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With most critics of higher education focused on rising prices or on whether American colleges and universities are producing enough degree and certificate holders with sufficient skills to keep the U.S. economy vibrant and competitive -- the latter known in shorthand as the "completion agenda" -- a few analysts are homing in on the quality and rigor of what students are learning (or not) en route to those credentials. Last year's Academically Adrift set the tone, providing data suggesting that many colleges are imposing relatively minimal academic demands on their students and that, perhaps as a result, many students do not appear to gain in some measures of cognitive abilities as they move through college. The authors of We're Losing Our Minds (Palgrave MacMillan) add their own clamoring to the agenda focused on the quality of learning. Richard P. Keeling and Richard H. Hersh, longtime scholars and administrators, describe themselves as "friendly critics" of higher education, and unlike many of academe's naysayers, they don't spend a lot of time trashing the faculty as overpaid and underworked or bashing administrators as fat-cat corporatizers (though they do complain that institutions have overemphasized rankings and enrollment growth and sports and research -- take your pick depending on institution type).

July 9, 2012 Early Computing's 'Deal With the Devil' Victoria StoddenGeorge Dyson, son of the physicist Freeman Dyson and author of Turing's Cathedral, grew up playing with discarded bits of early computers at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study.Enlarge Image By Marc Parry In 1936, the British logician Alan Turing imagined a universal computing machine. In the wake of World War II, at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, a team of mathematicians and engineers built one. The machine stood roughly the size of four refrigerators. People called it Maniac, for Mathematical and Numerical Integrator and Computer. At its heart was "a 32-by-32-by-40 bit matrix of high-speed, random-access memory-the nucleus of all things digital ever since," writes George Dyson in a new book, Turing's Cathedral (Pantheon Books). How that computer came to be, he says, is the story of "a deal with the devil." Mathematicians built a machine that helped create the hydrogen bomb. In exchange, they got a new breed of computer that enabled incredible scientific progress.

Literacies Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois Bill Cope, University of Illinois Paperback ISBN:9781107402195 Publication date:May 2012 464pages Dimensions: 247 x 170 mm Weight: 0.84kg In stock £45.00 With the rise of new technologies and media, the way we communicate is rapidly changing. Literacies provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy pedagogy within today's new media environment. It focuses not only on reading and writing, but also on other modes of communication, including oral, visual, audio, gestural and spatial. This focus is designed to supplement, not replace, the enduringly important role of alphabetical literacy. Using real-world examples and illustrations, Literacies features the experiences of both teachers and students. It maps a range of methods that teachers can use to help their students develop their capacities to read, write and communicate. It also explores the wide range of literacies and the diversity of socio-cultural settings in today's workplace, public and community settings. With an emphasis on the 'how-to' practicalities of designing literacy learning experiences and assessing learner outcomes, this book is a contemporary and in-depth resource for literacy students.

June 25, 2012 Customization Is the Future of Teaching, Harvard Researcher Says Rick Friedman for The ChronicleChris Dede (shown here on screen), a professor of learning technologies at Harvard, says classrooms of the future will have "a more complicated model of teacher performance that, when they know how to do it, teachers are going to appreciate."Enlarge Image By Jeffrey R. Young Most college courses are one-size-fits-all-a lecturer delivers the same information to everyone in the room, regardless of whether some students already know the material or others are utterly lost. It doesn't have to be that way, says Chris Dede, a professor of learning technologies at Harvard University. He outlines a vision of how technology can help personalize learning in a new book that he co-edited, called Digital Teaching Platforms: Customizing Classroom Learning for Each Student. His research focuses on elementary- and high-school classrooms, but he says the approach has implications for colleges as well. The Chronicle talked with Mr. Dede about his strategy, and why he sees big changes on the horizon. An edited version of the conversation follows.

"Thought Leadership Over the past twenty years, Don and others have literally "written the books" on organizational transformation to meet the emerging context of the Knowledge Age. The Strategic Initiatives team has combined thought leadership and artful practice to shape the leading edge of thinking on leading and navigating change, crafting and executing strategy, focusing on value, and performance measurement. Our team has also defined best practice in e-learning, knowledge-sharing and developing e-knowledge repositories, and designing technology-rich facilities for Knowledge Age applications. Strategic Initiatives uses thought leadership to generate the insights that position our clients for success. Our thought leadership has been manifested in publications, presentations and speaking appearances, satellite/Web broadcasts, and other venues."

But soon, introductory physics texts will have a new competitor, developed at Rice University. A free online physics book, peer-reviewed and designed to compete with major publishers' offerings, will debut next month through the non-profit publisher OpenStax College.

Exploring Students' E-Textbook Practices in Higher Education ShareShare RecommendLog in to Recommend by Aimee deNoyelles, John Raible, and Ryan Seilhamer Published on Monday, July 6, 20150 Comments Key Takeaways A two-year university-wide study of students' e-textbook practices found that e-textbook use has increased and become broader demographically. Lower cost and convenience remain the top reasons students purchase an e-textbook, not the interactive features designed to enhance learning. The instructor's role has not changed significantly in the past two years, suggesting the need for further professional development including increased awareness, instruction, and active modeling.

"The growing role of the digital economy in daily life has heightened demand for new data and measurement tools. Internationally comparable and timely statistics combined with robust cross-country analyses are crucial to strengthen the evidence base for digital economy policy making, particularly in a context of rapid change. This report presents indicators traditionally used to monitor the information society and complements them with experimental indicators that provide insight into areas of policy interest. The key objectives of this publication are to highlight measurement gaps and propose actions to advance the measurement agenda."