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Definitely worthwhile to keep a pulse on Dr. Bror Saxberg's work, esp. if you are interested in learning science. He is the Chief Learning Office at Kaplan and has a unique academic background (a Rhodes Scholar with MD from Harvard, PhD from MIT, Masters from Oxford, etc.) Professor Dede had also mentioned him in one of our previous lectures. Your's truly had the honor of having breakfast, one-on-one, with Dr. Bror Saxberg at his office in DC. :-) This posting talks about a beta course at Kaplan to train "learning architects" on how to build learning environments.

Check out nb a very cool, collaborative note taking tool developed by MIT's Haystack Group. Last night I got into a discussion with Sanjoy Mahajan, an Olin College professor who got his Phd at MIT.  We were talking about Eriz Mazur's Peer Instruction technique when he began describing how in his flipped-classroom courses he uses the MIT Haystack Group's "nb" software to enable his student's to collaboratively discuss the course readings (online in pdf form) through shared, online annotations & notes.   Sanjoy's students are required to participate in the online annotation discussion, making their own annotations and responding to others, the night before his class.  He then reviews the annotations to prepare the next day's discussion and peer-instruction lesson plan.

This article illustrates 10 reasons why students fail at getting their Ph.D. Now I have a little more understanding of why it takes a long time!

Popular nerd site, Gizmodo, is offering online electronics courses for their readers. Wish this had been around when I had to take electronics courses in college. Sometimes, simple videos that you can play and replay can do so much more for you than a PhD clad professor and a book.

This plays off of the Disrupting Higher Ed discussion we had in class this week--talks about how college programs / classes are changing to be more "idea" based and how colleges are adapting to students who have been immersed in technology.

Summary: In a shift, professors from prominent colleges (including Harvard) are actually *encouraging* students to use Wikipedia.

Yes! This is a great way to harness a digital resource rather than dismissing it. More or less, everyone uses Wikipedia because if for nothing else, it's usually the first hit in a Google search. I agree with the article in that most students aren't allowed to cite Wikipedia but they do use it as a jumping-off point for their research. So in this sense, it IS valuable. One of the reasons I like it in a pinch is the colloquial tone in the delivery of the information. I usually feel like a buddy is explaining it to me rather than a Phd. If students could capture that tone but provide quality assurance on the facts, there's a real research gem to be had here.