If equity is a priority, UDL is a must — from cultofpedagogy.com by Katie Novak
Once you identify the firm goal, ask yourself, “Based on the variability in my class, what barriers may prevent learners from working toward that goal and how can I eliminate those barriers through design?”
Excerpt:
When we design the same learning pathways for all learners, we might tell ourselves we are being fair, but in fact, single pathways are exclusionary. Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of the critically acclaimed book, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, challenges us to focus on impact over intentions. It may not be our intent to exclude our learners, but the reality is that many students do not have opportunities to learn at high levels or to access curriculum and instruction that is accessible, engaging, culturally sustaining, and linguistically appropriate.
Luckily, there is a framework that rejects these one-size-fits-all solutions and empowers educators to proactively design learning experiences so all students can increase their brainpower and accelerate and own their learning. The framework is Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
UDL is a framework for designing learning experiences so students have options for how they learn, what materials they use, and how they demonstrate their learning.
From DSC:
I put together this graphic as I’m working on a Module (for Canvas) to address the topic of accessibility:
ARHT Media Inc.
Access The Power Of HoloPresence | Hologram Technology | Holographic Displays | Hologram Events
Excerpt:
ARHT Media mounted a holographic display at the event in Vancouver and had Sunlife’s executive captured and transmitted live as a hologram to the event from our Toronto studio. He was able to see the audience and interact with them in realtime as if he was attending the event and present in the room.
From DSC:
The excerpt below is from The 7 best online whiteboards in 2021 — from zapier.com by Maria Myre
From DSC:
Other potentially-relevant tools/vendors here include:
DC: For those who say MOOCs haven't done anything…hmmm…(and these are just NEW registered users).#MOOC #alternatives #highereducation #future #learningecosystem #learningexperiencedesign #learningfromthelivingclassroom https://t.co/Acsa55KmVf pic.twitter.com/3hYXSC4qnK
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) March 5, 2021
From DSC:
Talk about streams of content! Whew!
I received an email from Adobe that was entitled, “This week on Adobe Live: Graphic Design.” (I subscribe to their Adobe Creative Cloud.) Inside the email, I saw and clicked on the following:
Below are some of the screenshots I took of this incredible service! Wow!
From DSC:
So Abobe — via Behance — is already doing several pieces of the “Learning from the Living [Class] Room” vision. I knew of Behance…but I didn’t realize the magnitude of what they’ve been working on and what they’re currently delivering. Very sharp indeed!
Churches are doing this as well — one device has the presenter/preacher on it (such as a larger “TV”), while a second device is used to communicate with each other in real-time.
The Chegg situation is worse than you think — from eliterate.us by Michael Feldstein
Excerpts:
Forbes just ran with an article entitled “This $12 Billion Company Is Getting Rich Off Students Cheating Their Way Through Covid“.
Ouch.
[Per Michael] To sum up:
Addendum on 2/9/21:
8 Higher Education IT Trends to Watch in 2021 — from edtechmagazine.com by Adam Stone
Keep your eye on these trends as higher education prepares for a post-pandemic future.
Excerpt:
1. Get Used to More Advanced Learning Management Systems
At Virginia Tech, the Canvas learning management system (LMS) was critical for coordinating synchronous and asynchronous learning. Such systems will only become more sophisticated moving forward, says Randy Marchany, the university’s IT security officer. “With COVID, instructors have become more video savvy,” he says. “We’re all getting smarter about how we use these tools.”
2. A Rise in Sophisticated Videoconferencing Platforms
Even after the pandemic, educators might continue lecturing over Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms. However, they’ll be doing it in more sophisticated ways. “People will be making these experiences more collaborative, more authentic — with much richer interactions and conversations,” Grajek says. “We are all becoming more experienced consumers, and we will see a lot of innovation in this area.”
