May 30, 2012

Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies


How can we reach more learners, more effectively, and with greater impact?
Education changes lives and societies, but can we sustain the current model? New models and new technologies allow us to rethink many of the premises of education—location and time, credits and credentials, knowledge creation and sharing.
Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies is a collection of chapters and case studies contributed by college and university presidents, provosts, faculty, and other stakeholders. Institutions are finding new ways of achieving higher education’s mission without being crippled by constraints or overpowered by greater expectations.
Find out who is changing the game and what we can learn from their different approaches in Game Changers.

Moving Outside the LMS: Matching Web 2.0 Tools to Instructional Purpose




What considerations support the decision to either augment or replace an institution’s existing learning management system (LMS) with a cloud-based, Web 2.0 technology tool to support students’ learning? The use of instructional technologies should be evaluated against a backdrop of pedagogical objectives, and students’ selection of tools to support their learning can result in a more collaborative, constructive, and authentic learning experience. Instructors must balance the benefit of introducing new technology tools into the curriculum with the additional load—for instructors (supporting the tool) and students (learning the tool). This paper describes the experiences of an online graduate program in instructional technology at Georgia Southern University (GSU) and the program faculty who have chosen to move beyond the LMS.

By
Charles Hodges, Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology, Georgia Southern University
Judi Repman, Professor of Instructional Technology, Georgia Southern University

Learning with Digital Technologies in Museums, Science Centres and Galleries - Report


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND with social class the major determinant - digital technologies for learning are available to the majority of UK households and to almost all UK schoolchildren. Museums, galleries and (especially) science centres are among the most enthusiastic providers of digital learning opportunities. Virtual visitors to museum websites already out-number physical (on-site) visitors, and many of these are engaged in dedicated learning activities - as even a cursory glance at the 24 Hour Museum website will confirm. Indeed, so rapid and widespread has been the growth - in both provision and uptake - that the extensive survey of UK museum education activity in 1999 did not include websites and conflated audio-visual guides with printed materials.

The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On - Free ebook



The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On
By : Stephen Downes

July, 2008. In the summer of 1998, over two frantic weeks in July, I wrote an essay titled The Future of Online Learning. In the ten years that have followed, this vision of the future has proven to be remarkably robust. In this essay I offer a renewal of those predictions. I look at each of the points I addressed in 1998, and with the benefit of ten year’s experience, recast and rewrite each prediction.

Handbook on cultural web user interaction - Free ebook






The quality of cultural web applications, as all MINERVA handbooks, guidelines and tools have always remarked, depend mostly on the user’s needs and curiosities satisfaction. But which are these needs? How can we identify and satisfy them? How can users help in (re)planning and improve our cultural web application? Can we monitor and measure the use made of our web products? The new MINERVA handbook wants to give you the most updated answers to these questions.
It is targeted for you! All people, institutions and projects connected with culture (ancient or contemporary, tangible or intangible, cultivated or popular, local or global...), which are planning to develop web applications or want to monitor and improve those already on the web.
It includes an updated and synthetic overview of current questions connected to the user interaction via web, made of websites and portals, but also of the new types of technical experiences, gathered under the name of Web 2.0 (and beyond...).
To help you passing from theory to practice, some solutions are proposed to let you find your way, proposing you reasoned schemata, information and tools to auto-orientate your web project taking into serious account users needs and user opinions about your web application

2011 Horizon Report



The 2011 Horizon Report is made possible via a grant from HP
HP creates innovative technology solutions that benefit individuals, businesses, governments and society. HP’s Office for Global Social Innovation applies HP’s global reach, broad portfolio of products and services, and the expertise of its employees to support initiatives in education, healthcare and communities around the world. As the world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com/.

