EDUCAUSE | Contributed by EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, Faculty, and Learners

Reflecting, Writing, and Responding: Reasons Students Blog

drupal — Wed, 09 May 2007 10:10:43 -0500

Faculty and students are recognizing blogging's learning potential, including the chance to practice writing, reflect on others' thinking, and respond to critical analyses of one's own work. In this paper, a graduate student explores the campus "blogosphere" to discover who is blogging and what they are posting, as well as how faculty are using blogs in their courses and the results they are seeing.

7 Things You Should Know About Augmented Reality

drupal — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 12:43:20 -0500

Augmented reality adds information and meaning to a real object or place. Unlike virtual reality, augmented reality does not create a simulated reality. Instead, it takes a real object or space and uses technologies to add contextual data to deepen students' understanding of it. To the extent that instructors can furnish students with a broad context for understanding the real world, students are more likely to comprehend and remember what they are learning. Through exposing students to an experiential, explorative, and authentic model of learning early in their higher education careers, augmented reality may help shift students from passive to active learning modes and thus become more successful learners.
The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning practices and technologies. Each brief focuses on a single practice or technology and describes what it is, how it works, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use ELI's "7 Things You Should Know About..." briefs to gain a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.

In addition to the "7 Things You Should Know About…" briefs, you may find other ELI resources useful in addressing teaching, learning, and technology issues at your institution. To learn more, please visit the ELI Resources page.

ELI Innovations & Implementations - Calibrated Peer Review: A Writing and Critical-Thinking Instructional Tool

drupal — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 12:09:53 -0500

Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) is a Web-based program that allows instructors to incorporate frequent writing assignments into their courses, regardless of class size, without increasing their grading workload. Students are trained to be competent reviewers and provide classmates with personalized feedback on writing assignments. The CPR system manages the entire peer-review process, including assignment creation and submission, student reviewer training, and student input analysis. The tool suite is discipline-independent and supports a "writing-across-the-curriculum" approach. UCLA hosts CPR and makes it available free to participating institutions, who receive technical assistance from the development team via e-mail and a listserv. More than 500 institutions now use this free service, deploying it in 1,900+ courses that enroll more than 72,000 students.

ELI's Innovations & Implementations series highlights innovative teaching, learning, and technology practices in higher education. Each Innovations & Implementations piece provides a practical overview of an innovation, focusing on its significance and implementation issues. Use Innovations & Implementations to explore innovative practices that might be of value to your institution.

ELI Innovations & Implementations - SCALE-UP: Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs

drupal — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 11:45:31 -0500

The SCALE-UP Project provides an effective and affordable model for introducing hands-on, team-based learning into large-enrollment undergraduate courses. SCALE-UP's approach to undergraduate education was first applied to introductory physics and chemistry courses at North Carolina State University in 1997. Since then, the model has been replicated at more than two dozen other institutions, including the University of Central Florida and MIT.