I literally do not know what they’re thinking.
Pearson-PLC
Pearson Open Sources Equella—Properly
It’s a topsy-turvy world we live in, Jane.
Pearson Releases a Significant Learning Design Aid
In my view, the work itself is a significant contribution. It also is a positive indicator about Pearson’s future direction as a participant in and influencer of that community, although how strong an indicator is a much harder question to evaluate. And it gives us another clue about the co-evolution of educational institutions and ed tech vendors that we are likely to see over the next years and decades. In this post, I’m going to evaluate each of these aspects in turn.
The Great Unbundling of Textbook Publishers
When we hear the phrase “unbundling” in education, it usually refers to one of two things. Either it’s about unbundling the university into component parts like separating courses from certification or it’s about unbundling content from textbooks or courses into discrete learning objects. On the spectrum from “figment of the imagination” to “the one and […]
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 […]
A Weird but True Fact about Textbook Publishers and OER
As I was perusing David Kernohan’s notes on Larry Lessig’s keynote at the OpenEd conference, one statement leapt out at me: Could the department of labour require that new education content commissioned ($100m) be CC-BY? There was a clause (124) that suggested that the government should check that no commercial content should exist in these […]
Pearson’s Efficacy Listening Tour
Back around New Year, Michael wrote a post examining Pearson’s efficacy initiative and calling on the company to engage in active discussions with various communities within higher education about defining “efficacy” with educators rather than for educators. It turns out that post got a fair bit of attention within the company. It was circulated in […]