Sample Courses

The wealth of available educational resources can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate. Sites which currate these resources all have some built-in mechanism for sorting -- by subject matter, level of difficulty, source, etc. However, these pre-packaged collections are no replacement for currating your own prefered resources and materials into sets that correspond to your interests and courses. This series of posts will provide tutorials on how to create your own collections from sites which offer currated resource lists. Collections in HippoCampus are called "Playlists," which reflects the extremely multi-media focus of HippoCampus's materials. 

Creating a collection of resources on HippoCampus, as on most sites, requires you to create an account. Because HippoCampus is, in part, targeting individual learners, the sign-up process is quick and not very demanding. As soon as your account is saved, you’re ready to start creating a collection, which HippoCampus refers to as a “Playlist.” Once you create an account, you will find yourself as your own HippoCampus homepage. This page doesn’t look much different from the public homepage, though it does provide you with a link you can use to link directly to your account page from, for example, a course page. For our test playlist, we will make a playlist for an introductory level creative writing class.

The wealth of available educational resources can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate. Sites which currate these resources all have some built-in mechanism for sorting -- by subject matter, level of difficulty, source, etc. However, these pre-packaged collections are no replacement for currating your own prefered resources and materials into sets that correspond to your interests and courses. This series of posts will provide tutorials on how to create your own collections from sites which offer currated resource lists. While collections in MERLOT are formatted to work as a repository of related links, collections in Connexions are intended to cohere into something like a textbook – the modules are grouped together in a defined order, and can even be exported to PDFs that can be read through much like a traditional textbook would be. Much like an ebook, when viewed online the pages are arranged sequentially with a table of contents.

In order to create collections, you first need to register an account. The account is free and the information required to register is minimal, though you do need a valid email address since the account is useless until you activate it through their activation email and create a password. Once you create an account, you will find yourself at MyCNX Home, where one of the options listed under “Create and edit content” is “Create a new collection.”

The wealth of available educational resources can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate. Sites which currate these resources all have some built-in mechanism for sorting -- by subject matter, level of difficulty, source, etc. However, these pre-packaged collections are no replacement for currating your own prefered resources and materials into sets that correspond to your interests and courses. This series of posts will provide tutorials on how to create your own collections from sites which offer currated resource lists. This post will focus on MERLOT.

First, I would like to thank everyone who helped to make this year's Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts Conference a success. Our in-house catering, conference, and housekeeping teams and my student assistants, Yichen Liao and Angela Rosenberg, did a stellar job of making sure we were well-fed and everything ran smoothly behind the scenes. The fact that they were able to do so immediately following Bryn Mawr's graduation celebrations (and for the students, weeks of exams) is a testament to their talent and dedication!

I would also like to thank our 15 presenters, who agreed to expose their teaching and their discoveries to public scrutiny, so that we all might learn from the experience. Recordings of their presentations and any slides and materials they've shared are archived on our conference website -- just click on the title of a presentation in the schedule to see everything associated with it.

The conference was a huge success, attracting about 100 registered guests from over 30 institutions, not counting many Tri-College faculty and staff who dropped into sessions as their schedules permitted. As always audience questions and comments and the informal conversations over breaks and lunch were one of the most valuable and interesting aspects of the event.

Educational clearinghouses with massive databases of resources provide access to different types of OERs covering multiple subjects and using multiple. This Blended Learning group is created to currate resources which we consider particularly useful for approaching specific problems, but there are thousands of other resources available. This post will direct instructors and students to two of the more comprehensive sites.

Resources covered:
OER Commons
Open.Michigan

OER Commons tracks down and currates resources which they consider to be the best OERs available. They currently have over 44,000 available. Their resources include labs and activities, video lectures, and readings. OER COmmons also features a section called "Teaching and Learning Strategies" which help instructors new to OERs how to find the right resources and implement them. In addition to some of the more complicated browsing structures, those looking for something in particular can search by subject areas, grade levels, and material types.

Math is a difficult subject to learn without guidance, and those who attempt to learn new mathematical concepts or reinforce what they learned in the classroom are often left to struggle. Complete modules like Washington State University Math Lessons and Calculus on the Web provide tutorials which help teach and practice math tutorials to both new learners and those wishing to refresh their knowledge.

Resources covered:
Washington State University Math Lessons
Calculus on the Web (COW)

Washington State University Math Lessons are a series of applied math tutorials. While the scope of the tutorials is somewhat limited, they address some interesting applied topics such as the math behind voting, fair division of assets, and understanding graphs with regard to supply and demand issues. The site also provides snippets about the history of math and an important female mathematician.

With the wealth of information available, it can be difficult to find the best resource for illustrate or reinforce the concept you want to teach. Fortunately, the National Science Digital Library and other sites provide variously indexed clearinghouses that provide resources for use in the classroom, review materials, and tools for utilizing technology designed especially for teaching STEM.

Resources covered:
National Science Digital Library
Concord Consortium
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is dedicated entirely to curating resources relating to STEM education, and scientific concepts in particular. The resources are sorted by educational level, resource type, and subject. Those categories are useful, but arguably NSDL's best feature is is NSDL Science Literary Maps which show visual and conceptual links between topics. The maps allow student researchers to build on what they know and find resources to expand their inquiries.

OERs offer student writers an opportunity to learn from each other in ways that a traditional classroom setting doesn’t always allow. These resources include tutorials, interactive exercises, and examples of peer-reviewed work, and digitized reference guides designed to help students become more effective - and more comfortable - as writers.

Resources covered:
A Writer’s Reference
Perdue University’s Online Writing Lab
Writing Spaces
Classroom Salon