When professors calculate students’ grades they often consider whether and how often students joined classroom discussions. But with the proliferation of distance education, online discussion boards have come to replace the traditional face-to-face debates and exchanges among students. So how can a professor factor in an online post when grading a student?

The New Jersey Institute of Technology thinks it may have an answer. The institution, which trains faculty members at various colleges for teaching online, suggests that professors use a tiered point system. Kenneth Ronkowitz, an instructional-technology manager at the institute, explained the system at a session Tuesday afternoon at the League for Innovation in the Community College’s annual technology conference. Students who simply post a reply to another student’s opinion, such as "I agree," get one point. Those who respond...

One of the most well-attended sessions at the League for Innovation in the Community College’s technology conference today featured a discussion of how professors are using online quizzes, interactive games, and simulations to teach students about everything from economics to history to philosophy. The presenters, Robert Wasilewski and John Bouman, of Howard Community College, in Maryland, showed a Web site that the college created—accessible via Howard’s WebCT software—that aggregates the games, as well as listing Internet sites that are useful to professors. In one game, called Petals Around the Rose, students are asked to guess the total score when five dice are rolled. The students’ mission is to figure out how the computer calculates the score, and their goal is to become a "potentate of the rose."

Students who like to hide in the back of the lecture hall during class will have no such luck in some online courses. Professors are beginning to use what they call "the fishbowl" to add transparency to the learning process. Students get assigned to groups to complete projects, and all discussions and correspondence are required to take place on the online discussion boards—where the rest of the class is watching.

Rena Palloff, a faculty member in the program in educational leadership and change at the Fielding Graduate Institute, spoke at the League for Innovation in the Community College conference and said she uses the fishbowl with great success. While students are often apprehensive about being watched, she said, they usually get valuable feedback from their classmates.

"It’s a scary thing—it’s nerve-racking," Ms. Paloff said. "The thing that makes it OK for them is the fact...

The annual League for Innovation in the Community College conference on information technology has drawn 2,300 participants to Dallas this week. The conference largely attracts faculty members, and sessions focus on trends in emerging technology, teaching and learning, work-force partnerships, and leadership development, among other areas. A number of the conference sessions are focused on using entertainment and interactivity to engage students—particularly those who are taking online courses—in the learning process.

In one session on Monday, for example, two lawyers at Sinclair Community College, in Ohio, told how the college designed and produced an eight-episode soap opera to teach students about consumer law. In another session, instructors from Cedar Valley College, in Texas, described how they used the game show Jeopardy in their classes to motivate students. And an assistant...

College archivists relate the most unusual item in their collections. The Johns Hopkins University’s Institute of the History of Medicine keeps hair — framed, no less — from the cow Edward Jenner used to develop the smallpox vaccine in 1796. The University of Chicago has, among other odd items, a limited-edition book of poetry printed on a raw pasta noodle — “alas, becoming more brittle by the year,” writes Alice Schreyer, director of special collections. Marlboro College’s small Rudyard Kipling collection includes an unflattering biography of the publisher George H. Putnam, written by Kipling and printed on toilet paper. (The Chronicle, subscription required)

Learning how to use the Internet can be daunting for some recent immigrants to the United States. So Bellevue Community College near Seattle has joined with a digital gaming company and the Seattle Public Library to develop software that guides immigrants in the basics of e-mailing, navigating Web sites, and using search engines. The software includes a video that uses storytelling and photographs of America’s scenic sites to inspire people to take advantage of the Web.

In the video, a friendly woman named Alma, who calls herself an "adventure coordinator," asks the viewer to choose to join either the "grizzly team" or the "tiger team." Each team comprises three people, recently arrived in America, who are eager to visit the country’s national parks.

In a demonstration, a member of the grizzly team is asked to help Ravi Patel, a recent immigrant from India who now lives in...

Pop-up ads are obnoxious. Spam is even worse. So what’s a poor software company to do when it wants to make itself known to college students?

More and more tech companies are trying to get their messages out by recruiting students to spread the word for them. Companies like Cdigix and Microsoft have hired squads of student representatives to gad about campus, wearing clothes with company logos and telling classmates about the merits of new products. In exchange for their work, the students get free software and, occasionally, small stipends. (The Boston Globe)

High-speed Web connections and online conferencing tools have moved many a high-school tutoring session online—and, now, overseas. A number of the e-tutoring businesses that have popped up in India, like a company called Growing Stars, cater to a predominantly American clientele.

American families may be attracted to the new services by the price: Growing Stars charges clients about $20 an hour, significantly less than the $40-$100 rates that many American tutoring services charge. (Associated Press)

Google Maps, the search engine’s popular cartographic service, isn’t just for Web surfers in need of driving directions. The service, popular because its close-up images include outlines of buildings, is helping some students navigate their way through college life.

Students at a couple of universities can use adapted versions of the maps to locate off-campus housing. And at Tufts University’s Campus Compass—also based on Google’s mapping software—freshmen and visitors can learn where to do their laundry or how to find the nearest ATM. (Google Maps Mania)

More and more professors are turning to iPods and other digital audio devices to record their lectures and send them to their students, in what many are calling “coursecasting.” The portability of coursecasting, its proponents say, makes the technology ideal for students who fall behind in class or those for whom English is a second language. And some advocates say that coursecasting can be more than just a review tool, that it can also enliven classroom interaction and help lecturers critique themselves. But many professors remain wary of the technology. Critics suggest that it will lead to empty classrooms or serve as a crutch for late-sleeping students, and some worry about coursecasting’s intellectual-property implications. (The Chronicle, subscription required)