September 10, 2012
How We Measure: A Visual Diary
Cathy Davidson,
, September 10, 2012.
Some alternative ways to assess learning.
The Eight Secrets of Success, According to TED Attendees
Melanie Pinola ,
LifeHacker, September 10, 2012.
This is what you get when you ask TED attendees what were their secrets for success. The list that results isn't so bad, but it's a fiction - had they been honest they would have answered with their real secrets for success: contacts at Yale, income from phreaking, management-level position at Daddy's company, a large start-up loan from Aunt Mae, and the like. But this is TED, so the message is, if you haven't succeeded, it's your own fault. Here, then, is a list of the eight flaws you have. Personally, I think it would be more useful to redefine success. We can still keep the same values, but stop attributing them to people who have not earned them.
Design and Implementation of a Learning Analytics Toolkit for Teachers
Anna Lea Dyckhoff*, Dennis Zielke, Mareike Bültmann, Mohamed Amine Chatti and Ulrik Schroeder,
, September 10, 2012.
There's a lot of interest in learning analytics these days (actually, for the last year or so). I personally don't get the attraction. But I'm sure this paper will interest the enthusiasts. "In this paper, we present the theoretical background, design, implementation, and evaluation details of eLAT, a Learning Analytics Toolkit, which enables teachers to explore and correlate learning object usage, user properties, user behavior, as well as assessment results based on graphical indicators."
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Assessment, Learning Objects, Online Learning]
ClassDojo - free classroom behavior system - announces iOS apps.
David Andrade,
Educational Technology Guy, September 10, 2012.
This PR campaign has spread through the edublogosphere: "ClassDojo is a free online system that helps teachers promote positive behavior in their classroom by letting them track and share student progress and positive behaviors and areas of concern. It's easy to use and many teachers who use it have seen positive outcomes from using it with their students." I took a quick look. Basically it keeps track of points, where teachers award points for good behaviours, and deduct points for bad behaviours. To me it seems to be trivializing th3ese behaviours by turning them into some sort of race (and if I were in the class I would be trying to race to the lowest possible score).
What is a MOOC? The Canadian Connection
Jamie,
Thoughtstream Blog, September 10, 2012.
A CBC broadcast looking at MOOCs in general and the Canadian connection in particular created a flurry of registrations for both www.mooc.ca and this www.downes.ca over the weekend. This post embeds the full-length broadcast along with some commentary. It refers to George Siemen's book, Knowing Knowledge, available online, but unfortunately not my own ebooks. "So, what does this have to do with K-12? Everything. Or at least a lot. If this is the wave or a wave of the future of learning and teaching then this is something that we need to pay attention to." Thus far the MOOC phenomenon hasn't really hit the K-12 sector, but I can imagine that it will be transformative when it does.
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