Academics and Academia
The "Academics and Academia" category covers topics related the ways in which colleges and universities function that are relevant to technology-supported education. One key aspect covered here is pedagogy—how people teach—and how technology impacts teaching and learning.
But this category also includes more institutional aspects that are relevant to technology-supported education, such as how campus leadership supports (or doesn't support) new initiatives, politics and bureaucracy that impact these efforts, and so on.
Finally, "Academics and Academia" covers commercial and non-profit services that provide support for technology-supported education initiatives, such as Online Program Management (OPM) companies.
As many of you know, Phil and I have been exploring the topic of “personalized learning” for the past year, trying to figure out what the heck it means and what it’s really good for, separate from the hype. We’ve boiled down the idea into the beginnings of a framework, which we’ve just had published […]
Making Lab Sections Interactive: More evidence on potential of course redesign
Two weeks ago Michael and I posted an third article on EdSurge that described an encouraging course redesign for STEM gateway courses. In our e-Literate TV series on personalized learning, we heard several first-hand stories about the power of simple and timely feedback. As described in the New York Times, administrators at the University of California, […]
Solving the Ed Tech Patent Problem
You may have heard that Khan Academy has filed for several patents. Audrey Watters has written a really strong piece providing the details of the filings in the context of the history of ed tech patents and showing why some academics feel that the patent system clashes with the values upon which academia was built. In the process, she excavates some of my personal history in the Blackboard patent war.
Unizin RFP For LMS: An offering to appease the procurement gods?
Well this was interesting: Unizin issues an RFP for "Enterprise and Multitentant LMS" https://t.co/kRVSyzQgYI& I owe my wife an engagement ring soon — Phil Hill (@PhilOnEdTech) December 30, 2015 In a blog post from Monday, Unizin announced a public Request For Proposals (RFP) to solicit bids for an enterprise and multitenant LMS. The RFP states its […]
Georgia Tech and Udacity MOOC Degree: Missing targets but still worth watching
Melissa Korn wrote an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal giving a progress report on that Georgia Tech / Udacity MOOC degree (the master’s in computer science). The Georgia Tech online computer-science program is relatively massive: It has 2,789 students enrolled this semester, compared with 312 in the campus-based version. It’s on track to […]
Personalized Learning and the Teacher
A few weeks ago, Jonathan Rees wrote a post calling out that, no matter what potential of so-called “personalized learning” for improving student outcomes, there is a potential—and a temptation—for it to be abused as a method of lowering (labor) costs in a way that also lowers educational quality and effectiveness. This is a serious and realistic concern, particularly as long as personalized learning is framed as a product rather than a set of teaching strategies.
Plus Ca Change: About that ed tech adoption curve
All the same We take our chances Laughed at by Time, Tricked by Circumstances Plus ca change, Plus c’est la meme chose The more that things change, The more they stay the same – Rush, Circumstances Over the past few years I have increased my usage of the technology adoption curve – originating from Everett Rogers and […]