From DSC:
Yet another step closer…
Flipping Virtual Classrooms for More Impact — from techlearning.com by Ray Bendici
Flipping virtual classrooms can help maximize teaching time and resources
Excerpt:
The mantra of flipped learning is that you can reach every student in every class every day, said Bergman. So if you have less synchronous time, you need to provide more time with your students one-on-one to work on the hard stuff, and flipped mastery learning, in particular, accommodates that.
“Flipped learning teachers have been preparing for the pandemic for the past 10 years,” Bergman said. “It’s really a great way to amplify your reach to teach.”
When the pandemic hit, Bergman and his flipped learning team realized that the most important thing is connections with students and the physical time spent with them. “So what’s the best use of your face-to-face class time?” Bergman said. “I’m going to argue it’s not you standing up and then introducing new content, it’s giving students the new content first and allowing them to apply, analyze, and evaluate it.”
As an alternative to a full master’s degree, edX and Coursera offer MicroMasters and MasterTrack certificate programs at a fraction of the cost of grad school — from businessinsider.com by Mara Leighton; with thanks to Ray Schroeder for sharing this resource
Excerpt:
U.S. Businesses Potentially Spent Billions on Legal Fees for Inaccessible Websites in 2020 — from boia.org
Excerpt:
In a bombshell report published by Accessibility.com, the organization estimated that 265,000 website accessibility demand letters were sent to businesses last year. Astounding on its own, if the figure is correct or close to correct, U.S. companies could have spent billions of dollars in legal costs as a direct result of inaccessible websites in 2020 alone. Businesses looking for a wake-up call to make website accessibility a priority in 2021 and beyond might have just found it.
The above article linked to:
Also see:
From DSC:
As we move into 2021, the blistering pace of emerging technologies will likely continue. Technologies such as:
Along the positive lines of this topic, I’ve been reflecting upon how we might be able to use AI in our learning experiences.
For example, when teaching in face-to-face-based classrooms — and when a lecture recording app like Panopto is being used — could teachers/professors/trainers audibly “insert” main points along the way? Similar to something like we do with Siri, Alexa, and other personal assistants (“Heh Siri, _____ or “Alexa, _____).
.
Pretend a lecture, lesson, or a training session is moving right along. Then the professor, teacher, or trainer says:
Like a verbal version of an HTML tag.
After the recording is done, the AI could locate and call out those “main points” — and create a table of contents for that lecture, lesson, training session, or presentation.
(Alternatively, one could insert a chime/bell/some other sound that the AI scans through later to build the table of contents.)
In the digital realm — say when recording something via Zoom, Cisco Webex, Teams, or another application — the same thing could apply.
Wouldn’t this be great for quickly scanning podcasts for the main points? Or for quickly scanning presentations and webinars for the main points?
Anyway, interesting times lie ahead!
Interleaving: How Mixed Practice Can Boost Learning— from effectiviology.com
Excerpt:
Interleaving is a learning technique that involves mixing together different topics or forms of practice, in order to facilitate learning. For example, if a student uses interleaving while preparing for an exam, they can mix up different types of questions, rather than study only one type of question at a time.
Interleaving, which is sometimes referred to as mixed practice or varied practice, is contrasted with blocked practice (sometimes referred to as specific practice), which involves focusing on only a single topic or form of practice at a time.
Also see:
Also see:
Excerpts:
Interleaving boosts learning by mixing up closely related topics, encouraging discrimination between similarities and differences. (Agarwal & Bain, p. 14)
It’s “re-arranging the order of retrieval opportunities during spacing without changing the content to be learned.” It’s mixing up concepts. (Agarwal & Bain, pgs. 106-107).
Consider this basic example of practice problems in any math course:
Problem Set 1: AAAA BBBB CCCC DDDD [i.e., blocked practice]
Problem Set 2: ABCD BCAD DBAC CBDA [i.e., interleaved practice]
Both have the same practice problems, but they’ve been re-arranged. If letters represented addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, the students need to be able to choose and retrieve the appropriate strategy — vs. plug-and-chug without thinking about which strategy to use.
Also see:
retrievalpractice.org/interleaving
