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Barbara Lindsey

Fluid Learning | the human network - 0 views

blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=94

mark pesce higher ed technology learning control

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 26 Dec 08 - Cached
  • There must be a point to the exercise, some reason that makes all the technology worthwhile. That search for a point – a search we are still mostly engaged in – will determine whether these computers are meaningful to the educational process, or if they are an impediment to learning.
  • What’s most interesting about the computer is how it puts paid to all of our cherished fantasies of control. The computer – or, most specifically, the global Internet connected to it – is ultimately disruptive, not just to the classroom learning experience, but to the entire rationale of the classroom, the school, the institution of learning. And if you believe this to be hyperbolic, this story will help to convince you.
  • A student about to attend university in the United States can check out all of her potential instructors before she signs up for a single class. She can choose to take classes only with those instructors who have received the best ratings – or, rather more perversely, only with those instructors known to be easy graders. The student is now wholly in control of her educational opportunities, going in eyes wide open, fully cognizant of what to expect before the first day of class.
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  • it has made the work of educational administrators exponentially more difficult. Students now talk, up and down the years, via the recorded ratings on the site. It isn’t possible for an institution of higher education to disguise an individual who happens to be a world-class researcher but a rather ordinary lecturer. In earlier times, schools could foist these instructors on students, who’d be stuck for a semester. This no longer happens, because RateMyProfessors.com effectively warns students away from the poor-quality teachers.
  • If we are smart enough, we can learn a lesson here and now that we will eventually learn – rather more expensively – if we wait. The lesson is simple: control is over. This is not about control anymore. This is about finding a way to survive and thrive in chaos.
  • The battle for control over who stands in front of the classroom has now been decisively lost by the administration in favor of the students.
  • That knowledge, once pooled, takes on a life of its own, and finds itself in places where it has uses that its makers never intended.
  • This one site has undone all of the neat work of tenure boards and department chairs throughout the entire world of academia.
  • When broken down to its atomic components, the classroom is an agreement between an instructor and a set of students. The instructor agrees to offer expertise and mentorship, while the students offer their attention and dedication. The question now becomes what role, if any, the educational institution plays in coordinating any of these components. Students can share their ratings online – why wouldn’t they also share their educational goals? Once they’ve pooled their goals, what keeps them from recruiting their own instructor, booking their own classroom, indeed, just doing it all themselves?
  • the possibility that some individuals or group of individuals might create their own context around the lectures. And this is where the future seems to be pointing.
  • the shape of things to come. But there are some other trends which are also becoming visible. The first and most significant of these is the trend toward sharing lecture material online, so that it reaches a very large audience.
  • Why not create a new kind of “Open University”, a website that offers nothing but the kinds of scheduling and coordination tools students might need to organize their own courses?
  • In this near future world, students are the administrators.
  • Now since most education is funded by the government, there will obviously be other forces at play; it may be that “administration”, such as it is, represents the government oversight function which ensures standards are being met. In any case, this does not look much like the educational institution of the 20th century – though it does look quite a bit like the university of the 13th century, where students would find and hire instructors to teach them subjects.
  • The lecturer now helps the students find the material available online, and helps them to make sense of it, contextualizing and informing their understanding. even as the students continue to work their way through the ever-growing set of information. The instructor can not know everything available online on any subject, but will be aware of the best (or at least, favorite) resources, and will pass along these resources as a key outcome of the educational process. The instructor facilitates and mentors, as they have always done, but they are no longer the gatekeepers, because there are no gatekeepers,
  • The classroom in this fungible future of student administrators and evolved lecturers is any place where learning happens.
  • At one end of the scale, students will be able work online with each other and with an lecturer to master material; at the other end, students will work closely with a mentor in a specialist classroom. This entire range of possibilities can be accommodated without much of the infrastructure we presently associate with educational institutions. The classroom will both implode – vanishing online – and explode – the world will become the classroom.
  • Flexibility and fluidity are the hallmark qualities of the 21st century educational institution. An analysis of the atomic features of the educational process shows that the course is a series of readings, assignments and lectures that happen in a given room on a given schedule over a specific duration. In our drive to flexibility how can we reduce the class into to essential, indivisible elements? How can we capture those elements? Once captured, how can we get these elements to the students? And how can the students share elements which they’ve found in their own studies?
  • This is the basic idea that’s guiding Stanford and MIT: recording is cheap, lecturers are expensive, and students are forgetful. Somewhere in the middle these three trends meet around recorded media. Yes, a student at Stanford who misses a lecture can download and watch it later, and that’s a good thing. But it also means that any student, anywhere, can download the same lecture.
  • Every one of these recordings has value, and the more recordings you have, the larger the horde you’re sitting upon. If you think of it like that – banking your work – the logic of capturing everything becomes immediately clear.
Michael Johnson

