In case you haven’t heard the news yet, Blackboard has hired a new CEO—Jay Bhatt, previously the CEO of Progress Software. According to Mr. Chasen’s “open letter to the education community,” he will be participating in the transition for the next few months. No word yet on what he will do after that. Ray Henderson […]
MOOCS: The new higher education?
On September 19, Slate Magazine concluded “Online Higher-Education Startup Coursera Is Taking Over the World.” Following Silicon Valley practice, reporter Will Oremus judged Coursera’s success on the basis of the number of customer universities offering Coursera courses. He concludes “Coursera has positioned itself perfectly to capitalize on their eagerness.” In July, Slate posed the question […]
Mobile in Ed Tech: Moving Beyond Browser Replacement
In 2003 Steve Jobs made a speech to the International Design Conference in Aspen, and the audio for this speech has just been re-discovered and shared. There is even a transcription from the Verge available here. During his talk, Jobs foresaw future mobile devices as well as the challenge we would face in truly taking advantage […]
Requiem for a Heavyweight – Lessons to Learn from the Problems at UC Online
In 2009, the University of California finally decided to offer online education with a system-wide initiative called UC Online. Based on an article in the Chronicle that echoes a previous article in the Daily Californian, we learn that just three years later, UC Online is facing significant hurdles to survive the pilot phase and establish a sustainable online […]
Please Fill Out the Campus Computing Survey
This is an incredible time of change in the United States higher education LMS market. Here are just some of the relevant developments that are driving big movements: WebCT is in its last year of Blackboard support, forcing many campuses to migrate either to Blackboard or to something else. Instructure is on an absolute tear, […]
Museums and Open Education
As we rethink the factory-style model of education in our schools (students learning in a group at a standardized pace) empowered by the powerful technologies now at our disposal, we will naturally also think of ways to better support the educational missions of museums. Some recent discussions The thoughts below were inspired by a number […]
Interview with Mitch Kapor
I am delighted to share with you the rare treat of a conversation with famed entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist Mitch Kapor. Probably best known as the founder of the Lotus Corporation and designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the man is consistently so far ahead of the curve it is not funny. He told me that the […]