Formation Continue du Supérieur

By John Warner. The more I read and think about higher education, our shortcomings, our crises, our threats, and our supposed saviors, the more I come to believe that the best thing we could do in the name of reform is absolutely nothing.
Down with the pursuit of “excellence!” Enough with innovation!
Leave some of the children behind!
Say it with me! Let’s do nothing!
I say this because I wonder what chasing the next shiniest thing has really been getting us.
What do we have to show for the era of “accountability?”
I’m looking at what’s going on in higher education and thinking about the last 30-plus years of “reform” in primary and secondary education and it makes me worry. Read more...

By Susan O'Doherty. I have been having a wonderful time performing in this piece as a member of an eight-person "time consortium." We are given snippets of scientific, philosophical and literary writing on the nature mad meaning of time, and each night we hold extemporaneous discussions about what we read. We are all actors, but we were chosen in part because of our interest or expertise in a variety of fields (other members include a physics teacher, a playwright and a minister), so discussions tend to be wide ranging. Read more...

By Tracy Mitrano. This semester I am fortunate to be taking part in an IT leadership program at Cornell University. Part of the program includes giving a presentation, and I was thrilled to find “the impact that distance learning has on higher education,” as one of the topics. I am in Florida now at the Sloan Consortium Conference, and so I hope to intellectually vacuum up as much information as I can to help our group prepare for our presentation in January.  With all the members of our group providing input, this morning I compiled a list of 10 reasons why an institution would want to embrace what I have called, “Distance Learning (and MOOCs in Particular)" or “DL/M” in short. Read more...

By Herman Berliner. I am getting ready to leave to be part of a reaccreditation team at an out of state University.  The University and the school involved are first rate and I am also pleased to be part of a strong reaccreditation team.  I agree, approximately every other year, to be part of a reaccreditation team and I think this is an important responsibility for deans and provosts.  I know it is always difficult to leave your office for an extended period to focus on the strengths and challenges of another institution but I also believe we are all stronger as a result of this self monitoring process. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. Let’s talk about your edtech career.
What is your current role? How long have you been doing this work? What is your title?
How do you see your career progression? Looking ahead using 5 year intervals, where do you see your career going in 2018, 2023, 2028?
Do these dates seem far away? They shouldn’t. You can’t start planning for 2018 in 2017.  And what happens in 2023 will depend on where you are in 2018. Read more...

By Matt Reed. I’m not above crowdsourcing solutions to very practical campus issues. Wise and worldly readers, I’m having a hard time cracking the “devices” question for OER. I’m hoping someone out there has a reasonably elegant solution, or set of solutions. 
Here’s the context, and some parameters of useful solutions. Read more...