Apprehending the Future: Emerging Technologies, from Science Fiction to Campus Reality... - 8 views

www.educause.edu/...171774

Learning educational technology future directions

shared by Michael Johnson on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • environmental scan
  • The environmental scan method offers several advantages, starting with the fact that drawing on multiple sources and perspectives can reduce the chances of bias or sample error. The wider the scan, the better will be the chance of hitting the first trace of items that, although small at the moment, could expand into prominence. A further advantage is pedagogical: trying to keep track of a diverse set of domains requires a wide range of intellectual competencies. As new technologies emerge, more learning is required in subfields or entire disciplines, such as nanotechnology or digital copyright policy.
  • Disadvantages of this method start from its strengths: environmental scanning requires a great deal of sifting, searching, and analyzing. Finding the proverbial needle in the haystack isn't useful if its significance can't be recognized. Furthermore, the large amount of work necessary for both scanning and analyzing can be daunting, especially for smaller schools or enterprises.
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  • That complexity demands non-simple responses. Each of the techniques sketched above offers one way of helping groups to think through these emergent forces and to apprehend the future. Crowdsourcing, scenarios, prediction markets, the Delphi method, and environmental scanning are complementary strategies. Using several of these methods can teach us to learn about the future in more sophisticated, pro-active ways. If the methods appear strange, resembling science fiction, perhaps that is a sign of their aptness for the future, since the future often appears strange just before it becomes ordinary—or, in our case, just before it becomes a campus reality. As higher education budgets clamp down and the future hurtles toward us, we need these methods and techniques as allies that can help us to survive . . . and to learn.
  • Crowdsourcing, scenarios, prediction markets, the Delphi method, and environmental scanning are complementary strategies. Using several of these methods can teach us to learn about the future in more sophisticated, pro-active ways. If the methods appear strange, resembling science fiction, perhaps that is a sign of their aptness for the future, since the future often appears strange just before it becomes ordinary—or, in our case, just before it becomes a campus reality. As higher education budgets clamp down and the future hurtles toward us, we need these methods and techniques as allies that can help us to survive . . . and to learn.
  • to apprehend the future. Crowdsourcing, sce
  • Michael Johnson on 15 Feb 10
     
    Alexander discusses methods for keeping up with the future of technology and its use in higher education.
Michael Johnson

Open for Learning: The CMS and the Open Learning Network | in education - 8 views

ineducation.ca/...-cms-and-open-learning-network

open education educational technology lms opensource technology education OpenEducation PLE learning cms

shared by Michael Johnson on 07 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Michael Johnson on 07 Jun 10
     
    The course management system (CMS) reinforces the status quo and hinders substantial teaching and learning innovation in higher education. It does so by imposing artificial time limits on learner access to course content and other learners, privileging the role of the instructor at the expense of the learner, and limiting the power of the network effect in the learning process. The open learning network (OLN)-a hybrid of the CMS and the personal learning environment (PLE)-is proposed as an alternative learning technology environment with the potential to leverage the affordances of the Web to dramatically improve learning.
BlackBeltHelp Admin

Reach, Engage and Retain Your Students with Financial Aid Help Desk Support! - 0 views

blog.blackbelthelp.com/inancial-aid-help-desk-support

Financial Aid Help Desk Support Financial Aid Support Financial Aid Help Desk Higher education US Higher Education Highered Higher Ed Student Success Student Services Student Support Student Help desk Student experience Student Engagement

shared by BlackBeltHelp Admin on 24 Sep 19 - No Cached
  • BlackBeltHelp Admin on 24 Sep 19
     
    Scene 1, Financial aid office of a college: Two phones ringing incessantly, an inbox flooded with emails from prospective students, a pile of financial aid applications lying unprocessed, and a clock announcing the end of office hours. Scene 2, Somewhere in the US: A student, exasperated with the rising cost of getting a college degree, calls the financial aid office continuously, sends his 4th email since morning, resolves to visit the office in person next day. What might appear like two scenes out of a modern-day tragicomedy belonging to The Theatre of Absurd, are a routine during the enrollment season in universities. Increasingly expensive degrees make financial aid help desk support imperative to get in and stay in- college. As if it isn't already difficult enough, steps in the complicated process of getting the required financial aid. That's when Financial Aid Help Desk Services come to your rescue.
Michael Johnson

