Campus Technology: StudyBoost Brings Assessments to Text Messaging

By Tim Sohn
09/15/11



StudyBoost has released a mobile platform that helps student learn using text- or instant messaging-based quizzes.


StudyBoost.com allows for open-ended, multiple choice, true/false, fill-in, or essay question formats. Teachers can export from the statistics page and grade answers.


Students or teachers using the mobile platform can:
Add StudyBoost as a friend on his/her instant-messaging account or as a contact in a mobile phone;

Set up a batch of questions and answers on StudyBoost.com or choose from the library of questions.

Batches can be individualized or shared among groups or an entire class;


Send the word "go" from the phone's text messaging platform or instant-messaging client to receive the batch questions;


Type "next" to receive the first question, etc. Answers are typed using full words.


A response is provided whether the question was answered correctly or incorrectly.


Additional features of StudyBoost include: customization per user such as setting time delays between questions, randomizing questions, replying with a correct answer if answered wrong, or asking the student to try again.

A statistics page includes the ability to view percentages per batch and student, to view the number of questions answered correctly or incorrectly, to view the number of consecutive questions answered correctly or incorrectly, and to view a history of past answers.

StudyBoost additionally includes functionality to embed an instant-messaging-style chat box within Moodle.


Supported instant-messaging platforms include AOL AIM; Facebook Chat; Google Chat; ICQ; Jabber; Live Messenger; MSN; and Yahoo! Messenger. Students can sync their phones with the teachers' device.


For more information, visit the StudyBoost Web site.


About the Author
Tim Sohn is a 10-year veteran of the news business, having served in capacities from reporter to editor-in-chief, of a variety of publications, including Web sites, daily and weekly newspapers, and consumer and trade magazines. He can be reached at twcsu@aol.com  and followed on Twitter @editortim  

Campus Technology: StudyBoost Brings Assessments to Text Messaging

The Heritage Institute: Distance, Online and On-Site Continuing Education Courses for Teachers

The Heritage Institute offers continuing education for teachers, revitalizing the enthusiasm for their calling in the more than 3,000 educators we reach annually.

The Heritage Institute: Distance, Online and On-Site Continuing Education Courses for Teachers

AFRO-AMERICAN BOOK STOP GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE!

THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING WITH THE AFRO-AMERICAN BOOK STOP

I AM SORRY TO HAVE TO SHARE THIS MESSAGE WITH YOU ALL BUT...AT THE END OF THIS MONTH, FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 30 THE AFRO-AMERICAN BOOK STOP WILL BE CLOSING.


I WOULD LIKE TO THANK EACH OF YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT OVER THE YEARS. BUT WITH THE CONSTANT GROWTH OF THE eREADER, ALONG WITH THIS TUFF ECONOMY, IT HAS BECOMING MORE DIFFICULT FOR ME TO KEEP THE DOORS OPEN.


OUR GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE WILL BEGIN TODAY, WEDNESDAY SEPT. 21, 2011. ALL BOOKS ARE AT LEAST 25% OFF, & UP TO 75% OFF. IF YOU ARE IN OUR DISCOUNT CLUB YOU WILL RECEIVE THE ADDITIONAL DISCOUNT OF 10%. SO PLEASE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY TO STOCK UP ON YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS AND BOOKS. GIFT CARDS WILL BE HONORED UNTIL OUR CLOSING DATE, SO PLEASE REDEEM THOSE ASAP.
(THE SALE PRICE WILL NOT INCLUDE SPECIAL ORDERS OR NEGRO LEAGUE ITEMS).


AGAIN, THANK YOU FOR SUPPORT OVER THE YEARS.

P.S. ALTHOUGH THE STORE IS CLOSING, I WILL STILL BE A BOOKSELLER. SO IF YOUR SCHOOL, CHURCH, OR OTHER ORGANIZATION WOULD LIKE A BOOK FAIR, OR NEED TO PLACE A SPECIAL ORDER PLEASE FELL FREE TO CALL ME. I WILL ALSO SET UP BOOK DISPLAYS AROUND THE CITY, SO I'LL KEEP YOU ALL POSTED ON WHEN AND WHERE I MAY BE SELLING, IF YOUR IN THE AREA STOP BY. I HOPE TO SEE EACH OF YOU BEFORE MONTH'S END.


MICHELE LEWIS/OWNER
THE AFRO-AMERICAN BOOK STOP
504-243-2436

AFRO-AMERICAN BOOK STOP GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE!

