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Accessibility and Usability
Usability.gov
http://www.usability.gov
- Information on Usability Basics, including a definition of usability and descriptions of usability tests and what you need to conduct them.
- Information about all manner of tools that can help you with your usability testing: Guidelines and Checklists to quickly check your Web site for usability and Methods for Designing Usable Web Sites for conducting usability tests.
- Information about Server Log Analysis and Statistics and Marketing Research to help you measure usability in existing Web sites.
- Descriptions of Lessons Learned in various usability tests, including those conducted on CancerNet.
- A special section on Accessibility Resources for Web sites.
- Lists of and links to other usability information resources, such as Events and Meetings, Newsletters and
- Current Publications, a usability Dictionary, and Links to Other Usability Sites.
Web Accessibility Information and Solutions
http://www.webaim.org/
Includes web captioning tutorials, acessibility for digital video, web accessibility, screen reader and low vision simulators.
WAVE 3.0 Accessibility Tool (beta)
http://www.wave.webaim.org/index.jsp
The WAVE was originally developed by Lenoard Kasday at Pennsylvania's Initiative on Assistive Technology, a program of the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University. Development on the current product continues at WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind), a project at the Center for Persons with Disabilities at Utah State University.
The WAVE uses some of the techniques described in "Techniques for Web Accessibility Evaluation and Repair Tools", w hich is work by the Evaluation and Repair group of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. However, you should not assume endorsement by W3C.
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Assessment
Alternative Assessment and Electronic Portfolios
http://electronicportfolios.com/portfolios.html
This set of web pages describe and discuss use of technology to support alternative assessment from a number of perspectives. Developed and maintained by Dr. Helen Barrett, Assistant Professor, Educational Technology, School of Education, University of Alaska Anchorage.
Writing Multiple Choice Test Items
http://ericae.net/digests/tm9503.htm
Conventional wisdom for the construction of multiple-choice tests by Jerard Kehoe, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Rubrics for evaluating student work and providing feedback
http://www.rubrics.com/
This commercial web site includes definitions, quotes, and guidelines for developing rubrics to "operationalize quality," helping professor and student understand and meet expectations.
Teacher Helpers: Assessment and Rubric Information
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/assess.html
Suggestions and example rubrics for evaluating student web pages, general rubrics, and portfolios.
Behavioral Objectives in Training
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1650/trnobjs.html
"After needs assessment and analysis, the development of behavioral training objectives is arguably the most important phase in the training process. Without adequate training objectives, trainers will not know what is to be taught, trainees won't know what will be learned, and managers won't know what their training dollars are invested in. The use of measurable training objectives ensures consistency between identified needs, course content, what is actually learned, and test items. This consistency or congruity reduces the amount of irrelevant course material."
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Class Discussion
Improving Discussion-Oriented Online Instruction
http://itc.boisestate.edu/tltr/disc05.htm
One of the challenges in education is for teachers to get students to take seriously their opportunities to make use of additional materials, such as those prepared by outside experts and the trails of activity and dialog produced by students and their classmates as they analyze materials produced by others.
In a seminar presented on March 15, 2002, Don Winiecki (Instructional and Performance Technology) and Skip Knox (Office of Information Technology) addressed different sets of tactics for promoting student engagement with these resources.
Fostering Participation, Interaction, and Community in an Online Environment
http://itc.boisestate.edu/tltr/disc01.htm
How can faculty foster participation, interaction, and community in courses taught online and in courses using web tools to supplement face-to-face teaching? This question was the focus of the first in a series of discussions about pedagogical issues arising from teaching with technology, sponsored by the Teaching and Learning with Technology Roundtable.
Online Social Interchange, Discord, and Knowledge Construction
http://cade.athabascau.ca/vol13.1/kanuka.html
Online forums provide potential for new forms of collaborative work, study, and community that reduce barriers of time and distance. Yet the types of interaction and means by which individuals create new knowledge in online environments are not well understood. This study presents the results of an exploratory multimethod evaluation study and transcript analysis of an online forum. The researchers used a constructivist interaction analysis model developed by Gunawardena, Lowe, and Anderson (1997) to help understand and assess online learning.
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Copyright
Copyright and Web teaching
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~webteach/articles/copyright.html
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General
The 24-Hour Professor: Online Teaching Redefines Faculty Member's Schedule
http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i38/38a03101.htm
How should online professors handle email? Is it important to respond within 24 hours? Is it important to limit how much time is spent answering email? This article asks more questions than it answers...
Distance Education at a Glance
http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/distglan.html
To help teachers, administrators, facilitators, and students understand distance education, Barry Willis, the Associate Dean for Outreach and the Engineering Outreach staff at University of Idaho presents a series of guides highlighting information detailed in Dr. Willis' books, Distance Education - Strategies and Tools and Distance Education - A Practical Guide.
The Learning Consortium
http://ltc.ufl.edu/
Effective practices, Training, Classroom, Organizational Materials, Documents, and Links. A consortium including Indiana University, Virginia Tech University of Delaware, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of North Carolina, University of Notre Dame, and University of Pittsburgh
Wake Forest University
Standards for Quality Online Courses
http://standards.mivu.org/
The State of Michigan Michigan Virtual University discusses their standards based on technology, usability, accessibility, and instructional design.