The 2011 Horizon Report is a collaboration between The New Media Consortium and theEDUCAUSE Learning Initiative An EDUCAUSE Program Since 2005, the annual Horizon Report has been the most visible aspect of a focused collaboration between the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and the New Media Consortium in which the two organizations engage their memberships in both the creation and outcomes of the research.
The New Media Consortium (NMC) is a globally focused not-for-profit consortium dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. Its hundreds of member institutions constitute an elite list of the most highly regarded colleges, universities, and museums in the worlds. For nearly 20 years, the consortium and its members have dedicated themselves to exploring and developing applications of emerging technologies for learning, research, and creative inquiry. For more information on the NMC, visit http://www.nmc.org/.

Videoconferencing Cookbook - Free ebook


This work is the intellectual property of ViDe and the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be used for non-commercial, educational purposes with the stipulations below. To disseminate or republish otherwise requires written permission from ViDe. (Please use the Feedback Form for this purpose.)
Incorporation of all or portions of the Cookbook into other electronic, online or hard copy works is not allowed.
The online Cookbook may not be mirrored or duplicated without written permission of ViDe, but all or portions of it may be linked to from other works as long as credit and copyright are clearly noted at the point of the link in the referencing work.
Reproduction of the Cookbook as a whole is allowed in hard copy or offline electronic versions for non-profit educational purposes only and provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the authors.
By
Video Development Initiative

Free Learning - Free ebook


Essays on open educational resources and copyrightAugust 16, 2011. There is a story to be told about open source, open content, and open learning from the point of view of the person desiring access to these things, rather than from the point of view of the provider. This book is a collection of my writings on open educational resources and open access to learning.

By :
Stephen Downes

Web Tools applied to teaching



Ana Maria Menezes has just published a 53 page free ebook titled 20 WEBTOOLS Applied to Teaching. In addition to some well-known services like Animoto, Ana Maria has included some lesser-known tools that could be particulary useful for ESL/ELL instruction.

This book is dedicated to teachers who wish to maximize their
students´ learning experience by using the new webtools available.
Most tools described in this book are in English, however, teachers
can use various languages in order to develop projects.

100 Tips for Google Chrome - Free Ebook



The book is organized under 10 categories with 10 tips in each of them. I am sure that you will find at least 10 new things about Google chrome by the time you finish reading this ebook.

May 28, 2012

Theory and Practice of Online - Free ebook


Athabasca University Press is pleased to announce the publication of the 2nd edition of the Theory and Practice of Online Learning at http://www.aupress.ca/books/Terry_Anderson.php  edited by Terry Anderson. This 2nd edition and its individual chapters continue to be freely available online under a Creative Commons license.

The second edition features updates on all chapters from the first edition and the addition of 4 new chapters (on Mobile Learning, Social Software, Distance Education Philosophy and Financial Decision Making). Two chapters (Chapter 3 - Value Chain Analysis and Chapter 9 - Copyright Issues)  were not updated nor included in the 2nd edition. These two chapters (in addition to all of the origional 1st edition chapters) will continue to made available at this site, however readers are encouraged to access the revised chapters to receive more current and updated content

Facilitating Online: A guide for course leaders



Facilitating Online is a course intended for training educators as online facilitators of fully online and mixed mode courses. The Centre for Educational Technology (CET) produced a Course Leader’s Guide as an Open Educational Resource to assist educators and trainers who wish to implement a course on online facilitation within their institution or across several institutions. The course manual was written by Tony Carr, Shaheeda Jaffer and Jeanne Smuts and was published online and in print in early 2009.

The guide contains the course model, week-by-week learning activities, general guidance to the course leader on how to implement and customise the course and specific guidelines on each learning activity. The latest version of the course manual includes several minor corrections and is dedicated to the memory of our co-author Jeanne Smuts who died on 28th July 2009.

