By . So I have now read the report in full. I have had some lengthy comments from several AU faculty about the report and my previous blog post, and have had a chance also to read some of the press comment. I have also had a very challenging e-mail from a student, wanting to know whether they should still be considering Athabasca University as part of their learning plans. More...
By . My main reason is that there is a major paradigm shift happening in education, driven partly by a changing economy and the need for a highly skilled and knowledgeable work-force, greater diversity of students as access has increased, and of course new technologies that not only have great capacity to change the way we teach, but which are also in common use by our students. More...
By . I hate to rely on third-party reports, but a thorough web search did not find the actual sustainability report online, so all I can do is provide a summary of the newspaper article. (How comes an open university doesn’t make this most important report ever on its future available online? This is just another indicator of the depth of the problems at AU. More...
By . Open textbooks may be free, but they are not without cost.
So what is the cost of developing an open textbook from scratch?
Answer: a minimum of $80,000, more likely around $130,000. More...
By . This is the obvious and most important measure of success: how much does an open textbook save by reducing one of the major costs of education? Here in British Columbia, the average annual cost of textbooks for BC post-secondary institutions is $1,200 per student, if they bought all the required textbooks new (which of course, many don’t). More...
By . The big question is though whether these investments will drive change in education, or whether the education market will reject one or more of these developments, either because they are too costly or difficult to implement (e.g. very high training costs to get teachers or learners to use them well) or because such technologies do not meet the actual learning needs of students. More...
By . As my holiday in Italy draws to a close, I thought it would be appropriate to do a short blog on developments in European higher education. I look to my many readers in Europe to comment and correct me as appropriate.
What the article is about
This is an interesting article about future policy for European Higher Education, following the Bologna Process Ministerial Conference on May 14-15 in Yerevan, Armenia. (Sigh! Yes, you are right, Armenia is not yet part of the European Union, but it is a member of the Council of Europe, and, since 2005 has been part of the Bologna Process, which sets out pan-European strategy for higher education.)
This article gives a pretty good overview of what the Bologna Process has achieved to date, and also what it has not achieved, and also gives a good description of where European education ministers want to go in the future, in terms of pan-European policy. More...
By Cathy Davidson. This is a very loosely constructed essay (perhaps even a random series of thoughts) inspired by being cognitively impaired during a medical recuperation following a rather melodramatic GI disaster. Prognosis for full recovery is great--I'm on my way. But, currently, in a weakened state, many formerly simple cognitive tasks are difficult. In this state, I remember the wise words of my dear friend, the late Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, when chemotherapy had so wracked her body and her mind that, at the end, she passed days playing online solitaire--and, as always, gaining insights. More...
By Cathy Davidson. I’m often asked why I start with pedagogy, given the larger institutional reforms and social ambitions that HASTAC and the new Futures Initiative program advocate. If your goal is equality in a world where inequality is structural and violent and pervasive, you can at least start with your classroom as a place in which to model a better way. Rather than feeling overwhelmed and oppressed by the unfairness of the world, be an activist in the realm where you have control. More...
By Phil Hill. When giving keynotes at conferences over the past two years, I have observed that some of the best non-verbal feedback occurs when pointing out that personalized and adaptive learning does not equal black-box algorithms choosing content for students. Yes, there are plenty of approaches pitching that solution. More...
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