Today Asahi Net International acquired the Sakai Division of rSmart. rSmart CEO Chris Coppola will join the Ashai Net International Board creating interlocking boards. The financial arrangements are not known. rSmart is a well known contributor to Apereo Inc.’s Sakai learning management system and to the Kuali suite of administrative software applications. rSmart has enhanced, […]
Six Ways the edX Announcement Gets Automated Essay Grading Wrong
Last week, edX made a splashy spectacle of an announcement about automated essay grading, leaving educators fuming. Let’s rethink their claims. “Give Professors a break,” the New York Times suggested in this joint press release from edX, Harvard, and MIT. The breathless story weaves a tale of robo-professors taking over the grading process, leaving professors […]
Please Welcome Featured Blogger Elijah Mayfield
When the story first broke a while back about the Kaggle contest for robo-grading essays that could be “similar to” human graders, I got interested. So after doing a little reading, I ended up contacting a guy by the name of Elijah Mayfield, a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the winners […]
Insight on MOOC student types from ELI Focus Session
Michael and I had the privilege of leading off the ELI Online Spring Focus Session on MOOCs (taking place today, Apr 3, and tomorrow). Thanks to Stephen Downes, we have a good set of notes on our presentation “Everything You Thought You Knew About MOOCs Could Be Wrong” (program & resources, notes) as well as the […]
Upcoming Events for Phil Hill and Michael Feldstein
Michael and I will be speaking at and attending a few events coming up in April. ELI Online Spring Focus Session – Michael and I will jointly kick off the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) Online Spring Focus Session “Learning and the MOOC” on April 3 – 4. Our presentation is April 3 from 12:15 – […]
SUNY and the Expansion of Prior Learning Assessments
Last week Steve Kolowich wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the State University of New York (SUNY) system approval of a plan that would target reduced time-to-degree. The State University of New York’s Board of Trustees on Tuesday endorsed an ambitious vision for how SUNY might use prior-learning assessment, competency-based programs, and massive open online […]
If you like learning, could I recommend analytics?
There’s something that drives me a little crazy when I hear about how someone has learned from Netflix, Amazon, Google, etc., and that they’re going to be the Netflix, Amazon, Movie Box or Google of education. Actually there are a few things. There is a natural tendency to want to leverage the work of others. […]