How are career services being offered to online students? Some institutions are teaming up with organizations like CareerBuilder (click to view a course demo) and Optimal Resume to offer comprehensive career services that can be accessed via a career resource portal. From personalized career coaching to resume-writing workshops, students have access to a variety of services at their fingertips. Read more →
Monthly archive: December, 2011
Plagiarism in Higher Education
Plagiarism – it’s a word that many higher education professionals equate with cheating and a problem that continues to rise. Where exactly are students getting their information? Turnitin conducted a study that analyzed approximately 24 million college papers and pinpointed the most popular sites (percentages represent percentage of students’ papers that matched the content of the corresponding website): Read more →
Gamification in Education
Gamification is a term that describes using “game thinking and game mechanics to engage users and solve problems.” (Zicherman & Cunningham, 2011, p. xiv). Games are very good at manipulating behavior because they keep us engaged in an experience not by happenstance, but by design. They do this by intentionally appealing to what we value, want, and need, which is why many companies have “gamified” their marketing campaigns to captivate consumers and drive profitability (e.g Nike +). Game mechanics refers to the tools used to meet this goal, such as points, levels, leaderboards, badges, etc. So what does this all have to do with education? Read more →
When does learning begin?
A couple of years ago, for my psychology of learning course, I had to take part in discussions and write several research papers on the topic of learning. What seemed like a simple questions, “What is learning?, When does it begin?” sparked several debates that continued throughout the entire class. It turns out that learning can be defined in multiple ways and that it begins earlier than many people think. All of this was summed up nicely in a TED talk I found while surfing the web and I thought I would share it.
