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Jared Stein

10 Predictions for Blended Learning in 2013 -- THE Journal - 0 views

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    "7. MOOCs Disrupting Advanced Placement Courses Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are becoming hugely popular at the higher education level (see Coursera, edX, and Udacity). Advanced middle and high school students are increasingly eyeing the chance to take physics from MIT or Shakespeare at Harvard. Next year this trend will accelerate."
Jared Stein

How data and analytics can improve education - O'Reilly Radar - 0 views

  • The existing data gathering in schools and universities pales in comparison to the value of data mining and learning analytics opportunities that exist in the distributed social and informational networks that we all participate in on a daily basis. It is here, I think, that most of the novel insights on learning and knowledge growth will occur. When we interact in a learning management system (LMS), we do so purposefully — to learn or to complete an assignment. Our interaction in distributed systems is more "authentic" and can yield novel insights into how we are connected, our sentiments, and our needs in relation to learning success.
  • learners should have access to the same dashboard for analytics that educators and institutions see
  • a learning management system like Moodle or Desire2Learn captures a significant amount of data, including time spent on a resource, frequency of posting, number of logins, etc
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  • Much of the current focus on analytics relates to reducing attrition or student dropouts. This is the low-hanging fruit of analytics.
  • learning analytics serve as a foundation for informed change in education, altering how schools and universities create curriculum, deliver it, assess student learning, provide learning support, and even allocate resources.
Jared Stein

Unbundling vs. Embedding: Approaches to reuse of integrated course objects | Hapgood - 0 views

  • one of the core functions the educator provides is to structure content into a sequence that learners can follow and have trust in. The bargain they make is this – if I do the course you have constructed then I will come out with a certain understanding of the topic.
  • I’ve realized that there are major problems with severing assessment from content, content from interaction, and so on. If you don’t believe me, hop on down to your kid’s school on standardized assessment day.
  • In an embedded model, there is no unbundling. Instead there is “wrapping”.
Jared Stein

The Campus Tsunami - NYTimes.com - 5 views

  • If a few star professors can lecture to millions, what happens to the rest of the faculty?
    • Jared Stein
       
      This is perhaps the most interesting point, but should lead us to discussions about how local teachers leverage these materials for blended learning experiences, rather than to imply that regular folks will end up out of work. See, there is no _direct_ competition between the "star professor" and the local teacher. A teacher is not yet a commodity that can be reproduced at little or no cost--unlike digital _content_, which is a non-rivalrous resource. So, while the lecture may be available via the web, but the professor is not. We're talking static multimedia content in most cases, but even with MOOCs we find that it's not the "star professor" interacting with a world of students, but rather TAs, RAs, or the community itself that must take responsibilty for interaction.
  • What happens to the students who don’t have enough intrinsic motivation to stay glued to their laptop hour after hour?
    • Jared Stein
       
      This is like asking, "What happens to the students who don't have enough intrinsic motivation to travel to campus and stay awake in a hard seat through hours of monotonous lecture?"
  • online learning will give millions of students access to the world’s best teachers
    • Jared Stein
       
      Brooks means, I think, "open online learning". But even then it's not "access to the world's best teachers", but merely access to their teaching work. Almost in the same way we have access to the world's best researchers through the library.
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  • accounting classes from Norman Nemrow of Brigham Young University
    • Jared Stein
       
      Perfect example: this accounting course has the online materials and quizzes available online for free as OCW, but not access to Dr Nemrow himself.
  • Online learning could extend the influence of American universities around the world.
    • Jared Stein
       
      True that. But this is an example of what some have critiqued the open education movement for: hedgemony and the re-establishment of the elite name brand. I don't necessarily agree with this critique, but it's a strong argument.
  • Research into online learning suggests that it is roughly as effective as classroom learning.
    • Jared Stein
       
      "roughly" is disingenous. There are decades of research comparing f2f to independent study or online that shows "no significant difference". The US Dept of Ed's 2009 report actually favors online, and then blended over f2f for outcomes. True, that report is a meta-analysis with flaws, but it's better evidence than anything that argues to the contrary.
  • Online learning seems especially useful in language
    • Jared Stein
       
      Probably only because language learning, which requires lots and lots of rote practice, has been doing technology enhanced learning longer than any content area. See CALL.
  • A brain is not a computer
    • Jared Stein
       
      And yet cognitive scientists still maintain that the computer is the best analogy for the human brain that we have...
  • There is absorbing information
    • Jared Stein
       
      Brooks's "Step 1" (see below).
  • Online education mostly helps students with Step 1.
    • Jared Stein
       
      Huh? No, online knowledge resources like Wikipedia help with Step 1. Tools like Quizlet help with Step 1. The average online course results in learning processes similar to those Brooks describes through all his "steps".
  • In an online world, colleges have to think hard about how they are going to take communication, which comes over the Web, and turn it into learning, which is a complex social and emotional process.
    • Jared Stein
       
      Is this 1995? Does Brooks really think there is not already significant (and growing) research on exactly this kind of thing in ed tech?
  • My guess is it will be easier to be a terrible university on the wide-open Web, but it will also be possible for the most committed schools and students to be better than ever.
    • Jared Stein
       
      I think this editorial was written, submitted for publication, then subsequently lost for years. If you check the metadata on the WordPerfect document, it likely shows a creation date of 1997.
  • subjects that are harder to digest in an online format, like philosophy
    • Jared Stein
       
      Discussion and dialogue based courses are probably benefit the most from online modalities, because asynchronous discussions disrupt the classroom limitations of time and space, allowing for deeper discussions, fuller participation, preparation, reflection, and an emphasis on critical writing skills.
  • The elite, pace-setting universities have embraced the Internet.
    • Jared Stein
       
      Correction: the elite, pace-setting universities have embraced _open education_. Online learning has been around since the birth of the internet in various forms. But even if we're talking about open education, let's not forget that MIT pioneered OpenCourseWare over a decade ago.
Jared Stein

Teachers Belong at the Center of the Digital Classroom | It's Time! - 0 views

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    Competitor Time To Know remarks that, in K12 at least, teachers need to remain the center of the classroom; technology becomes part of the ecology where teachers live and work.
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