Hemingway is a markdown editor that coaches you to write more clearly, helping you to emulate Ernest Hemingway‘s trademark sparse, journalistic style. Though I don’t use it as my main markdown editor, I’ve been thinking about ways it can be useful in a variety of learning tasks. Once writing …
Until recently, I worked on Propero.org, a collection of accredited, self-paced, online learning courses where students work at their own pace and pick up college credits with maximum convenience. I joined the team after the curriculum had been developed, so it was my job to review the courses and determine …
I am a big believer in RSS News Aggregators as a core technology for lifelong learning. By allowing each individual person to curate their own interests and get in the habit of consuming a steady stream of news relevant to their interests, RSS lets people build their own personalized diet …
Most LMSes have a “Discussion Forum” tool that you can add into any course unit, and even make it a graded assignment in the course. Many online educators will post a discussion prompt and let students respond below. Here’s a little trick to help spice up your discussion postings with …
I have long been a fan of the h5p.org project, a collection of open source learning objects written completely in HTML5 technologies to add interactive elements to online courses. These are the learning objects used in edX courses, but you can freely deploy them in your own courses. I’m going …
I’ve long been a believer that teachers should explore open source edtech tools as an alternative to all the free, freemium, ad-supported, and privacy-invading web applications that are marketed to us. In addition to all the great open source desktop applications, there are a lot of open alternatives to the …
As a system administrator, or even as a classroom teacher, you probably have several cloud app accounts that hold students’ names, grades, assignments, and communications. How many of these accounts do you protect with a strong password? How many of your passwords give you control over the systems your students depend …
One of the most valuable tools for an instructional designer is a great screencasting app. Being able to record your desktop with voice narration frees us to share techniques on our computers in live motion video. Many of us IDs have learned to depend on tools like Jing, Screenflow, Screencast-O-Matic, …
Instructure Canvas is the new hotness in the LMS market, but for many it remains out of reach. For many schools who need an LMS on a shoestring budget, their best option is to contract for an open source Moodle install from a 3rd party hosting company. This is a …
I was just discussing free screencasting tools with some fellow Instructional Designers, and realizing how many of the most commonly-used apps like Screencast-O-Matic are based on Java technology. Java’s recent plague of security breaches has earned it the title of the biggest vulnerability for US computers, and yet, I haven’t …
