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Month: January 2014

Published on Leave a comment on Last Call for Slidecasts

At the Immigrant: last call for blackout beer

SlideShare has just announced that their "slidecasting" feature will be discontinued. Slidecasting is a nifty service that allows a slideshow (such as one might create in Powerpoint or Keynote) to be synchronized with audio content. In other words, it allows you to narrate your slides.

Nifty, yes, but apparently not popular enough to warrant ongoing maintenance. The folks at SlideShare cited lack of widespread usage in today's announcement.

At the end of February, users will no longer be able to create new slidecasts. At the end of April, existing slidecasts will be zapped into oblivion. Actually they will be converted into static presentations, i.e. plain old slide shows sans audio.

Attentive readers of this blog will know that I, Bart Everson, CAT's resident Media Artist, have created several slidecasts for eager faculty members who were unable to attend my workshops.

So, this is last call for slidecasts.

If you are interested in these topics, check out these presentations before April 30, at which point they will go silent.

This should serve as a cautionary note. Technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Free services offered by internet companies are liable to vanish quickly.

Photo: At the Immigrant: last call for blackout beer / CC BY-NC 2.0/

Published on Leave a comment on Advantages of Teaching Online

Teaching online has several positive aspects. Here are a few taken from the Teaching and Learning Online:  Communication, Community and Assessment, a handbook for UMass faculty published by the University of Massachusetts:

Teaching online courses can

  • Offer the opportunity to think about teaching in new ways:  Online teaching can allow you to experiment with techniques only available in online environments, such as threaded discussions and webliographies
  • Provide ideas and techniques to implement in traditional courses:  Online email discussions, a frequently-used practice in online learning, can be incorporated into traditional courses to facilitate group work.  Other techniques, such as web-based course calendars and sample papers posted on the internet (with student permission) can easily be incorporated into a traditional course.
  • Expand the reach of the curriculum:  Online teaching can expand existing curriculum to students on a regional, national, and international level.
  • Professional satisfaction:  Teaching online can be a enormously rewarding experience for teachers.  Teachers often cite the diversity of students in online courses as one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching online.
  • Instructor convenience:  Teaching online can offer teachers conveniences not available in traditional classroom settings; for example, at-home office hours and flexible work schedules.

I would like to add to the above advantages that teaching online can provide research and collaboration opportunities.  In addition, the online faculty at Xavier is a very collegiate and congenial group and working with them is another source of satisfaction!

It's interesting to read more of the University of Massachusetts' Teaching and Learning Online Handbook.

Published on Leave a comment on 10 Tips for Effective eLearning

Katie Lepi, who writes regularly for Edudemic, wrote an article listing 10 tips for effective eLearning. She writes:

Teaching online involves all the difficulties of teaching in person, with a few extra wrenches thrown in. Navigating the path of online learning can sometimes be rough, so the makers of the handy infographic below put together ten ‘links’ that make the ‘chain of e-Learning’ to help guide you on the online teaching path.

The-Chain-of-Successful-eLearning-Infographic

Want to read more? Read the entire article, "10 Tips for Effective eLearning," which is posted on the Edudemic website.

Published on Leave a comment on The Mindful Way to Study

Attention faculty (and students): For three days (January 16, 17 and 18) the ebook version of The Mindful Way to Study is being offered free of charge from Amazon.

If you have a Kindle or other compatible reader, grab this book now, and by all means let us know what you think.

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #22: Grade Inflation

Download Conversation #22

Stuart Rojstaczer

I think there are serious deficiencies in today's higher education... If administrators and professors were honest with themselves, they would address them and improve the quality of education.

A conversation with Stuart Rojstaczer (formerly of Duke University) on teaching, learning and grade inflation.

Links for this episode:

Published on Leave a comment on Gadgets and Apps for our New Year’s Resolutions

Happy New Year!
Some of us at this time resolve to live healthier lives during this upcoming year. I thought I would share with you a couple of amusing gadgets available to help us keep our New Year's resolutions as well as a few apps that you may actually find useful and/or interesting.

TechCrunch has created the Happifork. The Happifork monitors how you're eating--speed and amount of food you are trying to eat at one time. If you have too much food on the Happifork, it will shake off the food until it reaches a more optimal amount for you to eat in one bite. I surely wouldn't want to use this gadget at a public place!

Have you heard about Google's talking shoe? Based on your movement (or non-movement) these shoes have attitude and aren't afraid to let you know what they're "thinking." While they can be "encouraging" during a brisk walk or workout, they seem to me to be more of a novelty than a real help to people who are trying to stay on task and move more in the new year. Decide for yourself:

Finally, Molly Kimball, a registered dietician who posts for nola.com, has made a few recommendations that you may find useful in your quest for a healthier lifestyle.
Find Me Gluten-Free, Map My Run and My Fitness Pal are among the ones she suggests. Check out her article and see all of them.

I have a few New Year's resolutions for 2014 and among them are to do a better job of buying locally and to actively be more compassionate. I've found a few sites to help me keep them. Good Eggs not only allows you to place your orders online, but will deliver your groceries to you either to a central meeting place or actually to your home. Most of our locally-grown produce is from the Northshore area and so delivery into New Orleans is usually twice a week. I've also become very interested in the Charter for Compassion as well as Sister Jane Remson's blog "Think About It-Pray About It-Act on It" which gives you the opportunity to be active by contacting your senator about an important issue for example.

Have you made any resolutions for the new year? If so, please share what you're doing and if you've found an app or gadget that is helping you.