CoreDogs blog

Flipped classes threaten universities and publishers

Kieran — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:51:04 +0000

Flipping a class shifts the emphasis from memorizing facts to doing tasks. It's a relatively simple change that can improve learning significantly. Indirectly, flipping might also threaten today's universities and textbook publishers.

Video: Patterns

Kieran — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:33:29 +0000

Patterns are common solutions to common problems. This video shows how patterns are organized in CoreDogs.

Video: the CoreDogs cast of characters

Kieran — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 21:44:50 +0000

There are three characters running through CoreDogs: Kieran, CC, and Renata. This video explains why.

Video on outcome-based learning

Kieran — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:02:14 +0000

Made a short video on designing content for outcome-based learning.

New video: Writing your own textbook for flipped courses

Kieran — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:38:01 +0000

There's a new CoreDogs video. It's mainly a short demo of course authoring tools.

http://youtu.be/IgSTWf_4EMI

A Tale of Two Students

Kieran — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:37:04 +0000

Follow two students through a traditional course, and a flipped one run with CoreDogs. Hear what the students and their professors have to say.

Textbook Writer: A tool for writing effective online college textbooks

Kieran — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:59:05 +0000

Textbook Writer would be a Web appplication for writing online college textbooks. It would help push ed tech forward, by using learning science best practices to encourage a more efficient blend of tech and human instruction.

A textbook is not a course

Kieran — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:22:33 +0000

CoreDogs is a good textbook. But by itself, it isn't enough for a good course. Two things are missing: exploration, and groupiness.

Drupal: A beginner's guide to Drush

Kieran — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:54:04 +0000

Drush makes updating Drupal sites easier. A new article shows how you can install Drush, and use it to update your Drupal site. If it's your first time using the command line, this is for you.

Drupal: Using a shared SSL certificate on Hostgator

Kieran — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:55:43 +0000

How to set up a Drupal site on Hostgator to use https, with a shared SSL certificate.

Get yo' assessment on, dog!

Kieran — Wed, 18 May 2011 14:02:15 +0000

Faculty like doing assessment. As much as root canals. But what if assessment was no extra work? “Impossible!” you say. Curb your inner curmudgeon, and learn of the wonder that is CoreDogs!

A new chapter with some good learning science

Kieran — Sun, 08 May 2011 14:43:24 +0000

A new chapter in ClientCore shows students how to reuse an existing design. This post explains why that chapter is good learning science.

The CoreDogs way

Kieran — Wed, 04 May 2011 12:55:50 +0000

The CoreDogs Way is an approach to teaching skill-based college courses. This post briefly explains what the Way is, and why it’s important.

Social learning in CoreDogs

Kieran — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 13:47:20 +0000

CoreDogs in student's social world.

Five principles for teaching skills

Kieran — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:03:10 +0000

What learning science tells us about helping people learn skills.

Baking a video card

Kieran — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:59:54 +0000

My GeForce 8800 video card broke. Strange vertical lines on the screen. That was in Windows safe mode low res. It wouldn't work at all in its normal configuration.

The solution? Bake the card for 10 minutes at 385°F. In the oven.

You read that right. I got the idea from this page.

Drupal: URLs, nav bars, and mental models

Kieran — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:25:58 +0000

Match URLs to users' mental model of your site. Users will be happier, your site will be easier to manage, and you'll get better search results.

Exercises and grades

Kieran — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:40:12 +0000

Do students who do exercises get higher scores? Are bears Catholic?

Give students grading rubrics?

Kieran — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 22:52:55 +0000

When you give students an assignment, should you also give them your grading rubric?

Helping experts build courses

Kieran — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:14:18 +0000

Read Tom Kuhlmann's post, Here's How to Help Your Subject Matter Experts Build Better E-Learning Courses, on the Rapid Elearning Blog

Feedback rules!

Kieran — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:49:05 +0000

Giving students frequent formative feedback is wicked awesome.

Drupal: The WYSIWYG blues

Kieran — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:15:19 +0000

Web WYSIWYG editors often aren’t very WYSIWYGish. Users create content in the editor that doesn’t look the same on the final page. Learn how you can make WYSIWYG behave.

Learning science, one instructor at a time

Kieran — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 19:27:46 +0000

CoreDogs can improve learning productivity in higher education. Individual instructors can drop CoreDogs into courses for a dose of learning science medicine. It can work today, without any institutional change.

Why patterns help learners

Kieran — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:53:34 +0000

A pattern is a solution to a problem that people have found useful. Patterns are in CoreDogs because they help people learn how to design things. This article explains why patterns help learners.

People, prejudice, and tribes

Kieran — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 13:40:41 +0000

Why do people hate each other? Partly because they're meat puppets.