Disruptive Technology UNB

"participants who multitasked on a laptop during a lecture scored lower on a test compared to those who did not multitask, and participants who were in direct view of a multitasking peer scored lower on a test compared to those who were not" (unless their use is integrated into the instructional strategy, emphasizing again the need for good instructional design).

Kind of cute!

I wonder if it would be necessary to strike a deal with one of the MOOC 'distributors' to incorporate one of their MOOCs into our curriculum. What if, for example, UNB decided to incorporate a MOOC as resource material in one of our own courses, and leave it to a TA to manage discussions, assignments, tests, tutorials and so on at this end?

I like the fact that they limited their predictions to 2013--a reasonable window. Anything beyond that gets pretty fuzzy. Re. online education: given that the PC still reigns as the 'de facto' device, it makes one wonder if much effort needs to be put in development for smaller devices. Perh. it's enough to develop apps that act as 'flags', and incite users to use their PC for more details. (That's the way I use the technology, by the way.)

"We are approaching a tipping point where education and educators can use technology to reach almost every person on the planet inexpensively. However, the result may not look like the conventional university experience we recognize today".

Ken, this could be a good thing, but difficult for traditional university educators to adjust to, perhaps more difficult for the educators than for the students. Just a thought.

No only is the rate of technological change increasing, so is the rate of sober second thought. :) A key sentence in this article is "The possibilities are myriad, but the success of MOOCs will depend on the degree to which faculty members are involved in the entire process, from development to testing and credentialing." This also applies to our own committee work in disruptive technologies, so that we don't fall into the typical trap of being support staff telling faculty members what to do, one of the reasons we are so unable to effect significant change in instructional practice at UNB (F at least).

To use conservative figures, 10% completion of a 50,000 enrolment is still a lot of students. If 1% were UNB students, that's 50.