Design Meets Disability

In a new book, "Design Meets Disability" Graham Pullen discusses how designing with disability in mind can help all of us. http://www.dwell.com/articles/eight-questions-for-graham-pullin.html In this interview he discusses what has been done and what he would like to see happen.

Information on the book can be found at:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11673

Online asychronous groups successful in

An artcle in the lates issue of JOLT, "Making Online Collaboration Work by Transcending Gender Stereotypes: A Study of Two Mixed Gender Online Groups" http://jolt.merlot.org/vol6no4/ritke-jones_1210.pdf reported that postings of two online groups were coded and the researchers found:

"A small online group of mixed genders may be a more fertile environment for women and men to embrace parts of themselves that they cannot in a physical space. In order for a collaborative group to succeed, all group members must take initiative and assert their voices, characteristics attributable to the masculine, while simultaneously negotiating and yielding on issues and nurturing and supporting their group mates, characteristics attributable to the feminine."

What if we did not use Social Media for one week?

Harriburg University of Science and Technology blocked the use of social media on its college network for one week. http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/opinions-mellow-on-social-media-blackout-at-harrisburg-u/28657 In the beginning students and faculty were upset, but, by the end of the week, many students found that they were less stressed, had greater concentration, found lectures more interesting, ate better and exercised more.

Self Plagiarism

Can we plagiarize ourselves? According to this article http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/12/03/zirkel
it is possible, and it is also unethical.

Making Online Learning Accessible book

An excellent book for teachers of online classes is

Combs, N. (2010). Making Online Learning Accessible: Inclusive Course Design for Students with Disabilities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470499044.html


It gives practical suggestions for the use of major tools such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The final chapter addresses the need for Institutional Support.

Papers written by others

In this article The Shadow Scholar the author claims that s/he makes over $60,000 a year writing college papers for others.

Do I believe it? Unfortunately, I do. I have always suspected that college application essays, for example, are written by parents or older siblings, and some have even confessed that they did this. I think the teacher needs to give enough writing assignments to get a feel for what the student can do and then it is easy to spot the fake. However, this means that the institution should not overload the number of students in the teacher's class.

Online education and ADA

As the number of online courses increase, there is growing concern about the use of multimedia and the problems that this may cause for ADA students. http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/ada-compliance-a-major-vulnerability-for-online-programs/28136 Often there are not even formal policies. Higher education institutions do not realize that the law does pertain to online courses, but it does. A good introduction to the subject is the book "Making Online Teaching Accessible: Inclusive Course Design for Students with Disabilities" by Norman Coombs, published by Jossey-Bass. http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470499044.html