Month: March 2011

E-Portfolio

At ECU we are using I-Webfolio to create electronic portfolios and in Allied Health the Department of Occupational Therapy now has the Class of 2011 and 2012 using the system.

“Electronic portfolios allow students to collect evidence of learning outside the classroom so they don’t need to be tied to the classroom to learn. The portfolio, then, is the new book: the central technology around which to design learning. Portfolios are accessible from anywhere, including (increasingly) from mobile technology. This means that the whole campus and the nearby community is a connected classroom.

Why not, for example, have students reflect on what they learn participating in sports and validate those reflections as equally important to what they learn studying World War I?

Students create a portfolio of all the learning they experience on campus and are then assessed and evaluated on the evidence they present of their learning.”

From http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2011/01/19/The-Myth-of-eLearning.aspx?Page=2

There be dragons…

Our department, as Mediasite content managers, have recently been reminded of certain copyright issues.  For those of you who record classes, either with Mediasite or other means, there is a wrinkle in the copyright law that you should be aware of.  Those who teach in face-to-face classrooms have a great deal of power to use copyrighted material under Section 110 of the copyright law.  They can, for example, legally show entire Hollywood movies as part of their class presentation.  However, once a “digital network” becomes involved (such as for transmitting the performance to a place outside the classroom, such as a distance student watching live, or a digital recorder or server that contains a copy of the performance), Section 110 places a load of restrictions on the teacher.  The nature of these restrictions is too complex to discuss here but I will be glad to discuss them with anyone who asks.

From the perspective of the professor recording a course, BE CAREFUL.  You can show the in-class students an episode of “Seinfeld” or “Gone with the Wind,” for example, but you cannot place this on your Mediasite Read more

Who killed the mouse?

The last person to use the room?  If the wireless mouse in your lecture room is dead do not worry.  These mice all have rechargeable batteries located on the desk, they are those small items with a blue charging base.  Still not sure where they are call OET and we will be glad to demonstrate!

Of course if everyone remembered to put the poor little mouse back in its cradle we would not need to replace its batteries!