By . I’ve just come back from visiting two universities in central Canada and I have also been getting feedback from pilot institutions on the questionnaire we are developing for a survey of online learning in Canada. Although I do not want to anticipate the results of the survey, some things are already becoming clear, especially about blended learning. More...
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. The International Training Centre for International Labour Organisation (ITCILO) has always been a forerunner in innovation for development purposes. When I met Alessia Messuti two weeks ago, she mentioned that ITCILO just published a free report and toolkit on MOOCs for development. The report is 29 pages and gives a brief, yet well-founded description of the past 5 MOOCs which were implemented since 2015 in which the ITC was involved with (including a MOOC on 'Crowdsourcing for Development'), and the report also highlights the challenges. Read more...
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. While I was reading the latest innovative pedagogies report, some comments came to mind, which I will gladly share a bit further down this blogpost after a quick description of the report itself. Researchers from the Instituteof Educational Technology located at The Open University (UK) together with academics from the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education in Singapore recently published the fifth Innovative pedagogy report. A full-text PDF version of this 47 page report is available to download from www.open.ac.uk/innovating. In the report they provide an overview of emerging innovative pedagogies. Read more...
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Workshops tend to take at least half a day to come to a result. But at OnlineEduca I had the pleasure of meeting Christian Friedrich and it is amazing what this man can inspire people to do in just 60 minutes time. Read more...
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Last week I had the pleasure of being part of a virtual connecting meeting at OnlineEducaBerlin. The initiative came from the VConnecting group. For this session, onsite buddies Christian Friedrich, Hoda Mostafa, and I spoke with guests Jeanine Reutemann (Jeanine researches the affordances of video and has great insights on it!). Ilona Buchem (Ilona has a long standing tech record, her latest research looks at open badges) and Aziza Ellozy (Aziza is a leader in faculty development, and making learning visible). Read more...
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. This session, which I facilitated at OEB16, had one of the ‘slow cooking’ formats. It takes time for all the elements to come together, and you work with those elements you find in the room (so thank you to all the participants) and … somehow magic happened as you can see from the results shared below. Read more...
The Lords really spoke their minds on the Higher Education and Research Bill in their Second Reading debate on 6 December. Peers packed in 69 speeches through an afternoon and a long evening, topped and tailed by Lord Younger’s introductory remarks and his concluding summary. At the end he promised Peers a ‘letter’ (‘a long one, I suspect’) about points raised and ‘factsheets’. Adhering with obvious reluctance to the ‘advisory’ five minutes each, the Lords made it abundantly clear that they would have a lot more to say at the Committee stage. More...
Today (15 December 2016), HEPI publishes International university rankings: For good or ill?
Rankings of global universities, such as the THE World University Rankings, the QS World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities claim to identify the ‘best’ universities in the world and then list them in rank order. They are enormously influential, as universities and even governments alter their policies to improve their position. More...
The lack of attention given to teaching by universities, in contrast to research, is one of the reasons for the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). While most people working in the sector support a focus on teaching, learning environment and student outcomes, many fear the TEF could drive a wedge between research and education. More...
By . So another year ended. This one, few will mourn. Despite their medieval roots, universities fundamentally serve the enlightenment; and the enlightenment, with is emphasis on toleration, progress, science, empiricism, was under attack this year as in no year since 1945. Though higher education itself was not the target of populists’ wrath, the part of the culture we inhabit certainly was. And that could make life pretty uncomfortable over the next few years. More...
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