Adobe Captivate Tutorial - Adding A Note Taking Capability To Your Project In this video I show you an easy to use learning interaction that is built-in to Captivate to add notes for your learners to type. This widget allows users to type, save or print their notes any time they wish. This adds an additional layer of interactivity to your courses. The post Adobe Captivate Tutorial - Adding A Note Taking Capability To Your Project appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

So, we’re at the point in our  project where the design teams have made decisions about whose building the space rover, whose  preparing the presentation and whose making sure everything gets done.  I was sitting at my desk Thursday watching my classic introvert work feverishly at the computer on her Glogster. One of her team […]

My family thinks I’m insane.  I can open a streaming movie on Netflix, get it going, then minimize the movie, then insist they all be quiet so I can"watch" my movie in peace.  My principal thinks I’m not paying attention at staff meetings because I’m the one sitting in the back of the room, grading […]

I’ve made statements late last year to the effect that "corporate MOOCs will be the big trend in 2014″. I was wrong. Recently, with CorpU and Reda Sadki, I ran an open online conference on corporate MOOCs. We put together a strong line up of presenters and topics and I expected reasonably strong turnout as the topic was timely. While we had a large number of signups, we only had 15-30 people attend each session. The sessions were generally one-way information flow (from the presenter). Attendees appeared to be reluctant to share experiences and views. I’m not sure if this was due to corporate interests in preserving and not sharing information or if we just didn’t hit on the right topics. The recordings of most sessions are available here (we had a few requests to not record sessions by presenters). Some excellent presentations! Aside from not having the engagement I was hoping for, I was interested in several points raised during the event: - Corporate MOOC completion rates are in the 70-80% range - Coursera is heavily focused on providing branded "turn key" content for corporation training - Systems like WorldBank are developing MOOCs as an integrated part of their overall online or digital learning strategy - Several corporations, notably Google and SAP, are deep in the rabbit hole of MOOCs already and are reporting position experiences for both employees and customers who have taken their courses - Consulting services such as Parthenon are deeply engaged in MOOCs and helping organizations plan for and deploy them. - The costs of MOOCs are significant in terms of capital and time and effort of people. It’s not as simple a process as many assume when they start. - Military organizations are exploring MOOCs and alternative teaching/learning approaches and are reporting promising early results. But we can’t tell you everything. It will be declassified in 2050. - Organizations are primarily using MOOCs for internal learning, marketing, connecting with customers, and "teaching" suppliers.

In this episode of House of #EdTech I pay homage to the Final Four and share my #EdTech Final Four of apps and technology from the East, South, Midwest and West regions!   My 2014 #EdTech Final Four are:   (South) FlipQuiz (East) MyScript Calculator for iOS & Android | MyScript.com (West) Evernote(Midwest) Card Table for iOS   All Links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2014/03/houseofedtech7.html   FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

Mirror iPad, iPhone, iPod to Your Screen for Free — Tony Vincent #edchat #edtech #ipadchat #ipaded http://t.co/3tlIO5mCN2 Tags: edchat edtech ipadchat ipaded

My Saturday mornings are typically spent with a cup of coffee or two or three, surrounded by various screens, catching up on the news of the week. I used to subscribe to a lot of newspapers. These days I subscribe...

Still trying to catch up with things, I’m listening to Sue Waters talk about the ins and outs of Blogging with Your Students and I am thinking about my class website/blog and all the trouble I’ve been having getting my students to blog. Naturally, I have my over achievers, who are blogging their little hearts […]

Jay Eitner is the Superintendent of the Lower Alloways Creek (NJ) school district and he his a forward thinking educator, leader, and administrator. Jay began his career in education as a middle school social studies teacher and he has also been a social studies supervisor and an assistant principal.   Jay is also the first House of #EdTech VIP to appear as a guest on the podcast!   Connect with Jay: @iSuperEit jayeitner.com All links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2014/04/houseofedtech8.html   FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

I’m in grad school, working diligently towards my degree in Educational Technology.  The course I started this week is on Teacher Leadership and already, I’m able to see the comparisons to working in educational technology. One article in particular has caused a good deal of reflection for me: Teacher Leadership, by Shelly Kurtz outlines what […]

Some times are better for listening than for talking and writing. The Sage Road team been doing a lot of listening these past few weeks, thanks to being involved in strategic planning work with several of our clients. But I...

