10 top publications to wrap up the fall term
With December come many festive traditions: public markets come alive, homes light up and kitchens smell of sweet and savory pies. Profweb elves complete this festive series and present you their traditional list of the 10 most consulted publications from August 1 to December 1, 2017. And because we’re feeling festive, we’ve compiled a list of the most popular French publications, too!
English Edition
Blended Learning with Microsoft Office Mix for PowerPoint (Julie Wong and Ryan W. Moon). Flipped teaching and blended learning approaches continue to be powerful and popular pedagogical strategies. Julie Wong explains how Office Mix allowed her to easily turn Powerpoint slides into short videos with audio narration that students can consult anytime.
Mathematics and Programming in the Cloud with CoCalc (Gabriel Indurskis). This Real Life Story, initially published just before the summer holidays, got an encore at the start of the fall term. It zooms in on CoCalc, an open source online system designed for complex calculations and programming in the cloud. It facilitates collaboration through file sharing within projects, with teacher-controlled access.
“You’re Welcome” – The New Flipped-approach Tool for Extra English Practice (Angie Stevens and Andy Van Drom). At the beginning of the term Cégep Limoilou presented a new hybrid platform that combines freely accessible online activities with tutor-led conversation workshops to make students in service industry-related fields more fluent and confident.
Delving Deeper into Student Data Visualization with Program Analytics (Ryan W. Moon). Jonathon Sumner and Sameer Bhatnagar, program coordinators within the Science program at Dawson College, have harnessed the power of Big Data to develop a web-based platform that gives institutions and faculty insight into academic and operational trends using data visualization. Their ultimate aim is to maximize student success, and they are enthusiastic about presenting their data solution to colleges across the CEGEP network in the new year.
Tips and Tools to Streamline Audio Production for Teaching Purposes (Francis Bélanger-Desbiens). Even though audio editing software has been around for quite some time, recording and producing high-quality audio files is still not an easy feat, as confirmed by the popularity of this article in which laboratory technician Francis Bélanger-Desbiens gives teachers tips and tricks to keep in mind regardless of the software program used.
The Low-Tech Active Learning Classroom at Cégep de Sept-Îles (Sharon Coyle). Active learning is gaining traction and more and more CEGEPs are designing classrooms specifically for this purpose. These do not have to have the most sophisticated technologies to become collaborative workspaces. Sharon’s story is the perfect example!
Inspiring Portraits – Lee Anne Johnston: Heart and Determination in Service of Teachers and Students (Ryan W. Moon). In November, Profweb editor Ryan W. Moon contributed a heartfelt tribute to Lee Anne Johnston, the education advisor at Cégep Heritage College, whose inspiring portrait is a story of drive and dedication! Readers expressed their agreement and gratitude in the comments section.
Insights and strategies to design formative assessment that “counts” (Andy Van Drom and Angela Mastracci) Another concept we regularly heard about this term is formative assessment. In this first article in a series of 2, Angela Mastracci debunks some of the myths about evaluation, and discusses strategies that allow teachers to harmoniously integrate formative assessment into their teaching strategy to make it even more effective.
Keyboard shortcuts to speed up formative feedback (Netta Gorman). In this period of intensive corrections, Netta’s story is likely to appeal to many teachers, as it promises to optimize the way you correct and comment on digital copies of your students.
Using readability analysis to make students stronger writers (Andy Van Drom) A second article on data analysis found its way into our top 10. It explains how using online resources that establish readability statistics of a text can make students stronger readers and writers. This insight can also help teachers apply best practices of Universal Design when developing documents.
French Edition
As far as the Profweb elves can remember, for the first time, 3 featured reports take up the top spots of our readership statistics!
La gestion de classe à l’ère du numérique (partie 1): Entre cohérence et tolérance (Jean-Luc Trussart). The fall session started off strong with the publication of the first part of the featured report on classroom management in the digital age. This report proposes a personalized approach to define one’s own stance in terms of classroom management at the college level. This report will be available in English in January 2018.
Planifier, réaliser et diffuser des vidéos éducatives: lignes directrices et astuces pour les enseignants (Edward Awad, Yann Brouillette, Caroline Cormier and Véronique Turcotte). A second featured report also generated a lot of reader interest. An intercollegiate teacher team has developed a practical guide on producing educational videos for the flipped Science classroom. The advice provided is relevant to teachers in all disciplines who seek to engage students more actively in their learning.
La gestion de classe à l’ère du numérique (partie 2): varier ses approches pour mieux intervenir (Jean-Luc Trussart and Andréanne Turgeon). This second featured report on classroom management explores different intervention strategies, and discusses their benefits and limitations. It invites teachers to opt for a diversified approach that integrates digital tools. This report will become available in English during the Winter 2018 term.
La rétroaction audio pour donner du sens à la correction (Jean-François Legault).
The first real life story on our list! It presents the approach of a literature teacher who wanted to offer more complete and personalized feedback to his students, while making the process effective. Audio feedback proved to be an ideal solution, despite some pitfalls along the way. Jean-François Legault shares several tips for successfully transitioning to audio feedback.
La gestion de classe à l’ère du numérique (partie 3) : stratégies pour engager les étudiants (Jean-Luc Trussart and Andréanne Turgeon). The last part of the report on classroom management in the digital age offers a diverse collection of inspiring practices that have been covered in real life stories on Profweb, written by teachers from colleges across Quebec. This report will become available in English during the Winter 2018 term.
Des TIC qui ont un impact positif sur les étudiants atteints d’un TDA/H (in English) (Angie Stevens). Rooted in the principles of inclusive pedagogy, this article, translated from English at the beginning of the fall session, has obviously resonated with our readers. It contains a wealth of practical tips and suggestions for digital tools to support learning for students with ADD/ADHD (debunking some myths in passing).
La classe d’apprentissage actif à « faible technologie » du Cégep de Sept-Îles (in English) (Sharon Coyle). Active learning is gaining traction and more and more CEGEPs are designing classrooms specifically for this purpose. These do not have to have the most sophisticated technologies to become collaborative workspaces. Sharon’s story is the perfect example!
The spotlight is on Moodle in the following 2 publications of our list.
Les leçons de Moodle pour préparer les futurs techniciens ambulanciers paramédics à la prise de décision en situation d’urgence (Katie Duhamel). Who said that a serious subject could not lend itself to a gamified approach? Certainly not Katie Duhamel, who gets her students to progress through Moodle lessons in the manner of a book in which “you are the hero,” where each possible choice the reader makes leads to a different consequence. In this way, students obtain immediate feedback. Katie’s approach has sparked fruitful discussions among future EMTs.
Transformer une portion d’un cours régulier en cours en ligne (François Robert). This real life story explores the possibility of a “hybrid” formula where only a few classes in a term are offered in a distance learning format. Students greatly appreciate this format because they can learn at their own pace and communicate with the teacher in several ways (chat, private forums, videoconferencing with screen sharing).
Des raccourcis clavier pour accélérer la rétroaction formative (in English) (Netta Gorman). Last but not least, Netta’s story is likely to appeal to many teachers in this period of intensive corrections, as it promises to optimize the way you correct and comment on digital copies of your students.
Happy holidays from all the team !
We are already preparing inspiring publications for the Winter 2018 session. The team will be back on January 8. In the meantime, we invite you to explore the articles, real life stories and featured reports on our website, and send us your suggestions.
Above all, we wish you, on behalf of the entire Profweb team, a wonderful holiday season and a happy New Year 2018!
