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Friday, November 11, 2011

Dillard University Choir Events December 2011

Congratulations are in order for our stellar choir. Good news travels in a threesome.



1. The Dillard University Choir has been selected to perform at the White House during the 2011 Holiday season. The choir will render Christmas music for two hours in the East Wing of the White House. We will keep you informed of the exact date.


2. On December 4, 2011 the choir will celebrate its 75th Annual Christmas Concert


3. On Tuesday, November 29th, the Dillard University Choir will be featured on the WWL-TV morning show. The choir will perform some of its holiday songs.


Congratulations again!
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University Business: More Students From New Orleans Colleges Are Studying Abroad

The Times-Picayune
As she moved from table to table, scanning the glossy brochures touting faraway lands at Tulane University's Study Abroad Fair, Alle Ehrhardt was clearly a woman on a mission. The freshman biology major didn't know where that mission would take her -- Ireland, perhaps, or South Africa or Paris, to name a few possibilities -- but she knew she had to go ... somewhere.
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Tomorrow's Professor: Projects, Tests, or Assignments That Require Original or Creative Thinking


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The Southern Education Foundation to host Student Learning Outcomes Institute for MSIs


MSI Student Learning Outcomes Institute

FEBRUARY 2 - 4, 2012
Grand Hyatt Hotel - Atlanta, GA

Southern Education Foundation

135 Auburn Ave NE
2nd Floor
Atlanta, GA 30303
404.523.0001 Office
404.523.6904 Fax

The Southern Education Foundation announces its upcoming MSI Student Learning Outcomes Institute to be held February 2-4, 2012 at the Grand Hyatt-Atlanta. In addition to the goal of increasing degree productivity in the U.S. are concerns about being able to demonstrate what students actually know and are able to do upon graduation. SEF is leading the way for MSIs that play a vital role in the nation's degree completion agenda but like all institutions must improve their ability to measure and demonstrate student learning on their campuses.

On Thursday February 2, 2012 from 8:30am to 4:30pm SEF and the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) will co-host an IPEDS Data and Benchmarking Workshop designed to improve uses of student data and measurements of institutional effectiveness. With support from the National Center for Educational Statistics, SEF is partnering with AIR to offer this workshop specifically for Institutional Researchers at MSIs. The Student Learning Outcomes Institute will begin with an opening dinner at 7:00pm February 2nd and conclude Saturday February 4th at 2:00pm. SEF has invited campuses to send three-member teams to participate (the chief academic officer, the institutional effectiveness/research officer, and a key faculty member).

The Southern Education Foundation is the nation's oldest education nonprofit and has for over 145 years made significant contributions to improving education at all levels, from pre-kindergarten through higher education. In the face of calls for greater accountability aimed at colleges and universities SEF's efforts will help affirm, with greater evidence, the outsized contributions MSIs make to students and the critically important role they play in achieving the nation's educational goals.









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The Chronicle of Higher Education: 'Digital Natives' Aren't Necessarily Digital Learners By Brian Cowan


November 6, 2011
I remember discussing Twitter with a colleague at an academic conference back in 2009. "We have to start using it," he told me. I asked why. His answer: "The kids are using it."


That argument underscores all that I find wrong with the application of technology in higher education. In recent years, professors have heard much about the virtues and promise of new technologies, painted as the saviors of an irrelevant higher-education system that has grown out of touch with today's learners. It has reached the point that some of us believe there is something wrong with us if we do not adopt these technologies in our teaching. But proponents of the new learning technologies seem to ignore the human side of using them. They seem content simply to shill for hardware and software companies, forgetting that just because we can do something does not mean we should.


I am a technophile. I believe strongly in the effective application of a variety of technologies to learning, and in the benefits they can provide. I have designed many online- and blended-learning courses at my university. However, every technology has both strengths and weaknesses.

While technology has made huge leaps in the past decade (not to mention the past century), I believe the relationship between student and teacher has changed very little since Aristotle's day. All technology does is offer us another way of doing what has been done for centuries. Where Aristotle may have used a stick to draw in the dirt to demonstrate, today's teacher uses a stylus or cursor to draw in the digital dirt of the computer display. Whichever tool is used, the actual learning that results depends totally on the skill of the teacher and the motivation of the student, not the technology involved. Of the two, the student's motivation matters most.


