A colleague at work shared a great article from the Chronicle of Higher Education on flipping the classroom (Flipped learning skepticism: Is flipped learning just self-teaching?).
The article (by Robert Talbert) provides a well-articlated reason to teach in a flipped manner, and suggest ways to use the in-class time effectively (think coaching). If looking for a good introduction/example to share, this is a contender.
Blue Jeans
A colleague at work suggested I look at Blue Jeans, a web-based videoconferencing service (similar to Google Hangouts or Vidyo). I had never heard of the service until the suggestion. Blue Jeans looks interesting, and does 80% of what Scopia does (another service we use).
Cost seems to be about $50 per user per month. I don’t know if that would be a floating license. I think the service is worth testing, and will try and find some time to do so. Vidyo, their competitor, had a strong product when I looked at it last, so I am wondering how well it competes (in terms of usability and cost) with VidyoH2O for Google Hangouts.
Key Design Principles
Hank Bowman (Chief Sales and Marketing Office, Adapt Courseware) recently gave a presentation at the New Directions in Online Learning conference. His presentation was focussed on introducing Adapt Courseware to the audience, and the underlying design philosophy of the company. One particular slide caught my eye, and this was the five gurus they looked to for Key Design Principles. This is a particularly useful cheat sheet for anyone in the field of online learning and instructional design:
I have added links for those interested in exploring further.
At edX
I was lucky enough to visit edX last week. This is going to spur me into investigating their technology a little deeper. Johannes Heinlein provided a very helpful overview of where edX is now. Personally, I find it very interesting that Google is now onboard. edX might have the potential to supplant Moodle.
Anyway, Jeff Cattel (from CLN) sent us all a photo from the day…
Open, and magically a video starts playing automatically.
I received a rather nifty package at work yesterday, one of the the more interesting examples of advertising I have seen for some time…
In the same way that some birthday cards play a message or tune as you open them, this mailer started to play an advertising video. A hidden magnet detects whether the cover is open or closed, and plays the video on a loop when open.
I was impressed.
The mysterious “Ad”
I don’t really have need of the service (stukent.com/special), but I started to experiment with the package. At the bottom of the mailer I could see a Mini-USB port. Connecting a cable allowed me to see that the device showed up as external storage (Ad), with a video directory. Providing I replaced the existing video file there with nothing larger than 97.4 MB, I could play my own videos on the device. Neat.
When I have more time to kill, I am going to cut away the cardboard exterior, and see how I can repurpose this. Possibly in a small frame. Could make for a clever animated wallhanging.
Thank you mysterious stranger for sending me this. I hope you get some business out of this…
Earlier this year, I requested some equipment at work. Basically what I wanted was a room in which faculty could walk in and record reusable video content for online and hybrid classes. Something simple, yet flexible. My wishlist is below. This all could be accomplished using a Windows Surface Pro with Camtasia installed, but I think ScreenFlow is a better editing package. Having a dedicated room allows for more flexibility in presentation style, with faculty able to stand in the room (adjustable camera and desk), or sit at a stool.
I have been experimenting with the combination of ScreenFlow, Open-Sankoré, and the Wacom Cintiq tablet. So far I am impressed. Open-Sankoré is prone to the occasional crash, but this might be down to my testing on older equipment.
Pearson has a published a very useful report on “Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States.” The accompanying infographic is shared below. The complete report is available at:
http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/changing_course_2012
(and yes, they do talk about MOOCs in the report)
Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a more detailed piece on MOOCs (The Professors Who Make the MOOCs). This is nicely complemented by this piece from Nature (Online learning: Campus 2.0).
UIC faculty have posted a statement on MOOCs (UIC UF Position on Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs)) that makes for some interesting reading…
Just finished reading an interesting article (but frustratingly short on details) on how the University of Maryland worked with Coursera to offer five online courses in Campus Technology.
Some colleagues at work were sharing this article in the New York Times (California Bill Seeks Campus Credit for Online Study). The article is worth a careful read – California is the place to watch, and this could be a turning point in the acceptance of some MOOCs.