Sean Sharp’s ITRT Blog

These Lectures Are Gone in 60 Seconds – Chronicle.com

Take a 60-minute lecture. Cut the excess verbiage, do away with most of the details, and pare it down to key concepts and themes.

What’s left? A “microlecture” over in as few as 60 seconds. A course designer for San Juan College, a community college in Farmington, N.M., says that in online education, such tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions.

I found this article very interesting as it really seems to push the limits and ideas of ways to present material in an educational setting. I’d be interested in attending a class with this as the format. Rarely do I read about ways to move beyond our current system of education and this seems intriguing to me. Not that it is perfect, mind you, but it might fit the needs of some learners and some learning contexts well. Another article on this her at the Open Education Blog. Enjoy!

How did I get here? I came via Twitter actually. A tweet from Miguel Guhlin on online polling tools. Then I thought of how many of us are planning or already doing Professional Development activities for teachers and then considered the fact that understanding what teachers want to do and learn is one approach to doing good Professional Development. So I thought about doing online surveys to gauge interest on specific ideas. So, here you go: some tools for taking online polls and surveys.

I would probably use these ahead of the Professional Development workshop to help see what it is that people want and need to learn. I really don’t like to waste people’s time or give them things that they’ve already had before. These tools can help to get around those two issues. Hopefully they’ll help you. As they say,

Share and Enjoy!

Share More! Wiki » Online Polling Tools?

How do collect data via a survey or poll?

Conducting surveys and polls is great. When I need to conduct a survey, I try to use tools that give me control of the survey data (e.g. UCCASS or Moodle’s built-in survey feature). However, sometimes that level of security just is not needed.

The hardest part about surveys is not collecting the data. Rather, it is designing the surveys and then analyzing the data. Although it would be too much to hope for to simplify both ends of the process—the design of the survey and data analysis—what if the latter could be made easier?

Here are 10 alternative online poll/survey sites you can take advantage of, all at no-cost:

* Poll Daddy – http://www.polldaddy.com/
* Cool Web Toys – http://www.coolwebtoys.com/
* Vizu.com – http://vizu.com/
* Blogflux – http://www.blogflux.com/
* Quimble – http://quimble.com/
* SurveyMonkey – http://www.surveymonkey.com/
* Zoomerang – http://info.zoomerang.com/
* Survey Gizmo – http://www.surveygizmo.com/
* Ballot-Box – http://www.ballot-box.net/
* Easy Poll – http://www.easy-poll.com/

G9Chemistry » Biology Voicethreads

The above link takes you to some great examples of student created VoiceThread shows. These are well done, relevant and the students demonstrate their understanding of the concepts that they are trying to convey. Nice!

Field Report #11: Voice Thread (with Meg Swecker)

This is a nice GenTech ‘field report’ done by Tina, interviewing Meg. The project is such a good description of getting students involved with something that allows Meg to share her passion for diving. Enjoy this one–’tis good!

studyfinance.com – Overview: Getting Started With Excel