The library cooperative OCLC recently ran a conference at the University of Pennsylvania for academic librarians entitled, “MOOCs and Libraries: Massive Opportunity or Overwhelming Challenge?” and the Chronicle of HIgher Education was there to report on this convening. In this article, the Chronicle points to one librarian from Duke University who mentioned that the popularity of MOOCs has caught people by surprise. Additionally, “She’s been hearing from instructors that ‘the…
A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age
January 24, 2013EdSurge discusses a Bill of Rights and Principles, newly developed by a group of people passionate about learning, serving today’s students, and using every available tool to respond better to the needs of students in a global, interactive, digitally connected world....
Digital Content: What Does the Future Hold for Education Systems?
January 23, 2013GETideas.org hosted this GooglePlus hangout on the future of digital content. The online discussion featured a panel of education experts, including Nicole Allen, affordable-textbooks advocate, Student PIRGS; Una Daly, communication college outreach director, OpenCourseWare Consortium; and Cable Green, director of global...
Explaining Inequalities in School Achievement: A Realist Analysis
January 22, 2013In Explaining Inequalities in School Achievement, author Roy Nash argues that a realist framework for the sociological explanation of educational group differences can, and must be, constructed. A move to such an explanatory framework will allow society to take into account the...
Education 3.0: Seven Steps to Better Schools
January 14, 2013In Education 3.0: Seven Steps to Better Schools, renowned educator and technology expert Jim Lengel provides a refreshing and hopeful picture of what schools should look like, including a groundbreaking seven-step process for envisioning and building them that draws on the...
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April 16, 2013A new report in Digital Learning Now’s Smart Series calls attention to America’s school finance system. Complete with an infographic, executive summary and full report, this new resource points out that many of today’s students are opting for blended and online learning environments and that these models will be potentially inaccessible to the mainstream unless funding options are improved. The authors of this report (John Bailey, Carri Schneider, Tom Vander…
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April 9, 2013The New York Times reports on a new tool that may help publishers and educators gain insight into the reading habits of college students. Silicon Valley-based CourseSmart tracks data points such as skipped pages, neglecting not to highlight key passages in the text, lack of note taking and how many times a digital textbook has been opened. Using this data, CourseSmart creates “an engagement index” for individual students. The theory…
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April 5, 2013The New York TImes has published an article pointing to misplaced priorities by the Obama administration on education spending as evidenced by the research of Nobel prize winning economist James Heckman and others. While noting that the President has called for universal preschool education in his State of the Union Address, reporter Eduardo Porter writes about how the US has allocated significant funds for higher ed initiatives that will potentially…
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April 3, 2013Effective leaders recognize the importance of professional development in transforming education systems. Leadership teams need to design engaging and relevant experiences for their colleagues in order to build capacity for educational improvement. In the next Hangout on Air with Cisco’s GETideas.org, Executive Director Mary Anne Petrillo will lead a panel of thought leaders in discussion as they share their ideas for modernizing professional development efforts. Please join us on April 3rd to…
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March 7, 2013Posted on the web site of educational researcher Katy Jordan, this is an interesting visual display of data related to MOOCs (massively open online courses). You can filter data by platform, university, and type of assessment. Jordan work at the Open University and is continuing to collect information related to MOOCs. See this blog post for further details.
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March 3, 2013Salon writer Andrew Leonard gives an interesting overview of the state of new and emerging online education choices and their potential impact on higher education. Leonard asserts that this impact is already being felt and will continue to accelerate, “The kids who are cutting their teeth on Khan Academy videos for help with their chemistry and calculus homework will grow up correctly assuming that there will always be low-cost or…
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March 2, 2013In another great blog post from KQED’s Mind/Shift blog, tips are given on using and creating open educational resources. These tips are gleaned from a presentation at Educon 2.5 by Funny Monkey Founder, Bill Fitzgerald, who thinks, “… educators are focusing too heavily on acquiring content, rather than contributing and improving to it…”. As teachers and students become content curators as well as creators, it’s essential that they understand basic concepts…
