MyITLab is a very powerful learning tool. I have been teaching for 33 years and can attest that students today do much better in this course using MyITLab than they did with instructor-generated assignments and exams.

Chuck Kise uses MyITLab in Microcomputing Applications at Brevard Community College in Florida. His case study shows that students who earn at least 80 percent on skill-based assessments in MyITLab are more likely to earn an A, B, or C on the corresponding application exam.

Click here to read the full case study.

This week if you respond to the Digital Discussion question on the day we post it, you will receive an entry into our two digital raffles (Wednesday raffle: Nook and Friday raffle: iPad Mini).

You can find the discussion of the day here: http://www.englishinstructorexchange.com/forum/?group=1 and all you have to do is click on that day’s question and comment.

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts and comments

Please let us know if you have any questions!

***To see full raffle contest rules see discussion post: OFFICIAL YOU’RE THE APPLE OF OUR EYE CONTEST RULES

Certification from a recognized industry giant like Microsoft can give your students a tremendous advantage when competing for jobs, and once they land that job, it gives them the computing skills they’ll need to be effective in business. In this Virtual PHIT 2013 session Gary Fluitt talked about some of the certifications that you can offer to your students, and some of the advantages they’ve been proven to give students and their employers.

Download Gary’s PowerPoint slides here: Value of Certification – PHIT 0412

Get an early start on your preparation for fall courses and join us for virtual training on MyITLab for Office 2013 and be entered to win a trip to Boston.

Click on a preferred date below and select, “show all meetings” to register for a webinar session today:

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29th – 3:00 PM ET

THURSDAY, MAY 30th  – 1:00 PM ET

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5th – 3:00 PM ET

FRIDAY, JUNE 7th – 1:00 PM ET

These sessions are led by Mark Marino, Faculty Advisor, and Genevieve Schettino, Executive Customer Experience Program Manager.

When you register for one of the webinar sessions above, you’ll be entered to win a trip to a two-day event at our corporate offices in Boston. Thirty-five instructors committed to using MyITLab for Office 2013 this fall will receive hands-on training from the MyITLab Product Team, consult and collaborate with MyITLab Faculty Advisors and other peers on integrating MyITLab in your course and attend a Red Sox game in Fenway Park.

Join us for virtual training on MyITLab^® for Office 2013—
and be entered to win a trip to Boston.

Click your preferred date below and select “show all meetings” to register for a webinar session today:

Download this guide to building your first app: Getstarted_MIT_AppINventor_Intro

Let us know how it went building your first app. Come back and comment below to share your experience.

We know how much time and energy goes into teaching and you deserve a big end of the semester party to celebrate! But then the logistics of bringing educators from across the country together got a little complicated…so instead…

Starting on Wednesday, May 15^th  on Facebook we will be giving away FREE GIFTS to you!

Then next week (because it is way more fun to celebrate for two weeks!) we will be holding TWO RAFFLES on the My IT & MIS Community!

Teaching with a MyLab product? Visit the Faculty Advisor Network to receive your exclusive “FAN FLARE” and find out more about our summer GIVEAWAYS.

Full schedule of events:

Week One:

Visit, “Like” and enter the giveaway on our Facebook page to receive our free gifts (make sure you visit daily to enter):

Wednesday, May 15^th You deserve more than apples…you deserve a coffee break (Free $5 Starbucks card—given to the first 200 entrants)

Thursday, May 16^th You deserve more than apples…you deserve quality time with a new book (Free $10 Amazon gift card—given to the first 100 entrants)

Friday, May 17^th You deserve more than apples…you deserve flashy new office supplies (Free: gel pens, notebook, pen cup, ruler, eraser and www.poppin.com gift card—given to the first 50 entrants)

And the celebrating continues…

Week two:

On the My IT & MIS Community will be holding two raffles. To participate, beginning on Monday, May 20th, comment on our “Daily Digital Discussion” question. If you answer the question on the day we post it, you will receive an entry into our two digital raffles!

Raffles will be held on: Wednesday, May 22nd (for a NOOK) and Friday, May 24th (for an iPad Mini)

***For full the OFFICIAL YOU’RE THE APPLE OF OUR EYE CONTEST RULES visit the “Discussion Forum” and click on the thread: OFFICIAL YOU’RE THE APPLE OF OUR EYE CONTEST RULES

This webex was held May 10, 2013 at 3PM.

Click here to view the slides from the presentation or watch the webex recording.

A website I like to use to compile ideas is Wordle. Wordle helps generate “word clouds” from text that you provide. There are several ways that you can use Wordle in your classes:

• Copy your PowerPoint into it to create a visual review for your students.
• Use it to ask students what concepts they had the hardest time understanding before class, make the wordle, and use it as a jumping ground for just in time teaching.
• Ask a controversial question, create a Wordle, and then use it as the discussion
  starter. Students usually can find comfort in seeing how other people
• and that they may feel the same as them.
• Particularly effective in an online class, ask your students demographic types of data – such as where are you from. Create a Wordle and display it to the class.
• Also good for spelling lists with younger children.

