Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Tenure, Turnover and the Quality of Teaching. What is teacher quality? How can one measure it reliably? How does it relate to student learning? What can be done to improve it? By HAL R. VARIAN. [NYT > Education] 9:17:09 PM      Google It!.

Folsom Lake College Podcast. Folsom Lake College, who recently launched an RSS news feed, is podcasting a lecture series by visiting Fulbright Scholar Dr. Husain Siddiqui on issues related to the Muslim world. They’re promoting the podcast on the college home page, and they’re also promoting their aforementioned news feed on the home page. In fact, it appears as though the news and events block on the home page is driven by the RSS news feed. -Link via Scott Crow in the Public Information Office at Folsom [Syndication for Higher Ed] 8:01:50 PM      Google It!.

Building an Open Source "Clicker"?. [Slashdot] 7:54:17 PM      Google It!.

Linux Standard Effort Edges Ahead. [Slashdot] 8:48:43 AM      Google It!.

Bridging Torrent and RSS. [Slashdot] This could be used to syndicate audio files and video clips of educational materials from classroom presentations with great efficiency and user convenience.  Essentially this could be used to bring rich media to busy people via blogs.-- BL 8:46:36 AM      Google It!.

Google Moves Into Wi-Fi Arena. The little search engine that could continues evolving into a Hydralike monster. Its newest head will chew its way into the wireless internet world, making Google a direct competitor of ISPs and telecom companies. [Wired News] 7:49:57 AM      Google It!.

The Integrity of Electronic Portfolios in the US. What follows is a paper I prepared as background for an international meeting of portfolio leaders in London in May 2005 organized by the Center for Recording Acheivement. I'm coming back to it now as I think about categories for an EduTools site focused on portfolio software. Context In the United States, portfolios have long been used for promoting and assessing learning in primary, secondary, and higher education. While certain types of portfolios have an extensive history in design disciplines such as Fine Arts and Architecture, the model for portfolio practice that underlies the current boom in the use of electronic portfolios originates in Rhetoric and Composition and Education. Educators in these disciplines began to use digital media the support these portfolio processes in the early 1990s. [National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research blogs] 7:39:51 AM      Google It!.

eFolio Minnesota Study. The Minnesota State Colleges and Univeristies will publish the final report on the research they commissed me to complete for them on how people are using eFolio Minnesota sometime this month or next. During our chat this month, I promised to share a draft with you. One is attached. I hope it will be of interest to members of the Coalition, and I'd love to hear your comments. [National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research blogs] 7:39:16 AM      Google It!.