Educator’s Toolbox
Posts about instructional communication and the assessment of student learning and teacher behaviors.
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A (Caesar) Shift for the Traditional Classroom
Cryptography (the study of “secret writing”) might be a topic you’d hear about in the halls of MIT, the Naval Academy, or training sites at Langley. Here at Queens University of Charlotte, students are getting a taste of the basics of secret writing, codes, and ciphers using Simon Singh’s popular The Code Book as a guide. Over…
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Rethinking the Classroom
The collaboration surrounding the James L. Knight School of Communication and the 2012 Democratic National Convention has been highlighted on the national level. Dr. John A. McArthur, an associate professor in the Knight School of Communication, had an article published in the Journal of the Association for Communication Administration in its recent issue. The article,…
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Second Screens for Successful Online Teaching
This summer, I’ve been teaching an intensive 7-week online course in Public Relations and Strategic Communication. The nature of our online class has meant that my students have been engaged in an extraordinary amount of PR writing for the web. Many have learned, through practice, the values of writing for the audience and the vehicle…
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Tiny Radio in Class: Podcasting Returns to Campus
The article below was featured in Campus Technology Magazine and online on May 15, 2013. Tiny Radio in Class: Podcasting Returns to Campus By Dian Schaffhauser When 99% Invisible blew through its fundraising goal on Kickstarter by four times, the “tiny radio show about design” brought renewed attention to the lost art of audio podcasting. It also piqued the…
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Exploring the Relationship Between Student-Instructor Interaction on Twitter and Student Perceptions of Teacher Behaviors
The latest issue of International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education features a research article by Dr. John A. McArthur and Kristen Bostedo-Conway. The article – “Exploring the Relationship Between Student-Instructor Interaction on Twitter and Student Perceptions of Teacher Behaviors” – examines the use of Twitter as a classroom tool. The abstract reads:…
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Recapping AAC&U’s 2013 General Education Conference
“What colleges have been doing isn’t wrong or irresponsible. But, it is insufficient.” These opening sentiments from Dr. Terrel Rhodes, AAC&U’s Vice President set the stage for considering the change facing higher education at the 2013 conference on general education. The meeting’s setting along Boston’s Freedom Trail was a telling metaphor for for a conference…
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Staying Current in Social Media Education
The following article was featured on the Social Media Club’s national Social Media Education blog on February 19, 2013: As a professor who studies digital media, many people often ask me how I stay current in the field. Studying social media and digital media can be a tricky business in that new things are always being…
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Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico
Thank you to the faculty members at the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico for being excellent hosts. This week, I facilitated two faculty development workshops at the university. The workshops focused on (1) integrating technology into the classroom and (2) digital and media literacy. The slides and resources for workshop participants are below: Resources mentioned…
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Putting Pinterest to the Test
Queens University of Charlotte and Dr. John A. McArthur were featured on CampusTechnology.com in a story about experimenting with Pinterest in the college classroom. The article highlights the COMM 360: Charlotte and the Convention course and its use of Pinterest as an archive tool. Below are two excerpts from the article, which can be read…
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I took my graduate students to Walmart. Don’t judge.
Everytime I write an paper about user-experience design, I try to illuminate the main concept by comparing Ikea and Walmart. So, it made sense to me that instead of talking about this comparison in my graduate course in “Space, Technology & User Experience,” I would utilize the actual spaces to make the comparison for me. My…
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