As teachers we know that our written work is not ready for publication until it has been reviewed by a variety of colleagues for commentary and edits. External review is needed even for good writers because we have a hard time seeing our own writing errors. Plus, we need that extra feedback to sharpen our ideas, discover new directions to take, and generally elevate our work to publication quality.

Blended learning is often described as the best of both worlds because it combines elements of face-to-face and online learning. For an instructor getting ready to teach his first blended course, the temptation may be to look at his traditional course syllabus, pick which classes can be moved online and then leave the rest of the syllabus as it has always been.

The December issue of The Teaching Professor newsletter contains a piece highlighting a review of research article on humor. It’s so impressive I decided I’d mention of few of its features and findings in this post.

Findings released today show that on average, full-time college students study 15 hours a week. However, study time differed by academic majors, with seniors in engineering averaging about 19 hours per week, while their peers in the social sciences and business averaged around 14 hours per week.

The first indication that the Millennial Generation may be different from previous generations is to consider how many different names we have for the generation and the people who belong to it. They’re referred to as Generation Y, Nexters, Baby Boom Echo Generation, Echo Boomers, Digital Natives, Generation Next, Generation Me and, of course, Millennials.

Interactive, synchronous web conferencing software such as WebEx, Blackboard Collaborate and even Skype are innovative tools that can be implemented by faculty teaching both hybrid and fully online courses. When faculty at Towson University began using WebEx to incorporate a synchronous component to their courses, they discovered that interactive web conferencing (IWC) delivers many benefits.

I was on the first floor of a college library, needing to get to a teaching and learning center on the fifth floor and standing in front of two elevators, but for the life of me I couldn’t find the call button. There was the large panel with the instructions not to use the elevator in case of fire and various key holes for use in emergencies, but no button. I looked elsewhere, around the edges of both doors. Still no sign of a button.

Some instructors never offer it under any circumstances. Others embrace it as a way to help students learn the course material or improve a disappointing test score. And a small minority, if pushed, will admit they only offer it when students wear them down until they finally gave in to it.

The online learning platform is gaining popularity worldwide. Ambient Insight found that 12 million post-secondary students currently take online courses and this number is expected to explode to 22 million by 2014 (cited in Nagel, 2009). This research is exciting for those of us committed to teaching in the online environment, but also presents many challenges.