CTE has a series of about a hundred online documents — each about a page or two in length — that provide advice on a wide variety of teaching issues. We call them “Teaching Tips,” and they are the most popular resource on the Continue reading Who do you love, me or Kate? — Mark Morton
Category: New Educational Technologies
UW-ACE replaced by LEARN in January 2012
Don’t Panic.
Wise counsel from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as we move to a new learning management system (LMS) in the Winter 2012 term. In January 2012 UW-ACE (Angel) will be replaced by LEARN (Desire2Learn) and all courses for the Winter 2012 term will use LEARN. To learn more about the background and why we need to change, see the LMS Selection Project site. Continue reading UW-ACE replaced by LEARN in January 2012
Wikispaces Goes Free for Higher Ed — Trevor Holmes
I have been using Wikispaces for many years now. It’s been a space to collaborate with peers on research, a space to house an organizational website that needs to be very flexible and easy to use while we seek permanent solutions, and a space for my students to go when other tools go down. By no means have I used Wikispaces to its full potential, but I do administer several wikis there and I’m thrilled that they are extending their ad-free version to higher education, after serving nearly a million K-12 users this way. A couple of examples of how I’ve used it:
- A backup site for my Cultural Studies 101 course over at WLU
- A working site for the Council of Ontario Educational Developers
If you’re interested in wiki use, we do have advice for you. And for ease of use plus the newly free adless version, I’d recommend Wikispaces as a strong contender for your time and energy.
…and so it goes – Trevor Holmes
Bit of a dry spell on the blog this term! We’ll try to be more regular.
So I’m sure readers have been holding their collective breath, awaiting eagerly my update from the first day of class a couple of Fridays ago. That’s right: in my first blog post of 2011, I imagined a perfect pedagogical storm of a first day. I did do what I intended to. Many of the students in lecture contributed good thoughts to the definition of culture we were coming up with, collectively. They didn’t seem to tire of the pairs of images so much as previous years’ cohorts have. And in tutorials, when confronted again with some of the same images, they deepened their analysis still more, becoming comfortable with each other in the smaller setting. I even had them fill out tutorial logs at the end of each tutorial, so those who didn’t get a chance to contribute could let us know what they were thinking. Continue reading …and so it goes – Trevor Holmes
On Lecture Capture and Talking Heads… – Scott Anderson
At the end of last week, I attended a conference on blended learning (essentially integrating face-to-face and online activities in an instructionally sound way, though there’s debate about whether it entails a reduction of face-to-face time).
One presentation that stood out for me was one about lecture capture at Queen’s University, something we’ve been experimenting with here at Waterloo. Essentially they’re capturing live lectures on video using automated mechanisms and then making the video available to students online. Continue reading On Lecture Capture and Talking Heads… – Scott Anderson
Khan Academy: Free and Straightforward Learning Resources — Marlene Griffith Wrubel
I recently found an online resource that even Bill Gates and his children use. Khan Academy is a website dedicated to teaching. It is the product of Salman Khan, Harvard MBA graduate and a former hedgefund manager. The information contained on the site is free, available around the clock, and requires just your time and interest in learning the material presented. Continue reading Khan Academy: Free and Straightforward Learning Resources — Marlene Griffith Wrubel
John Michela’s Response to Gwyn Morgan — Mark Morton
In response to Gwyn Morgan’s Globe and Mail editorial (in which he decries the quality of university teaching), John Michela (of UW’s Department of Psychology) submitted a countering letter to the editor. The Globe and Mail published that letter on October 5, but in an edited form. Here, for the record, is Professor Michela’s unedited letter: Continue reading John Michela’s Response to Gwyn Morgan — Mark Morton