In the operating plan slide deck that Cengage recently released as a consequence of their bankruptcy proceedings, the executive summary slide says that a key element of their strategy is “driving aggressive digital growth in a course model.” “Course solutions” is mentioned three times in the deck as well. Cengage, as a company, is essentially […]
SJSU and Udacity: The Obvious Problems and Value of Report
SJSU has announced via an official blog post that they are studying the results of the SJSU Plus program using Udacity. First, news coverage and much commentary have been based on very preliminary and unanalyzed data from a spring 2013 pilot of three SJSU Plus courses with Udacity. We are currently awaiting a more comprehensive […]
SJSU and Udacity: Poor Planning and Support, but Valuable Reviewing of Results
A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed for an article in the NY Times about recent pushback against MOOCs. Jonathan Rees, a history professor at Colorado State University at Pueblo, who has written critically about MOOCs, said their spread is likely to lead to a three-tiered world, with a few high-status “super professors” for whom […]
MOOCs: The Courage to Say No
Silicon Valley has enthusiastically promoted MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), but some universities have decided MOOCs are not effective or appropriate for their students. In the summer of 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported 160,000 students signed up for Sebastian Thrun’s Artificial Intelligence course. The course was available as a lecture for enrolled students […]
BREAKING: Blackboard Uses “MOOC” in a Sentence
This week we heard the news that Blackboard…um…they are…well…something about MOOCs. They like them, I think. Or something. Look, I get it. The company has realized that they need to take more direct action in response to the MOOC trend and, while they are not yet in position to make a specific product announcements, they […]
Review: Sir John Daniel on MOOCs, Online Learning, and Quality
As part of the transformation of teaching and learning in higher education, decisions are being made on the type and scope of online learning and whether to participate in MOOCs—a specific form of online learning. Two papers about MOOCs and online learning have been published by Dallas-based Academic Partners, an academic support company. They deserve […]
The Flip and the Rise of Courseware
My new favorite edublogger (not counting my dear friends here on e-Literate, to whom I am partial) is Mike Caufield over at Hapgood. I don’t know how I missed him up until now, but I was very lucky to meet him at a recent Lumen Learning event. I learn something valuable from just about every post […]