Smashing Magazine: Mind Your En And Em Dashes: Typographic Etiquette

An understanding of typographic etiquette separates the master designers from the novices. A well-trained designer can tell within moments of viewing a design whether its creator knows how to work with typography. Typographic details aren’t just inside jokes among designers. They have been built up from thousands of years of written language, and applying them holds in place long-established principles that enable typography to communicate with efficiency and beauty.



Handling these typographic details on the Web brings new challenges and restrictions that need to be considered. Below are a few rules of thumb that will have you using typography more lucidly than ever before. MORE

Smashing Magazine: Mind Your En And Em Dashes: Typographic Etiquette

BlackAmericaWeb.com: HBCU Leaders: We’re Up to the President’s Challenge

September 20, 2011


Will the nation’s 105 public and private historically black colleges and universities meet President Barack Obama’s challenge of graduating an additional 167,000 students by the year 2020?


Clearly, the leaders of those schools - many of whom are in Washington, D.C. this week attending a conference hosted by the White House Initiative on HBCUs - believe so.


“We are up to the task,” said George E. Ayers, who formerly headed both Central State University in Ohio and Chicago State University and now runs a Virginia-based consulting firm.


“It will take a great deal of work, a great deal of strategizing, and, of course, resources, but we can achieve anything,” Ayers said Monday during a break in the opening session of the two-day conference, "HBCUs: Engaging the World Anew."


Nationally, the percentage of students who graduate from college with a degree in six years is 57 percent. The African-American graduation rate nationwide is 41 percent; at HBCUs the rate drops to 37 percent.


President Obama wants to have 8 million more college graduates between now and 2020, with 2 million of those graduates being African-American. To reach that mark, HBCUs have to graduate an extra 167,000 students.


Elaine Johnson Copeland, president of Clinton Junior College in Rock Hill, South Carolina, likewise expressed confidence in meeting the president’s goal.


“We will take our share of that load,” said Copeland. "We are used to making bricks without straw"


The message from the White House to the more than 400 educators attending the conference was that the “straw” is on the way. The president has already committed to invest more than $850 million in HCBUs over the next 10 years.


“Your president knows how hard you work, and he applauds your progress,” said Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the president, bringing greetings from the White House. She told attendees that HBCUs are central to reaching the president’s goal that by 2020, the United States will once again lead the world in the number of college graduates, a position it had held since 1995.


According to Jarrett, recently released figures show that the U.S. has slipped to 16th place after being in 13th place in 2009. She said, “Korea now holds the top spot, with 63 percent” of their adults ages 25 to 34 having college degrees.


By comparison, only about 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 to 34 are college graduates. The rate for African-Americans is 30 percent and 25 percent for Latinos.


“The president is determined to do whatever it takes to make your work a little easier,” continued Jarrett, who shared that her father is a graduate of Howard University, and that her great-grandfather, an architect, designed many of the buildings on the campus of Tuskegee University.


Faced with declining enrollments, shrinking endowments and rising costs, meeting the 2020 benchmark will be daunting for black colleges and universities, admits John Silvanus Wilson, executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs, adding that everyone at the conference is painfully aware of that reality.


The gap between where HBCUs are and where they can and should be is wide, said Wilson, a graduate of Morehouse College, who mentioned that he and his “good friend” filmmaker Spike Lee entered together as freshmen.


“The goal of the White House Initiative is to change the narrative,” said Wilson.


He explained that in the past, there were those who questioned the need for HBCUs, suggesting that the schools are a relic of a time when segregation ruled. He said that question is no longer on the table. Not only does the country need HBCUs, said Wilson, but that they need to “thrive” if the 2020 goal is to be met.


It’s a truth underscored by the fact that although HBCUs represent only three percent of the nation's colleges and universities, they graduate nearly 20 percent of African-Americans with undergraduate degrees. The numbers only go up to more than 50 percent for African-Americans earning professional degrees.


Continuing, Wilson said the president’s “grand vision for HCBUs” boils down to three elements: “Perception enhancement, capital enlargement and campus enrichment.” To that end Wilson’s office is making sure that HBCUs are strategically positioned to better benefit from federal spending, as well as forging strong relationships with private and philanthropic funders.


Pointing to recent success, Wilson noted that since Obama came to office, “federal funding to HBCUs is up.” He said HBCUs received “$312 million more (in federal money) from last year to this year,” which includes an increase in Pell grants.


