[Question from a colleague] _It appears that OpenClass has the same mission as Canvas – OpenClass: “disrupt technology for education”, Canvas: “disrupting the Learning Management System (LMS) market.” Does this new partnership introduce any concerns about Canvas’ future. Blackboard has to change...
If you’re like me, one of the first computer skills you were taught in school (in the early 1990s) is how to use a word processor. We all mastered the art of formatting words for the printed page because we were still using computers in a paper‐based world. As more business and education activities...
If you do a lot of presentations or tutorials about technology, you probably have to take screenshots of websites to illustrate your ideas. I really like to add a “wow” factor to my presentations whenever I can do it gracefully, and I’ve been using Firefox’s 3D Developer Preview to add visual in...
In my last post, I recommended using a password manager like LastPass to help you create strong, unique passwords for all of the different sites you use. If you don’t like the idea of storing passwords in the cloud, the next best way is to create a...
You may have heard Blackboard’s announcement that it’s being acquired by Providence Equity Partners. If you are in the midst of an LMS Evaluation (like we are), you may be wondering what this news does to the level of service that Bb will be able to provide in t...
Friends and colleagues have been expressing doubt about entrusting their data to “The Cloud”, especially in light of the recent high profile attacks on the CIA, the Senate, and Sony (among many others). As educators are increasingly adopting cloud‐based t...
Until I saw this TED talk, I didn’t care much that free Web 2.0 tools like Google and Facebook were collecting massive dossiers of information about my online habits. I thought they were just using it to serve me more relevant ads and improve my user experience. It seemed like a small price to pay f...
One of the great strengths of Project‐Based Learning (PBL) is that students learn the skills they need to successfully see a job through all the way to completion. They learn to break large tasks into smaller ones, prioritize and sequence those tasks into manageable chunks that can be executed in...
This post discusses how to build your own Personal (or Professional) Learning Network. Instead of starting by telling you which tools to use, I want to talk about why you would do this in the first place.…
This is a photo of my high school math teacher, Coach John Wa...
Online teachers and instructional designers need access to good tools for capturing screenshots and annotating them. These tools are invaluable for giving step‐by‐step computer instructions to students and faculty, and can really help you communicate information visually.
If you’re new to screen...