Alternate Headline: “Our Long National Nightmare is Over – SJSU and Udacity solve problem of college graduates being able to pass remedial math” The more I read on SJSU’s announcement on the pilot program, the more troubled I am with the lack of clear description of student population change (I wrote briefly about the change in student […]
higher education
Major Twist in CCSF Accreditation Crisis: DOE Threatens Accrediting Agency
I have recently described the seven-year accrediting crisis that City College of San Francisco (CCSF) faces as well as a summary of the dissenting voices. Now it’s time to be petty. We are now seeing just the intervention that I predicted one month ago. Per Inside Higher Ed today: City College of San Francisco’s […]
CCSF Accreditation Crisis: The Dissenting Voices
I recently wrote about City College of San Francisco (CCSF) and its impending loss of accreditation, which would essentially shut down the largest community college in California (85k students). Last week the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), which operates under the corporate entity the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), voted to end accreditation for the City […]
This is not your father’s Blackboard
Thanks for inviting me to this conference in Las Vegas, but I couldn’t help notice there is no After Party. Could you point me to the BbWorld conference instead? . . . What’s that? . . . Really?? Because I just came out of a product roadmap presentation where people were clapping, and not just […]
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] […]
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 […]