There is no learning without pain, Aristotle said. Regardless of which technologies we use (or do not use), the teacher's goal is still to motivate, demonstrate, clarify, and reinforce. The student's goal is to be open to instruction, to understand, to memorize-to learn. Technology will not make learning painless. It will not necessarily make learning easy or fun. It can, however, make learning more accessible, and, if properly applied, more effective. To appreciate the proper application of learning technology, we need to examine it within the context of human behavior. To do that, we must dispel many of the myths that have sprung up. Among them:


Myth 1: Digital natives are automatically digital learners. For years we have been told that students today (and here I am talking about those age 18 to 24) are different. These "digital natives" were born with digital spoons in their mouths. They have grown up with technology as a constant companion, and they outshine "digital immigrants" (those who were born before the digital age, as I was) at every turn.

Several years ago, as a part-time instructor of communication studies, I decided that since I was dealing with the digital generation, I would give each student a single page of course instructions during the first class. That sheet included the URL for the course's Web site and instructions about how to log on. The Web site was well prepared, with a course outline, interactive elements, and all lesson materials needed to participate in the course. Yet in the next-to-last class of the semester, students were still asking basic administrative questions that had been clearly explained on the Web site from the beginning.


Using the technologies common to digital natives did not make these students digital learners. Granted, they could download movies and music and play games. They could text one another and Google. But they had no idea how to work with their technology. That was the biggest difference I noticed between the digital natives and the digital immigrants.


Myth 2: Students prefer using technology to learn. Information accessed using the latest handheld technology may be what students want, but is it what they need? Even Marc Prensky, the author and an educational-software designer who coined the term "digital native," in 2001, wrote at the time that today's students "have little patience for lectures, step-by-step logic, and 'tell-test' instruction."


This lack of patience and lack of perseverance are two traits often mentioned in connection with the digital generation. But when I was a young adult, I didn't have much patience or perseverance, either. These two valuable characteristics must usually be learned, but will students learn them if we constantly kowtow to their demands for easy access to content? I don't mean to imply that we shouldn't listen to students. Rather, we must consider carefully which ideas we adopt and which we shelve. Otherwise we will become more preoccupied with following the latest trend than with addressing long-term need.


Myth 3: Cyberspace is the new classroom. Traditional education is based on cloistering student and teacher away from the distractions of everyday life. The classroom is a safe place to read, listen, observe, discuss, question, think-to learn. But today, rather than schedule life around learning, as society has done for hundreds of years, we want to schedule learning around life. Learning becomes just one more aspect of a busy life. We want to package learning as something we do whenever and wherever it is convenient, believing that convenience will make it more appealing.


This is not new. Long before they had laptops and cellphones, some students used to read their textbooks on the bus ride home. They did so not because it was convenient, but because they were motivated to learn. Making learning more convenient by offering material through cell-phone delivery, for example, will not increase students' motivation and perseverance.


Even when students do gain access to content outside the classroom, the spontaneity, discussion, and group learning of the classroom setting can never be duplicated online. There will be a lag between question and answer. Measured learning at the pace of the group will not exist. Careful mentoring by a skilled teacher who can read facial and body language will not be possible. Gone will be the safety and comfort factor of the classroom. Without the minimal distraction zone afforded by the classroom, students will have to develop personal motivation, discipline, and organization-traits that are not yet fully developed in young adults.


Online teaching requires great planning and organization. An online teacher no longer teaches one class of 60 but 60 classes of one. Potential questions must be considered before they arise. Faculty members who must also juggle administrative and research duties face growing pressure from students to be instantly available by phone, e-mail, and instant messaging. Can they also be expected to make content instantly available in the myriad media formats available today? Professors need to choose the most useful media for learning, and students need to adapt, just as they did when all of them had textbooks.


Myth 4: Today's students are multitaskers. Today's digital natives are often touted as masters of multitasking, taking courses and doing homework online while listening to TV, chatting online, and talking on the phone. But multitasking is no more generational than ditching class in grade school for the swimming hole, and no more effective than it ever was. Instead of multitasking, we multidistrict. That is why the best place for study is still a quiet room. Use any technology you want for studying, but use only one at a time.


