Soundings: Best Practices in Teaching and Technology

Teaching with Technology at The University of Texas Arlington

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Entries from February 26th, 2010

The Future of Education: The ABCs vs. the EFGs

February 26th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Authoring

I’ve been pondering an article called “Future Ed: Remote learning, 3D screens” for a few days now.  While this article covers some interesting geeky stuff (such as ocular implants and 3-D screens), there are also some great nuggets of wisdom in there about the notion that what we teach needs to change – along with [...]

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How can screencasts improve active learning?

February 23rd, 2010 · 3 Comments · Multimedia, Video, YouTube

It’s a pretty counter-intuitive notion: putting some [or even all!] of your lectures on-line can help open your classroom for active learning. After all, we associate on-line lectures with distance education. For many faculty that may seem to be a far cry from the kind of face-to-face classroom interaction associated with active learning.
But I believe [...]

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Adding Value and Battling Staleness in Online Classes

February 22nd, 2010 · 5 Comments · Resources, Tools, Web 2.0

Think back to some of the best courses you took during college. What made those courses so great for you? Well, other than the ones that were an easy A – what made them interesting to you over other courses? Probably one factor was an interesting instructor. Many instructors like to just read from the [...]

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Digital Texts in the Composition Classroom, Feb 25th

February 20th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Authoring, Composition, Free, Multimedia, Resources, Tools, Video, Web 2.0, Workshops, YouTube

Early adopters find ways to teach complex concepts, methods and software flying by the seat of our pants to be sure, but buoyed by much early trial and error experience acquired from having taught ourselves. For someone like me, whose field is digital media, I have made that seat-of-the-pants stuff my specialty, and, as a [...]

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Many Goals for a Course and a Tool That Made Them Happen

February 17th, 2010 · No Comments · Multimedia, Wikis

How do you “cover” 800 years of thought, writing, and history in medieval and early modern Europe in a fifteen-week course, and create an environment in which students will take away some breadth and depth, that will have a long-term effect on them? How do you use a wonderful new book of essays (56 in [...]

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Group Wisdom–Letting Go Of The Reins

February 17th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Blogs and Blogging, Multimedia

One of the hardest things about teaching is getting out of the way so the student can take control of the learning process. While this may seem to run counter current to the traditional role of the instructor, I have found it to be a very liberating and rewarding experience both for myself [...]

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Moodle at UT Arlington

February 17th, 2010 · 3 Comments · Distance Education, Learning Management Systems, Moodle

There are a lot of Learning Management Systems out there, the most famous being Blackboard and WebCT. However, working in these systems is often a very frustrating experience because they are like a series of boxes, each one locked inside the other. In other words, you have to click multiple times to navigate the site, [...]

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Ideas

February 17th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Blogs and Blogging, Multimedia, Video, YouTube

Here are some of my ideas I am doing. I teach LIST courses (Literacy studies) in the College of Education and Health Professions. I am a second year professor. Here is  my webpage: http://www3.uta.edu/faculty/peggys/index.html
1. Blogging with both online Master’s students and pre-service teachers in a shared space.
2. Using student authored video and professor authored videos. [...]

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Welcome to “Soundings”!

February 8th, 2010 · No Comments · Blogs and Blogging, Distance Education, Learning Management Systems, Moodle, Multimedia, Video, YouTube

“Soundings,” a best practices network for pedagogical technology at UTA, came about as a result of discussions I have had with many of its now-authors—talks which highlighted for me the need for an electronic space where we might reflect on the deeper questions of technology in teaching, learning, and education.
Watching the creative practice of Gina [...]

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