ACT 2012 Report on College Readiness

ACT has released their annual report The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2012, focusing on the scores earned by graduating seniors of the class of 2012 who took the ACT college and career readiness exam in high school. Among the results -- 28 percent did not meet any of the four ACT College Readiness Benchmarks in English, mathematics, reading and science, suggesting they are likely to struggle in first-year college courses in those subject areas. Only 25 percent met all four ACT benchmarks. College readiness levels remain particularly low among African American and Hispanic students.

The full national report and each state ACT report are available athttp://www.act.org/newsroom/data/2012/index.html. View the Washington State report.

Lessons Learned from New-to-online Instructor

Pushing Through The Perils of Teaching Online

August 27, 2012, 11:00 am

By Prof. Hacker

 

Excerpt from the blog post:

 

...This was unfamiliar territory. In my march toward tenure, I had consistently received stellar teaching evaluations. I throw myself into classes and experiment with new material, techniques and technologies. I work at learning the strengths and weaknesses of my students, always making time for them and learning about their aspirations. That has paid off, not only with tenure but with an award as the college journalism and mass communication teacher of the year.
I bring that up to offer perspective, not to boast. On the one hand, I was being told I was among the best of the best teachers. On the other hand, many students told me I was a failure online."

Read the full story...

MOOCs on the Move?

Are MOOCs the simple fix for the future of education? Not everyone thinks so.

Phil Hill, executive vice president at Delta Initiative, posts the following on his blog, "e-Literate":

So what are the barriers that must be overcome for the MOOC concept (in future generations) to become self-sustaining? To me the most obvious barriers are:

• Developing revenue models to make the concept self-sustaining;
• Delivering valuable signifiers of completion such as credentials, badges or acceptance into accredited programs;
• Providing an experience and perceived value that enables higher course completion rates (most today have less than 10% of registered students actually completing the course); and
• Authenticating students in a manner to satisfy accrediting institutions or hiring companies that the student identify is actually known.

Read the full post...

Instructure Canvas: It's all about how you bounce

We always seem to learn about the true character of people and organizations as we watch how they react or respond to "bad days."

Here's what Joshua Kim of Inside Higher Ed has to say about Instructure:

My overall read on "Canvas' Bad Day", however, is that Instructure's open and public communication about the problems demonstrated a commitment to transparency and integrity.

All of us can learn from Instructure and Josh Coates' example of how to behave when things go wrong.

Read the full article: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/4-things-we-learned-about-instructure-canvas-bad-day#ixzz24sMac8wx
Inside Higher Ed

Accessibility Online

Shared by Michael Arnold, eLearning Director at Bellingham Technical College:

The eLC Accessibility Work Group would like to share some valuable resources with you.  We invite you to view the two highlighted videos below, as they tell the story of access from those who need it most.  Bear in mind, however, that accessibility benefits all students which is our ultimate goal via universal design principles. 

YOUTUBE Videos highlighting what accessibility looks like to those who need it:

Don’t Leave Me Out

Helping the blind navigate the online world

RESOURCES leading to successful implementation of UDL and Accessibility features:

Universal Design: http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/universaldesign/intro.html

Captioning: http://griffinworldwide.net/services/video-captioning

Free Accessibility tools: http://access.uoa.gr/fs/eng/pages/home

Georgia Tech Research Institute, Sec508 Accessibility in the State of Washington: http://accessibility.gtri.gatech.edu/sitid/state_prototype.php?state=47#47ApplicationDevelopment

Shoreline Virtual College; Ann Garnsey-Harter

From the WCET blog:

This July, the Shoreline Virtual College, a comprehensive community college just north of Seattle, went from project to product, from ethereal to earthly, from dream to … well, you get the idea.
It is absolutely a work in progress, but it also has progressed to absolutely working.

The Vision
Our effort had an inauspicious beginning. At a brown-bag, all-comers campus lunch on Aug. 26, 2010, our president, Lee Lambert, said, ““Technology can provide the platform to build a college within a college.” Then, using the analogy of a store that has a physical location to serve some customers, but can serve many more with an online store, he added: “What if we had a virtual store?”

So begins the the story of Shoreline Community College’s journey in moving their ‘virtual college’ from an idea to a reality. 

Ann Garnsey-Harter tells the Shoreline story... Read the full posting on the WCET blog.

Placement Assessments Report by Jobs for the Future

From Jobs for the Future:

 

For years, colleges have used placement exams to determine whether to deem incoming students “college ready” or assign them to developmental education. But emerging research has cast doubt on the practice, sparking national debates over whether the tests are fair and if their traditional use constitutes a barrier to college completion.

JFF brings clarity to the discussion in its new report, “Where to Begin?” by Pamela Burdman. The report helps state and college leaders understand the latest research, make sense of the contentious debate issues, and most importantly, evaluate their own options for moving forward.