By Charlotte Lytton. The prospect of deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life at 17 might seem like an impossible task, but as these famous faces show, choosing your degree doesn’t mean getting pigeonholed forever. Whether it’s flitting from pop rock to PhDs like Brian May, or trading the lab for Number 10 à la Margaret Thatcher, there’s no telling where your studies may lead. Read more...By Graeme Paton. Too many teenagers are being pushed into taking university courses because of Britain’s “snobbery” towards technical qualifications, a former Conservative education secretary has warned. The country is being left with a major shortage of skilled engineers following a sharp rise in the number of school-leavers studying arts and humanities degrees, according to Lord Baker. In an interview with the Telegraph, he attacked the “totally unrealistic” target imposed by the last Labour government designed to get 50 per cent of young people into higher education. Read more...
By James Vernon. Could massive online open courses – moocs – lead to back-door privatisation in higher education? The UK should watch what is happening in California very closely, says James Vernon. These days there are plenty of prophets preaching hi-tech and digital solutions to the problems of expanding access to knowledge and higher education. Barely a week goes by without some new hymn to education technology, open-source software or open-access publishing. In the US, the growing chorus for online education through massive open online courses, or moocs, has been deafening. But in Britain, it has barely registered. Last December, the commercial launch of the Open University's mooc platform, FutureLearn, attracted the participation of a dozen universities and the support of David Willetts, but little response from Britain's beleaguered academics. No wonder that last month Sir Michael Barber, the chief education adviser of Pearson, the world's largest profit-making education provider, proclaimed that universities were powerless to stop the online avalanche. Read more...By Natalie Cox. The news some students get fewer than 100 teaching hours a year isn't all bad – the free time is a learning experience in itself. I'd wager that few recent graduates were shocked at the news of just how many UK students receive fewer than 100 hours of teaching per year. In fact, I'll bet you three dodgy draft beers and an ill-advised kebab that the first memory to emerge from the fog is not your hand fusing into a claw from the scrawling down of illegible notes, because the truth is that very few of your university years are spent at university. The only lecture that I can recall from my university days involved a geriatric thespian spending so long musing over the answer to a student's question that we worried he'd expired on the podium.By Rebecca Ratcliffe. Number of students submitting applications this year stands at 2.5% more than in 2012 but lower than in 2010, says Ucas. The number of students applying to start university this autumn has not bounced back to the level seen before the rise in tuition fees, according to Ucas figures, which show a 7% drop in applications from English students when compared with 2010. Read more...
Par Philippe François. L’image du passage de relais entre un vieux travailleur fatigué, détenteur d’un savoir unique, et un jeune est formidable. Même si, en 2013, le passage inverse est fréquent aussi: « Tu veux que je te montre comment entrer les données dans le logiciel de contrôle? » Mais c’est la pression mise par les contrats de génération sur les seniors pour les pousser à partir en retraite qui pose problème.De réir Philippe François. íomhá aistrithe idir shealbhaíonn saineolas uathúil agus óg is iontach oibrí tuirseach aois. Cé i 2013, is é an sreabhadh droim ar ais chomh coitianta: "Ba mhaith liom tú go léiríonn tú conas a sonraí a ionchur sa bogearraí a rialú?"Ach tá sé an brú a chur ag an ghlúin conarthaí de seniors a bhrú chun dul ar scor fadhbanna. Níos mó...
By Cathy Davidson. I was very surprised this morning to find myself placed right at the summit of a Chronicle of Higher Education infographic on "Major Players in the MOOC Movement": http://chronicle.com/article/The-Major-Players-in-the-MOOC/138817/. Perspectives on Open and Distance Learning: Open Educational Resources: Innovation, Research and Practice.
By Rory McGreal (Editor), Wanjira Kinuthia (Editor), Stewart Marshall (Editor), Tim McNamara (Editor) Contributors: José Vladimir Burgos Aguilar, Laura Czerniewicz, Susan D’Antoni, Bakary Diallo, Stephen Downes, Robert Farrow, Norm Friesen, Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams, Asha Kanwar, Wanjira Kinuthia, Balasubramanian Kodhandaraman, Karel Kreijns, Andy Lane, Samantha Lee-Pan, Airong Luo, Wayne Mackintosh, Stewart Marshall, Patrick McAndrew, Rory McGreal, Tim McNamara, Maria Soledad Ramírez Montoya, Dick Ng’ambi, Michael Paskevicius, Demetrios G. Sampson, Robert Schuwer, Shihaam Shaikh, George Siemens, Sofoklis Sotiriou, Jim Taylor, Abdurrahman Umar, Frederik Van Acker, Hans van Buuren, Marjan Vermeulen, Catherine Wangeci Thuo (Kariuki), Clayton R. Wright, Tsuneo Yamada, Panagiotis Zervas.
This book, initiated by the UNESCO/COL Chair in OER, is one in a series of publications by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) examining OER. It describes the movement in detail, providing readers with insight into OER’s significant benefits, its theory and practice, and its achievements and challenges. The 16 chapters, written by some of the leading international experts on the subject, are organised into four parts by theme:
1. OER in Academia – describes how OER are widening the international community of scholars, following MIT’s lead in sharing its resources and looking to the model set by the OpenCourseWare Consortium
2. OER in Practice – presents case studies and descriptions of OER initiatives underway on three continents
3. Diffusion of OER – discusses various approaches to releasing and “opening” content, from building communities of users that support lifelong learning to harnessing new mobile technologies that enhance OER access on the Internet
4. Producing, Sharing and Using OER – examines the pedagogical, organisational, personal and technical issues that producing organisations and institutions need to address in designing, sharing and using OER
Instructional designers, curriculum developers, educational technologists, teachers, researchers, students, others involved in creating, studying or using OER: all will find this timely resource informative and inspiring. Also available in epub format.
The philosophy department at San Jose State University is pushing back against the university's pioneering projects to test new online learning ventures. A department-approved letter not only challenges hype around online learning but personally calls out a Harvard University professor who teaches a massive open online class for his alleged culpability in what the department calls perilous online learning efforts. The department's letter to Harvard's Michael Sandel follows a suggestion from San Jose State's administration that the department look at using Sandel's popular edX MOOC on justice.
© Kelformation - Marion Senant. A peine 24% des Français estiment que l’argent consacré à la formation professionnelle est utilisé de manière efficace, selon un sondage Acteur publics/Ernst&Young. © Kelformation - Marion Senant. Creidim Just a 24% de na Fraince go bhfuil airgead a chaitear ar oiliúint úsáid go héifeachtach, mar aisteora/suirbhé Ernst & Young poiblí./https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
