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I came across this article that talks about informal education vs. formal education based up on the experience of two siblings. It seems to me that over the past few years, the amount of learning materials has increased exponentially, and the my supplemental-informal education parallels my classroom / formal education. Perhaps it is time to begin to start training students to deal with infinite information, and to make it manageable so that they can begin to supplement their educations in novel ways, on their own terms.

This article outlines 3 trademarks of excellent teaching. This article seems relevant following our discussions today re: technology supplementing - not replacing - good teaching.

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...

I wonder how many medical students and physicians are learning through online information, such as these nutrition modules, to make up for the gaps in current medical education curriculum? These nutrition modules are interactive and let students take electronic notes while reviewing the material.

This article talks about how handheld technologies such as android and iPhones can make the museum experience more educational by providing tour guides. Very few museums currently have apps for this purpose but the trend is growing. The actual museum experience can be much more educational when it is supplemented with self guided tours that handheld technologies can provide.

Gates-funded MIT massive game

My colleagues at the Ed Arcade are designing this game - if anyone's interested, I can get you supplemental information.

even offline courses are headed online

Interesting article about how technology is changing the way we define and share intellectual property. Is a professor's lecture the property of the professor, the University or neither? Does a student "own" the notes he takes in class?