Category: Key Concepts

Gaining an Audience for Class Blogs Through QuadBlogging

A class blog is a great online forum for students to post thoughts, discussions, and multimedia content related to what they’re learning in class. But without an audience to visit and interact with the blog, it’s difficult for students to feel motivated enough to post and maintain the blog.

Enter QuadBlogging, a creative practice that was devised by David Mitchell in 2011. QuadBlogging refers to a system in which 4 classes join together to form a “Quad.” Each week, one class’s blog becomes the focus blog, and the other 3 classes visit and comment on that blog. Thus, after a 4-week cycle, each class has had a turn to become the focus blog, and their work has been viewed and appreciated by the other classes.

Learning Analytics: Leveraging Education Data [INFOGRAPHIC]

Learning analytics refers to the practice of gathering and analyzing data about student performance in order to improve and personalize the learning experience for each student.

Take a look at this infographic created by Open Colleges to find out how learning analytics can be used, what its limitations are, what is holding it back from becoming more popular, and how it can affect the future of learning.

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a system of classifying learning objectives, created by Benjamin Bloom in the 1950’s.

The system consists of 6 levels of understanding, ranging from simple cognitive tasks to higher-order thinking.

What is Social and Emotional Learning?

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) refers to the processes of developing social and emotional skills to promote healthy interactions with oneself and with others.

Learning these skills is critical because it enables students to ultimately become successful workers and responsible members of society. Strong social and emotional skills also reduce an individual’s risk of developing dangerous or unhealthy behaviors such as drug abuse, violence, bullying, or dropping out of school.

What is Augmented Reality?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an augmented reality experience might be worth ten thousand.

Augmented reality (AR) is a new technology that combines virtual reality with reality. Virtual reality experiences are commonly accessed by putting on specially designed headgear or interacting with a computer that allows you to see into a different world. Augmented reality, on the other hand, does exactly the opposite – it brings the virtual world into our own world of reality.

Gamification of Education

Check out this infographic from Knewton.com to learn more about the Gamification of Education. The infographic includes a brief history of gamified learning, an explanation of game elements, and examples of how games be used in schools today.

Gamification in Higher Ed

Games are typically played when taking a break from schoolwork or studying, but in recent years, game-playing has become a part of the learning process itself. As new technologies emerge and online education becomes more popular, an increasing number of…