e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: open education

  • The Emerging Landscape of Educational Delivery Models

    Part 2 in this series, on a key difference in educational delivery methods, can be found here.

    Traditional education or online education. In the past decade it seems that the dominant conversation has been around the potential for online learning, both from for-profit and non-profit options, to disrupt education as an industry.

    What I believe we are seeing in 2011 and 2012 is a transition to an educational system no longer dominated by traditional education and one or two alternative models. As my colleague Molly Langstaff has described, educational technology and new educational courses and programs are interacting to create new language and models for education. What does this emerging landscape of educational delivery models look like?

    While I do not claim to be able to solve this problem, I would like to offer a more descriptive view than the dichotomy of traditional and online education describes.

    (more…)

  • Regulatory Barriers to Innovation for Ed Tech and Open Education

    Over the past few weeks there has been a significant backlash growing against SOPA (the anti-piracy bills introduced in Congress) – read here or here for background.  The biggest change since the bills were introduced is that big technology vendors (significantly including Microsoft and working through the Business Software Alliance) have either withdrawn support or gotten off the fence.  The BSA is now officially lobbying against SOPA as written.  In the world of strange bedfellows, there are also a number of politicians on both sides of the aisle publicly opposing the bill.  It does take some real legislative talent to help create a Pelosi – Paul – Issa common cause.

    Despite the growing opposition, there certainly appears to be a concerted effort in Congress to get the bill passed.  The outcome is far from clear at this point.

    While SOPA by itself remains a major threat to innovation for educational technology and open education in general, it may be helpful to step back and see the growing list of federal laws and regulations that could have a major impact on innovation in higher education.  While each issue is interesting in and of itself, a pattern is emerging.  This pattern suggests that organizations interested in preserving the status quo – are actively pushing back against the tide of change brought by online systems, online education, and digital content.

  • David Wiley on DIY U

    Since it was David Wiley’s unique blend of relentless idealism and can-do pragmatism that first convinced me to give the open education movement a closer look, I was curious to know what he thought of the discussion about DIY U that is happening on e-Literate. So I asked him. His blog post response does not disappoint. You should read it.