By Marie Lambert-Chan. Gathering slated for June 10 as part of the Conference of Montreal. A handful of countries and regions have a chief scientist within their government, including the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. In Canada, Quebec is the only province or territory to have created this position. Rémi Quirion was appointed as the Quebec’s first chief scientist in 2011, when he gave up his position as scientific director of the Douglas Institute Research Centre at McGill University to take on the new post. More...
02 mars 2014
Montreal to host the first international meeting of chief scientists
Online and There Is No Choice
By Herman Berliner. In a recent consultant’s report, in a section where the discussion focused on online degree programs, the report noted that 34% of the master’s degrees in education are earned through online education. I’m not surprised and I fully expect that this number will exceed 50% within the next five years. What is surprising to me is that there is still so much resistance to this inevitable trend. More than a decade ago, I began regularly talking about the need for part-time graduate programs to move into a distance learning mode. There was not surprisingly substantial resistance. The key to this resistance is the legitimate fear that you lose the personal interaction so important to gaining the maximum educational benefit. Read more...
Breaking the Ice
By Dayna Catropa. I recently saw the “Air Orchestra” from Soul Pancake, which immediately jumped out as an interesting way to break the ice in a classroom environment, especially one in which student participation and interaction are critical. Read more...
8 Resources to Learn the Business of Social Media
By Eric Stoller. The best social media guides on the web often come directly from the very sites that we wish to use for marketing, promotion, and engagement. Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus, and YouTube provide a plethora of resources that student affairs practitioners can use in their strategic communication endeavors. In no particular order, here are 8 sites that you can use to learn the "business" of social media. Read more...Working Across Disciplines to Improve Education
By Mark Baker. In the last two years since MOOCs have been in the spotlight, both commentators and practitioners have made the case that a key to realizing the potential of technology in education is the collaboration of experts in teaching and learning, educational researchers, computer scientists, and disciplinary specialists. We have such a partnership at MIT as the Teaching and Learning Laboratory (TLL) has teamed up with computer scientists from Anyscale Learning for All (ALFA), led by Dr. Una-May O’Reilly, and a physics faculty member, Professor John Belcher, who heads a team teaching electricity and magnetism (E&M), a required course for all MIT undergraduates. More...
Higher Ed Software
By Mark Baker. Last month I organized a review community and forum focused on software for higher education. SoftwarePhD.com is exclusively for professionals at colleges and universities and just might be the tool that spares you from making your next software mis-purchase. More...
One more indicator that "sustainability" won't make society sustainable
By G. Rendell. Two emails landed in my inbox today.
The first one came from The Royal Society, in partnership with the National Academies of Science. It announced the publication of a joint guide to inform a public debate around climate change which both academies proclaim to be both necessary and urgent. In a sense, it documents for non-scientific readers that we as a species are one stop closer to both understanding and experiencing a planet inhospitable to human habitation. The news the guide presents, I strongly suspect, will still be couched in terms too indefinite, and will tell a story advancing too glacially, to hold the attention of folks who get their news primarily from Facebook or "Inside Hollywood".
The second came from greenbiz.com, a newsletter advising business folks on sustainability issues. In "One Minute Manager" fashion, it proposed a 3-step sustainability action plan which any firm can implement. Read more...
Math Geek Mom: A Productive Collaboration
By Rosemarie Emanuele. In Economics, “indifference curves” can be used to show that consumers will prefer mixed bundles of goods to those consisting of only one good. To illustrate this, imagine how we often serve meals consisting of a protein, a starch and a vegetable. Such a combination is certainly preferable to meals consisting of only proteins or only starches. I found myself thinking of this when I read an article appearing in Inside Higher Ed this past Monday about which pairs of co-authors seem to be most successful, claiming they are those that come from different backgrounds. Read more...
Reassessing My Digital Identity
By Katy Meyers. I've been highly visible online since I started my PhD at MSU. Within my first month of grad school here I developed the ‘Bones Don’t Lie’ brand, started my personal website, and started my Twitter account. With help from my committee members and peers from the Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative, I was able to create a strong digital identity. I’ve talked quite a bit online about managing one’s online personality, how to develop a digital brand, and other related topics. Read more...
Balancing Grad School and Non-Academic Opportunities
By Laura Mitchell. It’s not news that boundaries are blurring between the academy and practitioners in non-academic settings. From the ever-expanding alt-ac and post-ac conversation to trends in engaged scholarship, the ability to move between academic and non-academic settings has become an increasingly valuable skill for graduate students across disciplines. Whether you’re a master’s student preparing for a non-academic job, a doctoral candidate seeking alternatives to limited tenure-track positions, or hoping to incorporate new voices and approaches into your scholarly work, mobility both within and beyond the academy forms a powerful complement to your academic background. Read more...
