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Majority of Students and Instructors at the UW found Tegrity Lecture Capture to be Useful

Tegrity

It has been just over a year since Tegrity was rolled out across the three campuses of the University of Washington and the findings of a recently released report by UW-IT indicate that a majority of faculty and students found Tegrity to be helpful in enhancing student learning in the classroom. Tegrity is a lecture capture tool that gives instructors the ability to record classroom activity and upload these recordings on a student accessible site to review later on. These recordings consist of of a combination of on-screen recordings of the computer and live audio/video feed of the class via webcam. By using this technology, instructors were able to provide additional resources to students who wish to review course material and catch up on lectures without much additional effort.

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Gates Foundation announces it will fund MOOC research project at Maryland universities

Inside Higher Ed reported yesterday that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will fund an 18-month project assessing the impact of MOOCs in selected public universities in Maryland. The project will cost $1.4 million and will be run by nonprofit research group Ithaka S+R.

The goal of the project is to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of MOOCs, to see if they make a difference in student learning. Because MOOCs are comparably inexpensive to costs associated with traditional face-to-face classes, there could be great benefits to using MOOCs in a university setting. If the research results show equal or improved student learning, they could open many new doors for MOOCs and influence academia to rethink their role in formal education.

Ithaka S+R will watch these courses closely and measure their effects with, according to Robinson, “rigorous assessment[s] of how students fared using these technologies”.

Although the full list of MOOCs hasn’t been decided, spokeswoman for the Gates Foundation Debbie Robinson lists Coursera and edX as two that the project will definitely use.

Video Clip Use “Decision Tree”

Here’s a well-designed infographic published by Penn State aimed to help people avoid copyright infringement when using video clips in their work. Follow the tree and answer yes or no questions about your content. If you run into the “stop” signs, you shouldn’t use the clip in your work, as it’s likely violation of copyright law.
It’s important to note, however, that even “educational use” will not completely protect a video from being pulled from public video sharing sites, such as YouTube or Vimeo.
Try it out for yourself!:

Penn State Video Clip Decision Tree

Prezi Adds New Features

Have you tried Prezi yet? An old favorite of Learning Technologies, this online presentation tool is quickly growing in popularity as an alternative to linear slideshow programs. Just last month, they added three new features to the presentation mode that are quite exciting:

  • Screen Blackout – Need a break from visuals for a moment? While in presentation mode, users can now simply press the B key to temporarily black out their screen. Moving the mouse or pressing any other key will return to the presentation from there.
  • 3D Backgrounds – Users can now add layers to their presentation, creating a 3D effect. Watch the video below to see the feature in action:

  • Fade-in Animation – Content can now be faded in and out within frames. This is great if you wish to add a hide-and-reappear effect to your presentation. Here’s another video to show you how:

If you’d like to keep up with Prezi as it grows, check out their new feature log, which will be updated when new features are added.

Thanks to David Andrade at Educational Technology Guy for bringing this to our attention!

Back-to-School Apps for Instructors and Students

In the spirit of back-to-school season, onlinecolleges.net recently published lists of recommended smartphone apps for students and instructors. We’ve decided to share a few of their favorites–as well as some of ours–with you here:

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