By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Most Popular Social Network for Young People? Texting
Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, 2014/09/30
I can't say I'm surprised that texting would be more popular than Facebook or Twitter - it is, after all, the medium you can use to talk to your friends that doesn't leave a content trail, isn't monetized by advertisers, and won't accidentally become the next internet meme. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why the Unskilled Are Unaware: Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-Insight Among the Incompetent
Joyce Ehrlinger, Kerri Johnson, M. Banner, D.Dunning, Justin Kruger, PubMedGov, 2014/09/29
It is well known that low-skilled people tend to over-estimate their performance. This is typically thought to result from their inability to recognize what poor and good performance looks like. But in this paper, the authors suggest there may be more to it than that. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Learning Machine, pecking pigeons and the Sending of Being
nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, 2014/09/29
When people interact with each other, the social learning produced is not the replication of content from one mind to the next to the next. It's not even contained in any individual mind at all. Rather, society as a whole develops new learning. This is the meaning of "We think, therefore we am." Nick Shackleton-Jones captures the effect of this nicely. More...
By Cori Gordon - EvoLLLution. 1. As increasing numbers of institutions launch competency-based programs, what are the common threads that make the programs similar?
Probably the biggest similarity you’re going to see among the institutions [offering competency-based programming] is that the student is at the heart of each of these programs. More...
By Kathleen Bienkowski - EvoLLLution. Several years ago, a popular television game show called “The Weakest Link” gave rise to the popularity of that phrase. The origin of the entire phrase “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” can be traced back to the early 19th century. While true in a literal sense, it also applies figuratively to supply chains in the business world and provides a lesson higher education leaders can learn. Ultimately, an organization looking to develop an effective shared services organization (SSO) must include both sides of the supply chain — the institution and the SSO — in the design and implementation of the model. More...
By Debbie Cavalier - EvoLLLution. 1. Why is it possible for online degrees to cost less than their face-to-face peers when the quality of education and outcomes are the same?
We’ve been teaching online for 12 years now and we’ve made a large investment in Berklee Online. We’re able to deliver high-quality education at a cost that’s lower than the on-campus experience. The on-campus students receive all kinds accouterments that aren’t available to the online students, so we’re not supporting practice rooms and ensemble rooms and recording studios and all of the facilities and the various counseling services. More...
By David Hofmeister - EvoLLLution. A conversation the other day with a financial planner about my plan to invest $24,000 with no guaranteed return raised her ire. She proceeded to raise mine when she asked why I would make such an investment. More...
By Gary Langsdale - EvoLLLution. 1. Why should student information security be at the top of the radar for every higher education IT leader?
Breaches and the sensitivity around them are increasing, both within higher ed and externally in the general population. There is an exponential increase, particularly in higher ed, in the use of systems for collaboration, which means that more personally identifiable information is out there in more places. More...
By Fatma Mili - EvoLLLution. No degree is an island, and for now competency-based degrees will live in a predominantly credit-based world. On the surface, this is a simple mechanical process by which we map between courses and competencies. Competencies are, after all, nothing but a manifestation of the outcomes we aim to achieve in courses. Thanks to the many accreditation and assessment requirements academic curricula are subjected to, this information is widely documented. The outcomes of a calculus class, for example, can be packaged into three or four relatively independent and self-contained competencies. More...
By Javier Miyares - EvoLLLution. 3. In July, a UMUC advisory board suggested that one way to close the enrollment gap would be to convert UMUC to a non-profit, public business entity with defined ties to the University System of Maryland. How would this move benefit UMUC in the short term?
The recommendation is not related to the short term. We’re beginning to see a rebounding of the declining enrollments. We have implemented many changes to increase our enrollment here stateside. We’ll be making some changes overseas, particularly in Asia, to increase our enrollment overseas. More...
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