The Future of Learning
As I referenced in a recent blog post, self-determined learners with the motivation, drive, and resources can teach themselves amazing things online. (See the blog here about two boys who taught themselves skills such as driving a car and speaking English.) What does this mean for the future of learning and the future of the
Qwickly Capabilities
Beyond taking attendance: Instructors can post the same announcements to multiple courses at once. Instructors can send the same email to all users in multiple courses at once. Instructors can make courses available and unavailable. To use these additional features, please visit our Blackboard Support page.
Working with Wikipedia
As instructors, we know that our students consult Wikipedia when they want to learn the basics of a topic. And while this practice can sometimes be concerning, especially if the students solely rely on Wikipedia rather than using it as a springboard for deeper learning, there are many ways to engage the students with Wikipedia
The Self-Determined Learner
This blog was inspired by two young boys. The first, an 8 year old, really wanted a cheeseburger, so he went to YouTube and taught himself to drive. He drove past four intersections and some train tracks with complete control of the vehicle–perhaps even more rule-abiding than the average driver. He was caught at the
Qwickly Attendance Student Check In
Instructors can enable students to check in to class on their phone, tablet, or computer. Having the students check in allows instructors to skip manually taking attendance. For each class, Qwickly Attendance will automatically generate a new 4 digit pin for students to enter. To enable students to check in please visit our Blackboard Support
6 Tips for Student Blogging
WordPress offers many possibilities for faculty who wish for their students to be completing writing or multimedia assignments in an open online platform. However, there are many varieties of WordPress available to faculty, and some decisions need to be made to help faculty select the best-possible variant of WordPress for their learning objectives, and to
Choosing the right teaching method
Prior to the Information Age, teachers were expected to stand at a podium and expound upon topics that were otherwise out of reach to the students. Since the last part of the 20th century, instructors have felt a shift from being the information hub to being the architects who must gather the various informational materials
What is Qwickly Attendance?
The Qwickly Attendance tool enables faculty to take attendance that is automatically graded in the Blackboards Grade Center. Faculty will have to do an initial setup at the beginning of each term within their Blackboard courses. After the setup is completed a gradebook column gets created automatically and keeps a running grade for each class.
Building a Better Blog Rubric
One of the greatest challenges of giving online writing assignments to students is insuring that it’s clear how they will be evaluated for these types of assignments. My colleague Mark Marino from USC recently shared his blog assignment rubric and I am going to use this as a springboard for my own blog assignments in
How do you pack your TPACK?
TPACK, meaning Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge, is an acronym brought to us by Mishra and Koehler’s (2006; 2009) studies on instructors’ abilities to combine their content knowledge with adequate knowledge of best pedagogies for teaching and best technologies to support learning. Most instructors in higher education have not had the benefit of formal pedagogy and technology