Embedded Librarians and the TEACH Act

Embedded librarians who work in online courses in American post-secondary institutions should embrace the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act, or TEACH Act, the federal law that governs online teaching and learning. As embedded librarians take on online instructional assignments, knowledge of TEACH will provide guidance in their role as online instructors. In addition, as they come to a better understanding of TEACH and copyright issues the law covers, based in part on their knowledge of copyright concerns in library-related situations, embedded librarians will have more clarity about the work they can and cannot do in an online environment. Finally, as embedded librarians increase their presence in online classes in varied ways, the embedded librarian position evolves into a version of Bell and Shank\u27s blended librarian who serves as both a librarian and educator, and becomes a more valuable member of the academic community. The current lack of discussion about the provisions of the TEACH Act among embedded librarians who write about the work they have done in online courses, however, is a troubling sign. Knowledge of the TEACH Act will help protect embedded librarians and others from copyright infringement and aid in the further development of embedded librarianship

Collaborative learning: a connected community approach

Collaborative Learning in group settings currently occurs across a substantial portion of the UK Higher Education curriculum. This style of learning has many roots including: Enterprise in Higher Education, Action Learning and Action Research, Problem Based Learning, and Practice Based Learning. As such our focus on Collaborative Learning development can be viewed as an evolutionary. This collaborative and active group learning provides the foundation for what can be collectively called connectivist ‘Learning Communities’. In this setting a primary feature of a ‘Learning Community’ is one that carries a responsibility to promote one another’s learning. This paper will outline a developmental collaborative learning approach and describe a supporting software environment, known as the Salford Personal Development Environment (SPDE), that has been developed and implemented to assist in delivering collaborative learning for post graduate and other provision. This is done against a background of much research evidence that group based activity can enhance learning. These findings cover many approaches to group based learning and over a significant period of time. This paper reports on work-in-progress and the features of the environment that are designed to help promote individual and group or community learning that have been influenced by the broad base of research findings in this area

6C learning: a pragmatic framework for 2nd generation e-learning projects.

In 2006 we expect a large scale take-up of e-learning. In this paper we first argue that e-learning has evolved from a first to a second generation, with learning itself as the essential component. Within this second generation, we present a pragmatic framework, the 6C learning framework. There are six components, all pertaining to the question how to make e-learning work. Success in e-learning is the result of careful conceptualization, design, implementation and outcome. The framework enables reflection, sustainment and evaluation. As such, it is mainly but not solely meant for management of e-learning projects. This reference framework may thus prove its usefulness as a possible checklist.e-learning; architecture;

Construction and validation of a questionnaire to assess student satisfaction with mathematics learning materials

Sixth Edition Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing MulticulturalityMathematics is an essential branch for the scientific development and its study is mandatory in most university degrees. However, currently the level of academic performance and motivation of students to learn this science is not the desired one. The students can use different learning tools inside and outside the math classroom, enhancing the quality of the learning materials that are designed essentially to facilitate the learning of mathematics. The present research project aims to determine the validity and reliability of a measurement instrument that allows theassessment of the satisfaction of the students with the availablelearning materials. To fulfill the objectives of this research, the method of survey was used. A study with a quantitative approach was developed, which led to the design and validation of a questionnaire by a group of 7 experts. The validation closed after applying a pilot study with 728 students. It concluded positively, obtaining nine factors that coincide with the revision of the literature: technological quality, quality of content, visual quality, didactic significance, adequacy of content, relationship between theory and practice, involvement, contribution to learning, relevance and interaction between educational actors. The results of this questionnaire provide to the international scientific community with relevant information for the design, selection, and use of study materials in the classrooms, which will contribute to raising the levels of student engagement, and their academic performance in mathematics, secondaril

Interview with The University of Manchester Faculty e-learning Managers conducted by Graham McElearney for ALT News Online, Issue 18, November 2009.

Graham McElearney conducted an interview with the four Faculty e-learning Managers at The University of Manchester. This document is the full transcript of the interview. The discussion includes e-learning strategy, organisational structure, current choices of tools and the future of the institutional VLE

Mobile Usability in Educational Contexts: What have we learnt?

The successful development of mobile learning is dependent on human factors in the use of new mobile and wireless technologies. The majority of mobile learning activity continues to take place on devices that were not designed with educational applications in mind, and usability issues are often reported. The paper reflects on progress in approaches to usability and on recent developments, with particular reference to usability findings reported in studies of mobile learning. The requirements of education are considered as well as the needs of students participating in distance education; discipline-specific perspectives and accessibility issues are also addressed. Usability findings from empirical studies of mobile learning published in the literature are drawn together in the paper, along with an account of issues that emerged in two mobile learning projects based at The Open University, UK, in 2001 and 2005. The main conclusions are: that usability issues are often reported in cases where PDAs have been used; that the future is in scenario-based design which should also take into account the evolution of uses over time and the unpredictability of how devices might be used; and that usability issues should be tracked over a longer period, from initial use through to a state of relative experience with the technology

Discovering communities of social e-learning practice

Teaching and Professional Development Fellowship Report 201

Digital Technology and the End of Social Studies Education

In Fall 2000, when "Theory and Research in Social Education" (TRSE) first dedicated an issue to technologies in social studies education, Neil Postman contributed a View Point piece to this issue. Postman, who died in 2003, was an interesting choice because he was an outspoken critic of educational technology who believed that, as he said at the time, "the new technologies both in and out of the classroom are a distraction and an irrelevance." Taking his cue from Postman, the author addresses the issue of digital technology in social studies education by telling a story of his own. He offers a wandering narrative -- and an old-fashioned one at that -- common in the religious stories that Postman saw as the prototype for all cultural stories: the narrative of faith, tested by doubt, emerging reaffirmed. He also discusses two elements that he believes need to be far more present in social studies education, at the pre-service and K-12 level: (1) Clearer disciplinary perspectives; and (2) easier ways of working with data within these perspectives. Technologies, if carefully designed, can be helpful in both areas