Peer Review for student work

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Lillian Payn

Recently I saw an article in Tech and Learning about using Peer Reviews for student work as a way maximize teacher effectiveness. The writer recommended SWORD:

“Today there is a cool product that helps automate this process. SWoRD is a free web-based, peer review system that was developed to help teachers organize writing assignments in a way that uses peer review as its backbone.  Students learn a lot from giving their peers feedback, and they learn a lot from getting feedback from multiple peers. SWoRD makes peer review so easy that teachers have the opportunity to assign writing without adding teacher work because the time restraints of teacher reviewing and paper grading is greatly minimized. Instead of assessing student work, teachers can be working with students to develop and grow their work. “

http://sword.lrdc.pitt.edu/sword

Do you use peer review in your classes? How do you manage accountability and grading?

Posted in Professional Development, Social Media and Networking, Teaching and Learning | Tagged , | 17 Comments

Free Time Warner Cable App Displays Captioning on IPad

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Lillian Payn

Proponents of Section 508 and ADA for accessible educational materials must be satisfied after  hearing the announcement made from Time Warner on September 29, 2011. The major video programming distributor Time Warner Cable (TWC) has just released a new closed captioning app for the I-Pad. The app is available from iTunes/Apple Store.

Users of the increasingly popular iPad now, via this downloadable app, can see the captions from most of the video programming provided by this TV distributor. It’s also fairly easy to use: all the user has to do is look within the Settings menu of the TWCable TV iPad app and turn the closed captioning switch on. Users should look for the closed captioning icon within the program description to determine if captioning is available for any given program, as some — presumably exempted — programming will not have closed captioning available.

There are a number of apps that improve accessibility: http://www.apple.com/accessibility/ipad/hearing.html

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

iTunes U

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Lillian Payn

I had a boss once who often used the quote: We have acres of diamonds in our own backyard. Today I ran across it (again) iTunes. What a great resource for educators and learners.  It distributes an amazing range of content from lectures to language lessons, films to labs, audiobooks to tours — is an innovative way to get educational content into the hands of students. It offers more than 350,000 free lectures, videos, films, and other resources — from all over the world. Instructors can also distribute courses that are either public or password protected.  For more information: http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/

 

Posted in Multimedia for Teaching and Learning, Professional Development, Social Media and Networking | Tagged , , , , , | 38 Comments

Women and tech careers

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Lillian Payn

What can we do to get young women interested in tech careers?

Recently I went to a “Tech Tek” presentation by the American Association of University Women – San Diego. The local branch sponsored a group of middle school girls for a week of technical activities held on the UCSD campus in order to engage them in math and science. They do fun, creative, and challenging activities: snorkeling, field trips to the bay and aquarium, hands on dissection of a fetal pig, ice cream-making with liquid nitrogen, etc. Girls from this past summer and the year before shared their experiences. They showed their interest, inspiration, and gratitude for the awesome experience they had with field trips, science projects, funny stories (setting off smoke alarms and burning grass). Also poignant with the recent tragic loss of active member and champion for Tech Trek, Florrie Donnovan-Gunderson, who was the only civilian killed by the gunman at the IHOP in Carson City last week. We had a slide show that gave us a great cross-section of the week’s activities.

There still is a gender divide in many of the STEM careers. How can we get girls involved in tech careers? What can we do at Palomar College to promote scientific careers to women?

Did you see this article?

“Google Exec Marissa Mayer Explains Why There Aren’t More Girl Geeks”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/06/google-marissa-mayer-women-in-tech_n_891167.html

Mayer had 14 job offers before she accepted Google’s offer. You don’t hear that often. She is a star no matter what she does. But how can we transfer her advice to the girls and young women we wish to encourage and inspire? Mayer recommends showing a multiplicity of different role models and not a stereotype.

What else do you think we can do?

Posted in Careers | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments

Mac’s And PDF’s in Blackboard

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Lillian Payn

If you are using PDF files in your Blackboard courses in either Safari or Firefox browsers, you probably experiencing frustration when they don’t appear.

The solution: Use Google Chrome or the Schubert IT PDF plugin (from http://www.schubert-it.com/pluginpdf/), recommended by the Blackboard Learn user community, and is free for educational use.  Once installed, restart the web browser, and it should be activated.

Safari and Firefox browsers try to use a non-existent PDF plugin to display the PDF file.  Clicking on the “Missing Plug-in” returns no results, because Adobe has not released a PDF plugin for Mac OSX.  Google Chrome has a built-in PDF viewer, which correctly displays the embedded PDF file.

Until a permanent solution is delivered from Blackboard, the workaround is to install a third-party PDF plugin.

Recent Safari [version 5.1] and Mac OSX software updates [OSX 10.6.8 and OSX 10.7] have removed the download/viewing capability of PDF documents using Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari browsers.  [Details found at http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/908/cpsid_90885.html ]

 

Posted in Graphics for Teaching and Learning, Multimedia for Teaching and Learning | 25 Comments

What apps are you using for your classes?

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Lillian Payn

I am curious to know what apps you are using to engage your students? Are you keeping current with new technology? The restaurant industry is. While a recent survey by Zagat found that  64% of local diners consider it rude to text, tweet, talk, and email at a restaurant, 88% felt is was ok to take pictures of food, and 17% use their smartphones to do so.

Stacked Restaurant uses iPads at each table for diners to customize and place their order; Candelas has photos of the food on iPads. Naked Pizza uses iPads to entertain patrons (that may be discouraging if it is because the service is slow); Toast Enoteca and Acqua Al2 use iPads as a wine list with artificial intelligence….wines sorted by grape, region, vintage, and price. Textaurant among others offers wait times; MenuPad is for ordering; TabbedOut is a mobile payment system; Zingle is an order ahead app; and TextMyFood.com looks for waiters who are MIA.

Restaurant managers apparently are delighted to see that all ages are getting with the plan of  technology. Young people expect to see the technology, but the older patrons really enjoy the simplicity and appreciate the benefits such as speed.

What clever apps are you using for teaching and learning?

Posted in Uncategorized | 46 Comments

Game Day Coastline Community College

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Lillian Payn

Game Day Coastline Community College Fri 8/5 2 pm. Meet Game Developers. FREE. 714-241-6370 RSVP for goodie bag. Garden Grove, CA

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1101163225143-464/GameDayFlier.pdf

Posted in Careers, Multimedia, Multimedia for Teaching and Learning | 162 Comments

Summer 2011 Tech Camp

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Lillian Payn

We held a Boot Camp for Summer Professional Development 1 – 4 August for 30 enthusiastic full-time and part-time instructors. Fun for all: Hands-on multimedia tutorials and prep time for fall classes. Topics included Twitter, Word Press, PowerPoint, Evernote, Video, and iPad.

I presented: “Why Use Graphics? (and Multimedia)” and “Design Crimes…(and how to prevent them).”

Prizes, collaboration with colleagues, and lunch were high points!

Thanks to our well-prepared presenters.

Posted in Blogging, Graphics for Teaching and Learning, Multimedia for Teaching and Learning, Professional Development, Social Media and Networking, Tech Camp, Twitter, Website development | Tagged , , , , , , , | 79 Comments