Twitter may have started off as a fun social media site for keeping up with friends and sharing updates about daily life, but it’s become much more than that for many users over the past few years as the site has evolved and grown.

These days, Twitter is a powerhouse for marketing, communication, business, and even education, letting people from around the world work together, share ideas, and gain exposure.

It has become a staple at many online colleges and campuses as well, leaving many academics wondering just how and if they should be using Twitter both in the..[more]..http://ht.ly/1j5qAQ

Facebook Page - http://on.fb.me/chssfb

Twitter – http://twitter.com/chss_msu

LinkedIn - http://linkd.in/chsslinkedin

Google + - http://bit.ly/chssgplus

Philadelphia—Professors can choose from a growing palette of Web-based tools to make their online courses more interactive. But a new study suggests that many community-college instructors aren’t taking advantage of those options. Instead, the professors are relying on static course materials that aren’t likely to motivate students or encourage them to interact with each other.

The study, presented here at the annual technology conference of the League for Innovation in the Community College, observed 26 high-enrollment online courses at two community colleges in Virginia last spring. It found that most professors relied on text-based assignments and materials. In the instances when professors did decide to use interactive tools like online video, many of those technologies were not connected to learning objectives, the study found. The findings could help explain how community colleges can structure the selection of technology to improve student-retention rates.

Nikki Edgecombe, a senior research associate at Columbia University’s Community College Research Center, called the apparent mismatch between technologies and learning objectives an “optimization” problem. When professors did choose to put elements like YouTube videos into their courses, the student experience felt “like faculty were compelled to use more, instead of asking why,” Ms. Edgecombe said.

Institutions should focus on training instructors to use tools that best fit the objectives of their specific courses, Ms. Edgecombe said. Many professors teaching the courses studied were willing to use new technologies, Ms. Edgecombe added, but they felt too bogged down by heavy course loads to learn on their own.

“You don’t want everybody to feel like they just have to turn the volume up to 10 and that’s going to solve the problem, because in all likelihood, it’s not,” she said. She cautioned that professors’ technology choices can’t necessarily predict how students will perform, but added that those choices can influence students’ motivation and their willingness to complete a course.

The findings are part of a larger group of studies that will be published this summer.

On February 22nd the ADP Center and the Emerging & Instructional Technology unit co-sponsored a roundtable discussion called “Apple’s iBooks and iTunes: It’s Complicated!”.

The meeting was a great success and the UStream recording can be found here.

As promised during the meeting, here is the information about the community that the ADP Center was gracious enough to create and host for us. In fact, Gregg Festa has already posted a very interesting info graphic.

I hope you’ll all consider signing up and contributing. I also hope you’ll consider forwarding the information below to your colleagues so we can create a vibrate and engaged community around these issues.

To join the group, go to http://adpcenter.org and join the site. Membership is moderated (to help avoid sp*mmers), but once you get the notice that its been approved, go to GROUPS and click on iBOOKS/iTUNES PILOT PROJECT and click JOIN in the upper right-hand corner.

http://adpcenter.ning.com/group/ibooks-itunesu-pilot-project

Anyone can follow the discussion but you need to join the site and the group to participate.

You’ll also notice a Twitter feed there which is based on the hashtag #msuibooks. If you’re on Twitter, make sure to add your Twitter name to the Comment Board. When you post to Twitter, about the topic, make sure to include #msuibooks in your tweet.

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

]]> http://eit.montclair.edu/gamification-infographic/feed/ 0 http://eit.montclair.edu/doodle-take-the-hassle-out-of-meeting-scheduling/ http://eit.montclair.edu/doodle-take-the-hassle-out-of-meeting-scheduling/#comments Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:18:23 +0000 admin http://eit.montclair.edu/?p=131 Continue reading →]]> Doodle is a basic, free service that helps with the scheduling of meetings when a number of people are involved. It eliminates the chaos that comes from scheduling group events and trying to find a time when everyone is available. Coordinating meeting times can be time-consuming — Doodle can help! Instead of offering just one date/time option, you can propose several dates and times and the participants can indicate their availability online. With one look, you’ll be able to see what the best time is for the meeting. Doodle is simple and quick and requires no registration. In addition to scheduling meetings, Doodle also supports polls. Groups can conveniently decide on options other than just dates and times. Visit Doodle at http://www.doodle.com/ to learn more.

Comparative Literature Association of Ireland, First International Conference, Transitions in Comparative Studies; 28-30 June 2012, University College Cork, Ireland

In the wake of the explosive arrival of the internet and associated new media in the general public consciousness and use during the past decade, comparatists find themselves presented with a vast number of new possibilities, but also with new challenges. Visual art is no longer confined to forms such as painting and sculpture, but can now also be produced digitally. Virtual worlds call for questions about our understanding of space. Electronic literature weaves word and image together in new, innovative ways. New forms of storytelling take place in video games, on interactive websites and on social media. As an example, in 2010, the Royal Shakespeare Company, together with the production company Mudlark, staged a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

Despite the surge of such experimentations and developments, the comparative field has been slow to respond to them. Cultural and communication studies have addressed the digital worlds, but literary studies in particular have mostly refrained from engaging with them. This panel situates the encounter of the digital by/with/in literary scholarship in the wider context of intermediality, with its issues and challenges.

This panel welcomes papers on both theory and practice of digital intermediality. It invites comparative analyses of intermedial works such as interactive narratives, video/online games, electronic literature or digital art, or the representation of the above in literature. Equally, it encourages more theoretical approaches to the topic. Examples of potential frameworks might include applications of narratology, relationship between word and image, space theory, the role of comparative literature in digital studies, and issues of availability and approachability of the digital world.

Please submit your abstract of 300 words and a short biography to Ms Nina Shiel at nina.shiel3@mail.dcu.ie by 16 March 2012. More information about the conference is available at http://www.complit.org/cfp.html .