January 11, 2013
Lucidchart: a free collaboration tool for teachers
Eliza Wright,
A GeekyMomma's Blog, January 11, 2013.
I've been using draw.io to make flowcharts for gRSShopper - it's pretty basic, and doesn't share the way I'd like it to, but it's free. Draw.io was set up to demonstrate the mxGraph Javascript diagramming library and works quite well as a drawing tool. You can find it on GitHub. Here's more on the plug-in. Here's where I tried to share a drawing using Google Drive (also pictured above). I used to use Gliffy, but recently the service became too expensive, charging me after only five diagrams. The post I link to here is blatant marketing a guest post on Lee Kolbert's blog describing Lucidchart, another web-based drawing program it says is "completely free for educators and students." For individual users, though, it's quite expensive and from my non-expert's eye appears to be just the same as draw.io. (p.s. I have been flooded with requests asking me to post guest posts, links and infographs - they're all marketing and I won't run them (and other bloggers shouldn't either)).
Facebook Charging $100 to Message Mark Zuckerberg
Chris Taylor,
Mashable, January 11, 2013.
My first thought was, if Facebook can charge $100 to unconnected people to send a message to mark Zuckerberg, how much could it charge unconnected people to send a message to me? A dollar? My second thought way, why should Facebook keep all that money? And this made me contemplate a new internet economy where advertisers pay intended targets, not the communications medium. Could the money people spend advertsing to me ever make it worth investing the time to becoem someone they would be willing to pay to advertise to?
About MOOC Completion Rates: The Importance of Student Investment
Tucker Balch,
, January 11, 2013.
When you look at how many people clicked on the login form, completion rates in a MOOC are very low. But when you look at those who completed teh first assignment, completion rates are much higher. Investment matters. "We need to recognize that completion rates for MOOCs really have a different meaning than those for regular university courses. This is mainly because of the differing level of investment the students make from the start." Making students pay might raise the completion rate, suggests Tucker Balch, who just fin ished teaching a Coursera MOOC in which 53,000 students signed up and 4.8 percent completed. But one wonders what the purpose of such a measure would be. "If we continue to keep the barrier to entry low, we’ll enable students to taste many many courses, and that may be a good thing for education."
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