I am a firm believer in technology in higher education when it is suited to the content and based on a true understanding of how learning and teaching occur. New learning technologies afford us more opportunity to do that than ever before. Their true promise lies not in their ability to disseminate information, but in their ability to combine previously disparate media elements such as text, audio, video, and animation into a seamless flow of content.


If we fail to properly study and evaluate these technologies, we will soon find ourselves hurtling down the technology highway at faster and faster speeds, desperately trying to brake but increasingly out of control. When we eventually crash, the strongest supporters of the new learning technologies will point their fingers and claim that we were at fault, not the technology. They will be right.


Brian Cowan is an instructional designer at the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of Windsor, in Canada, where he has designed many online- and blended-learning courses.
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Dillard University Faculty PI Grants Meeting Friday November 18, 2011

The Offices of Academic Affairs & Research and Sponsored Programs invite all faculty members who have federal and/or state grants (and those who are applying for grants) to a meeting on Friday, November 18th at 12:00 pm in the President’s Conference Room, Rosenwald 208.



Please RSVP to Academic Affairs to let us know your availability.













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Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia: List of academic databases and search engines


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Learn the Net News: Is the rush to adopt education technology moving too quickly in the US?

 
by Shawn Douglas Thursday - Oct 27, 2011
 
It’s easy to see how reading the daily headlines would lead someone to believe that incorporating technology into education is a vital maneuver in modern education reform. “Technology in the classroom aids in learning,” “Technology sparks learning,” and “Technology changing how students learn” are some of the resounding refrains heard across the news wires, praising the adoption of education technology.

But not everyone is buying into the idea, with some likening the infiltration of computers, tablets, and other mobile devices into the education sphere to a colorful Band-Aid on an unduly large problem.

Take for example the authors of a recently released National Education Policy Center report, one that paints a picture of the failings of online schools due to lack of oversight, lax accreditation, and greedy commercial and corporate interests. With “nearly one in every 50 students in the U.S.” obtaining all or some of their education from online sources in 2007, and 27 U.S. states hosting online schools (which get most of their content and services from five private companies), the report’s authors claim that more must be done to ensure the quality of online education, especially in the face of rapid ongoing change.

At the end of the report the authors make four key recommendations to state legislatures:
1. Authenticate the source of students’ work using in-person exams or more rigorous credentials.
2. Apply fiscal and instructional regulations to K-12 virtual schools, focusing for example on teacher certification status and adjusted accounting practices.
3. Conduct audits to ensure actual costs are reported, providing a more accurate funding system by the state.
4. Create and maintain a list of agencies that give accreditations to K-12 virtual schools, ensuring the accreditation process is vigorous.

The National Education Policy Center’s recommendations are welcomed by many in the education industry, including those who question whether the traditional classroom setting should be hastily abandoned for the virtual school.

“We are concerned that in their eagerness to embrace the virtual school model, policymakers and some educational leaders are overstating its success and ignoring the tremendous advantages a classroom environment provides for students,” said David R. Colburn, director of the Reubin Askew Institute, and Brian Dassler, KIPP Renaissance High School principal, in an opinion piece for the St. Petersburg Times.

“There is no question that technology can be a great asset to students with learning deficiencies and an excellent supplement to classroom learning for all students,” they said. “As the technology is refined and expanded, virtual learning may offer more substantial advantages to students and teachers.”

Despite their optimism, they went on to caution state legislatures and school policymakers about buying too deeply into the hyped promise of the online learning environment.

This line of thinking falls in stark contrast to the methodology of a school in the United States’ Silicon Valley, which is home to numerous technology corporations. Last week the New York Times highlighted the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, one of many such schools that questions the idea that technology will save the modern classroom.

Far from taking online classes, the Waldorf schools don’t even incorporate technology, focusing instead on more traditional low-tech instructional methods. The fundamental belief stated by the school is that kids will easily learn how to use technology later in life, so why not focus on the more human and engaging elements of personal teaching.

Granted, this sort of take on technology in education seems almost as extreme as one that endorses stuffing every bit of tech possible into a class. Like most things in our lives, approaching some sort of balance seems like a more reasonable approach. The authors of the NEPC report subtly preach this balance by offering realistic suggestions on how to better a growing online education industry, despite believing that same industry has “zero high-quality research evidence” of being an “adequate replacement for traditional face-to-face teaching and learning.”

