Instructors create information for their students. In some cases, the material is original, for example they may create presentations or documents, or the material may originate from publishers or open education resource providers and instructors revise them for their specific needs. Many instructors find the ability to share documents they make is one of the benefits of Read More
Early in the history of computing, no one could predict the degree to which digital information and devices were going to affect communication. Early in the 21st century, it was common to quantify the speed at which humans communicate and the vastness of the information available, but those comparisons are no longer relevant. With the Read More
Every instructor can expect their college will provide a course shell on the learning management system they support. The shell may be largely empty, or it may be completely filled with the materials for the course, or it may be partially filled. Student are likely to be enrolled in your course shell without the instructor’s Read More
Educators are very familiar with the question that gives the title of the post. We hear students ask it… frequently. We speculate at their motivation: “Are they trying to distract me?” “Are they trying to get out of doing work?” “Are they challenging my authority?” are all reasonable interpretations of the question. Leaders are familiar Read More
I’ve been kicking around the concept of “red herrings” for a few years, at least since I started to recognize them. I attribute this skill to the habits I developed while a doctoral student, but we all know how “reliable” such stories are about ourselves. For me, red herrings always appeared in our school structures, Read More
The conversations about online proctoring of… excuse me… online surveillance during… exams has caused me to take a deeper look at the technology tools we use to ensure academic honesty. By the way, The Manifesto for Online Learning (Bayne, 2020) has a wonderful and brief discussion of this issue. Specifically, I started thinking about plagiarism Read More
For all of the rhetoric around being data driven for the last few decades, educators are generally woeful users of data when it comes to making classroom decisions. In my opinion, this is due to the fact that data (quantitative date that is) can only be meaningfully be applied to large data set. We might Read More
The stream of “how to teach online” books and materials to support those faculty who are teaching online. I enjoy these. They are increasingly aligned with what we know about learning (and we know much more than my teachers did… we know more than any teachers did even 10 years ago). One of the great Read More
My colleagues at Massachusetts Community Colleges that use Moodle as their LMS have begun collaborating to offer workshops to faculty and staff at all of our campuses. We did not record the first virtual workshop, but I prepared this abbreviated version of the presentation I made on July 6, 2020.
In education, interaction matters. If you want your students to remember what they are supposed to learn and if you want them to be able to use what you teach them in other situation, then they must think about it with you and with other students. This idea has been featured in this blog previously. Read More