In Spring 2016, faculty, support staff and administrators at Oregon State University met to candidly share their experiences with adaptive learning technology. ((Disclosure: Our e-Literate TV series of video case studies and explainer videos is funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)) I shared two different videos from the event at EdSurge […]
Curricular-Materials
This category includes digital curricular materials, including adaptive learning, assessments, OER, etc., as well as the vendors who sell them.
Marketing Claims From Adaptive Learning Vendors As Barrier To Adoption
We have been critical here at e-Literate when we find ed tech vendors making spurious marketing claims, and Michael in particular has parlayed this into well-deserved NPR fame. But these answers from OSU go further and suggest that marketing claims are harming the vendors themselves. Our primary concern is whether faculty and staff have accurate information to support their own decision-making, and not the financial health of vendors, but this view of self-limitation is an interesting one to consider.
Reprise: How Much Do Community College Students Actually Pay For Textbooks?
Last month the nonprofit advocacy group Achieving the Dream announced a new initiative to fund 38 community colleges who are willing to build entire programs with open educational resources. While this is a noble effort aimed at reducing financial barriers for students to get two-year degrees, the group perpetuated the same myth that has plagued higher education for years.
New OER Survey: The disconnect between faculty caring and assigning
In 2012 the Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) put out a new report on usage and perceptions of open educational resources (OER) usage in higher education. Covered in this blog post, the 2012 report was really a combination of three separate surveys of academic leaders and faculty. In 2014 BSRG put out a new survey of […]
Personalized Learning Explainer: Teaching to the Back Row
Phil and I are pleased to share our first animated explainer on personalized learning: If it feels like a commercial that could have been produced by a textbook publisher or ed tech vendor, that is entirely intentional. We hope that they will actively promote this video (and the successor that we will be publishing in the […]
Personalized Learning at Law Schools
I recently had the honor of speaking at the CALI (Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction) conference. I was invited by one of my early heroes, John Mayer. When I first arrived on the ed tech blogging scene, John was already here, doing stuff. He inspired me. Anyway, you may or may not know that law […]
We’re Giving a Course on Personalized Learning Next Month
Working with our good friends at ELI, we’re going to be offering a three-session synchronous course called Personalized Learning: Finding the Model That Fits Your Institution July 6th through 20th. As you know, we’re still in early days for personalized learning. Most campus communities are still trying to figure out what it is and what it’s good for—if […]