In our current discussion on “The Zen in Online Learning” (17 June 2019), Harry Keller says, “Life is about joy. Find your joy, and immerse yourself in it” (19 June 2019). His comment reminded me of Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talks “Bring on the Learning Revolution!” (Feb 2010).
The transcript is available here. This video runs 21 minutes, but Robinson’s wit and wisdom make it seem much shorter. His message is similar to Harry’s, which is to change our model for education to develop and celebrate each student’s talents, interests, and dreams. Please make the time to watch this video. It was released in 2010, but its message is relevant today.
Also make the time to comment in the forum attached to this article. (If you’ve never posted a comment in ETC, it will be held for approval. I’ll be standing by to speed up the process. Once approved, future comments will be automatically published.) There’s a wide-ranging discussion on the TED site, so in our discussion, I’d suggest focusing on the takeaway for higher ed. What are your thoughts on Robinson’s call for an “organic” revolution? How does this apply to higher ed?
If you’d like to submit a longer comment as a stand-alone piece, email it to me at jamess@hawaii.edu. If this is your first submission, then please append a brief (1-to-3 line) professional bio and snapshot.
When the center monitor in my three-monitor setup failed to turn on this morning, I didn’t panic. It happened before, and reinserting the HDMI connector into the graphics card usually did the trick. So I turned the computer off, crawled under the desk, unplugged the connector, and plugged it back in.
I turned the computer on, but the monitor remained dark. No problem, I thought. Try the same maneuver again. I did, but it still didn’t work. I was beginning to panic a little. I turned it off and checked the back of the monitor to see if the power and HDMI connectors were tight. I unplugged and plugged them back in.
The three-monitor setup for my desktop computer.
I turned the computer on again, but the monitor was still dead. Panic was setting in. I tried the remote control to see if the settings were correct. (This monitor is also a TV set.) Nothing came up on the screen, not even the menu. Continue reading →
Ways to use the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to persuade banks to invest in projects to promote digital equity was the central focus of a meeting of the National Collaborative for Digital Equity (NCDE), held in Washington, DC, on 14-15 May 2019.
The meeting was hosted by the National Education Association and brought together some 70 participants from across the country.
The CRA is a federal statute enacted in 1977. It requires the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC) to encourage financial institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they do business, especially in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Continue reading →
AI in schools – Here’s what we need to considerby Neha Shivhare, The Conversation (7 Mar. 2019)
Regardless of what we want or think, AI will continue to be part of the educational landscape.
In the Times Higher Education (THE) global University Impact Rankings released today, U.S. colleges are woefully underrepresented in the top 25. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the top U.S. college in the rankings at 24th. The top five are from the Commonwealth realm: (1) University of Auckland, New Zealand, (2) McMaster University, Canada, (3) University of British Columbia, Canada, (3) University of Manchester, United Kingdom, (5) King’s College London, United Kingdom.
THE, which is headquartered in London, publishes “the only global performance tables that assess universities against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs]. [It] uses carefully calibrated indicators to provide comprehensive and balanced comparisons across three broad areas: research, outreach, and stewardship. This first edition includes more than 450 universities from 76 countries.” Continue reading →
TCC 2019 (April 16-18) : Call for Participation
Join us! TCC 2019 Worldwide Online Conference
Sustainable Learning, Accessible, Technologies, & Diverse Contexts
April 16-18, 2019 http://2019.tcconlineconference.org/
Keynote and invited plenary sessions
Dr. Charlotte “Lani” Gunawardena, University of New Mexico, USA
Dr.Ohkwa Lee, Chungbuk National University, South Korea
Dr. Matthew Schmidt, University of Cincinnati, USA
Dr. Yoon-Ah Rho, Kookmin University, South Korea
Dr. Hanna Teräs, Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland
Dr. George Veletsianos, Royal Roads University, Victoria, Canada
TCC is a three-day, entirely online conference for post-secondary faculty and staff worldwide that features over 100 concurrent sessions covering a wide range of topics related to educational technology, distance learning and emerging technologies for teaching and learning.
