By Matt Reed. We’ve been battered by a couple of significant storms over the last week or so, which means we’ve had some snow days. But the meaning of snow days is changing.By Matt Reed. Community colleges are swimming upstream in American culture in several ways. They’re open-admissions, in a culture based on increasing polarization and exclusivity. They’re built to create a middle class for a country that’s pulling its middle class apart. And they’re markedly diverse in a society in which birds of a feather increasingly flock together; in many places, they’re the only major institution in which people from different classes interact, other than malls. And malls are dying. Read more...
By Joshua Kim. In a great comment to my 6 Objections to Technology in Higher Ed, Randy Riddle writes: "One criticism not on your list that keeps popping up is that technologists and administrators often pursue short-term, high profile technology "fads" that are aimed more at good publicity, keeping up with peer institutions, or alumni relations than the long-term core interests of the university, diverting resources and attention from basic needs". Read more...By Joshua Kim. Are you skeptical about the role of technology in higher education? Our edtech establishment has done a poor job engaging in a meaningful dialogue with our critics. I find this lack of positive conversation disturbing, as I think that I share many of the same values as those most critical of the edtech profession that I love. Perhaps if we first enumerate the main objections to edtech, if we listen to our critics, we’d be in a better position to evolve and reform our own edtech discipline. Read more...By Joshua Kim. Time for today’s academic IT thought experiment. Imagine that you are starting your university from scratch. You are a university startup. You are in charge of all the technology for your university startup. Read more...By Joshua Kim. DOCS: Digital Open Courses at Scale.
By Joshua Kim. This week at Dartmouth we are launching our first open online edX (DartmouthX) course, Introduction to Environmental Science. Everyone I know in higher education seems to have a set of strong opinions about open online education at scale. What have we actually learned from participating in this movement? What are the biggest myths about open online courses at scale. Read more...
By Shira Lurie. The 80/20 rule is an economic principle that asserts 80% of outputs are the result of 20% of inputs. It is occasionally referred to as the Pareto Principle, named for an Italian economist who proposed that 80% of the country’s wealth was held by just 20% of the population (I like to think of him as the original Michael Moore). Read more...
By Natascha Chtena. About once a week I will open my inbox and be greeted by an email that will leave me at a loss for words. A few nights ago, for instance, one student emailed me at 10:30PM on a Sunday requesting—“urgently”—a meeting at 7:30 the next morning. She wanted to discuss an assignment that was due the day after and couldn’t make it any other time during the day. Read more...
By GradHacker. GradHacker is seeking to add several new Permanent Authors to the roster! We’re looking for grad students from any discipline, ideally with experience writing for the web. Authors at GradHacker have two primary responsibilities. They provide at least one post per month and serve one month per academic year as copy editors. Authors are compensated in the form of Amazon gift cards at a rate of of $20 per post and $50 per month of copyediting. Read more...
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