In a previous post, I commented on the Massive Teaching course at Coursera and that something odd was happening. Either Coursera deleted the prof from the course or the prof was running some type of experiment. It now appears to be primarily the latter. The story has now been covered by The Chronicle (here and here) and Inside Higher Ed (here). Thoughtful reflections have been provided by Rolin Moe and Jonathan Rees. Participants on Twitter have also had their say. The general consensus is that "wow, this is weird". Coursera has deftly pushed everything back to the University of Zurich, who in turn has pushed it onto the prof, Paul-Olivier Dehaye. Commenters have been rather cruel (I know, shocking to have mean people on the internet), going so far as to question Dehaye’s sanity. OT: Favourite comment of the day: "Moocs are demonic, and unhuman." There is plenty of blame to go around. Dehaye has not publicly commented. Coursera very quickly washed its hands of the situation. What Dehaye did was inappropriate and might have crossed a few ethical boundaries. That’s an important angle, but not one that I want to pursue here. Three substantial concerns exist: 1. Coursera has been revealed as a house of cards in terms of governance and procedures for dealing with unusual situations. While Coursera promotes itself as a platform, something that I wrote about a few years ago, it is more Frankensteinian than functional. MOOCs were developed so quickly and with such breathless optimism that the architects didn’t pay much attention to boring stuff like foundations and plumbing. What is the governance model at Coursera? Is there anything like a due process to resolve conflicts? And a range of questions around content ownership and learner data. I have a colleague who taught on Coursera recently. He was unable to get access to data that had previously been promised. In a university, there is a counterbalancing process to these types of conflict or disagreements. At MOOC providers, the company rules. This is fine at Facebook, but Coursera is essentially a leech on the education system - getting teaching for free while exploring new ways to monetize the process. (Wait. Doesn’t that make them the Elsevier of teaching and learning? Content and teaching free. Monetize the backend.) My point here is that the governance structure that underpins university is lacking in MOOC providers. It is not a balanced and equitable system. There are many fissures in the MOOC model and as providers become more prominent in education these fissures will become more evident. If companies like Coursera and edX expect to be able to make decisions on behalf of faculty and partner universities, conflict is inevitable. A transparent process is required. 2. University of Zurich has an obligation and responsibility to its faculty. Where a university’s reputation and identity can be launched internationally in a MOOC, leadership should have some quality control process in place. Is the university so poorly informed about online learning that simply giving a faculty member keys to the kingdom without some guidance and direction was assumed to be a good approach? There is much blame to be shared and it should fall in the following order: 1. Coursera, 2. U of Zurich, 3. Dehaye 3. Criticism ranging from a poorly designed course to poor ethics has been directed to Paul-Olivier Dehaye. Most of it is unfair. There have been some calls for U of Zurich to discipline the prof. Like others, I’ve criticized his deception research and his silence since the course was shut down. Several days before the media coverage, Dehaye provided the following comments on his experiment: "MOOCs can be used to enhance privacy, or really destroy it," Dehaye wrote. "I want to fight scientifically for the idea, yet teach, and I have signed contracts, which no one asks me about…. I am in a bind. Who do I tell about my project? My students? But this idea of the #FacebookExperiment is in itself dangerous, very dangerous. People react to it and express more emotions, which can be further mined." The goal of his experiment, Dehaye wrote, was to "confuse everyone, including the university, [C]oursera, the Twitter world, as many journalists as I can, and the course participants. The goal being to attract publicity…. I want to show how [C]oursera tracks you." There it is. His intent was to draw attention to Coursera policies and practices around data. Congrats, Paul-Olivier. Mission accomplished. He is doing exactly what academics should do: perturb people to states of awareness. Hundreds, likely thousands, of faculty have taught MOOCs, often having to toe the line of terms and conditions set by an organization that doesn’t share the ideals, community, and egalitarianism that define universities (you can include me in that list). The MOOC Mystery was about an academic doing what we expect and need academics to do. Unfortunately it was poorly executed and not properly communicated so the message has been largely lost. Regardless, Dehaye has started a conversation, raised a real concern, pushed buttons, and put a spotlight on unfair or opaque practices by organizations who are growing in influence in education. Yes, there are ethical concerns that need to be addressed. But let’s not use those ethical concerns to silence an important concern or isolate a needed narrative around what MOOCs are, how they are impacting higher education and faculty, and how control is being wrested from the people who are vital counter-balancing agents in society’s power structure. Paul-Olivier - thanks. Let’s have more of this.

Excellent photo editing site. Tags: photo_editing

I’m doing a bit of housekeeping around here.  (We’ve had the conversation about my inability to remain static, right?) New tabs at the top coming soon.  So, I moved the Twitter Ed to a post.  Enjoy! via TeachThought (more added in comments there) Do you have a hashtag we should know about?  Add it in the comments below! […]

In this episode of House of #EdTech I speak to Jessica Johnson, a tech-savvy Principal who shares her views on a variety of technologies that shes used as a teacher and now employs as a school leader.   Follow Jessica http://twitter.com/principalj   All Links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2014/04/houseofedtech9.html   FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

You may remember that my Dec. 12th post entitled "No More Living in Shame" dealt with the topic of the perceived (lack of) quality found in online programs. There is certainly plenty of evidence available today that puts to rest...

