CRD 704\Links to other sites
From WolfWikis
Portals and Projects on Teaching and Technology
How do students learn in the classroom? How can teachers best utilize new and emerging technologies in the classroom? What can teachers do to seamlessly incorporate technology into the learning experience? These are all questions that are asked by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s Knowledge Media Laboratory. On their website, users can learn about their work with communities of teachers, faculty, programs, and institutions over the past several years, and also look over some of their informative case studies. The Gallery of Teaching and Learning is a good place to start one’s exploration of the site, as it contains a number of exhibitions that look at how web-based tools can be used in teaching and how scholarship may change as a result of an increasingly networked milieu. One seminal resource on the site is the KEEP Toolkit. With the Toolkit, teachers and others can create engaging knowledge representations on the web for their own use. For visitors who might feel a bit overwhelmed by this, there is also a nice tutorial that explains how the Toolkit can be used. [KMG]
2. No Significant Difference site
This website has been designed to serve as a companion piece to Thomas L. Russell's book, "The No Significant Difference Phenomenon" (2001, IDECC, fifth edition). Mr. Russell's book is a fully indexed, comprehensive research bibliography of 355 research reports, summaries and papers that document no significant differences (NSD) in student outcomes between alternate modes of education delivery, with a foreword by Dr. Richard E. Clark. [from site] You can search the site by year or using simple search tersms, or use the advanced search feature. Much of the site focuses on comparisons of traditional and technology-enhanced learning. It also includes studies that do show significant differences. [CMA]
3. NC State's LITRE (Learning in a Technology-Rich Environment) practices directory
This searchable, online database of innovative technology-enhanced teaching practices allows contributions from NC State faculty. [CMA]
Links to Specific Technologies
1. Here's the link to the online survey creation company: Zoomerang
Zoomerang pioneered online survey software in 1999 to give organizations like yours a powerful self-service alternative to conduct accurate comprehensive surveys with a minimum of cost and effort. Today, Zoomerang is the world’s #1 source of online surveys, helping thousands of organizations – including over 70 of the Fortune 100 – in 100+ countries. Zoomerang’s business, educational and nonprofit customers have created and sent more than 100 million customer, employee and market-research surveys. Zoomerang supplements its surveys with expert professional services, including survey programming, translation, deployment and analysis, along with recruitment and selection of custom groups of survey respondents. See what Zoomerang can do for your organization
2. BrightText
This technology allows for the customization of form letters so that people can substitute synonyms and make a letter look original (for purposes of, say, writing to a senator about an issue). The best demonstration of this is found at the following URL for a pro-environmental group: http://www.saveourenvironment.org/nationalparksbt.html In the writing class, this technology might be used for work on rhetorical and linguistic (or stylistic) decision-making. A text could be manipulated with different choices, some effective, some less so. Students could use the "random substitution" feature, generate one of many versions of the text, then write about which substitutions work or don't work, and why. Or a text could be created and students could use the "customize" feature to make their own substitutions, and explain why they are effective. [CMA]
3. Damicon's List of Open Source Software
A list of open source applications, categorized by type of software, function, and comparison to proprietary software.
Links to Support Services and Web Sites
1. Resources for Online Writing Centers
An entry at the CompFaq portal, this link goes to an annotated bibliography of resources for online writing centers. The resources listed here are decidedly practice-based or have some examples of a practical application. [CMA]