUBLISHING SCHOLARLY ARTICLES Writing and Publishing in the Helping Professions Chapter 3: Writing as a Disciplined Practice
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Civil Rights Division 508 Home Page
"Section 508 (508 statute php , 508 statute pdf) requires that Federal agencies' electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities, including employees and members of the public" (Overview, ¶1, 2014.03.03).
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"Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is developed through the W3C process in cooperation with individuals and organizations around the world, with a goal of proving a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally" (¶1, 2014.03.03).
Sunday, March 02, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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International Paper Sizes, Formats & Standards Explained
"The purpose of this site is to explain current international standard paper sizes, covered by the ISO 216 Standard, and to provide size charts to allow a quick lookup of sizes."
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Diigo bookmarks (weekly)
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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.
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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.
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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?
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1997 Fall Newsletter - Mortal Sins in Poster Presentations
"or How to Give the Poster No One Remembers"
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LIST OF PUBLISHERS | Scholarly Open Access
Updated list of "Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers"
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LIST OF STANDALONE JOURNALS | Scholarly Open Access
An updated list of "Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals"
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"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.
