By David Collis - EvoLLLution. The more interesting thing around technology is around the educational pedagogical process that’s happening. At Harvard now, in the undergraduate courses, [we’re looking at] the notion of flipped classrooms, of gamification, of trying to build or take into account different learning styles and have course materials adapted to different learning styles. All of those things are enabled by technology in a way that probably wasn’t true even a decade ago. The bigger impact of technology going forward potentially is on the educational pedagogical side, not so much the administrative side. We are going to see very different courses and pedagogies employed even in the classic liberal arts school as they take advantage of some of the new technologies. More...
Collaboration Key to Strengthening the Workforce
By Mark Patterson - EvoLLLution. It does take community to address some of our larger social challenges, youth unemployment, unemployment and immigrant employment in particular. It’s something that needs to be looked at by all the different parties in our society. More...
Seeking the unique pedagogical characteristics of social media
By . Although social media are mainly Internet-based and hence a sub-category of computing, there are enough significant differences between educational social media use and computer-based learning or online collaborative learning to justify treating social media as a separate medium, although of course they are dependent and often fully integrated with other forms of computing. We shall see that the main difference is in the extent of control over learning that social media offer to learners. See more...
Is Standardized Testing a Pediatric Disease?
By Michael Feldstein. In my last post, I wrote about the tension between learning, with the emphasis on the needs and progress of individual human learners, and education, which is the system by which we try to guarantee learning to all but which we often subvert in our well-meaning but misguided attempts to measure whether we are delivering that learning. More...
Robo-readers: towards automated #MOOC grading
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Up until six years ago, the ideal eLearning group would be around 25 learners. This enabled community building, spaced and easily to follow interactions, getting feedback from the online tutor/facilitator, and timely graded assignments. As soon as the (x)MOOC were coming, the sheer size of online learner groups forced online tutors and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) developers to rethink assessments. In all fairness, assessments come from (or in some cases are relics from) the industrial age. As the industrial age demanded that learners would grasp specific production oriented processes or specific information that would be used to build upon. But now, with knowledge shifts happening all over the professional spectrum, new TEL-solutions seem to be needed. Read more...Free report on #OER evidence of success @OER_HUB
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. The Open Educational Resources Research Hub (OER Research Hub) provides a focus for research, designed to give answers to the overall question ‘What is the impact of OER on learning and teaching practices?’ and identify the particular influence of openness.The OER hub just released a free evidence report focusing on key factors related to Open Educational Resources. There are multiple hypothesis on OER tested in this report, and with clearly described outcomes and conclusions. Anyone working with eLearning or online resources will be interested to know what works and what does not, as OER are one of the cornerstones when eLearning marched forward. Especially in the developing regions (cutting costs, content for everyone...). Read more...
Das Wissenschaftsprekariat wehrt sich
25 befristete Arbeitsverträge in sechs Jahren: Was in der Wirtschaft verboten ist, gehört an manchen Unis zum Alltag. Doch immer mehr Nachwuchswissenschaftler klagen gegen solche Arbeitsbedingungen - mit zunehmendem Erfolg. Mehr...
OECD rügt Deutschland für geringe Akademiker-Rate
Die Hörsäle sind voll, nie gab es so viele Studenten in Deutschland. Trotzdem sind es nicht genug, mahnt die OECD. In anderen Industrieländern schließen weit mehr Menschen ein Studium ab. Mehr...
Personalchefs wollen keine Migranten
Von Britta Mersch. Ausländische Eltern? Keine deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit? Ein ungewöhnlicher Name? Nein danke. Eine Umfrage bei deutschen Unternehmen zeigt: Nur 15 Prozent aller Ausbildungsbetriebe bilden Jugendliche mit Migrationshintergrund aus. Mehr...
OECD data comparison tool
By Hedda. OECD has just published a beta version of their new data portal.The website provides a comprehensive search to examine and compare charts, maps, tables and related publications by the OECD. See more...