Individuals participate in real-time sessions from the comfort of their workplace or home using a web browser to connect to individual sessions. All sessions are recorded for on-demand viewing. View the current schedule of presentations and descriptions. Continue reading →
(March 8, 2019) In anticipation of Women’s History Month, Nobel Media has partnered with Microsoft to highlight the achievements of women who broke new ground in physics, chemistry, and medicine. The result, Women who changed science, is a unique web experience that trains a lens on the inspiring journeys and contributions of female Nobel Prize winners. In a world where 64% of American girls and women can’t name another woman in the sciences*, Nobel Media and Microsoft aim to inspire young women across the world to be the groundbreakers of tomorrow.
Women who changed science launches Friday, March 8th on International Women’s Day. Engage with luminaries like Marie Curie, who harnessed the promise of radioactivity, Rita Levi-Montalcini, who redefined how our bodies work, and Tu Youyou, whose breakthrough malaria treatment has saved millions throughout the world. The web experience brings to life the unique contributions of each laureate while exploring the interconnecting lineage of women in the sciences. Raising awareness of their tremendous impact, the collaboration aims to empower the next generation of scientists.
This unique collaboration with Nobel Media is one of Microsoft’s ongoing initiatives to build inclusion in STEM fields. Microsoft believes that nurturing diverse viewpoints and creating opportunities for everyone to experiment with technology incites innovation and sparks breakthroughs. Women who changed science transforms not only how we experience the odds-defying stories of grit behind the prizewinning discoveries of these laureates, but also emboldens the next generation of young women to change our world.
Teaching with Technology in 2018 by David Nagel in THE Journal
Nagel reports on the results of a survey conducted by THE Journal. It shows that teachers, by and large, have a positive attitude toward the use of technology in education.
The Importance of Teaching Technology to Teachers by Katt Blackwell in Teaching Community (a Monster community)
Blackwell focuses on the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) six points related to literacy and technology. These include not only the technology skills needed in the 21st century, but the critical literacy skills that today’s learners need.
How Teachers, Parents and Carers Can Spot and Prevent Online Grooming and Radicalisation by David Wright in Voices Magazine (British Council) Voices Magazine is part of the British Council’s website. It focuses on issues related to “education and culture from around the world.” In this article, Wright talks about Internet safety specifically focusing on how educators and others can identify and prevent radicalization, especially of young people.
As a lead-in to this year’s main conference, TCC 2019 is hosting a FREE special webinar, “Using Silly Media in Teaching & Learning,” featuring Alan Levine, longtime blogger of Cog Dog Blog.
Alan will suggest ways we can augment online teaching with memes by adding images to words, to visualize metaphors and facilitate discussions. As shortform videos, animated GIFs that loop are effective for demonstrating natural processes or illustrating techniques where repetition aids understanding. Learn what your students might accomplish by creating memes and animated GIFs.
Date & time:
Wednesday, March 20, 1400 HAST
1900 CDT, 2000 EDT; Thu Mar 21, 0900 Tokyo, Seoul Other timezones
Access information and a reminder will be sent to you a few days prior to this event. This online session will be held in Adobe Connect. The deadline to RSVP is March 13.
Entries in the International Serious Play Awards competition for digital training and educational games due Feb. 15, 2019.
Serious Play’s 11-year-old award program recognizes outstanding games designed for use for education or training in business, government/military, healthcare, museums, higher ed, K12.
Brief bio from Cambridge English: Scott Thornbury is an established author and series editor of the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers since 2004. He had his first title published in 1997: About Language: Tasks for Teachers of English. He has co-written (with Diana Slade) Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy, in the Cambridge Language Teaching Library (2006) and (with Peter Watkins) The CELTA Course (2007). More recently, he has been focussed on online learning, having overseen the writing of a five-level internet-delivered course in general English. Scott is a regular contributor to the ELT conference circuit and is widely known and respected in the ELT world. He has had involvement Cambridge ESOL accredited teacher training schemes and is an Examiner for the DELTA scheme. He is currently Associate Professor of English Language Studies at their New School University in New York, where he directs and teaches the online MA TESOL program.
