Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 21, No. 280.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu
[1] From: "Carolyn Kotlas" <kotlas_at_email.unc.edu> (174)
Subject: TL Infobits -- September 2007
[2] From: ubiquity <ubiquity_at_HQ.ACM.ORG> (25)
Subject: Ubiquity 8.39
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2007 09:36:24 +0100
From: "Carolyn Kotlas" <kotlas_at_email.unc.edu>
Subject: TL Infobits -- September 2007
TL INFOBITS September 2007 No. 15 ISSN: 1931-3144
About INFOBITS
INFOBITS is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning division. Each month the
ITS-TL's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a
number of information and instructional technology sources that come to
her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to
educators.
NOTE: You can read the Web version of this issue at
http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitsep07.php.
You can read all back issues of Infobits at
http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/.
......................................................................
Online Instructors and Burnout
Study of Students and IT
Tips for Online Teaching
Creative Commons Celebrates Fifth Anniversary
New Version of bFree Available
Recommended Reading
......................................................................
ONLINE INSTRUCTORS AND BURNOUT
"The growth of distance education in higher education establishes a
need to examine burnout specific to online instructors. Although
burnout among educators has been studied, no specific work has been
conducted relative to burnout among higher education online
instructors."
A 2005 study of 76 online instructors by R. Lance Hogan and Mark A.
McKnight explored burnout in this segment of educators. Their research
sought answers to three questions:
"To what degree does burnout occur in higher education online
instructors?"
"Is there a significant relationship between gender and burnout
level of higher education online instructors?"
"How do measures of burnout among higher education online
instructors compare with the existing normative data of
educators?"
Their findings are reported in "Exploring Burnout among University
Online Instructors: An Initial Investigation" (THE INTERNET AND HIGHER
EDUCATION, vol. 10, no. 2, 2007). The paper is available on the Web at
http://www.usi.edu/business/mamcknight/publications/INTHIG281.pdf.
The Internet and Higher Education [ISSN 1096-7516] is a peer-reviewed
journal published quarterly by Pergamon, an imprint of Elsevier. It is
"devoted to addressing contemporary issues and future developments
related to online learning, teaching, and administration on the
Internet in post-secondary settings." For more information, see
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/620187/description.
......................................................................
STUDIES OF STUDENTS AND IT
Since 2004, the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) has
conducted longitudinal studies of students and information technology.
The latest report, "The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and
Information Technology, 2007," presents data from a spring 2007 survey
and interviews with nearly 28,000 freshman, senior, and community
college students at 103 higher education institutions. Some of the
findings from this year's study include:
-- "Today's students spend a lot of time online. Respondents report
spending an average of 18 hours per week actively doing online
activities for work, school, or recreation, and 6.6 percent (more often
male) spend more than 40 hours per week."
-- Students surveyed "overwhelmingly (85.1 percent) favor e-mail for
official college and university communications. . . . A resounding 82.5
percent say they prefer a university account" rather than a commercial
account for these communications.
-- "While most respondents are enthusiastic IT users and use it to
support many aspects of their academic lives, most prefer only a
'moderate' amount of IT in their courses (59.3 percent)."
The research bulletin is available online at
http://www.educause.edu/ers0706.
ECAR "provides timely research and analysis to help higher education
leaders make better decisions about information technology. ECAR
assembles leading scholars, practitioners, researchers, and analysts to
focus on issues of critical importance to higher education, many of
which carry increasingly complicated and consequential implications."
For more information go to
http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?SECTION_ID=4.
Other Related Studies:
"Faculty Integration of Technology into Instruction and Students'
Perceptions of Computer Technology to Improve Student Learning"
By Jared Keengwe
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION, vol. 6, 2007
http://jite.org/documents/Vol6/JITEv6p169-180Keengwe218.pdf
"[R]eports indicate that faculty members are not integrating technology
into instruction in ways that make a difference in student learning. To
help faculty make informed decisions on student learning, there is need
for current knowledge of faculty integration practices. Therefore, the
purpose of this study was to examine the nature of the relationship
between faculty integration of technology into classroom instruction
and students' perceptions of the effect of computer technology to
improve their learning."
Current and back issues of the Journal of Information Technology
Education (JITE) [ISSN 1539-3585 (online) 1547-9714 (print)] are
available free of charge at http://jite.org/. The peer-reviewed journal
is published annually by the Informing Science Institute. For more
information contact: Informing Science Institute, 131 Brookhill Court,
Santa Rosa, California 95409 USA; tel: 707-531-4925; fax: 480-247-5724;
Web: http://informingscience.org/.