Even higher education students like Kinsey Streib at Purdue University are being realistic about the role of technology in education.

“Admittedly, some technology inhibits the learning experience,” Streib recently told the Exponent. “However, it is a pertinent teaching tool in modern education.”

In the end, diving head-first into technological classroom solutions — or shunning them completely — doesn’t seem like an appropriate education solution. State legislatures should make some conservative reforms, while at the same time scientists should do more quality research on learning methodologies that include technology. From there we can evaluate in what ways educators can best integrate technology into the classroom and better gauge the effectiveness of privatized online education, all without tripping over ourselves in a mad dash to educational uncertainty.

Photo via popofatticus, Flickr Creative Commons

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Arts and Humanities Research Council [AHRC] Research Funding Guide September 2011

The Arts and Humanities Research Council seeks to promote and support by a variety of means high quality basic, strategic and applied research and related postgraduate training in the arts and humanities.



AHRC’s research funding is available through its responsive mode schemes (high quality research in any subject area providing it falls mainly within AHRC’s remit) and through research programmes and other specific initiatives (funding for high quality research in specific areas of intellectual urgency and wider resonance).


This funding guide contains details of the post-doctoral funding schemes that are operated in responsive mode.


You should note that the schemes we operate offer very different types of support.


The guide is updated throughout the year and you should ensure that you are reading the most recent version by checking our website for any recent updates (see lower right hand corner of the title page for the version number).


Once you have identified the scheme to which you want to apply, you should carefully read this document, and the relevant sections for that scheme, before submitting your proposal.


This guide is split into separate sections providing information on the different elements of the application process and it addresses subjects such as eligibility, how to apply, and upcoming closing dates.


Each section contains our general guidance, and also any additional guidance that is specific to each scheme.


Case studies of research previously funded by the AHRC are available on our website at http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/awards/case_studies.asp

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Simple K12: 7 Great Webinars You Don't Want to Miss

This is just a friendly reminder to make sure that you have registered for SimpleK12's November Day of Learning, a free online conference for teachers and educators. It  kicks off TOMORROW at 9:00 AM Eastern Time, USA.


This event is a great reason to pull your colleagues together and learn with educators from all over the world.


Our fun-filled "Day of Learning" starts with a keynote and is packed with virtual sessions all day long. Attend one, or attend them all.


All sessions are FREE! It's easy to join in. All you have to do is register for each of the following live online sessions.


Join SimpleK12 on Saturday, November 12th, 2011


Here are the details...


Keynote Kickoff: Are You GaGa for Google?
9:00-9:30 AM Eastern Time, USA
Watch a brief "Day of Learning" Orientation and learn some new, fun, and educational ways to take full advantage of Google applications.
Register now: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/248024618


Flipping Your Classroom: It's Easy with Khan Academy
10:00-10:30 AM Eastern Time, USA
Do you wish you had more time for hands-on work, collaborative projects, or labs during class? Learn how to do all of that and more by flipping your classroom.
Register now: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/256149370


Social Networking with Students and Parents: It's Safer Than You Think
11:00-11:30 AM Eastern Time, USA
Learn a number of reasons why you should create a social network site for school or classroom use, and look at an example of a safe social networking site.
Register now:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/112455658


Stories on the Go: Digital Storytelling with Mobile Devices
1:00-1:30 PM Eastern Time, USA
Discover some free and very inexpensive applications that help learners showcase their learning by creating digital stories.
Register now: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/958575570


20 Web Tools in 20 Minutes: Revitalize Lesson Plans and Motivate Students
2:00-2:30 PM Eastern Time, USA
Whether you are looking for some ideas to help you present material to your students or for kids to demonstrate understanding of content, this webinar will provide you a variety of intriguing technologies.
Register now: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/533714770


Creating Global Citizens with Meaningful Blogging
3:00-3:30 PM Eastern Time, USA
Do you want your students to be global citizens who are connected with other children around the world? If so, then student blogging is for you!
Register now:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/129448466


Students Write More; You Grade Less!
4:00-4:30 PM Eastern Time, USA
Learn how to use online discussions and group collaboration to support a variety of writing assignments and spend a fraction of the time grading.
Register now: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/610337538
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