21 Online Pronunciation Resources for Teaching and Learning by Lynn Henrichsen. TESOL Connections.
Henrichsen suggests that while there are a wide range of computer-assisted pronunciation teaching (CAPT) websites and apps for the English teacher and learner, not all are created equal. He offers some suggests for assessing the usefulness of websites and gives reviews of 10 sites with his recommendations.
Motivation & Language Learning in Online Contexts by L.W. Zimmerman. OLLReN.
This research review looks at learner motivation in online language learning contexts. The author found that two significant factors are online learning readiness and promoting interaction, factors that would come into play for any learning context, not just language learning.
5 Effective Uses of Mobile Technology in the Classroom by Daniel Adeboye. eLearning Industry.
In the introduction to the article, Adeboye says, “Research has shown that though mobile technology is a great tool in our teaching and learning experience, many who use it only use it to increase efficiency and not necessarily effectiveness. This article provides 5 suggestions of how to effectively use mobile technology in the classroom.”
How mobile technology can benefit learning by Elliot Gowans. ET.
Gowans contends that the familiarity of mobile devices as entertainment devices makes them a natural way to “motivate today’s digital natives through new and innovative ways of learning.”
Don’t forget to register for the first (free) presentation in our 2019 Watermark Knowledge Ambassador Webinar Series, “Leveraging Technology for General Education Learning Outcome Assessment” featuring Hawai’i Pacific University on January 31, 2019, at 3:00pm ET.
Valentina Abordonado
In this webinar, you’ll learn how Hawai’i Pacific University leverages Watermark to engage faculty in the assessment of general education and institutional learning outcomes. Dr. Valentina Abordonado, Assistant Dean for General Education, will detail how their work helps faculty present actionable data, set targets for expected performance, and analyze student achievement of outcomes. Dr. Abordonado will also share how HPU closes the loop at the program level and documents their efforts to continuously improve teaching.
Measuring Up to the Model: A Ranking of State Public Charter School Laws, January 2019, is an annual publication by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Nina Rees is the President and CEO, and Todd Ziebarth, the principal author, is Senior Vice President of State Advocacy and Support.
“From our perspective,” say Rees and Ziebart, “the point of our annual state charter school laws rankings report is to figure out which states are creating the conditions for high-quality charter schools by providing, among other things, flexibility, funding equity, non-district authorizers, facilities support, and accountability.”
Serious Play Conference is coming to the University of Central Florida (UCF) at the downtown Orlando campus Wednesday-Friday, July 24-26, 2019, hosted by the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA). (The Serious Play Conference will also be held at the University of Quebec at Montreal, July 10-12, 2019.)
Get current on the latest use of games and simulations for training, education and research in healthcare, the corporate environment, nonprofit and education. A design track will offer sessions on game and instructional design, technology and assessment. People new to serious games might like our pre-conference session.
We’re looking for speakers who will share their knowledge and experience, offering with take-aways attendees can apply immediately. Sessions are 45 min long for more lecture-based talks and panels and 90 min for participation-designed workshops.
New evidence that technology can contribute to positive learning outcomes in the school classroom emerges from the latest ‘SpeakUp’ survey of Project Tomorrow.
Project Tomorrow is a non-profit organization whose mission is to ensure that today’s students are well-prepared for the future.
SpeakUp is an annual research project that has been carried out since 2003, surveying students, teachers, librarians, principals, administrators and parents.
Its main finding is that “high school students with… access to a laptop or Chromebook are more likely to use those devices to personalize their learning process, to stay organized with their schoolwork and to leverage technology for more enhanced learning experiences than their peers with no access or only sporadic access.”
The importance of levering technology was:
to help students develop college-ready and workplace skills; and
to overcome the barriers that arise because technology resources are not always evenly distributed.
The report also notes that Internet access outside schools is critical, but there is still a digital divide. And only one-quarter of school districts allow students to take their devices home.
Click image to view the 9-page PDF.
It is interesting to see how students who do not have Internet access at home tackle the ‘homework gap’ that this creates. They go to school early, stay late, or use the facilities of libraries or even fast-food outlets. Continue reading →
By John Mark Walker
Open Source & Community Lead for Open edX
“MOOCs are dead.”
