Ted Curran.net

Tips, Tricks, and Lifehacks for Online Educators

Sometimes Twitter is just too small for big ideas– below is a twitter conversation that sprung up around my recent post Competency vs. Mastery. This post will describe how Knowledge Skills and Attitudes fit into the big picture of assessing student mastery of learning competencies.

BitTorrent Sync: Peer‐to‐peer file sharing. Like Dropbox without the middleman in the cloud.

You can think of BitTorrent Sync as “Dropbox without the Cloud”. Not to be confused with the underlying technology of BitTorrent, this is a way of keeping a folder and files sync’d across mul...

 

This video shows you how you can quickly convert a Markdown formatted presentation outline into an HTML5 presentation using Reveal.js. I think this method is a great way to familiarize yourself with web technologies while producing attractive and powerful presentations that work gr...

One of the thrilling features of the Iron Man movies is the idea that Tony Stark can step into a mechanized robot suit and control it as if he were just moving his body naturally. The suit is expertly designed to understand his movements in real time and seamlessly amplify them to give him superhuma...

The role of the instructor has become ever more complex in the last century as technology, pedagogy, and student expectations have advanced with the times. Today’s teacher is expected to not only be a Subject Matter Expert, but to serve as their own Instructional Designer, provide high‐touch stu...

Google Chromecast and TV screen
Wireless Casting on any HD TV? Courtesy: Digital Trends

As a teacher and frequent presenter, I always carry a MacBook Pro DVI to VGA adapter in my bag so I can connect to any overhead projector or flat screen wherever I’m speaking. This approach works well, but has several downsides th...

One challenge about creating reusable eLearning content is that designers often fall back into the banking model of education, creating a passive and dependent learning experience for students. This often looks like packaged PowerPoints or blocks of text readings that students are expected to cl...

A Western Bluebird adult feeding chicks in a n...
Spoon‐feeding content is not a bad thing– it’s one small part of a balanced learning breakfast. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I religiously read Audrey Watters’ Hack Education blog, often finding that I agree with her in principle and then disagree about the details of how to put a plan in...

Steampunk Mech
Steampunk Mech (Photo credit: Bricknave)

In the previous post, Saving Universities in the Era of MOOCs, I discuss the value proposition of traditional universities, and how those values are changing as massive, free online courses gain traction in higher education. This post will exami...

English: Hands collaborating in co-writing or ...

This past year has brought a massive amount of attention to Massive Open Online Courses, and much speculation about what they mean for traditional institutions of learning. The education and technology blogosphere have been breathlessly predicting the end of the world for traditional, brick‐an...