A few weeks back, when blogging about Desire2Learn’s new Student Success System retention early warning analytics product, I wrote, From what I can tell based on initial conversations with D2L about the product details, this now appears to be the system to beat. (I reserve the right to change my opinion based on implementation experiences […]
MOOC Mania: Stanford AI Course Creates Media Sensation Two Years Ago
It was two years ago, give or take a week, that the MOOC mania started. Think about the effects on higher education of this seminal event and how short a time it has been. In the past two years online education and ed tech have moved into the front pages, being discussed in the front […]
Hello? Pedagogy?
With all the hype about massive and adaptive and big data, it’s hard to remember sometimes that real flesh and blood humans do know some things about teaching and learning. In fact, we know a lot about it in some areas. We’re just not very good at disseminating and deploying it effectively across our educational […]
Great Post on Machine Learning and Essay Grading
Vik Paruchuri, the author of the edX automated essay grading component, has a great (and lengthy) post up that, in part, responds to Elijah Mayfield’s post on the edX announcement. There’s a good discussion going on in comments, too. We need more posts like this one. I’m happy to see the experts in this field […]
Desire 2 Improve
Phil and I spent some time at Desire2Learn’s FUSION conference the other week, and it was an interesting experience. D2L had a couple of first-ever “analyst days” in which we and a few others got some intensive briefings on their products and strategies. (D2L isn’t the only company that is doing this sort of thing, […]
New Post at WCET: Update on California Online Initiatives
I have a new post up at WCET with updates on the California Online Initiatives driven by state government, including today’s news that SB520 is on hold. The big news today is that the controversial bill seeking to allow for-credit partially-outsourced online education in California has been put on hold until at least 2014. [snip] […]
ELI Podcast: Emerging Issues Around MOOCs
Michael and I were interviewed by Veronica Diaz for the EDUCAUSE Learning Institute (ELI) podcast series. The theme was looking not at where MOOCs are today, but at where MOOCs might go in the future. The interview is about 13 minutes in length and covers questions such as: Coursera just raised $43m of funding – […]