By GradHacker. As classes resume session, and as graduate coursework ramps up (or settles down), you might be finding yourself in the midst of a new schedule, new routines, trying to make sense of where you need to be and when, and what work needs to be done before your next teaching day or class meeting. It always took me (Liz) at least three weeks of a new semester to settle into a “groove” of sorts—to know what was happening when, and to establish blocks of time for various tasks throughout the week. And for me (Emily), the first year of graduate school was about learning to work, read, and write more efficiently, and to break massive tasks into manageable pieces. The second year has been about trying to put those lessons into practice. Read more...
7 Productivity Apps for the New Year
Innovative BU Confab
By Eric Stoller. Kenn Elmore, Dean of Students at Boston University, does not mess around. When he issues a challenge, he says his piece, drops the mic, and waits for our response. For the past couple of years, Elmore and BU have hosted a student affairs conference called "Confab." More of a conversation than a lecture, Confab is billed as "an old-school group convo." This year's event is scheduled for February 21 and it is definitely going to challenge attendees and perhaps nudge a large portion of the student affairs profession. Read more...Books Are For Use
By Barbara Fister. Scratch a librarian and you're likely to find some Ranganathan. The "five laws of library science" were first formulated by Indian librarian S. R. Ranganathan in 1931, but even today many fledgling librarians can recite them by heart. They're short, and they're pretty sweet. They begin with the proposition that "books are for use." Ranganathan was emphasizing the use of books over their protection at a time when open stacks were a bit radical. Today, it's still a meaningful phrase. Books shouldn't be a ticket required for a steady job or a badge of scholarly distinction. They should be read. They should be used. Read more...
Alexander the MOOC
By Guy MacLean Rogers. 2013 was undoubtedly the year of the MOOC. My year of the MOOC however was way back in 1999. In that year the Global Education Network (GEN) in New York City chose my Wellesley College history course about Alexander the Great to be their first online course. I subsequently spent many weeks high up in Carnegie Towers on West 57st Street in mid-town Manhattan filming lecture modules, designing inter-active battle sequences, and writing computer-graded exams. It was a fantastic experience. Read more...
Modular Approach Breaks Down Barriers to AP Concepts
By Bryan Setser and Patrick Sellers. With the explosion of online courses and blended learning in K-12 and higher education, a unique collaboration among Davidson College, The College Board, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and 2Revolutions does far more than simply offer another Massive Online Open Course (MOOC). Read more...
Higher Ed and the Feds
By Joshua Kim. Last week I had the opportunity to spend the day in our nation’s capital, hanging out with higher ed types from across academia, business and government. The gathering was an Education Datapalooza, organized by officials from the White House and the Department of Education. The idea of a Datapalooza is pretty cool. The administration uses its power of convening to bring together people from higher ed, startups, venture firms, publishers, foundations, and government to make commitments to collaborate on tech projects and initiatives. Read more...
The Surface Pro for Learning
By Joshua Kim. Over the past couple of months I’ve been spending some quality time with Microsoft’s tablet / laptop combo, the Surface Pro. The Surface Pro was sent to me by Cameron Evans, Microsoft’s CTO for Education. Cameron is an executive, technologist, educator, and leader whom I greatly respect for both his passion to improve education and his knowledge of our edtech ecosystem. Read more...
Transparency and Hope
By Matt Reed. Hope lives in the cracks.
This week I’ve been awash in data, from various sources. On campus, we had our first real “Data Day,” in which we made actual posters of all manner of IR data and shared it with the entire faculty and staff. The idea was to provide a common factual base for on-campus discussions of policy, innovations, and planning. I don’t know if everybody “got” the subtext, but I did see some folks lingering at particular posters for extended periods, pointing at individual numbers and talking to each other. To the extent that we can replace hunch or anecdote with fact, I have to believe we’ll be better off, even if some of the facts weren’t terribly encouraging in themselves. Earlier this week, the Chronicle published one of the more disturbing data-driven pieces I’ve seen in a while. Read more...
Thoughts on the Experimental Site Authority Concept Paper
By Matt Reed. Sometimes, it’s worth reading the whole thing. As they say on the Supreme Court: concur in part, dissent in part. A consortium of seventeen colleges and universities has submitted a concept paper to the Department of Education, petitioning for “experimental site authority” for their campuses to keep financial aid eligibility while moving to competency-based education. (Hat-tip to Amy Laitinen, from the New America Foundation, for calling attention to it on Twitter.) Read more...
$3.65 Million for Study Abroad in the Americas
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Friday that the State Department in conjunction with the private sector had raised an initial $3.65 million in support of the 100,000 Strong in the Americas initiative, which aims to dramatically increase two-way student exchange between the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean by 2020. ExxonMobil, Santander Bank, and the Coca-Cola, Ford, and Freeport-McMoRan Cooper & Gold Foundations are the initial donors to the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund, which aims, in Kerry’s rewards, to “help universities develop greater capacity to support study abroad” and to “challenge and reward institutions to find innovative ways to spur greater exchanges.” Read more...
