Friday, November 30, 2012

Weekly Reader

A People's History of MOOCs
"Massive, open to all, a democratic space that offers people from all walks of life exposure to the greatest thinkers of our time, and while we’re at it, a fabulous branding opportunity - welcome to the nineteenth century municipal public library." -- Barbara Fister, Library Babel Fish, 11/29/12

Hukkster: The New Pinterest?
"Over the last year or so, the hottest topic has been Pinterest – the pinning, the secret boards, brand elements, driving ecommerce -- it’s on everyone’s mind. Instagram has made a bit of a splash lately, but not of the same caliber, and many have been wondering, when’s the next hottest platform going to come?" -- Christina Giordano, Social Media Today, 11/30/12

The Uneven Value of Academic Credit
"The tight hold American colleges and universities have on academic credit—what it is worth and who awards it—is about to undergo a well overdue stress test. Two announcements in as many months have the potential to perhaps finally better define the value of credits in higher education. The first is the announcement by the American Council on Education that it will review a handful of free online courses offered by elite universities through Coursera and may recommend that other colleges accept credit for them." -- Jeff Selingo, Next, 11/25/12

End of Course Evaluations: Making Sense of Student Comments
"At most colleges, courses are starting to wind down and that means it’s course evaluation time. It’s an activity not always eagerly anticipated by faculty, largely because of those ambiguous comments students write. Just what are they trying to say?" -- Maryellen Weimer, Teaching Professor Blog, 11/28/12

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Weekly Reader

In Classroom Experiment, All Discussion Happened via Twitter
"Students at George Mason University shifted their feet and chatted outside a classroom here on Tuesday morning, waiting for Stephen Groening’s class on cellphone cultures to begin. On tap was not an ordinary classroom discussion about the assigned readings. Instead, the entire conversation would take place by Twitter, and students were nervous." -- Alisha Azevedo, The Wired Campus, 11/16/12

What Katrina Can Teach Libraries about Sandy and Other Disasters
"Disaster plans used to seem like “kind of a bother” to Lance D. Query, Tulane University’s director of libraries. Then, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, flooding Tulane’s Howard-Tilton Memorial Library with more than eight feet of water. “I look at them much more carefully now,” says Mr. Query." -- Jennifer Howard, The Wired Campus, 11/14/12

Mozilla's Popcorn Maker Brings Video Remixing to the Masses
"Mozilla has released Popcorn Maker 1.0, the company’s mashup-creating, video-editing suite for the web. Popcorn Maker makes it easy to pull just about any content on the web into a video container you can then publish back to the web. Despite the interactive nature of the web, video on the web remains little more than glorified television in your web browser — a passive experience in the midst of the otherwise interactive online world. It doesn’t have to be that way. HTML5 makes video into just another HTML element — editable, hackable, remixable." -- , Webmonkey,  11/2012

Friday, November 09, 2012

Weekly Reader

OhioLINK Celebrates 20th Anniversary of Shared Services"OhioLINK, the Ohio Library and Information Network, today celebrates 20 years of pooling resources to provide more than 600,000 college and university students, faculty and staff with access to millions of books and other library materials. OhioLINK is a consortium of 88 Ohio college and university libraries, plus the State Library of Ohio, that work together to provide information for teaching and research. OhioLINK’s membership includes 16 public/research universities, 23 community / technical colleges, 49 private colleges and the State Library of Ohio." -- Zoe Stewart-Marshall, What's New OhioLINK, 11/1/12

Course Management Companies Challenge MOOC Providers
"Two software companies that sell course-management systems, Blackboard and Instructure, have entered the race to provide free online courses for the masses.
On Thursday both companies plan to announce partnerships with universities that will use their software to teach massive open online courses, or MOOC’s. The companies hope to pull in their own college clients to compete with online-education players like Udacity and Coursera."-- Alisha Azevedo, The Wired Campus, 11/1/12

How Teens Do Research in the Digital World"The teachers who instruct the most advanced American secondary school students render mixed verdicts about students’ research habits and the impact of technology on their studies." --  Kristen Purcell, Lee Rainie, Alan Heaps, Judy Buchanan, Linda Friedrich, Amanda Jacklin, Clara Chen, Kathryn Zickuhr, Pew Research Center, 11/1/12