Welcome to the CTL Blog

Welcome, visitors and regular users! You are invited to take advantage of the information on this blog about Berkshire Community College Center for Teaching and Learning events and

“Openness” in Higher Education

‘We are pleased to present this very topical issue of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL) on openness. Notions of open scholarship, open access publication, open educational resources, tuition-free institutions, and open source software continue”

Bridging the Workplace Generation Gap

This article by Alina Tugend of the New York Times was written for the workplace, but classroom application works as well:

“Here’s an example of how the generations may butt heads: Lisa Orrell, who has written two books about what she calls millennials — those now in their 20s — and conducts workshops for them, said she often heard complaints from younger workers about the curt tone from managers and bosses. They feel disrespected when they are ordered, rather than asked, to do something, when they are commanded rather than requested.

And maybe baby boomers have themselves to blame. After all, we are the generation that raised our children through negotiation, who explained why it was important to visit Grandma or wear a jacket rather than using the all-purpose “because I told you to.”

So a younger worker could easily anger an older manager by questioning why she has to do a certain task instead of just putting her head down and getting on with it. And an older manager who brusquely says, “Just do it,” or recounts how much tougher things were in his time, could easily — if unknowingly — help widen the generation gap.

“I advise managers to take a step back and try to explain to workers why it’s important what they do and how it will build on the goals they have in the company,” Ms. Orrell said.”

Read the full article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/your-money/07shortcuts.html?em=&pagewanted=print

Educause: Blackboard versus Moodle

This presentation is from the current Educause conference taking place in Denver. To view the presentation, you have to download MS Silverlight, but it’s quick:

http://educause.mediasite.com/mediasite/SilverlightPlayer/Default.aspx?peid=3f76ff6fc7354dbdb81202bb6a00146c

 

Teaching & Learning 2.0 this week

A small group met in the CTL Wednesday to discuss aspects of “web 2.0″ technologies and their pedagogical uses. We discussed the various uses of blogs, wikis, and email groups.

• Blogs, best for one or a small group of “authors” who wish to put out information and receive comments from a private or public group of readers;
• Wikis – excellent for collaborative projects such as co-edited documents, or also good for a class work repository;
• Email groups – if you just want to get the word out about meetings, links, news.

We also looked at an actual BCC student gmail account, with its very simplified selection of google tools – basically email and calendar only.  Google apps http://www.google.com/apps/ may be an area for further explanation if/when we decide to open those tools up to students.

High-tech Tips from Comm College Faculty

Some interesting tips via video on flip video, wikis, and educational games:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid9958061001?bctid=1877562263

New Blackboard Tool Connects With Google’s Free Services – Technology – The Chronicle of Higher Education

New Blackboard Tool Connects With Google’s Free Services – Technology – The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Boston publisher enters new chapter in textbooks – The Boston Globe

Boston publisher enters new chapter in textbooks – The Boston Globe

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Next-Generation Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education and University of Phoenix presented a Webinar viewed by a small group in the CTL yesterday: “Next-Generation Education for Next-Generation Students.”

The webinar was not really about the advertised topic, but rather about University of Phoenix’s approach to developmental education. In a nutshell, they have revised their developmental approach to be a “just-in-time” format, where they will ensure that students have full college-level skills by the time they graduate. Their idea is that students can gradually increase their skills in combination with taking college-level courses. This is very similar to the program Louise H. has brought in “College Experience,” where gateway courses are combined with one-credit life and study skills companion courses to assist students coming out of the developmental track.

University of Phoenix does have interesting data for community colleges, since they also have an open admissions policy. With a student body of 400,000, U of P has a large and diverse group from which to draw out trends. At the same time, as an online-only institution, it may be hard to do direct comparisons to a more classroom-based college.

Font problems?

You may have noticed that in the right column of the blog is a area known as a “tag cloud.” The tags are keywords that represent the content of each post. The reason that the fonts are different sizes is that the tags with the most articles associated with them are represented in larger font than those with fewer associated pieces. So, you can visually scan the Tag Cloud and see what this Blog (or any Blog) is talking about.

Not Your Parent’s ‘Course Content Delivery’ — Campus Technology

Quite an interesting article about whether technology is driving the impending changes in envisioning courses as something other than content delivery .. or not. Comments?

Not Your Parent’s ‘Course Content Delivery’ — Campus Technology

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