Are ‘Learning Styles’ a Symptom of Education’s Ills?

Shocker Alert! 

The NY Times reveals "learning styles" as a largely baseless theory.

"Do [your students] like to learn by seeing, hearing or doing?

"According to some education researchers, it may not matter. They say the idea of teaching according to students’ “preferred learning styles” — auditory, visual or kinesthetic — has little to no empirical backing. But although criticism may be denting the idea’s popularity, it still persists — which may say something larger about the way teachers today are trained."

Read here for the full article. 

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Easy way to enliven your Instructional Material

Looking for a new way to present information to your students? Tired of the same ol' PowerPoint or Lecture Notes that you use over and over again? With FlipHTML5 you can still use your tried and true instructional material but present them more like an e-Book in your online course.

Step 1: Download for FREE the FlipHTML5 software at fliphtml5.com. You can download the program for free by selecting the appropriate buttons. Here is what the Free version provides:

• FlipHtml5 Logo
• 100 publications per month
• Pre-designed templates
• 10GB Host
• Up to 50 MB per document

The various paid versions start at Pro Version for $15/month; Platinum Version (shown as the best deal) for $299/year or all the way to the Enterprise Version where you can pay a onetime fee of $999 and have it forever. I will demonstrate the FREE version!

Lecture Notes

Once you have the software downloaded, simply follow the instructions to add a new book and upload your PDF file so you can convert it to a digital book. Keep in mind your PDF must be less than 150 MB. Once you have uploaded your pdf, you can choose from a few templates and themes with the free version. This can then be embedded into a page in your online course!

There are a few fun ways your students can use the eBook. They can zoom in on a graphic to get a better look, they can print the book, and they can do a keyword search.

PowerPoint Presentations

If you want to convert your PowerPoint Presentations into an eBook, you will first want to change the orientation of your slides to Portrait. This will give it more of a book look. You may have to do some editing so that all your images and text are aligned correctly.

One more thing....you can place your e-books on different Bookcases in FlipHTML5 and you can actually embed an entire bookcase into your Canvas course! Your students can click on any of the eBooks in the bookshelf to view. (This is just an image of my bookshelf and is not active.)

Since you are embedding, any changes you make in the Flip HTML5 will change automatically in your course(s) as well. 

I bet you can think of lots of fun ways to incorporate this handy and FREE tool into your online or web enhanced course! Download the free software and create some eBooks! I hope you leave a comment letting us know how you and your students like this tool!

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Devil's Advocate

 I would not expect you to agree wholeheartedly with Eric Palmer's perspectives but his view are worth considering, at least as a reality check when implementing technology in education. Heck, the random, mismanaged use of educational technology is the whole reason I pursued a Masters in Instructional Design and Technology in the first place.
He sounds like a bit of a curmudgeon and the ideas are not wholly new but worth discussion over coffee or more.
http://edge.ascd.org/blogpost/don-39-t-flip-for-the-flipped-classroom

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Integrating the iPad into the classroom

I discovered a very interesting article by Dian Schaffhauser about an organization that has been integrating iPads into every academic program and they offer great insight into what they have learned. If you have any interest in using the iPad in your course, give this article a read.

7 Lessons from a Systemwide iPad Program

Not only can you learn a lot from their experiences, but they also provide some golden nuggets along the way in the form of individual instructors' experiences with particular apps or a particular method of using the iPad. Look for the grey textboxes at the end of the lessons learned:

Here are the apps featured in these snippets:

Flashcards+  a fast, fun and free way to review your own flashcards or use the millions of existing flashcard decks

Socrative Student  initiate formative assessments via quizzes, quick question polls, exit tickets and space races

EasyBib  create accurate MLA, APA, and Chicago style citations just by scanning a book bar code to by typing the name of a book

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