“There were 6 million Pell grant recipients when Obama took office," Wilson said. "That number is now approaching 10 million recipients, including 45,000 new recipients in HBCUs.”


Pell grants are critically important to HBCUs since two-thirds of their students are recipients.


In addition, HBCUs have seen a $65 million increase for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programming.


Nearing the end of his remarks, Wilson showed a clip from his “friend’s” movie, "School Daze," in which two characters are arguing about why HBCU grads don’t give back financially to their schools.


“We have to raise the rate of alumni giving. It's a real problem,” said Wilson, as many in the audience nodded in agreement. He said that the average nationally for alumni giving is 13 percent. “At HBCUs, its five to seven percent. We want to work with you to get the percentage of alumni giving up. That makes a statement.”


Wilson went on to make a passionate plea for HBCU leaders to “engage” with his office.


“When it comes to HBCUs, there is enormous history, enormous production and enormous unfulfilled potential,” he said. “We have this unrealized vision of our predecessors, of our ancestors, that must be realized, and that is that HBCUs should be competitive with and holding their own with the best universities in the nation.”

BlackAmericaWeb.com: HBCU Leaders: We’re Up to the President’s Challenge

Diverse Issues in Higher Education: Historically Black Colleges Challenged To Boost Their Competitiveness

September 21, 2011


WASHINGTON, D.C. - As Congress works to trim $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade, HBCUs must step up efforts to share their stories of success, compete with other universities, and be prepared to present hardcore data on their progress.


Those were just a few of the suggestions made during an HBCU Week 2011 breakout session titled “Title III: Are Educational Discretionary Programs at Risk?”


“We are truly in a budget battleground,” said Edith L. Bartley, director of governmental affairs at the Fairfax, Va.-based United Negro College Fund Inc. (UNCF).


Bartley presented data that showed Title III Part B, Strengthening HBCUs Program funding in 2011, which has reached its lowest level in several years, at $237 million -$30 million less than the year before and lower than the $238 million that it was in 2005 through 2008.


The situation is so dire that UNCF, along with the National Association for Equality Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), an umbrella organization for the nation’s HBCUs, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund have all agreed to make Title III funding a priority this year, Bartley said.


Bartley urged conference attendees to remain in the nation’s capital over the next few days to attend the Congressional Black Caucus meeting or to at least make it a point to get some face time with lawmakers soon in order to influence the Super Committee that is charged with reducing the federal deficit over the next decade. Its first set of recommendations must be made in November, Bartley said.


“Don’t wait until it’s time for a budget to be voted on,” Bartley said. “Develop a relationship with your state representatives, federal representatives.


“Make sure they know what’s going on your campuses and make the case.”


Similar exhortations were made throughout the two-day HBCU Week conference. Sometimes, the exhortations took on a subtle form, such as HBCU presidents recounting their own efforts to improve their campuses, with the message being, of course, that other HBCUs would do well to follow suit.


Speaking during a conference town hall meeting, Dr. Charlie Nelms, chancellor of North Carolina Central University, recounted a quality service initiative that he felt compelled to launch at the university he runs.


“That’s not being dictatorial,” Nelms said. “That’s just being realistic in terms of what we need to do.”


The initiative was meant to remedy a variety of problems that Nelms identified on campus, such as “walking” paperwork across campus instead of using digital technology, taking too long to hire new employees or shutting down during the summer.


Nelms also spoke to the longstanding issue of the relevance of HBCUs, saying HBCU leaders need to make sure their institutions are more responsive and competitive.


“The future of HBCUs will be determined by our contemporary relevance, not our historical significance,” Nelms said. “We have to lead and serve with a new kind of purpose, and, unless we do that and until we do that, our institutions will not become the institutions they are capable of becoming.”


A live electronic survey during the town hall revealed somewhat of a disconnect between federal employees and HBCU employees over whether HBCUs need to repurpose their missions.


On the question of whether there was a need to repurpose their missions, federal workers, who were attending the conference, rated the need as a 7.3 while the HBCU staffers most disagreed and rated it as a 4.9 out of 10.


“That tells us something,” said Dr. John S. Wilson Jr., executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs, who said the live survey technology would be put to use in other HBCU venues in the near future.


One audience member said HBCU employees might take exception to the need to “repurpose” their mission, stating that instead they may see a need to revamp how they accomplish their missions.


U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who was presented with the chairman’s award from White House Initiative on HBCUs advisory board chair William Harvey, president of Hampton University, pledged continued support of HBCUs during a luncheon speech in which he received two standing ovations.


