Blog IT

Duke Professor Uses 'Crowdsourcing' to Grade

'Crowdsourcing,' the notion of using the wisdom of the crowd for sites like Wikipedia, could be making its way into academe as a grading method that holds students more accountable.
A professor at Duke University plans to test just that this fall, when she leaves the evaluation of class assignments up to her students, using crowdsourcing to make students responsible for grading each other. Read more.

Decision Theater

The Decision Theater makes the classroom and learning experience portable by providing an immersive, collaborative, and interactive decision lab.  Dynamic conversations can take place in this learning environment. Visualization of complex concepts helps people “see differently” and make better-informed decisions. Read more.

"Where Do You Learn?": Tweeting to Inform Learning Space Development

Emerging technologies and applications can extend traditional approaches to data generation and can be used effectively in institutional planning. Read more.

The Inclusion Principle

Making accessible design an organic element of front-end development - the inclusion principle.

Why Do We Assess?

Better assessment isn't automatically achieved by using new digital methods--it will probably take another approach to assessment as well. The place to start reassessing your assessment strategies may be in trying to capture what learning means to the students. Read article.

Seven Strategies for Plagiarism-proofing Discussion Threads in Online Courses

Online discussions are an integral part of distance education courses. They provide a means for interaction among students and the instructor about course content as well as an opportunity for students to develop critical thinking skills. A growing number of faculty, however, have expressed concern about plagiarism occurring in online discussions. Rather than instructors policing discussion threads and then engaging in the time-consuming process of documenting occurrences of plagiarism, this paper considers whether it is possible to deter plagiarism of discussion threads through design and facilitation. Seven strategies for plagiarism-proofing online discussion threads are presented. Read more.