May 27, 2012

Educating the Net Generation - Free ebook



The Net Generation has grown up with information technology. The aptitudes, attitudes, expectations, and learning styles of Net Gen students reflect the environment in which they were raised—one that is decidedly different from that which existed when faculty and administrators were growing up.
This collection explores the Net Gen and the implications for institutions in areas such as teaching, service, learning space design, faculty development, and curriculum. Contributions by educators and students are included

Opening Up Education - ebook


Opening Up Education
The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge

Given the abundance of open education initiatives that aim to make educational assets freely available online, the time seems ripe to explore the potential of open education to transform the economics and ecology of education. Despite the diversity of tools and resources already available—from well-packaged course materials to simple games, for students, self-learners, faculty, and educational institutions—we have yet to take full advantage of shared knowledge about how these are being used, what local innovations are emerging, and how to learn from and build on the experiences of others. Opening Up Education argues that we must develop not only the technical capability but also the intellectual capacity for transforming tacit pedagogical knowledge into commonly usable and visible knowledge: by providing incentives for faculty to use (and contribute to) open education goods, and by looking beyond institutional boundaries to connect a variety of settings and open source entrepreneurs.
Contents
  • Open Educational Technology
  • Open Educational Content
  • Open Educational Knowledge
or

e-Learning Survival Guide

e-Learning Survival Guide is a collection of articles, insights, instructional strategies, lesson plans, and more.

This broad reaching collection of essays on e learning examines accomplishments, new directions, and challenges from many perspectives. The essays are arranged in categories, which include e learning and e learners, teaching and instruction, student engagement, learning communities, outcomes assessment and institutional leadership, all of which relate to learners and programs from college, K 12, career, to corporate training. Of special interest is a focus on successful outcomes for students and programs, and essays on often overlooked niches of learners, including generational differences (Gamers, Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y), stay at home mothers, working mother e learners, homeschoolers, bilingual online education and training.

E-learning is covered, along with mobile learning, and the use of simulations, virtual worlds, serious games, and more.

Very useful approaches to studying online, and developing effective success strategies make the articles helpful to students and instructors.

From : E-Learning Queen

Learning Spaces - an educause ebook


Space, whether physical or virtual, can have a significant impact on learning. Learning Spaces focuses on how learner expectations influence such spaces, the principles and activities that facilitate learning, and the role of technology from the perspective of those who create learning environments: faculty, learning technologists, librarians, and administrators. Information technology has brought unique capabilities to learning spaces, whether stimulating greater interaction through the use of collaborative tools, videoconferencing with international experts, or opening virtual worlds for exploration. This e-book represents an ongoing exploration as we bring together space, technology, and pedagogy to ensure learner success


701 tips for e learning - free ebook



The book covers tips to get started on the right foot, creating content, quality assurance, and integration and roll out of services.
 

The Instructional Use of Learning Objects



This is the online version of The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, a new book that tries to go beyond the technological hype and connect learning objects to instruction and learning. You can read the full text of the book for free. The chapters presented here are © their respective authors and are licensed under the Open Publication License, meaning that you are free to copy and redistribute them in any electronic or non-commercial print form. For-profit print rights are held by AIT/AECT. The book was edited by David Wiley, and printed versions of the book are published by the Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. If you find the online book useful, please consider purchasing a printed copy.


elearning practice - Free book




E-Learning offers many opportunities for individuals and institutions all over the world. Individuals can access to education they need almost anytime and anywhere they are ready to. Institutions are able to provide more cost-effective training to their employees.

E-learning context is very important. It is common to find educators who perceive e-learning as internet-only education that encourages a static and content-focused series of text pages on screen. Others envisage the shallow and random online messages that are typical of a social real-time chat session, and wonder how that type of communication could add any value to academic discourse. Some may have experienced e-learning done poorly, and extrapolate their experience into a negative impression of all e-learning.

The book will examine the emergence and growth of e-learning. The use of the ‘e’ prefix indicates the application of information and communication technology (ICT) in government, finance, and all forms of socio-economic and community development.

Many of the institutions in the countries to be reviewed also make extensive use of traditional teaching and methods and media, so this book will not only consider e-learning and mobile or m-learning in isolation but in blended or mixed-mode learning, both in classroom environments and in distance education. It will examine and discuss.

