6 juillet 2013

By Jorge E. Borrero A. Hasta ahora, el grueso del debate sobre las fortalezas y debilidades del modelo de aprendizaje virtual se centra casi exclusivamente en la calidad de la educación impartida, ¿que tan preparados están los alumnos virtuales para salir adelante en un mercado laboral hambriento por competencias que cada día cambian con mayor rapidez?, poco a poco las ventajas que permite el modelo en línea,  ofrecer al alumno la posibilidad de aprender a su ritmo, repasar el contenido las veces que requiera y garantizar la suficiencia en temas específicos se va haciendo evidente.
En esta ocasión vamos a explorar otra cara de la moneda (aunque el tema educativo tiene muchísimas caras), y es pensar que ventajas puede ofrecer para los docentes y otros actores de la educación el modelo virtual.
Por más dedicación, aprecio por su actividad y disciplina que tenga un docente, le resultara imposible hacer un seguimiento detallado y personalizado de sus estudiantes, el único vehículo constante son las evaluaciones periódicas, que en la mayoría de casos son un mecanismo reactivo y no proactivo, es decir no permite tomar acciones correctivas hasta que la insuficiencia del alumno es evidente y se traduce en una nota reprobatoria. Més...

By Richard Springer. The rapid spread of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, is transforming higher education in the U.S. and worldwide. U.S. universities and colleges are scrambling to formulate MOOC strategies, or risk being put on the defensive if they don’t have them.
Three MOOC providers are spearheading the MOOC proliferation: edX, a nonprofit launched by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard with initial pledges of $30 million each; and Udacity and Coursera, two for-profit MOOC course providers with links to Stanford University. Anant Agarwal, former director of MIT’s artificial intelligence lab and president of edX, told India-West in an exclusive interview that 2012 was “the year of disruption” for higher education in the U.S. Read more...

By Tharindu Rekha Liyanagunawardena, Andrew Alexandar Adams and Shirley Ann Williams. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are a recent addition to the range of online learning options. Since 2008, MOOCs have been run by a variety of public and elite universities, especially in North America. Many academics have taken interest in MOOCs recognising the potential to deliver education around the globe on an unprecedented scale; some of these academics are taking a research-oriented perspective and academic papers describing their research are starting to appear in the traditional media of peer reviewed publications. This paper presents a systematic review of the published MOOC literature (2008-2012): Forty-five peer reviewed papers are identified through journals, database searches, searching the Web, and chaining from known sources to form the base for this review. We believe this is the first effort to systematically review literature relating to MOOCs, a fairly recent but massively popular phenomenon with a global reach. The review categorises the literature into eight different areas of interest, introductory, concept, case studies, educational theory, technology, participant focussed, provider focussed, and other, while also providing quantitative analysis of publications according to publication type, year of publication, and contributors. Future research directions guided by gaps in the literature are explored. Read more...

By Ben Miller. After Congress failed to reach a deal last week, the interest rate on new subsidized Stafford loans officially doubled from 3.4 to 6.8 percent on Monday. Though there's speculation that Congress may vote on a retroactive change next week, there still appears to be a big divide between those arguing for tying loans to market rates and those arguing for another temporary extension of the 3.4 percent rate. So we think it's time to explore some more creative solutions to the Game of Loans problem. Below are some suggestions, but feel free to offer your own in the comments. Read more...

"La educación permanente: aprendizaje formal, informal y no formal", el Tema 8 del Encuentro Internacional de Educación, se cierra con un evento presencial y grandes invitados en el Espacio Fundación Telefónica.
9 de julio de 2013. A partir de las 16 h. (hasta 19 h.) - Auditorio Espacio Fundación Telefónica C/ Gran Vía (acceso por C/ Fuencarral, nº 3) - Madrid. Inscríbete aquí | Consulta el programa
El evento de cierre del Tema 8 será una tarde de conversación y experiencias en torno a la educación permanente, con fragmentos de las ponencias de Stephen Downes y Juan Domingo Farnós desde Caracas, y un debate en el que participan:
• Silvia Torralba: Diseñadora, educadora, cuentacuentos y madre. Después de 20 años en publicidad, lo dejó para ser cuentacuentos, gracias a su hija. Es cofundadora de Asociación Akuarela, una organización sin ánimo de lucro, de artistas y de profesionales de la educación que llevan a cabo proyectos relacionados con la infancia, tanto en España como en Brasil. Es autora de cuentos y guiones de obras de teatro infantil.
• Álvaro Cerame del Campo: Estudiante de Medicina. Representante estudiantil en la Universidad de Alcalá, es el Coordinador de la División de Formación del Consejo Estatal de Estudiantes de Medicina. Formador de la International Federation of Medical Students Associations.
• Uriel Francisco Romero Redondo: Cofundador y director ejecutivo de la Organization for Development and Research of Education (ODRE).
• Anna Forés: Doctora en Filosofía y Ciencias de la Educación y Licenciada en Pedagogía por la Universidad de Barcelona. Experta en temas como educación social, resiliencia, didáctica y e-learning. Actualmente es vicedecana de doctorado de la Facultad de Pedagogía de la UB y coordinadora de la universidad de la experiencia "Educació i Societat".
Habrá más sorpresas interesantes y, si no puedes estar en Madrid, el evento se retransmitirá en vivo a través de la web. Evento gratuito. Accede a la inscripción a través de este formulario. El 9 de julio, ¡súmate al debate!

