(from EdSurge):

By Marguerite McNeal

The night before Vivianne Nufio gives a presentation about “The Slaughter Yard,” a short story from Argentine poet Esteban Echeverría, she posts questions for her peers on her class website page. She asks what students think the author means in line 45, and how the story compares to others they’ve read. Nufio is giving them a heads up: the next day they’ll discuss these questions and more in class.

Nufio, a senior and Spanish major at Denison University, is one of hundreds of students testing out a new way to manage courses and communication at the small liberal arts institution outside Columbus, Ohio. The university is the first to adopt a tool called Notebowl to replace its legacy learning management system (LMS).

“We’re a small liberal arts institution,” says Donnie Sendelbach, director of educational technology services at Denison, which has 2,200 students. “We usually end up with products a corporation designs and sells or something that a public research university developed but for public research environment.”

With the Notebowl implementation, Denison is working closely with the company to tailor the platform to its needs, specifically managing all of the administrative work that goes into teaching, learning and campus life at the institution. CONTINUE READING HERE