Contemplating Tech

The Story of Your Life on Earth

It’s no secret, we love technology here at IT (well, at least most of the time). We spend our days working with tech and assisting faculty and academic support staff. Quite often we’re tasked with predicting the future of instructional tech. We give presentations and teach about the newest and most promising instructional tools, we…

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Designing Effective Peer Review Assignments

Have you ever struggled with how to structure and administer peer review activities in your course? ELI Review published an excellent feature article (Designing Effective Reviews) on designing effective peer review activities, backed up with research and voices from instructors. Though ELI Review promotes their own peer review tool in this article, most of the faculty…

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Thinking about Tomorrow

Around the office we’ve been thinking about the future.  We have a new boss, some of us will be relocating to the Library in the next year, the UMass Amherst IT strategic planning process is going full tilt, and the New Media Consortium has just released their 2015 Horizon Report. At our most recent staff…

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Join us! EDUCAUSE ELI Virtual Annual Meeting

On February 9 — 11, you are invited to join members of the IT group at ELI Virtual Annual Meeting 2015. This conference is arranged by EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. We’ll be projecting the virtual meeting sessions in our 40-seat conference room in…

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What About the Murky Waters of Copyright?

We all have questions about copyright, what is fair use and what may be in the public domain. Students may be on heightened alert about copyright when preparing presentations and final papers.  However, copyright considerations are equally as critical when putting together promotional materials for club events or updating a social media site. Consider including…

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In The News…..

“Taking Notes by Hand Benefits Recall, Researchers Find” by Dana Perez-Hernandez, Wired Campus Why this matters: Laptops can be a distraction in the classroom, but some students insist on the devices for note taking. While tech can facilitate speedy lecture transcription for fast typists, a pencil and paper may actually provide stronger learning outcomes according…

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Using Social Media to Engage Students and Foster Learning

Can Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and the likes support learning?  They most certainly can.  Social media engages students with you, their classmates, current affairs and online resources.  Below are a few links to resources with suggestions for using social media in any classroom setting. Guide to Social Media in the Classroom http://www.edutopia.org/blog/guidebook-social-media-in-classroom-vicki-davis That’s Pinteresting! How educators…

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Going Digital Can Enhance Learning

Have you considered going all digital to support learning in and outside the classroom? Does the idea go counter to your pedagogical practices or seem daunting? Dr. Lynda Haas of the University of California offers her reasons for going completely digital in her writing classes in a recent Faculty Focus article. Some of her approaches…

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New Media Consortium Report > 2014 Higher Education Edition

The Horizon Report The 2014 Report identifies emerging technologies that will influence teaching and learning over the next 1-to-5 years.  Among the key trends encouraging an immediate adoption of technology are the Pervasive use of social media Increased offering of fully online, hybrid and collaborative learning models Acceptance of data-driven learning and assessment Emphasis on…

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Engaging with Storyboards

Integrating storyboards into a course or as part of a multimedia assignment makes a course more interesting and will engage students.  Storyboards can also be assigned to students as a tool for presenting a project.  Free storyboard templates and trail versions of storyboard creators are available to get you and your students started with this…

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