Group items tagged

Google has US Education in its crosshairs.... Google is name-dropping all sorts of work in the education space in its forum to help redefine American education : Harlem Children's Zone, NCLB, A Nation at Risk, Sesame Street................. Here's a snippet: "And according to McKinsey's Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools report, if the U.S. had in recent years closed the gap between its educational achievement levels and those of higher-performing nations, our GDP in 2008 could have been $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion higher. That's 9 to 16 percent of GDP!"

This article discusses ways to use mobile technology in a higher education setting, including uses to increase engagement among students and to provide safety and emergency information. The author fails to include any uses that actually involve learning or improved communication and transparency between students and teachers, which I believe is an oversight that many schools have when considering implementing mobile technology in their schools. 

Jeff Kirchick is Director of Universities at SCVNGR, the popular mobile game about going places, doing challenges and earning points. He presents regularly about the future of mobile and location-based services in education. You can follow Jeff on Twitter @JeffreyKirchick or e-mail him at jeff@scvngr.com.

Really interesting article about the potential of a lifelong and nonlinear path through college - reminiscent of Prof. Dede's lifelong and life-wide learning propositions/models.

Forbes prediction for how technology will impact Higher education

MIT considering its future vis-a-vis edX: "An education from MIT may soon involve a freshman year spent completing online courses, two years on campus and a fourth "year" of continuous education. While students pursue their careers, they could access a growing library of online courses to refresh their knowledge."access a growing library of online courses to refresh their knowledge."

Using MOOCs and technology to further stratify education

US News & World Report is adding online college programs to its rankings this year, sparking skepticism that it can accurately be done. This acknowledgement is significant for online learning programs, and puts them into the more mainstream higher education category rather than a fringe alternative to a brick and mortar program.

Do MOOC's foster disengagement from global education and communities?

This paper presents the first experimental evidence on the effects of live versus internet media of instruction. Students in a large introductory microeconomics course at a major research university were randomly assigned to live lectures versus watching these same lectures in an internet setting, where all other factors (e.g., instruction, supplemental materials) were the same. Counter to the conclusions drawn by a recent U.S. Department of Education meta-analysis of non-experimental analyses of internet instruction in higher education, we find modest evidence that live-only instruction dominates internet instruction. These results are particularly strong for Hispanic students, male students, and lower-achieving students. We also provide suggestions for future experimentation in other settings.

The authors are very misleading in their claim that this study is the first on live versus internet. There is a huge literature on this topic stretching back decades. The claims about the generalizability of the study are also very suspect.

Chris, I think the authors are claiming it is the first experimental trial where participants were randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition. They contrast their study with the DOE meta-analysis, which I don't think includes experimental studies--at least as experiments are defined within econometrics. My problem with the study is that they are aren't really comparing live vs. internet so much as live vs. recorded video. They are very careful to not take advantage of any of the potential affordances of internet mediated instruction, except broadcasting a lecture, to preserve the "purity" of their experiment. Of course, that's not a terribly interesting experiment. The more interesting experiments, which they deride as "not apples-to-apples," is to compare a traditional lecture format with an online course that takes full advantage of the affordances of the internet. These studies would confound the carefully balanced design of an apples-to-apples comparison, but no serious education technologist thinks we should just record all the lectures and post them...

Fantastic piece on transforming higher education--love his framework.

Financial analysis of MOOCs and potential impact on lesser-known universities...though I think people are still trying to figure out where MOOCs play in the general higher education landscape.

I am currently working on how to integrate IBM Watson in digital media for learning. I would gladly appreciate to talk anybody in the group who has a similar interest. Nice quote "I think the real impact on learning will start to come in the classroom, if you can imagine intelligent tutors - a system that can truly be interactive with the learner as they're engaging and learning the materials,"

A recent study looking at Facebook use and student grades found some evidence that students who share links and participate in "lurking" had higher grades while students who posted status updates had a higher likelihood of lower grades. 

Kate, Intesting post. Does this take into account of personality or social desirability bias? Sharing links and chatting may not be considered same type of activity.Since it relies on self reporting, there is also margin for error.

Online courses are not students only, they are for teachers too. Tennessee offers free online courses to help educators maximize their knowledge of balanced assessment systems, including formative instructional practices, value-added progress measures and effective strategies to improve teaching and learning. Since Fall 2010, more than 270,000 courses have been completed throughout Tennessee by 42,000 educators.

"There is a danger that MOOCs will reinforce rather than disrupt a two-tier education system in the US, and eventually in the UK, with campus-based learning as premium elite education and online learning as a basic offering."

I just found a current MOOC, highly relevant to the conversation in class today. --free and accepting new participants now. "Weekly Topics: Change pressures: What is influencing higher education? (Oct 8-14) Net pedagogies: New models of teaching and learning (Oct 15-21) Entrepreneurship and commercial activity in education (Oct 22-28) Big data and Analytics (Oct 29-Nov 4) Leadership in Education (Nov 4-11) Distributed Research: new models of inquiry (Nov 12- 18)"

A general overview of what makes a MOOC unique and, and what role could they play in the core educational mission of universities? Also a good blog from Duke's Center for Instructional Technology