In his speech, Duncan lauded HBCU leaders for being examples of “how to do more with less” but also encouraged the HBCU leaders to adapt to a “new normal” of increased accountability and fewer resources.


“College leaders are being held accountable for success like never before,” Duncan said. “Not just increased access but attainment. The mission is not about getting students to the starting line, but to that all-important finish line.”


HBCUs also must prepare for a new reality in which the Department of Education shifts from being a compliance-based agency that provides fixed formula funding to one that focuses more on being an engine of innovation, said Dr. Debra Saunders-White, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs within the Office of Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education.


In this new environment, too many HBCUs are letting opportunities pass them by, Saunders-White said.


As an example, she mentioned the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program, an approximately $9 competitive grant program.


“Too few of you apply for it,” Saunders-White said. “I’d like to be able to report that many of you are among (grant winners). But too few of you participated in that competition.”

Diverse Issues in Higher Education: Historically Black Colleges Challenged To Boost Their Competitiveness

CNN Politics: Education secretary speaks at conference for HBCUs

September 20, 2011


(CNN) -- A two-day conference commemorating National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week will wrap up Tuesday with a speech from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.


Titled "HBCUs: Engaging the World Anew," the conference was held just days after President Barack Obama signed a proclamation making official the designation for the week of September 18-24.


It's part of a White House effort to promote the president's goal of creating the best-educated, most competitive and most diverse work force in the world by 2020, the White House said in a written statement.


In February 2010, Obama signed an executive order renewing an initiative on historically black colleges and universities, establishing a presidential board to advise the White House on matters pertaining to strengthening the educational capacity of these institutions.


John Wilson, executive director of the White House initiative, opened Monday's conference, which features a variety of panel discussions, break-out sessions and speeches. They will focus on minority presence in the work force, technology and innovation, and working with small businesses and developing partnerships.


Wilson said the gathering served as a platform to discuss, analyze and eliminate some of the issues facing HBCUs.


Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to the president, who spoke on Monday, discussed the importance of the historically black institutions to the president's education agenda.


"The number of people who ask where HBCUs should exist is declining," Wilson said. The president and education secretary understand "that education is critical not just to the administration, but to the nation's future," he said.


The 2011 HBCU Week Conference will continue Tuesday when Duncan is expected to deliver remarks on the Obama administration's priorities to support the schools and commend the progress that the colleges and universities have made in preparing students for jobs of the future.


Wilson said he hopes the college presidents in attendance leave the conference with "new perspective, new plans and new strategies for partnerships and new relationships."


"We have done a good job under the Obama administration of channeling support through three main funding sources from the federal government," Wilson said.


South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn will speak at the conference Tuesday afternoon, according to the White House. He will demonstrate the government's commitment by outlining federal funding for historically black institutions.


The 2011 fiscal year budget includes money to strengthen undergraduate and graduate programs, provide financing for the repair, renovation and construction of educational facilities, and increase the Pell Grant maximum award for students in need of financial support.


The nation's 105 historically black colleges and universities are located in 20 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They serve more than 300,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

CNN Politics: Education secretary speaks at conference for HBCUs

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Academic Impressions Webcast: Effective uses of social media in student learning

November 7, 2011 :: 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. EST            

OVERVIEW

Social media tools, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, are changing the way students and faculty communicate, share ideas, and build networks. The interest in social media is increasing, and the educational community is looking to harness the potential of these resources to improve teaching and learning while also being mindful of privacy concerns. Join us online as we showcase some effective uses of social media in student learning. We’ll discuss ways to use social media to create experiential learning activities, improve student interactivity and engagement, and develop community and professional networks.


LEARNING OUTCOME
After participating in this webcast, you will be able to implement social media into curriculum delivery to improve student learning.


WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Faculty, instructional designers and technologists, academic computing services staff, and student computing services administrators will learn to use social media tools effectively.   

AGENDA

• Effective uses of social media
◦ Facilitating interactivity and engagement
◦ Experiential learning potential
◦ Developing community and professional networks
• What are some best practices in using social media?
◦ Information to guide your use of social media
◦ Examples of different institutions and departments
• Consideration for integration of social media into curriculum
◦ Concerns about privacy in the use of social media
◦ Addressing issues that faculty and students may hav
ƒƒ Support through educational workshop
◦ Costs and implementation
◦ Evaluating the impact

Academic Impressions Webcast: Effective uses of social media in student learning