This eBook is designed and presented in two volumes. The fist volume consists of the country cases of Algeria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Jordan, Hungary, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, and Morocco. The second volume gives a place to the country cases of Norway, Oman, Palestine, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan. So, the book consists of more than 70 authors from 39 different countries and from 42 universities and 14 institutions with company for all 42 chapters.

DIGITAL EDUCATION


The purpose of this book is to provide a panorama of the application of new digital technologies in education as the century comes to an end. In some cases we have described instances where this technology has already been implemented with great success, in others we discuss promises that have still to be confirmed. We also hope to awaken "critical enthusiasm" for an effective and beneficial implementation of the best technology in the service of education and the individual.

By  :
Antonio M. Battro and Percival J. Denham

Web-Teaching, 2nd Edition


Web courses and Web-based course supplements have popped up all over the world. No central force has yet emerged which dominates the field. Indeed, nearly every college, from the large to the small, has become a player.
Tremendous, broad-based Web-delivery activity has characterized the last few years of the 20th century. Elementary students publish Web-sites. Teachers use Web-pages to communicate with parents.
Web-commerce has flourished. The wave of Web-commerce has paled that of Web-teaching. The infrastructure that is emerging to support Web-commerce ultimately will permit piggybacking of Web-teaching. We can expect fast Web access to be available in students' homes.
We see this edition as continuing to offer helpful, research-based suggestions to teachers who would improve their teaching using the Web. The first edition of Web-Teaching was somewhat dated when it came off the press. This edition also shoots at a quickly moving target. Much has happened in four years. Little has happened, however, to modify the principal messages of the first edition. This edition attempts to focus reader attention on research reported from the early days of Web teaching.

There are six things we can say about Web teaching at this time:
1. Course Management Software (WebCT, CourseInfo) has emerged and been embraced strongly by teachers. As a result, the number of teachers whose courses have some Web presence is mushrooming. For our first edition, Web teachers who managed their own servers represented a large fraction of those using the Web. This no longer is so; today few teachers manage their own Web servers.
2. The first edition suggested that Web teaching might not be successful in certain content areas. It turns out that Web teaching can be applied to nearly any non-laboratory course in the curriculum. Even portions of some laboratory and studio courses have been handled well on the Web.
3. While extensive studies are not available, early results suggest that students in Web courses learn about the same amount as do students in traditional courses. Drop out rates in Web-based courses are higher than in traditional courses, but similar to other distance courses.
4. There have been no results that suggest strong learning gains from multimedia approaches to teaching. Thus far, it appears that media have small effects. Active learning approaches have larger positive effects on learning outcomes.
5. Many teachers have developed Web supplements for their courses. There is very strong evidence that the students who use these resources learn better than those who do not.
6. Very few teachers have enjoyed time efficiencies as the result of developing a Web presence. Quite the opposite; teachers find that Web courses take more time. This is especially true of courses involving discussion, where reading Internet-based discussions can become an enormous chore.

By :
David Brooks, Diane Nolan, Susan Gallagher

May 26, 2012

Articulate Studio 12



Articulate Studio ’12 products share a single unified player, so learners navigate with one set of controls—even when courses include Articulate Quizmaker assessments and Articulate Engage interactions. The unified player also lets you list slide titles, quiz questions, and interaction steps on a single, consolidated menu.

Add illustrated and photographic characters to your courses, quizzes, and interactive e-learning content. Articulate Studio ’12 includes a character library with thousands of combinations of characters, expressions, and poses. Purchase additional Articulate character packs to extend your character library even more

Publish e-learning content to multiple formats so learners can interact with it on iPads, desktops, laptops, Android devices, and more. Articulate Studio ’12 products publish to Flash and to Articulate Mobile Player—a native iOS application that optimizes content for the iPad. Studio ’12 products also publish to HTML5, an increasingly popular format for rich multimedia content.