QR Codes in School - Pinterest board by @lherr: http://t.co/JvdYOWyRyf #mobile2013 Tags: mobile2013

The television commercials are the signal to shift gears. My favorite ones are the Kmart "yo mama" ones. Its time to get our heads out of the clouds and back in the books.  Its time to think about where to put the dry erase boards and pencil boxes.  Its time to be hang posters and […]

This blogpost is my long overdue trip report for the ASTD TechKnowledge conference Las Vegas, NV January 26-29, 2010. For the first time in a number of years I attended TK10 as a stakeholder and participant, rather than as a...

I’m at the Knewton Symposium - an event focusing on the future of digital learning. This is the second year that I’ve attended. It’s a small event (last year had ~20 attendees, this year it’s closer to 60+). Knewton brings in a range of speakers and leaders in education, ranging from startups to big edtech companies and publishers to faculty and advocates for some type of change. The conversations are diverse, as can be expected when publishers and open education advocates as well as VC firms and academics share the same stage. The narrative of educational change is more stable than it was even a few years ago and it’s reflected in this symposium. In 2011, everything was up in the air: universities were dead, faculty would be replaced by MOOCs, California would solve its education crisis by partnering with a small startup, and so on. Now the narrative has coalesced around: 1. economics and funding, 2. access and affordability, 3. innovation and creativity, 4. data and analytics, 5. future university models. While I’m interested in all five of those narratives, particularly the way in which these are being framed by university leaders, vendors and startups, and politicians, I’d like to focus here on one aspect of the conversation around future university models: unbundling. Unbundling is an appealing concept to change mongers. The lessons of the album and mp3′s is strong with these folks. MP3s lead to newspapers which lead to music and media in general. Since change mongers (a species native to Silicon Valley but now becoming an invasive species in numerous regions around the world. Frankenfish comes to mind) do not have much regard for nuance and detail, opting instead for blunt mono-narratives, unbundling is a perfect concept to articulate needed change. There are a few things wrong with the idea of unbundling in education: 1. Unbundling is different in social systems than it is in a content only system. An album can be unbundled without much loss. Sure, albums like The Wall don’t unbundle well, but those are exceptions. Unbundling a social system has ripple effects that cannot always be anticipated. The parts of a social system are less than the whole of a social system. Unbundling, while possible in higher education, is not a zero sum game. The pieces on the board that get rearranged will have a real impact on learners, society, and universities. 2. When unbundling happens, it is only temporary. Unbundling leads to rebundling. And digital rebundling results in less players and less competition. What unbundling represents then is a power shift. Universities are today an integrated network of products and services. Many universities have started to work with partners like Pearson (ASU is among the most prominent) to expand capacity that is not evident in their existing system. Rebundling is what happens when the pieces that are created as a sector moves online become reintegrated into a new network model. It is most fundamentally a power shift. The current integrated higher education system is being pulled apart by a range of companies and startups. Currently the university is in the drivers seat. Eventually, the unbundled pieces will be integrated into a new network model that has a new power structure. For entrepreneurs, the goal appears to be to become part of a small number of big winners like Netflix or Google. When Sebastian Thrun stated that Udacity would be one of only 10 universities in the future, he was exhibiting the mentality that has existed in other sectors that have unbundled. Unbundling is not the real story: the real issue is the rebundling and how power structures are re-architected. Going forward, rebundling will remove the university from the drivers seat and place the control into the re-integrated networks.

  Natalie O'Neil, a tech-savvy high school English teacher, talks about her plunge into education technology and shares some of the great ways she is integrating technology in her high school.   Follow Natalie http://twitter.com/TeachNV   All Links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2014/05/houseofedtech10.html   FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

Has anyone created a survey that asks about internet access w/o actually asking? Like, do you have a FB acct? #EdTech #Teachers #techined — C. S Stone (@sci_teacher1161) August 13, 2013

Did you know the original Google storage was housed in Lego bricks? #HappyBirthdayGoogle http://t.co/q33kt0CywW Tags: HappyBirthdayGoogle

I’ve thought about it… long and hard.  Our district is still on the fence about changing the cell phone policy and whether or not students can use devices in class, but considering I’m the "disruptive teacher", I know what I have to do to teach the way I want to teach in MY classroom.  Even […]