CTLT and Friends

Interesting results of California's open source text book initiative.. Other references: http://gov.ca.gov/press-release/12225/ and http://about.ck12.org/

A resource to track. The latest here is July 2nd's NWCCU new standards.

Think of the many publicly funded institutions of higher education, then think of the way those colleges and universities only reward their scholars if they are willing to conceal their expertise from the broader public that funded the institutions they work at. It's as unethical as it is unnecessary, but it will continue until institutions learn to be more publicly responsible with their intellectual resources, or until scholars reject the restrictive identity they are held to through the traditional reward system.

From the article: "Think of the many publicly funded institutions of higher education, then think of the way those colleges and universities only reward their scholars if they are willing to conceal their expertise from the broader public that funded the institutions they work at. It's as unethical as it is unnecessary, but it will continue until institutions learn to be more publicly responsible with their intellectual resources, or until scholars reject the restrictive identity they are held to through the traditional reward system."

Don't you wish students could be taught to think like this. Most people ask what, maybe why, but seldom how.

Inspirational about thought..

I've long held that we learn far more from failure than success. Success doesn't teach us anything really, accept that it once worked the way it did. This is really from another point of view..

Neurons learn from success individually but not from failure..

At Books-A-Million (the big book store here in Gainesville, FL), I noticed the science section is very small, there is no psychology section (but only a large Self-Help section that is heavily religious), and no biology section. The religion section is by far the largest of all. I wondered, does this reflect the interests of people in the area? If so, the lack of interest in science is really sad. The contrasting (as opposed to just commparing) science and religion is also a sad societal phenomenon, I think. But then again--while stores mostly buy inventory they think will sell best, the inventory that builds up on the shelves is that which sells the least. So I don't know how to guage this.

The digital age appears to be reviving literacy... Good.

The digital age is reviving literacy..

Twitter for Business, Text as UI: "A few days ago, I posted the announcement of our next usability conferences to Nielsen Norman Group's timeline on Twitter (@NNgroup). I don't have all the guidelines for stream-based postings yet, because we're still conducting usability studies (particularly of B2B users, like my audience). But, based on the user sessions I've observed already, I put this posting through 5 rounds of iterative design."

The inevitable extension of the LMS from the Morgan study to now: the college hopes to install technology that will allow the flash drive to automatically connect to a folder hosted by the college, so students can submit assignments whenever the flash drive detects an Internet connection.

This is a very easy way to create a screencast and have it hosted, or twitted.

The writing was also often associated with accomplishing an immediate, concrete goal, such as organizing a group of people or accomplishing a political end, says Paul M. Rogers, one of the study's authors. The immediacy might help explain why students stayed so engaged, he says.

We agree with both President Obama and Senator Coburn that universal accessibility of such information is worthwhile goal. However, we believe this is only a first step. In a deep sense, our prior post is designed to serve as a demonstration project. We are just two graduate students working on a shoestring budget. With the resources of the federal government, however, it would certainly be possible to create a series of simple interfaces designed to broadly represent of large amounts of information. While these interfaces should rely upon the best available analytical methods, such methods could probably be built-in behind the scenes. At a minimum, government agencies should follow the suggestion of David G. Robinson and his co-authors who argue the federal government "should require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large."

an interesting example of work with large data sets, but also, a research group that is working "off-shore" from their campus and in a blog in ways that seem to parallel WSUCTLT

lots to explore linked from this post that I found linked from Downes

Higher education faces many challenges in the short run. Our solutions will not stick if we do not re-examine the potential value of "Rolodex" presidents, slash-and-burn financial officers, and too many corporate leaders who could not mind their own stores.

Another way of looking at the financial crisis as an opportunity for "creative destruction".

"We should abolish faculties in universities. Faculties are the most conservative bulwarks against change. Europe must move to a radically different trans-disciplinary approach. Most of the interesting things happen on the boundaries of the discipline," he said. \n\n"Second, I emphasised the social perspective: the selection and meritocratic functions of schools often impose themselves as external limitations on the innovative capacities of schools. The 'pedagogy of failure', which often dominates schooling, is not the best environment for the development of creativity and heteronymous thinking. Innovation and creativity in the classroom can only flourish in a 'pedagogy of success', in which all talents of all children have the chance to develop. Well-performing school systems are those where the drive for excellence is linked with a strong equitable ambition."\n

Complex inter-relationship between: space, time, locality, practice, boundary crossings between different practices. For example trainee doctor in the hospital in one practice, translation of this experience into 'evidence for assessment purposes' needs to then be 'validated' by auditors in another community of practice.