Localize your content with the right-to-left language support in Articulate Studio ’12. It also supports double-byte character sets (DBCS), so you can even translate your content into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

and more features.
It is Comming Soon

May 20, 2012

Nearpod is solution for the synchronized use of iPads in the classroom


An all-in-one solution for the synchronized use of iPads in the classroom.
Create, Engage and Assess
With Nearpod it’s easy, really easy.
Bring the classroom to life with interactive mobile
presentations that teachers create and
customize themselves.
And it’s free.

http://www.nearpod.com/

May 19, 2012

More Free powerpoint templates

PowerPoint templates, free to download and use.

You can found them here :

GoClass a powerful new mobile tool


A powerful new tool for innovative teaching and inspired learning.
GoClass is a teaching application for tablet devices that redefines the boundaries of computing in the classroom. Connect with your students like never before, customize and fine-tune your lesson plans on the fly, engage students in new ways and continuously evaluate their understanding while you are in class.

GoClass is a powerful tool that allows an instructor to build, edit and manage class sessions. Like for any classroom, the instructor can use resources such as text, notes, media, questions and research tools to build organized and timed lesson plans. It allows you to annotate on images or draw diagrams, share materials and ask questions in the lesson plans with students during class. Furthermore, the app captures results data for formative assessments conducted in class for after-class review.

GoClass creates a unique opportunity for students to follow a class at their own pace. Students can study materials shared by the instructor, and interact with text and images using touch interactions such as pinch, zoom, pan, etc. You can use this app to answer in-class questions and review the complete lesson along with logs of your responses after class.

Articulate Storyline vs. Adobe Captivate


This is a good comparison between Articulate Storyline & Adobe Captivate

Articulate Storyline has been called a Game Changer and the question is if it can win a die-hard Adobe Captivate fan like me over.

You can complete reading from the source page:

Good Time

May 3, 2012

Basics of ROI Workshop



 Never before has ROI been of such importance. The ROI Institute’s ROI Methodology is the most documented approach to measuring and evaluating learning and development programs. This webinar series presents the key elements in the ROI process.
  
TUESDAY, May 8: ROI Basics: An Overview of the ROI Methodology
During this webcast, we will discuss the foundations of the ROI Methodology. You will learn
•    Five levels of evaluation that have served as the foundation for the ROI Methodology since the 1970s
•    Six types of results generated by the chain of impact
•    Ten steps in the ROI Methodology process model
•    Twelve guiding principles that support the ROI Methodology

TUESDAY, May 29: Collecting Data
A variety of data collection techniques exist to help you capture the information need to measure the success of your training programs. During this webcast, you will learn
•    Types of data collection methods available for each level of evaluation
•    Options for timing of data collection at each level
•    Sources that provide you the most credible information

TUESDAY, June 12: Isolating the Effects of Your Programs
Organizations invest in a variety of programs, projects, and initiatives to drive business performance through people. But when business measures improve, how do you know it was your particular program or project that caused the improvement? During this session you will learn
•    The importance of isolating the effects of your programs
•    Three techniques you can use to isolate the effects of your program
•    Considerations when determining the credibility of data

TUESDAY, July 10: Calculating the ROI

 You will learn
•    A variety of methods to convert measures to money
•    Five steps to convert a measure to money
•    Cost categories that make up the fully-loaded program costs

Articulate Storyline is here

Storyline is a powerful standalone tool with unparalleled interactivity features that will help you build dynamic, engaging content—including simulations, screen recordings, drag-and-drop interactions, click-and-reveal activities, quizzes and assessments, and much more

Getting Started with Articulate Storyline

 Features

Showcases

You can puplish to HTML5, Flash, and Mobile Devices
It is a great tool

Storytelling Delivers Effective E-Learning - webinar



In this webinar, Rachel Ashkin, Chief Operating Office of Brandon Hall Group, Dawn Adams Miller, from Cisco’s Learning & Development Solutions Group, and Matt Lisle, Instructional Designer at Enspire Learning show you how the graphic novel approach was used to engage learners in a corporate-wide initiative at Cisco. You’ll learn how the project progressed from selling the concept to the stakeholders, through design, development, implementation and deployment. We also cover tools, costs, project management, and what the metrics are telling us.

Googd Time.