Figure 1: Wordle of different classroom technologies

One of the courses I teach focuses on teaching data analytics through the use of Microsoft Excel. There are a number of topics about data analytics. I love to have my students look at free real world data, like census data. In lab, I might have them download the data or copy and paste it in for us to make a chart rather than giving them the data. In my lecture, I first play a video so students can visualize data analytics in action, then I create a “world” with my students, and ask them outside of class to create a world of their own and submit their ideas. I then discuss how data visualization is much more than a line chart. Gapminder.com has a tremendous amount of resources and even has a section for teachers. If you are using a video and are concerned that you might not be able to find it again or that it may be taken offline, you can use KeepVid to download and save any video found online.

FlipCards is a free iPhone app that many of my students use to help them study. I see a tremendous amount of my college students who still study using index cards. Not only can students create their own FlipCard deck, but they can also browse and download cards from Quizlet.com, the biggest flashcard database. Sample quizzes and activities associated with custom FlipCards can be found online, too. You can even create them and upload them to Quizlet.com then have your students download them. I have generated some for my students for Microsoft Excel shortcuts and Excel functions. I have used it in a more advanced manner by giving an Excel problem and asking the student to write the formula using functions as necessary. For example: Cell A1 has a date in it. If that date is greater than today’s date, this cell should return the number of days until that date. Otherwise, it should return “Date Passed”. You want to display the results in cell B1. What would you type in cell B1? Students would need to be able to determine what the Excel function is. You can also use it in class like a review game, or have students quiz each other in class. A great benefit of Quizlet.com is that the students who don’t have an iPhone can still access the decks that you create via the Quizlet.com website.

All of you are probably already are using short videos from YouTube, TeacherTube, and EduTube. But, what about recapturing class time and memorializing your students work at the same time. Instead of presentations, why not have them create a YouTube video (or give them a choice between the two). If they have a presentations course this could be used to supplement the presentation (if that is the purpose of the course). You could also show a short, unrelated video to allow the brain time to rejuvenate—similar to the “seven inning stretch”. It helps rejuvenate your students and helps them refocus.

Thanks to clickers and Twitter with internet-enabled devices, you can take something that was once effective only in a small classroom to the large classroom experience. This exercise is used to demonstrate the difficulty of determining business requirements for a new system development. If the business requirements are good, then all of the teams’ snowmen will look identical. Here is how it works in my class:

1. Have them split into teams. At least 4 to break into the rules of 1 person draws, 1 person reads the board, 1 person reviews, and 1 person submits questions.
2. Display the beginning instructions that appear to be detailed (i.e., the middle circle should be the size of a quarter).
3. Display questions being sent in on the board or via the classroom projector (either via clicker, twitter, whatever method you choose).
4. Students have their questions answered from the client (the instructor) every week (maybe every 3 minutes of class time).
5. After the first “week”, the client (me) answers some questions, gives them some information that wasn’t asked, and ignore other questions (like a real client would).
6. After week 2, someone usually asks a question that has already been given an answer. So, this is the time for the client to change their mind and give a different answer.
7. Between week 2-3, student start to coordinate using the question system. They know the goal is for all the snowmen to be the same. So, no matter what they do, I want something different (like when you try to fill in the gaps yourself when dealing with a client).
8. Then, I have a member of each team line up at the front of the room and show the class how different the pictures are. This leads into a discussion about system requirements, working with clients, and project management, just to name a few.

Wikis, such as Wikispaces, and Google Drive (formerly Google Docs) still continue to be used and there are many ideas in how they can be effectively integrated in the classroom. One thing I do is have students write review notes together. In some classes, depending on the course, they can use them on the exam only if they helped contribute. It is important that the Instructor remove incorrect information before the exam. However, the instructor does not remove poorly worded, but correct information. This is a great method in teaching about collaboration tools and collaborating with others on a project, such as how important it is to read what each other is writing.

I tell my students that I learn as much from them as I hope they do me. One of the most recent finds that a student introduced me to is ThingLink. ThingLink is a website that allows you to create interactive images to engage, entertain, and educate. You have the ability to add comments and links to other resources as well as enrich them with video, audio and other online media. When you mouse over the hotspots a balloon displays, giving more information and a link to learn more.

Figure 2 Click on image to view enhanced image with ThingLink 

These ideas merely graze the surface. There are a plethora of technologies that can be incorporated into your classes, and it can be overwhelming at times. Experiment. Have fun. Be open-minded and creative. Ask your students what they use and work with in the cloud. If you are excited about it, most likely your students will be, too!

