For the anxious learner

Image by ShashaW

Through my work, I come into contact with colleagues who are interested in knowing what technology can do for them, but are unsure of where to start.  They are often overwhelmed by the wealth of tools and resources out there, anxious about getting left behind in the rapidly changing world of technology and about admitting they don't know about things they think they should.

With this enthusiastic but apprehensive person in mind,  I've collated a selection of resources to form a mini lesson called Creating your personal learning network : a way to share ideas and learn from those around by you tapping in to existing global networks of practitioners across the web.  It aims to be a starting point for dipping your toe into the web 2.0 world of sharing and learning from each other.

Antidote to the post lunch dip

If, like me, you suffer from an after-lunch period of drowsiness, and taking a siesta is not an option, dipping into this little book is a refreshing antidote!  77 things to think about learning and teaching in higher education.

Turnitin talk

image by woodleywonderworks under a CC-BY licence

Today's online seminar from Turnitin outlined recently released and new and upcoming features.  It was pretty brief so here's just an outline of what was revealed.  These are available through the full Turnitin service.  Here at NTU we use Turnitin through our VLE, so some of these features won't be available to us just yet.

Recently released:

 

Grademark Tutorial

Learn how to use Grademark through an online tutorial: www.turnitin.com/demo/dv

Voice Comments

Record audio feedback on submissions with Voice Comments.  Max 3 mins recording time.

Instructor Dashboard
Shows sumbission, late submissions, highlights cause for concern, failed to submit, all displayed in one place. (not avilable through VLE integration - working to make it so)

Coming up:

Turnitin welcome feedback and input on the following which are currently in development. 

iPad grading for Jan2013

Part of the Grademark app, will allow instructors to mark papers in Grademark on the iPad offline, then when backonline sync back up. Will be in app store for free. Will be able to see some of originality report.

Flexible grading and marking: 

Will allow non numeric, and decimal grading (e.g ABC, 2.1, 2.2)

Future plans:

Assignment management

More flexible for instructors: can view wordcount, submission time and date, how much time students have spent looking  at their feedback.

Post dates - release feedback on demand streamlined, and possible to an individual student

GradeAnything

Sept 2013

Will allow the use of Grademark to mark Word docs, web pages, blods, videos, audio, Powerpoint, Excel,
give feedback in grademark on anything.