"Student Expectations Study: Key Findings from Online Research and
Discussion Evenings Help in June 2007 for the Joint Information
Systems Committee"
July 2007
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/studentexpectations.pdf
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is a strategic advisory
committee working on behalf of the funding bodies for further and
higher education in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. For
more information on JISC, see http://www.jisc.ac.uk/.
......................................................................
TIPS FOR ONLINE TEACHING
Rosemary Lehman and Richard Berg's book 147 PRACTICAL TIPS FOR
SYNCHRONOUS AND BLENDED TECHNOLOGY TEACHING AND LEARNING has recently
been published. The authors draw on their extensive experience in
distance education at Instructional Communications Systems, University
of Wisconsin-Extension. Tips range from initial planning for
synchronous or blended technologies, through developing and
implementing programs, to evaluating the results.
The book's table of contents, purchasing information, and a link to the
authors' companion website and blog are available at
http://www.atwoodpublishing.com/books/295.htm.
147 Practical Tips for Synchronous and Blended Technology Teaching and
Learning
By Rosemary M. Lehman and Richard A. Berg
Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-891859-69-4
$12.50 paperback
......................................................................
CREATIVE COMMONS CELEBRATES FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
Creative Commons (CC) is a nonprofit organization that offers flexible
copyright licenses for creative works. This year it celebrates five
years of giving intellectual property owners alternatives for sharing
their work.
To read about future CC projects and for more information about
Creative Commons licenses go to http://creativecommons.org/.
......................................................................
NEW VERSION OF BFREE AVAILABLE
bFree, developed by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Information Technology Services' Teaching and Learning division and
announced in the March 2007 TL INFOBITS
(http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitmar07.php#1), is a course extractor
that makes a stand-alone website from any Blackboard course content.
The tool has recently been updated. The interface is easier to use and
the program now extracts more types of course materials.
To learn more about bFree or to download the program, go to
http://its.unc.edu/tl/tli/bFree.
......................................................................
RECOMMENDED READING
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or
that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or
useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits
subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas_at_unc.edu for
possible inclusion in this column.
"Damn Spam: The Losing War on Junk E-Mail"
by Michael Specter
THE NEW YORKER, August 6, 2007
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/06/070806fa_fact_specter
Specter charts the history of spam email from its beginnings in the
1970s to the present. Spam haters will find no predictions of relief
from the onslaught. The spammers are at least one step ahead of filters
and trappers designed to ward off their messages:
"Last year, spammers began to take advantage of the fact that computers
can't see, and buried their messages in images. Most filters look for
words and phrases or Internet address information. A picture contains
so much more data that it is hard for the computer to find the message
embedded in all the noise. Humans who click on the message have no
trouble seeing it, though. Image spam consumes far more bandwidth than
written messages, and that means it will devour even more space on
computer servers throughout the world, costing more money and wasting
more time. But spammers aren't stopping there. They are learning to
send out polymorphic spam, thousands of variations of the same message,
which makes each message unique and therefore hard to categorize."
......................................................................
INFOBITS RSS FEED
To set up an RSS feed for Infobits, get the code at
http://lists.unc.edu/read/rss?forum=infobits.
......................................................................
[...]
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2007 09:37:48 +0100
From: ubiquity <ubiquity_at_HQ.ACM.ORG>
Subject: Ubiquity 8.39
This Week in Ubiquity:
Volume 8, Issue 39
October 2, 2007 -- October 8, 2007
An Interview with Steven Levy
Steven Levy, the chief technology writer for
Newsweek magazine, has written a number of
best-selling books, the latest of which is "The
Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Culture,
Commerce, and Coolness." When we asked acclaimed
software developer Marney Morris to comment on
this interview and she responded: "I've been
reading Steven Levy's thoughts on technology for
over 20 years, and he is still as fresh and
insightful as he was back then -- in the
beginning days of the personal computer. Steven
weaves the implications of technology change into
social meaning with wit and intelligence. He was
the best, brightest and funniest guy in the tech
arena before he moved to Newsweek in '95, and he
still is. He is a great guy and a great
journalist. I'm honored that I got to say so."
See:
<http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v8i39_levy.html>
Received on Sat Oct 06 2007 - 05:00:17 EDT
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