Pearson’s annual Course Redesign Conference will take place this year from September 27-28, 2013 at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort in Phoenix, Arizona. This two-day conference helps equip participants with a basic foundation of the principles of course redesign so that they can begin the process of implementing these principles on their own campuses.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of this conference. We’ve been collecting the valuable materials each year from our experienced presenters and wanted to share with you what you could learn, as an IT instructor, by attending this event.

Click here to watch Kathie O’Brien’s 2012 presentation, Course Redesign in Computer Applications

Registration for this event is now open. You can view more details about the event, see the agenda, and register online. We hope to see you in Arizona.

But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android’s text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud.

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a professional developer. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior.”   http://beta.appinventor.mit.edu/about/moreinfo/    BTW—MIT stands for Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In the tradition of Dave Letterman I have created a Top 10 listing.

10.     Just For Me!

• I love to learn new things and this program is fun and cool.
• Because when I need an app for that and one doesn’t exist, I can build it myself! [posted on Discussion Forum – App Inventor Instructors – Ria]

9.     It is flexible

• Use it for 1 lecture, 1 unit, or the whole semester.
• Plenty of great materials and in about an hour, your students can create an app. Hello Purr (similar to Hello World) is the first tutorial to make sure installation has been successful. This could be a hands-on session in any introductory course.
• Faculty at some colleges use it at the beginning of CS1 to introduce object oriented concepts and are teaching it as part of CS0 Computer Principles.
• Faculty who are teaching 3 credit course for non-majors. At Bucks County Community College, we use it in CISC106 Mobile Application Development. University of San Francisco uses a computer class for non-majors.   It satisfies the required math course.   Trinity College in Connecticut is a Liberal Arts College offers it no prerequisite.  http://appinventor.mit.edu      www.appinventor.org

 8.     Students find MIT App Inventor useful and relevant

• “Of course, the best part is that it is so engaging for them that I’ll see much more sophisticated apps created than I’m actually requiring for the class.” [Cindy Mortensen, App Inventor Instructor forum]
• Feedback is immediate on the emulator or wireless android phone/tablet
• Democratizes coding—more accessible to the masses
• .apk file can be easily shared with classmates
• “I’m really proud of my work in your class, I love this class, it lets me be creative and I really enjoy it.” [Unsolicited quote from one of my students]

7.     MIT App Inventor is open source

• Undergraduates and graduate students from MIT, Mills, Harvard, Wellesley, and University of San Francisco are working on projects to modify and improve the program.
• Another group of developers is making it free-standing so students can access program without being on the Internet all of the time. [i.e. third world countries and rural areas in the U.S.]
• Project in the works to make the app completely Web-based and not require Java 6
• It’s FREE

6.     Tool for computational thinking

• “Computational Thinking is the thought processes involved in formulating problems and their solutions so that the solutions are represented in a form that can be effectively carried out by an information-processing agent.” [Cuny, Snyder, Wing   http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~CompThink/]
• Students are required to take one beginning programming language course, but they are not all of a “programming” mindset, so they may not really “get it”.

 5.     Creativity blossoms

• “Goal is to enable people to become CREATORS, not just CONSUMERS in this mobile world.“ [Hal Abeleson, MIT]
•  “Another is that it forces them to concentrate on the design of their app’s functionality, and provides continual reinforcement of the way that basic programming constructs really work. They learn quickly when a structure doesn’t work the way they expected, and they learn to either choose a different structure, or break down that task a little more.”  [Cindy Mortensen  App Inventor Instructor forum]
• Newly awarded NSF Grant Democratize Computing Lab
• Image courtesy of www.fastcompany.com

4.     Agile programming and prototyping

• Agile methodology is an alternative to traditional project management, typically used in software development. It helps teams respond to unpredictability through incremental, iterative work cadences, known as sprints. Agile methodologies are an alternative to waterfall, or traditional sequential development. [http://agilemethodology.org/]
• Prototyping is a method used by designers to acquire feedback from users about future designs. Prototypes are similar to mock-ups (see this), but are usually not as low-fidelity as mock-ups appear slightly later in the design process. [http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/prototyping.htm]

3.     Encourages collaboration

• Give students a group project and they will learn to work as a team on something that is fun! (not funny but true) [Scott Ferguson AI Site | AI Developers Library | AI Facebook]
• Example of tasks document. Each task needs a Leader and a Back-up person. [MIT App Inventor Faculty Training Corps]

2.     Exponential growth of mobile users

1.     Instead of checking their phones for a text, they will be busy figuring out (aka learning) how to make their own app. [Scott Ferguson AI Site | AI Developers Library | AI Facebook]