e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: podcast

  • Cengage and OER Podcast Series: Two steps forward and one step back

    Cengage and OER Podcast Series: Two steps forward and one step back

    Last fall I wrote about Cengage, one of the big three publishers for higher education, sponsoring and releasing a survey on Open Education Resources (OER). The survey headline:

    Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education have the potential to triple in use as primary courseware over the next five years, from 4 percent to 12 percent, according to a survey of more than 500 faculty by Cengage Learning. In addition, the use of OER for supplemental learning materials may nearly quadruple in size, from 5 percent to 19 percent.

    But the hidden headline could have been viewed by skeptics as “a publisher fully interested in OER – what’s the catch?”. As time goes on, it is looking more and more like there is no catch other than Cengage promoting OER and trying to understand the nature of OER internally while sharing those lessons. Today’s news is that on the company’s OER resource page they have launched a new podcast series titled “Journey to OER”.

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  • Nordic EdTech Network Podcast Interview

    On December 12, Michael and I joined Eilif Trondsen for a podcast interview for the Nordic EdTech Network. One of the primary activities for the network is to “help Nordic EdTech companies become better informed about the EdTech industry and landscape not only in the Nordic region but also of the global EdTech market dynamics.” Put another way, Eilif is a great network connector. You can access the podcast interview at this page. We are also sharing the interview below.

     

    Some of the questions:

    • What are a couple of things/developments that you have seen out there in the education industry that you think either have had significant impact on current edtech markets, or that may well have significant impact on these markets in the next 2-3 years or so?
    • What have we seen in European procurements related to edtech and how would that impact smaller startups and non-LMS vendors?
    • Do you see opportunities in learning analytics and adaptive learning vendors [with an interest comment about whether Knewton is going to be a dominant player]?
    • Do you have any recommended Dos and Don’ts for any Nordic edtech vendors considering to target the US market?

  • It’s Called Data Analysis And Not Data Synthesis For A Reason

    I’ve never been a big TEDtalks fan, but recently I’ve been exploring some of the episodes, partially based on peer pressure.

    In the process I ran across a talk from Sebastian Wernicke, who has a bioinformatics background but now seems to specialize in giving talks. The talk in question is “How to use data to make a hit TV show”, which starts by looking at two data approaches to binge TV production – Amazon’s use of data analysis to choose a new show concept, leading to Alpha House, and Netflix’s use of data to look at lots of show components but then to let humans make conclusions and “take a leap of faith”, leading to House of Cards. The anecdotes set up his description of where data fits and where it doesn’t, and this mirrors what Michael and I are seeing in the use the broad application of personalized learning.

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  • ELI Podcast: Emerging Issues Around MOOCs

    Michael and I were interviewed by Veronica Diaz for the EDUCAUSE Learning Institute (ELI) podcast series. The theme was looking not at where MOOCs are today, but at where MOOCs might go in the future. The interview is about 13 minutes in length and covers questions such as:

    • Coursera just raised $43m of funding – what potential do investors see in MOOCs?
    • Based on recent Forbes article – do you see MOOCs as replacing parts of traditional higher ed?
    • Will growing numbers of online students reduce hesitation of employers to hire online students? How does this affect institutions being proxies for quality?
    • What applications are there for MOOCs beyond academic programs? (with interesting answer from Michael based on DS106)

    You can access the podcast on iTunes under the EDUCAUSE channel (just search ‘educause’ and go to episode 18), through the EDUCAUSE site, or by the link below.