By Andrew Roth - EvoLLLution. As reviewed in the first of this two-part series, higher education is stressing from the impact of changing market conditions, economic pressure on cost controls and students ability to pay, increased public policy accountability demands and a more regulatory approach to accreditation, and the challenges presented by the digital revolution. More...
By Laura Bristow - EvoLLLution. Keeping students on track to graduation is a key strategic performance metric for postsecondary institutions, and as many of us know, persistence is not easily achieved under the best circumstances. Further, many institutions are seeking a marginal change that will ensure graduation rates of 50 percent or more. Applying one-to-one, high-touch interaction to student relationships is arguably the straightest path to earning persistence points, but it’s also the most labor intensive. More...
By . BCcampus has taken an ‘off-the-shelf’ open source authoring software ‘shell’ called Pressbooks, which in itself is based on WordPress. BCcampus has made some further adaptations to Pressbooks for the open textbooks that BCcampus is helping to develop. I have used the BCcampus version of Pressbooks to create my own textbook. However, anyone can use Pressbooks for free, if they wish to write an openly published book. Read more...By . Insight (2014) The democratisation of learning The Economist, September 26.
By Audrey Watters. MOOCs Insist "We're Not Dead Yet!"
The Techcrunch headline: “Its Audacity Undiminished, Udacity Raises $35 Million To Train A New Generation of Developers.” The new round of funding is from “the German media giant Bertelsmann, Japanese staffing company Recruit, Brazilian investment firm Valor Capital Group, and American cable and media company Cox Enterprises, also joined as new investors. Previous backers Andreessen Horowitz, Charles River Ventures, Peter Levine, and George Zachary also participated in the financing.” The startup has now raised at least $55 million. Founder Sebastian Thrun has quit his job at Google X, prompting a question typed, I presume, with a serious face: “Can Google X’s recently departed founder save the MOOC?”
Andreessen-Horowitz, again one of the investors in Udacity, has its first “Distinguished Visiting Professor of Computer Science,” Stanford’s Vijay Pande. Not surprisingly, he has thoughts on MOOCs. I mean, who doesn’t.
Not to be left out of the news cycle: “Why Free Online Classes Are Still the Future of Education,” featuring edX’s Anant Agarwal.
Via Inside Higher Ed: “The massive open online course provider Coursera is taking a more active role in shaping the content produced by its university partners. In an email to universities creating content for Coursera, the MOOC provider is asking for volunteers to create career-focused Specializations.”
Coursera has moved from MySQL to Cassandra because its data is so big. More...
By Cathy Davidson. On Friday, Sept 26 (tomorrow) I'll be on NPR's "To the Point" with Benjamin Gottlieb talking with Matt Richtel (A Deadly Wandering) and David Greenfield (Director of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction) about distraction. I'm downloading Matt's new book on the terrible tragedy of the two scientists who were killed in Utah by a young man texting while driving and how that is a metaphor and emblem for the technology distractions of our era. More...
By Phil Hill. There is new data available in Edutechnica’s one-year update, with year-over-year comparisons available as well as improvements to the methodology. Note that the methodology has improved both in terms of setting the denominator and in terms of how many schools are included in the data collection. Read more...By Phil Hill. After billions of dollars spent on administrative computer systems and billions of dollars invested in ed tech companies, the U.S. higher education system is woefully out of date and unable to cope with major education trends such as online & hybrid education, flexible terms, and the expansion of continuing and extended education. Based on an investigation of the recently released distance education data for IPEDS, the primary national education database maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), we have found significant confusion over basic definitions of terms, manual gathering of data outside of the computer systems designed to collect data, and, due to confusion over which students to include in IPEDS data, the systematic non-reporting of large numbers of degree-seeking students. Read more...
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. A friend of mine told me about his gaming project a couple of weeks ago. He was all excited, and almost could not wait for his game to be full proof in order to shout it out from the rooftops: Whistly Bird!!!! So I told him, just give me a hands-up when you finish testing it, and I will gladly try it out.By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Although I know and understand the concept of trust in online communities, up until yesterday I underestimated the effect of being among participants to allow them to connect./https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