2010 Horizon Report | NMC - 1 views

www.nmc.org/...2010-horizon-report

technology HorizonReport 2010 educational technology

shared by Michael Johnson on 19 Jan 10 - Cached
  • Michael Johnson on 19 Jan 10
     
    "The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the NMC's Horizon Project, a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression within higher education." I still need to read this...
Knewton

What is "Adaptive Learning"? Our own Knewton Knerds explain... - 0 views

www.knewton.com/...oard-what-is-adaptive-learning

education edtech technology teachers students highered highereducation higher adaptivelearning adaptive learning elearning blended flipped classroom blendedlearning flippedclassroom

shared by Knewton on 10 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Knewton on 10 Oct 13
     
    In today's age of big data, words and phrases like "adaptive learning," "personalization" and "differentiation" are getting tossed around with increasing frequency. What exactly do these terms mean and to what extent do they overlap?
Clif Mims

Schoology - Your digital classroom - 7 views

www.schoology.com/home.php

2.0 Collaboration=Telecollaboration Storage Online-Learning Telecommunication CMS=LMS

shared by Clif Mims on 13 Nov 09 - No Cached
  • Clif Mims on 13 Nov 09
     
    "Fully hosted and fully managed course management system with an integrated social network for K-12 and higher education"
Kris Abel

Windows 8 adoption rate lags early Windows 7 adoptions by a five-to-one margin | Comput... - 0 views

blogs.computerworld.com/...ws-7-adoptions-five-one-margin

windows adoption rate margin blogs education technology

shared by Kris Abel on 02 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Kris Abel on 02 Nov 12
     
    "The early results for Windows 8 adoptions likely won't please Microsoft: Net Applications reports that only 0.45% of Windows computers in October used Windows 8. That compares to a much higher adoption rate of 2.33% for Windows 7 during its October launch three years ago." Read More...
Clif Mims

ClassTools.net: Games for Education - 0 views

www.classtools.net

Wii Games Skills-Practice

shared by Clif Mims on 26 Dec 08 - Cached
  • Clif Mims on 26 Dec 08
     
    Flash games and tools for teachers. The random name-picker alone makes this site a winner. Graphic organizers and custom quizzes put it over the top. [via Vicki Davis] NOTE: These activities alone will not encourage higher order thinking
Ben Rimes

The Future of Less: How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education - 0 views

futureofless.blogspot.com/...edupunks-are-transforming.html

openglobal week2 edupunk

shared by Ben Rimes on 17 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Today, we've gone from scarcity of knowledge to unimaginable abundance. It's only natural that these new, rapidly evolving information technologies would convene new communities of scholars, both inside and outside existing institutions
  • "We said, 'Let's create a university that actually measures learning,' " Mendenhall says. "We do not have credit hours, we do not have grades. We simply have a series of assessments that measure competencies, and on that basis, award the degree."
  • Hulu.com, launched just 18 months ago, is widely considered to be the first Web site to prove that mass broadcast-television viewing as we know it can and will shift online. Hulu did that by being attractive, well-designed, and easy to use, and by having a viable business model with actual paying advertisers -- and soon, subscribers.
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  • He has also offered five of his courses to anyone on the Web for free; he donates his own time to review nonenrolled students' work, awarding a signed certificate in lieu of course credit. Wiley's most recent open course was formatted as an online role-playing game, with students divided into "guilds" completing "quests" -- a learning community inspired by the world of online gamers. "If you didn't need human interaction and someone to answer your questions, then the library would never have evolved into the university," Wiley says. "We all realize that content is just the first step."
  • If you want to perform a proper string quartet, they noted, you can't cut out the cellist nor can you squeeze in more performances by playing the music faster. But that was then -- before MP3s and iPods proved just how freely music could flow. Before Google scanned and digitized 7 million books and Wikipedia users created the world's largest encyclopedia. Before YouTube Edu and iTunes U made video and audio lectures by the best professors in the country available for free, and before college students built Facebook into the world's largest social network, changing the way we all share information. Suddenly, it is possible to imagine a new model of education using online resources to serve more students, more cheaply than ever before.
Dean Mantz

SU - Page from Facultyfocus.com - 3 views

www.stumbleupon.com/s

facultyfocus Twitter classroom education resource tool Web2.0

shared by Dean Mantz on 03 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Dean Mantz on 03 Dec 09
     
    Twitter in the classroom shows student engagement growing.
April H.

Take a Minute to Collect Your Thoughts with Evernote - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Hi... - 13 views

chronicle.com/...24020

Education resources web2.0 technology tools evernote edtech

shared by April H. on 17 May 10 - Cached
  • April H. on 17 May 10
     
    Guest post at ProfHacker about using Evernote for a workflow. Interesting read and useful (if you use Evernote).
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