CTLT and Friends

Prof. Stanley Fish ponders the book " "The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities," by Frank Donoghue. Donoghue argues that utilitarianism is all but triumphant in the American university, and that the non-instrumental studies like the Humanities are doomed.

Teachers are using college-wide blogging tools or free blogging services for different disciplines as a way to address e-portfolios, audience, publishing practices, copyright and plagiarism, authentic writing and writing in a digital age with hypertext.

Free Education: 200 Online Courses from Great Universities

This week, Stanford has started to roll out a new course, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Taught by Leonard Susskind, one of America's leading physics minds, this course is the fourth of a six-part sequence - Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum - that traces the development of modern physics, moving from Newton to Black Holes. As the title suggests, this course focuses squarely on the groundbreaking work of Albert Einstein. And, it's undoubtedly a plus that the course was presented in Stanford's Continuing Studies program, which means that it's tailored to smart non-specialists like you. You can watch the first lecture on iTunes here, or YouTube below. The remaining lectures will be rolled out on a weekly basis. If you would like to watch the longer sequence of courses, I have provided a complete list of links here. Enjoy.

If you could lead through testing, the U.S. would lead the world in all education categories. When are people going to understand you don't fatten your lambs by weighing them? - Jonathan Kozol at Westfield State College's 157th Commencement

Kozol came to Amherst to promote his latest book, "Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America," which discusses "re-segregation" of public schools and the difficulties facing schools with a high minority population.

The expression "you can't fatten your lambs by weighing them" may be an expression in southern illinois but it was also used by Jonathan Kozol in his keynote speech to the Children's Defense Fund in the early 90's. I know. I have the tape of the speech. Obama likes to take the words of others and use as his own. Comment by catherine - September 10, 2008 at 6:32 am

(Listen to an audio version of this essay). I recently heard the author Jonathan Kozol speak about the over-use of standardized tests in schools today. "We're very busy weighing our lambs. That's not the same as fattening them," he said. That made me think of Nelson.

Jonathan Kozol on "Shame of the Nation" Audio file of Kozol speaking abou "weighing the lamb"

This is from BBC news this morning on the education technology trade show, BETT, in London.

Google decided to close many services that were either redundant, not very successful or unrelated to Google's core business.

Ning network for the EDUCause T&L Challenges project. Everything but the wiki...

After four months of spirited discussion, the EDUCAUSE teaching and learning community has voted on the, "Top Teaching and Learning Challenges, 2009." The final list for 2009, ranked by popularity, includes (click on individual Challenges to visit their wiki page): 1. Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation. 2. Developing 21st-century literacies among students and faculty (information, digital, and visual). 3. Reaching and engaging today's learner. 4. Encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with IT. 5. Advancing innovation in teaching and learning (with technology) in an era of budget cuts.

Cohere is an Open University UK project to build a server-based system which extends social bookmarking to collaborative argumentation using a concept-map interface in the browser.

Browsealoud makes using the Internet easier for people who have: * Low literacy and reading skills * English as a second language * Dyslexia * Mild visual impairments Browsealoud is _not_ a replacement for a screen reader, but is convenient for some classes of users. As critical learning functions move increasingly online, we will need to know about this kind of affordance.

The following paper gives an overview of the approach taken by the SocialLearn project at Open University UK. It provides a description and rationale for a hub-and-spoke model similar to the one we have been discussing. Social:Learn - Widening Participation and Sustainability of Higher Education Walton, A, Weller, M. and Conole, G. (2008). Proc. EDEN 2008: Annual Conference of the European Distance and E-Learning Network. 11-14 June 2008, Lisbon, Portugal [PDF]

Focusing on ePortfolios in a Web 2.0 context. Open source is a construct--unbundling the code from the services. So that teachers no longer own the content--the content is open and free. Can education itself open up?

The progress and the thinkings of SocialLearn project by Open University.