UMassOnline Named a Mass Technology Leadership Council Award Finalist
Posted on June 30, 2008 by Jennifer Brady | Leave a Comment
We learned late last week that UMassOnline has been named one of only four finalists in the ‘Public Sector Organization’ category in the Mass Technology Leadership Council’s annual recognition program. This is a very big deal for us for at least three reasons: One is because the Technology Leadership Awards recognize outstanding achievement in both the development and deployment of information technologies that address critical business issues. Two, we’re in very good company… the other finalists are the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, BostonFIRST, and the City of Boston.
Lastly, the Executive Director of the Mass Technology Leadership Council said some very nice things about us and the other finalists:
“These honorees represent the spirit of innovation, the history of accomplishment and the future promise that define the Massachusetts technology community.” said Tom Hopcroft, executive director of the Mass Technology Leadership Council.
You can learn more about this program and the finalists in the other categories here.
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High Performers Seek Continuous Learning
Posted on June 30, 2008 by Jennifer Brady | Leave a Comment
Courtesy of a well-known corporate training online publication called Human Resource Executive Online comes an interesting opinion piece authored by Kurt Ronn. He is the president and founder of HRworks, a national recruitment firm. Mr. Ronn has identified five characteristics in people that are, or become, so-called high performers on the job. One of the five top characteristics is a desire to seek continuous learning opportunities. Here’s a small part of what he says about this indicator of job performance:
A personal commitment to learning is paramount to performance… High-performing individuals seek out learning, formal or informal to hone their skills and stay on top of the latest trends and industry ideas. A simple question of how an individual stays on top of changes in the industry gives valuable insight as to their desire to be the best. Without the desire to learn, knowledge, skills and ability atrophy.
Most high performers are inquisitive and interested in innovation. Their careers demonstrate an ability to learn complex information and apply it to their role. The Internet and distance learning has become an important augmentation to corporate development.
Of course, you’re probably interested in the other four performance indicators. You can find out by reading Mr. Ronn’s full article at HREOnline.
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Online Education Gives Rise to the ‘Mini-lecture’
Posted on June 25, 2008 by Barbara Macaulay | Leave a Comment
I love this quote below by Dalton A. Kehoe, an associate professor of communication studies at York University in Toronto. It is so honest, and so revealing of the fact that great teachers are learning new things all the time. By way of introduction, Mr. Kehoe has been teaching communications studies for decades. His traditional 50-minute-long lectures have been highly praised for years. Then he started teaching online and started taping his 50-minute lectures:
“It was the most extremely boring thing my students had ever seen… I had to sit to down and look at these lectures and realize that when you’re looking at someone online as a talking head and shoulders in video, you just want to kill yourself after about 20 minutes…”
You can read more about Mr. Kehoe’s experience as well as a more complete review from those both in favor and opposed to shorter lectures in this Chronicle of Higher Education feature entitled, “Short and Sweet: Technology Shrinks the Lecture.” By most accounts, changes in the online lecture format and length have started to impact the format and length of lectures being given in traditional college classrooms. Read more…
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Results of U. of Minnesota Study on Educational Benefits of Social Networking
Posted on June 25, 2008 by David Gray | Leave a Comment
I want you to meet Mr. Bora Zivkovic, but first, this news:
On June 21st, Science Daily published this item about the University of Minnesota’s study to determine if social networking technologies provided any educational benefits. In case you don’t have time to read the report, the researchers concluded social networking is making a positive difference: “What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be successful today,” said Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies researcher in the university’s College of Education and Human Development and principal investigator of the study.
I think we knew that, but it is always good to have it confirmed, right? Meanwhile, I have a secondary agenda in bringing this news to light. I found out about it from an individual named Bora Zivkovic. In another life, at a previous time in history, I would never have ‘met’ this person. His scientific specialty is chronobiology (circadian rhythms and photoperiodism), with additional interests in comparative physiology, animal behavior and evolution. Photoperiodism? Online he goes by the name ‘Coturnix.’ His blog is called, “A Blog Around The Clock.” By day he is the Online Community Manager at PLoS-ONE (Public Library of Science). Read more…
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