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Thursday, February 20, 2014

Q: What do you use to check student assignments for plagiarism?

A: There is Plagiarism Checker Tool: http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/help-authors.php
You can download it for free: http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/
Check Turnitin  - it worth to pay for effectiveness if you don't have LMS system with integrated tools.

Q: I’ve noticed that some people are using a service called “brainshark” for their audio slideshows. Do you have any information about it?

A: You can narrate your PowerPoint presentation easily by signing up for a free account at brainshark.com.

This service is like Adobe presenter, allowing you to add narration to your presentation and then store it in the cloud. Your presentation is always editable and you will have a link that you can put in your emails, websites and blackboard shells. A couple of caveats.... Since your narrated copy of your presentation is stored on their service, you should consider what to do should their service go away.   

Retrieved from: ASU UTO Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Q: In order to find valuable information about people and business, students required to perform search on Internet. Can you share some technical tips to make this search safer and less time-consuming?

A: There are many articles in PCWorld that could help. Here is one tip from Sarah Purewal: 
How to Run an Online Background Check for Free:
 "You can also use site-specific searches if you're looking for someone within a school or business. For example: site:pcworld.com "sarah jacobsson purewal" will give a list of search results found only in the PCWorld.com domain." More

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Q: I have videos in my course for students to watch in preparation to the next class. I have to summarize the video's content in class because I am not sure that students were watching the videos. Is a "flipped classroom" approach effective?

A: A new study from the Stanford Graduate School of Education flips upside down the notion that students learn best by first independently reading texts or watching online videos before coming to class to engage in hands-on projects. Studying a particular lesson, the Stanford researchers showed that when the order was reversed, students' performances improved substantially. More