B.C. Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit

 

 This is an interesting resource if you're interested in Open Textbooks or OER.

http://open.bccampus.ca/2015/02/26/introducing-the-b-c-open-textbook-accessibility-toolkit/

Open Education and Innovation

An interesting video on Open Education and Innovation from the Educause Conference at SUNY.

It's an hour and a half long, so open it when you can give it some time. Some interesting statistics on course completion parsed out by cost and delivery method. Remember, these videos can be counted as sources.

http://sysadm.mediasite.suny.edu/Mediasite/Play/76a0c9aa6b084f5f87a1673c8de26ce11d

PowerPoint for the Gamification Presentation

Here is a link to the PowerPoint Presentation on Gamification. It has more detailed information than I could give you when I was live blogging during the session.

https://quickstart.quickmobile.com/document/render/9204/1/D53PORU/06788daaa8dbd13196f1ff74e55b5b8f

Webinar Session on Open Educational Resources (Zero Cost Textbooks)

Please join the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) for this free, open webinar on the Zero-Texbook-Cost Degree Initiative.

Date: Wednesday, March 11
Time: 10 am PST; 1:00 pm EST

With increasing costs of textbooks and instructional materials, colleges have been promoting adoption of open educational resources to make sure all students have equal access to their required textbooks.  However, at many colleges, only a few departments have adopted OER so most students still have expensive textbooks to buy for other courses.  With the Zero-Textbook-Cost Degree program, students can be assured that all courses in their degree program will use OER-based materials that do not have additional costs associated with them. Recent data suggests that reducing textbook costs through an OER-degree approach improves student completion rates, decreases withdrawal rates, and positively impacts student persistence and success.

A Zero-Textbook-Cost Degree initiative will be featured in this webinar along with programs at two colleges which are already implementing whole degree programs that feature courses using exclusively OER-based materials.

Featured speakers:

• TJ Bliss, Education Program Officer at the Hewlett Foundation
• Daniel DeMartre, Vice-president of Academic Affairs and Chief Academic Officer, Tidewater College, VA
• Kimberly Burkle, faculty at Northern Virginia Community College.

Participant Login Information:

No pre-registration is necessary.  Please use the link below on the day of the webinar to login and listen.
Web login: http://www.cccconfer.org/MyConfer/GoToMeetingAnonymousely.aspx?MeetingSeriesID=6de69a75-a26c-46a4-88b1-7b7b15f12fa8

Dial-in if needed:  1-913-312-3202 (passcode:441194)

“We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Topic Sentences”

I keep thinking back to a conversation I had with the rep from Softchalk. She, of course, was trying to sell me on her product, yet another content system. When I mentioned that I taught writing, she immediately launched into examples of content on Softchalk for writing instruction.  

“Suppose you wanted to teach ‘topic sentences.’” She went on about a module that taught topic sentences, defining topic sentences and giving examples. 

I wanted to reply, “Suppose I don’t want to tech topic sentences?” but I try to limit that sarcastic streak with strangers. I simply told her I didn’t teach topic sentences. Her blank look was sufficient to tell me I’d gone too far even without being sarcastic. 

“There’s nothing wrong with topic sentences,” I hastily added. “The problem is that they don’t solve the problem. Teaching topic sentences is simply a band aid that covers up the real problem, that the writer doesn’t know what he or she wants to say yet, and so what they write down comes out garbled or unorganized. A topic sentence will disguise those problems for the reader. Unfortunately it will also disguise those problems for the writer. Then, naively assuming that because the paragraph has a topic sentence it is now well-written, he or she can go on rather than really wrestling with the ideas on the page.”

The blank look got blanker and I realized I had lost her. But, I was on a roll--not with my sermonette on topic sentences. I’d already lost the congregation on that one. But, I was starting to understand my own dissatisfaction with the “content” provided by most of the exhibits in that room. The problem wasn’t that this was beginner stuff, things that students should have learned in high school. The problem was that much of it gave the illusion of learning while simultaneously detouring the learner away from more advanced work--at least when it came to writing. The content provided was still based on an information model common to lecture and test curriculums. (Here is the information you need. Now let me test to see if you remembered it for the 60 minute testing period.) 

In the case of topic sentences, they distract the writer, who no longer need wrestle with the ideas on the page until they come closer to what he or she wants them to, what we usually call “revision.” Case in point: Though I have reported essentially what I said to the Softchalk vender I was much less articulate then than I have been on the page. As I wrote this, I wrote what I intended to say, and even then I rewrote (embellished if you wish) as I wrote. When I finish this draft I’ll go back and revise once more. If I’m still not satisfied, I'll file this away and play with it again later. But I won’t even check to see if I’ve got any topic sentences.

Gaming and Universal Design

Two terms I heard a lot at the conference were “gaming” or “gamification” and “universal design.” I attended two sessions on gaming—you can look for those postings below—but though the term universal design was thrown around a lot, no one ever really defined it or discussed it at any length. Here are two websites, one on gaming, the other on universal design that might be of interest.

Gaming: http://magazine.good.is/articles/video-games-literacy

Universal Design: http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl

Let me know what you think of each.

More info on Newrow

If you're interested in joining the class for the Newrow session (no, I don't know what time we'll meet, not yet) take a look at these two videos about Newrow.

+ 1 Minute Intro: http://newrow.com/education-promo/

+ 4 Minute Demo: http://newrow.com/education-demo/