They use a Performance-Knowledge grid to describe different kinds of learning offered in online courses. Performance includes recall of facts, elements, concepts, tasks, and principles. Knowledge includes recall, identify, apply, derive methods, and derive solutions.
They use a "course mapping" protocol to map a course onto this P-K grid, as a form of course evaluation.
Learning Networks Effectiveness Research Web Center
http://www.alnresearch.org/index.jsp
A large collection of studies, research instruments, papers, tutorials, and resources about online learning from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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Hybrid Courses
Hybrid Course Website
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/LTC/hybrid.html
University of Milwaukee extensive information about hybrid courses including advantages and challenges, faculty development, student preparedness, and resources.
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Learning Styles
Learning Styles Questionnaire
http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/ilsweb.html
This online 44 item questionnaire will assess your score as an active or reflective learner, sensing or intutive, visual or verbal, and sequential or global. The scoring is instant, and explanations of the score are provided. Reading the explanations sheds light on what people with learning styles other than your own might need in a course you design.
Self Evaluation for Potential Online Students
http://www.ion.illinois.edu/IONresources/onlineLearning/index.asp
Will online learning fit your circumstances, lifestyle, and educational needs? Here are some basic questions to ask yourself in deciding if an online program is right for you.
Predictors of Performance in the Virtual Classroom
http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A4023.cfm
A short article discussing at-risk online learners and potential predictors of performance. Offers some suggestions on how instructors can identify at-risk students and help them succeed.
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Online Teaching Tips and Techniques
Low Threshold Applications and Activities (LTAs)
http://www.tltgroup.org/LTAs/Overview.htm
A Low Threshold Application (LTA) is a teaching/learning application of information technology that is reliable, accessible, easy to learn, non-intimidating and (incrementally) inexpensive. Each LTA has observable positive consequences, and contributes to important long term changes in teaching and/or learning. "... the potential user (teacher or learner) perceives an LTA as NOT challenging, not intimidating, not requiring a lot of additioasdfsadfnal work or new thinking. LTAs… are also 'low-threshold' in the sense of having low INCREMENTAL costs for purchase, training, support, and maintenance." - Steve Gilbert, President, TLT Group, in AAHESGIT-96
WebQuests
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/index.html
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The model was developed in early 1995 at San Diego State University by Bernie Dodge with Tom March.
Authentic Learning Environments
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~tmarra/authenticity/page3.html
Authentic learning must make information meaningful to the students. In order to do so, the environment in which learning takes place must also be meaningful. Authentic learning says that...we should learn what happens in the "real world", and become "cognitive apprentices" to the experts.
By Tiffany Marra, U of M.
Finding quality Web sites
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~webteach/articles/sites.html
The Web is a resource so vast that finding what you're looking for can seem akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. Part of developing content for your site is locating Web resources that are relevant to your course and gathering the information you'll need to make them available from your course Web site.
Writing for the Web
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~webteach/articles/text.html
Web readers tend to scan text online and read text offline. They typically do not read a page from start to finish on the computer screen. Instead, they scan a site looking for relevant items and then print pages that contain the information they seek. You need to apply a style and method to your Web documents that accommodate this type of reading.
How to Build a Course Website
http://www.trainingcafe.com/members/coursesite/index.asp
a Macromedia dreamweaver tutorial in bulding course websites for in person, hybrid, and online courses, including information on course websites, course website templates, "easy directions" for using the templates and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX to get your site up quickly and painlessly.
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Plagiarism
Deterring Plagiarism: Web can be foe or friend
http://ittimes.ucdavis.edu/mar2001/youasked.html
Discussion of plagiarism on the web, links to various external sites on the topic.
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Teaching Styles
Teaching Styles and Instructional Uses of the World Wide Web
http://www.indstate.edu/ctl/styles/tstyle.html
Four teaching styles are explained, with examples given for each kind of online teaching style: FORMAL AUTHORITY, DEMONSTRATOR, FACILITATOR, and DELIGATOR
Teacher-Centered and Learner-Centered uses of the Internet for teaching and learning
http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/asu/pubs/tlf/tlf97/phil276.html
A quick overview of different uses of the Internet including Teacher Centred (Electronic Lectures, Ask an Expert sessions, Mentorship, and Tutor Support) as well as Student Centred
(Access to Network Resources , Informal Peer Interaction, Structured Group Activities). Details and subcategories of each type are briefly described.
Document Please cite as: Phillips, R. (1997). What is the most appropriate way to use the Internet for teaching and learning? In Pospisil, R. and Willcoxson, L. (Eds), Learning Through Teaching, p276-278. Proceedings of the 6th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, Murdoch University, February 1997. Perth: Murdoch University. http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/asu/pubs/tlf/tlf97/phil276.html
Constructivist Learning Design
http://www.prainbow.com/cld/
Gagnon and Collay articulate a constructivist approach to "designing for learning" rather than planning for teaching. Conventional lesson planning focuses on what the teacher will do. If learning is teacher directed, then the focus of the lesson plan is on what the teacher does. When designing a learning experience for students, teachers focus on what students will do.
Constructivism: from Philosophy to Practice
http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/~elmurphy/emurphy/cle.html
The aim of this site is to highlight some of these attempts at integrating constructivist characteristics into the practice of teaching and learning. The site begins with a discussion of constructivist epistemology and learning theory. Following this discussion, a summary of characteristics of constructivist learning and teaching is presented. By Elizabeth Murphy.
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