That’s quite a statement from the CEO of one of the largest MOOC (massively open online course) platforms in the world. But that’s exactly what edX’s CEO, Anant Agarwal, said in November at the edX Global Forum in Boston.
But the platforms that have powered MOOCs? They’re far from dead. Instead, they’re evolving. MOOC platforms are now being used to power complete programs, which, in the future, may look very different than they do today, thanks to the power of these e-learning systems. Because while the MOOC market may not be growing, online learning is growing rapidly. It’s already an intrinsic part of K-12 and higher education and has also been adopted for commercial purposes, such as customer training, corporate training, and even community building. By 2024, analysts predict it will grow to a more than $200 billion global industry.
The designers of MOOC platforms know they need to change to remain relevant because the one-size-fits-all model doesn’t actually really fit anyone very well. Learning must be interactive and applicable to each individual learner, responding to their needs, level of knowledge, and learning style. In response, these platforms are becoming more collaborative, and not just between teachers and students. Professors need to collaborate with course designers to tailor content and flow; instructors need to communicate with content developers to improve it for the next course. Collaboration and communication among all the stakeholders should be the norm, not the exception, and MOOC platforms are rapidly adding and improving on these capabilities. Continue reading →
TCCfx 2018 is a complimentary 1-day online conference that aims to empower the educational technology community through connection, collaboration, and the generation of innovative ideas for teaching and learning. Through this conference, the UH Manoa Dept. of Learning Design and Technology (LTEC) showcases alumni, current students and faculty, and collaborations with local and global communities.
This year’s theme is “Sustaining Education Through Innovation”; addressing sustainable learning through the integration of new ideas and technology. Program sessions include:
International Collaboration – The Kaiyama Project:
Dr. Wendy Kuntz, Dr. Kelli Goya, Dr. Kenichi Kubota, Dr. Mayumi Kubota, Mary Kimura
LTEC Alumni Panel:
Dr. Mike Travis, Grant Chartrand, Ed Lee
Keynote – Innovation in K-12 Education:
Dr. Miki Tomita, Founder of Education Incubator
Please consider submitting a paper or a general session proposal related to learning, design, and technology such as e-learning, learning communities, digital literacy, social media, online privacy, mobile and emerging technologies, gamification, faculty and staff support, and professional development.
Venue: Participation in this event is entirely online. All sessions will be delivered online in real-time. Sessions will also be recorded for later viewing.
More Info: Bert Kimura <bert@hawaii.edu> or Curtis Ho <curtis@hawaii.edu>
TCC Hawaii, LearningTimes, & the Learning Design and Technology Department, College of Education, UH-Manoa collaborate to produce this event. Numerous volunteer faculty and staff worldwide provide additional support.
This article about UX (User Experience) suggests that user experience and usability are related but not the same. According to the author, UX is about emotional engagement.
This short video from CEOP (Children Exploitation and Online Protection Center, UK) is aimed at teens to help them understand what the lack of online privacy can mean. It also aims at showing this audience that they can and should report anything that makes them uncomfortable or unsafe.
This blog focuses on the buzzword, technology integration, and explains what it is and how you, the teacher, can do it. It explains some of the theory behind technology integration, then offers a number of tools that ESL teachers (and all teachers) can use to augment their instruction.
The major take-home from a Congressional Briefing on School Safety and Technology, a little surprisingly, was that technology does not play a major role in ensuring school safety.
The briefing was arranged by the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training (NCTET), and was held at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC, on 9 October.
Kathleen Minke
Introducing the meeting, Kathleen Minke — Executive Director of the National Association of School Psychologists — pointed out that schools are an ideal place to promote mental wellness. The main challenge that they face is a shortage of trained staff — school psychologists or counsellors.
The recommended ratio of such staff is 1 per 250 students. Nationwide, the actual level is 1 per 482 students, and in some states the ratio is much worse. Continue reading →
The real history of the Americas has been lost by trivialization and by being omitted from the textbooks. The continued misrepresentation of indigenous peoples in the media and popular culture contributes to continued settler colonization and racism toward indigenous peoples.
