In Search Of Answers, Teachers Turn To Clickers

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Teaching With OWL-Space [Sakai] Innovation Award

Teaching With OWL-Space [Sakai] Innovation Award

As you may know, the Course Management System at Rice, OWL-Space, runs on the Sakai software system. Therefore, Rice faculty and instructors are eligible to participate in the competition described below:

The Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award (TWSIA) is a worldwide contest between instructors from institutions who use Sakai as a learning management system. The major goals of the TWSIA are the following:

• To promote good pedagogy and innovation in teaching and learning with technology;
• To share teaching and learning practices worth replicating;
• To get more instructors involved in the Sakai community.

Initiated at the 8^th Sakai Conference in Newport Beach, California, in December 2007, The Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award is organized and supported by the Teaching and Learning group of the Sakai community, a geographically dispersed community of practice composed of managers, faculty, instructional technologists, and web designers who voluntarily devote time and energy to build awareness and promote the needs of instructors who are using Sakai. Last year’s award, which was the first, was a huge success, gathering submissions ranging from K-12 instructors to graduate university faculty from around the world.

2009 Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award

The 2009 Teaching with Sakai Innovation award competition was officially announced on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at the Virginia Tech Sakai Regional Conference.

The application DEADLINE is Midnight GMT, Friday, February 27, 2009. (see the application link below) Winners will be awarded a trip to Boston, Massachusetts, to present at the 10th Sakai Conference (July 8-10, 2009) and receive their award during the conference.

Teaching Innovation

Although there are many ways in which technology, and in particular Sakai, can make the teaching process more efficient or productive, innovative technology applications truly transform the educational experience. The intent of this award is to highlight examples of educational applications of Sakai which fall into this innovative or transformative category.

Please contact the Rice Educational Technologies department for help and support with your application.

For more information please visit:

http://openedpractices.org/twsia

Internet Explorer browser might be vulnerable to having their computers hijacked

SAN FRANCISCO - Users of all current versions of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser might be vulnerable to having their computers hijacked because of a serious security hole in the software that had yet to be fixed Monday.

The flaw lets criminals commandeer victims' machines merely by tricking them into visiting Web sites tainted with malicious programming code. As many as 10,000 sites have been compromised since last week to exploit the browser flaw, according to antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc.

The sites are mostly Chinese and have been serving up programs that steal passwords for computer games, which can be sold for money on the black market. However, the hole is such that it could be "adopted by more financially motivated criminals for more serious mayhem — that's a big fear right now," Paul Ferguson, a Trend Micro security researcher, said Monday.

"Zero-day" vulnerabilities like this are security holes that haven't been repaired by the software makers. They're a gold mine for criminals because users have few ways to fight off attacks.

The latest vulnerability is noteworthy because Internet Explorer is the default browser for most of the world's computers. Also, while Microsoft says it has detected attacks only against version 7 of Internet Explorer, which is the most widely used edition, the company warned that other versions are also potentially vulnerable.

Microsoft said it is investigating the flaw and is considering fixing it through an emergency software patch outside of its normal monthly updates, but declined further comment. The company is telling users to employ a series of complicated workarounds to minimize the threat.

Many security experts, meanwhile, are urging Internet Explorer users to use another browser until a patch is released.

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On the Net:

Microsoft's advisory:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/961051.mspx

Revived Fervor for Smart Monitors Linked to a Server

By ASHLEE VANCE

Published: October 13, 2008

Instead of having a big, loud and complex computer on your desk, what if you could have a quiet, thin machine that rarely needed an upgrade or a fix?
Click on the Blog Title for the full story

Rice Expands Audience Response Systems Availability

During the spring of the 2008 academic year, the EdTech carried out a presentation for faculty and graduate students focusing on Audience Response Systems (ARS). This presentation, part of the Teaching with Technology series sponsored by IT and The Digital Media Center, sparked faculty interest in moving towards a campus-wide supported solution. As a result, he Educational Technologies team at Rice and a number of faculty members participated in a series of round table discussions and demonstrations, aimed at identifying an ARS system that would more closely fit the needs and interests of the Rice instructional community. Transcripts and documents from these round table sessions were analyzed by an independent evaluator. Based on the recommendations of the evaluator, EdTech has moved forward with the deployment of ARS in three more classrooms at Rice. The selected system was TurningPoint Technologies.

There were several factors that made TurningPoint a better choice for Rice over the other systems considered:
- TurningPoint offers the opportunity to accumulate and combine student responses, expanding the opportunities for instruction and dialog between faculty and students, while eInstruction does not.
- Turning Point offers other alternatives to participation, including a laptop based application that can serve as a clicker.
- TurningPoint offers options for side by side pre and post assessment graphing of same question to show effectiveness of lecture.
- Other systems considered require user registration of the clickers with the vendor. EdTEch was not satisfied vendor provided assurances regarding individual privacy and the sharing of student data.
- The clickers are acquired as a single purchase in the case of TurningPoint, whereas other vendors requires multiple payments by students
- Clickers from other vendors were deemed the least desirable use interface for students, more clunky and less aesthetically pleasing.

EdTech is working the Office of The Registrar to finalize the location of the deployments based on faculty needs. Please stay tuned for more.