Great Article on the Real Value of College (and stop thinking of a business model)

Hunter Rawlings, College is not a commodity. Stop treating it like one. What truly makes an education valuable: the effort the student puts into it.

Very well said critique of the college "business" model and the entitlement of students to easy grades.

Competency-Based Education, a new fad, or a new search for standards?

Someone set to me a link to this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (21 May 2015): New Graduates Test the Promise of Competency-Based Education.  My first thought was that a lot of people who are not instructors should get themselves out of the education field.  My second thought was what ever happened to the connection between course grades and competence.  Why do we need to have all this other stuff, SLOs, measurables, competencies, data?  Why aren't grades a good enough indicator?  Well, the answer to that is clear in the work of some of my colleagues who hand out passing grades as if they were candy.

NVCC's Faculty Ipad Program

NVCC has been distributing Ipads to faculty and staff in an effort to familiarize everyone with the technology with the assumption that the devices can be used eventually in ways to improve student learning and student success.  Not sure about that connection, but here are some details of the project.  There is also a project blog with comments from participants.

Communication: The key to Success in Online Courses

It should come as no surprise that timely communication and interaction between instructor and student is one of the absolute key features of a successful online course.  Now, while student-student interaction is useful (it happens far too infrequently in a face-to-face class), it is the instructor's engagement (note that I did not say the student's engagement) with the course and the course participants that is most important.

Introduction to Digital History Goes Live

After a lot of years to develop the course, teach it on campus, get it added to the state and college curriculum, and then transform it into an online course, I finally have my Introduction to Digital History course being offered online. That was about a five-year process, and I am constantly adding materials to the course as I come across new digital tools and projects.

Implementing the Seven Principles

for those of you who might have missed this years ago, let me call attention to the article by Arthur Chickering and Stephen Ehrmann, Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever (There are many versions available online if this link doesn't work). While pretty simple in theory, it is also clear that there is no mention in these principles of the word "technology," and that is the kicker. Because while you encourage all you want contacts and collaboration between students, if the technology (BB) does not allow that in a non-disruptive manner, your course is going nowhere.

Should I Write More about QM rubric

Besides the fact that it is a commercial product? in a non-profit world of higher education (often public education)? Wonder why we can't have our own rubric, to fit our specific institution's goals and objectives, to fit our student audience?  Instead, we're supposed to use an off-the-shelf commercial product (like Blackboard)?  Isn't that crazy?