Carol Gering

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies, Washington,D.C., 2009.  Available Online.

This report has been sitting on my desk for about a month. I finally found time to review it, and I must say, I’m impressed. This is a very thorough meta-study of quantitative research on online education, executed carefully, with good statistical analysis.

Bottom Line: “Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.” The study notes that this result isn’t validation of the medium, per se, but of multiple factors that may accompany online instruction (such as expanded time on task).

Evidence of Effectiveness: The nine studies related to learner reflection “…found that a tool or feature prompting students to reflect on their learning was effective in improving outcomes.” This factor was supported strongly. By contrast, studies of courses that included online simulations found the learning improvement only modestly positive. Surprisingly, studies that compared online environments using different media elements “…found no significant differences among media combinations.” As an example, one study evaluating the inclusion of graphics, navigation options, and color found no improvement in learning outcomes over a plain, text-based interface.

Lots more useful information and analysis is available in this report, as well as a rich list of references.

In light of my recent foray into data visualization, I just had to post this:

seen on infosthetics.com

Perhaps I should make my own version: I’m thinking a chocolate BAR chart.

Catching up on my reading today, I found a couple of useful links from Brandon on the JavaJive blog. (I first began following Brandon’s photoblog because he posts wonderful photos like this one…but I digress…)

Every photographer I know has had moments when they kicked themselves for leaving the tripod at home. This short video on metacafe offers an ingenious do-it-yourself design for an image stabilizer using nothing more than a screw, a string, and a washer. MacGyver couldn’t do better! At least it looks ingenious. For less than $1, I’ll definitely try it. What an amazingly simple idea!

And since you’ll be taking photos with your new image stabilizer later into the evening, you’ll need to get the most from your coffee. (I know. It was a weak, cheesy segue!)

For all you coffee connoisseurs, a guide for getting optimum effects from caffeine. Backed by scientific studies, no less.

Flying home from Atlanta on Sunday, I picked up a copy of BusinessWeek and found an interesting article titled The Wiki Cable Channel. The report is about a cable television channel that allows users to submit short “You Tube” type content for use on air. The companion web site allows visitors to watch everything that has aired on the TV channel in the last two hours, as well as the content that will air in the next two hours. Users can comment or upload their own video (which could be used on TV). The idea is to capture citizen reports from people living in the immediate vicinity of breaking news. It’s an interesting attempt to transform TV from a broadcast medium to a participatory culture.

I recently bought an external hard drive for archiving photos. It plugs into my computer via USB, requires no drivers, and requires no power source other than the computer. Nice. But, when I’m traveling–or even just out for the day–and think I may fill all the media cards I own, I still have to carry a laptop to download photos. My external hard drive doesn’t solve that problem. (You can see where I’m going with this. I need to buy yet another device to meet this need!)

Jobo just announced a new portable storage device called the GIGA one ultra. I was eyeing the older version (GIGA one) just the other day. The beauty of this drive is that it runs on batteries, and it accepts all standard media cards directly (no more need to carry a laptop on photography outings). The attraction of the soon-to-be-released ultra model is that the file transfer rate has doubled. Check this news release on Digital Photography Review for more details.

John Nack proposes an interesting idea for user-powered help inside Photoshop. His suggestion includes the capacity for storing notes, tagging them for handy access, making them available to other users, and sorting notes through user ratings of usefulness.

In an application that’s already so resource intensive, I have to wonder how large and bloated the software might become. I must admit, however, that I’m intrigued by the idea of software as a “living organism” that constantly improves “as users learn and share.”

Alaska Airlines has announced their plan to pilot (sorry–bad pun) in-flight wireless service in 2008! Read the press release for yourself.

Two posts in one day? I know, this is crazy, but I’m pretty excited about this news!

As the digital camera market continues to expand and manufacturers release new models in rapid succession, Adobe is working hard to keep pace. In August, Canon released it’s sixth prosumer-level digital SLR: the EOS 40D. Canon fans who purchased in the first wave quickly discovered an incompatibility between the version of camera raw used by their shiny new camera and the camera raw converter in Photoshop CS3.

Adobe responded pretty quickly. Last week they released an updated version of the camera raw plugin for Photoshop, as well as an updated version of Adobe Lightroom. In addition to the EOS 40D, the update supports 13 other new camera releases.

Digital Photography Review provides details, including links for downloading the updates. I have my updates installed. I think it’s time to buy a new camera!