Back in September I wrote about the Helix LMS providing an excellent view into competency-based education and how learning platforms would need to be designed differently for this mode. The traditional LMS – based on a traditional model using grades, seat time and synchronous cohort of students – is not easily adapted to serve CBE needs […]
Blackboard’s SVP of Product Development Gary Lang Resigns
Gary Lang, Blackboard’s senior vice president in charge of product development and cloud operations, has announced his resignation and plans to join Amazon. Gary took the job with Blackboard in June 2013 and, along with CEO Jay Bhatt and SVP of Product Management Mark Strassman, formed the core management team that had worked together previously at […]
Vendors as Traditional Revolutionaries
In a post titled “The LMS for Traditional Revolutionaries,” Instructure’s VP of Research and Education for Canvas Jared Stein responded to my LMS rant with some numbers and some thoughts about the role of the vendor in encouraging progressive teaching practices. First, the numbers on the use of open education features in Canvas: 3.8% of […]
The Battle for Open and MOOC Completion Rates
Yesterday I wrote a post on the 20 Million Minds blog about Martin Weller’s new book The Battle for Open: How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory. Exploring different aspects of open in higher education – open access, MOOCs, open education resources and open scholarship – Weller shows how far the concept of openness […]
Is Kuali Guilty of “Open Washing”?
Phil and I don’t write a whole lot about Student Information Systems (SISs) and the larger Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) suites that they belong to, not because they’re unimportant but because the stories about them often don’t fit with our particular focus in educational technology. Plus, if I’m being completely honest, I find them to […]
Pearson, Efficacy, and Research
A while back, I mentioned that MindWires, the consulting company that Phil and I run, had been hired by Pearson in response to a post I wrote a while back expressing concerns about the possibility of the company trying to define “efficacy” in education for educators (or to them) rather than with them. The heart […]
Upcoming EDUCAUSE Webinars on Dec 4th and Dec 8th
Michael and I will be participating in two upcoming EDUCAUSE webinars. Massive and Open: A Flipped Webinar about What We Are Learning On Thursday, December 4th from 1:00–2:00 p.m. ET we will be joined by George Siemens for an EDUCAUSE Live! webinar: In 2012, MOOCs burst into public consciousness with course rosters large enough to fill a […]