Yet the growing movement by the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and hundreds of other indigenous nations to protect their homelands and resources from destruction presents teachers an opportunity to introduce students to lessons based on the environment, government, history, economic, cultural studies and civics.
It is almost the month and day when people celebrate Columbus Day. The D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice, a project of Teaching for Change, offered a workshop on September 10 to provide resources for educators.
The workshop took place at the National Museum of the American Indian, in Washington, DC. It engaged with curriculum and strategies for teaching students about indigenous people’s history and life today.
Sarah Shear
The workshop started with a keynote by Dr. Sarah B. Shear, who is an assistant professor of social studies education at Penn State University, Altoona. She described her research into the way that race and settler colonialism issues are addressed in state standards and textbooks; teacher education; film; and qualitative research methodologies. Continue reading →
We gathered a panel of editors, writers, and professors to generate a comprehensive list of questions for Dr. Rory McCorkle. The panel members were: Stefanie Panke, Bert Kimura, Judith McDaniel, Leigh Dooley, and Harry Keller. Colleges around the world are developing online programs, and an invariable topic is remote test proctoring as an adjunct or alternative to on-campus testing. We hope that our questions and Dr. McCorkle’s responses will shed more light on the issues involved in reviewing and selecting a proctoring service.
Perhaps the most meaningful takeaway for us is the realization that the ultimate quality of the testing process is determined to a large extent by the participating institutions. In short, GIGO. Colleges should determine their needs prior to shopping for a proctoring service. The general services and features in the PSI Bridge™ platform tend to be standard among major providers, and it’s in the details that the critical differences begin to emerge.
Dr. Rory McCorkle
Dr. Rory McCorkle is the Senior Vice President of Certification and Education Services for PSI. He helps PSI clients meet their testing, educational and strategic goals through the suite of services offered by PSI, while leading a team of business development, account management, and consulting professionals. Dr. McCorkle has worked with over 750 testing organizations, including well-known universities and colleges, licensing bodies, and renowned certification programs.
The questions and answers below are roughly grouped into four areas: students, proctors, teachers, and PSI services.
I. STUDENTS
Bert Kimura: How do the services and data collected conform with FERPA and other privacy issues?
Rory McCorkle: PSI Services LLC (PSI) holds privacy and security as a highest priority. We require very limited personally identifiable information (PII) for students and limit access to PII to only those who require access for provision of the services. In practice, we take care to not only be secure, but non-invasive as well. Only a single login is required for users to take their tests, and PSI proctors do not require access of a user’s machine to verify test compliance. All security measures are integrated and automated to ensure proper compliance and client privacy, while simultaneously minimizing security risks and providing a smooth user experience. In addition, PSI offers a proprietary, customizable lock-down browser and self-serve check-in and authentication. PSI complies with major regulations such as FERPA and GDPR. We are also PCI compliant. Our remote proctors receive extensive training on how privacy and privacy regulations are central to their roles, which is coordinated by PSI’s Chief Compliance Officer. Continue reading →
By Gwen Sinclair
Librarian, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Library
If you had told me when I was 25 or 30 that I would run my first marathon at age 42, I would have rolled my eyes and asked, “Why would anyone want to do that?” I could not fathom running even 10 miles, much less 26.2. I had been a casual runner for many years, but I’d avoided distance events. Too hard!
I found many reasons to keep running in the watershed year of 2004. For starters, my sister was diagnosed with lymphoma and endured a whole year of grueling chemotherapy. Although I wasn’t close to her, I felt very helpless, and guilty, too, so I signed up to do the Honolulu Marathon as part of Team in Training, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s fundraising program. All you have to do is run a marathon — and raise thousands of dollars for research. It turned out to be harder for me to ask people for money than it was to get up early every weekend for the 16-mile training runs. To my surprise, the donations poured in, which of course put me in the position of absolutely, positively having to finish the marathon in December 2004.
My free time revolved around marathon training, so on Saturday, October 30, 2004, after my husband Steve and I had seen a mediocre movie at the Varsity Theatre, “What the Bleep Do We Know?” I’d gone to bed, planning to get up early the next morning for the usual Sunday training run. Continue reading →
By Jim Shimabukuro
Educational Technology and Change Journal 