By Cathy Davidson. In 2009, when I was researching and writing the "How We Measure" chapter of Now You See It, I could offer a critique of the current system of standardized, summative, end-of-grade testing, but had little to offer that addressed the key positive contributions of standardized testing:  its ability to be graded by machine (or by humans with a template) and provide the basis for comparisons of outcomes across disparate institutions. Originally pioneered in a doctoral dissertation at Kansas State Teacher's College by Frederick Kelly in 1914, the item-response test was adopted widely and almost immediately because of these two features.
Many esteemed critics over the years have pointed out that multiple-choice tests are a poor instrument for motivating learning, for  instilling an appreciation for complexity, or for accurately testing what one actually learned. They encourage “teaching to the test” and “learning to the test,” especially in our post-2002 No Child Left Behind world where public school teachers can be penalized and schools closed if kids don’t do well on such tests.  However, until another system addresses the key attributes of standardization and automation, school life will continue to be governed, preschool to professional school, by EOGs, SATs, ACTs, GREs, LSATs, M-CATs and the like. Read more...

By Raffaela Kihrer. EAEA GRUNDTVIG AWARD 2013. EAEA hands out the yearly EAEA Grundtvig Award to a successful European learning partnership. This year´s theme for the award was "Active citizenship and transnational solidarity - Adult Education as a tool against nationalism, chauvinism and xenophobia"...
A participant of a seminar organised by Belieforama - A panoramic approach to issues of religion and belief project put it in simple words for what the project stood for: to offer an educational intervention and prevention of a growing social conflict concerning issues of religious diversity. Read more...

By Aura Vuorenrinne. The member states of the European Union, European Commission and European Parliament have finally reached the agreement on the new programme for education, youth and sport. For adult educators Erasmus+ does not seem that bad after all.
Erasmus+, previously known as Erasmus for All or YES Europe combines the Lifelong Learning Programme, international cooperation programmes (e.g. Erasmus Mundus) and Youth in Action. Additionally, Erasmus+ includes sports.
Adult educators can now let out a sigh of relief.
- There have been significant improvements to the original plan of the Commission and I think adult education community can be very happy about that, says Gina Ebner, the Secretary-General of the EAEA. Read more...

Universities UK has published a new report which examines the impact of significant changes that have taken place in UK higher education since 2011.
These include the introduction of new fee levels in 2012-2013 and changes to the funding of undergraduate students, as well as immigration reforms that have affected the UK's universities.
The report, entitled “The funding environment for universities: an assessment” looks at the implications of these developments for the future funding and financial sustainability of UK universities.
Download the full report here.

The Egracons (European Grade Conversion System) project aims to facilitate exchange mobility by working out a conversion system based on ECTS grade conversion tables as used in the ECTS Users’ Guide.
The project, which is cofunded by the EC, aims to “create tools to enable an accurate interpretation of marks (or grades) given abroad and a fair and manageable conversion of these marks to a local mark in the home institution”.
As part of the project, the organisers are carrying out a survey of higher education institutions in Europe. The survey is open to staff with authority on grade conversions and recognition at the institutional, faculty or departmental level within HEIs. The information gathered from the answers will be used “to draw up both institutional and country reports for the whole of Europe and work out the final specifications for the Egracons online tool for grading conversion”.
The survey is available online and the deadline is 1 August 2013. More information about the project, comprised of a consortium of partners from across Europe, is available here.