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laurac75

Week 3 Reflection on Me as a student | Learning to learn with NGL - 1 views

learningtolearnwithngl.wordpress.com/...me-as-a-student

spta; student;

shared by laurac75 on 05 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • digital natives and digital immigrants as defined by Prensky (2001).
    • laurac75
      laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
       
      Using ideas and principles from other sources
  • The answer is that I have been exploring where I fit both as a student and as a teacher.
  • ...17 more annotations...
    • laurac75
      laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
       
      Reflecting on my own practice
  • In my last post, I introduced Helsper and Enyon’s (2009) idea that exposure to, and experience using, various digital technologies can have more of an influence that generation age on determining whether a person has the characteristics of a digital immigrant or a digital native. Of course, nothing is ever so clear cut. In his blog, Wesley Fryer discusses this, and expands the immigrant vs native classification into four categories, as shown below.
  • Personally, I think even this is a simplification, and that a person’s classification may vary depending on the technology referred to. For example, until recently I was a digital refugee with regards to smart phones and associated apps – and yet reading news report on-line is an integral component of my daily routine. I would probably class as a Voyeur with regards to Twitter and Flickr in that I am aware of them, and will use them to gain information but I do not follow anyone, or actively participate myself. Thus there are multiple shades of grey.
  • Goodyear, Carvalho and Dohn (2014, p 140) state that networked learning “ is no longer exotic”, however, I would argue that this very much depends on on one’s own perspective, which in turn would be shaped by personal experience and knowledge (aka the whole digital landscape debate).
  • (see Koutropoulis, 2011) Prensky’s division
  • I would generally agree that as a student, I tend to be quite focused, like an ordered approach, and work better as an individual than as part of a community. The concepts of ‘shared learning’ is quite alien to me – as is the concept of allowing the “mess” to be apparent. It is quite contradictory to my scientific researcher – the data is analysed, the results and interpretation finalised, and the presentation polished before the work is released to the world at large (typically via a published paper or article). Only those directly collaborating on the work see the mess, being asked to share this process on-line is really quite intimidating to me, and conflicts with my view of professionalism (as well as my tendency towards perfectionism).
  • So, as a student, I think I challenges on several fronts, not just learning the technology, and associated pedagogy, but also challenges to how I perceive and present myself to the world, and what that means to me as a person, and as a collaborator.
    • laurac75
      laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
       
      Using other resources; linking concepts and ideas
    • laurac75
      laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
       
      NGL principles in a brpader context; Using other sources
  • about herself in the capacity of being a student,
  • smiss this message
    • laurac75
      laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
       
      Use of other sources
    • laurac75
      laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
       
      Use of other sources
    • laurac75
      laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
       
      Personal reflection on NGL principles
  • So, as a student, I think I face challenges on several fronts, not just learning the technology, and associated pedagogy, but also challenges to how I perceive and present myself to the world, and what that means to me as a person, and as a collaborator
    • laurac75
      laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
       
      Reflection of future development
    • laurac75
      laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
       
      Personal reflection of involvement in NGL
  • laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
     
    An attempt to demonstrate how (if) I am meeting the assessment criteria for Assignment 1. I think the grading is rather oblique - how does one distinguish between acceptable and exemplary? Where does this post fit? Feedback or thoughts on this would be welcome.
  • laurac75 on 05 Sep 14
     
    An attempt to demonstrate how (if) I am meeting the assessment criteria for Assignment 1. I think the grading is rather oblique - how does one distinguish between acceptable and exemplary? Where does this post fit? Feedback or thoughts on this would be welcome.
muzedujourney

Teaching Kids Skills For Deep Reading on Digital Devices | MindShift - 0 views

blogs.kqed.org/...eep-reading-on-digital-devices

teaching reading deep devices

shared by muzedujourney on 01 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • muzedujourney on 01 Aug 14
     
    Interesting article about how we read in the online environment. relates to NGL as the article indicates that when we read online we skim and don't read as deeply as we do when we read a paper resource. Something to consider when using NGL and electronic resources as part of learning
  • muzedujourney on 01 Aug 14
     
    Interesting article about how we read in the online environment. relates to NGL as the article indicates that when we read online we skim and don't read as deeply as we do when we read a paper resource. Something to consider when using NGL and electronic resources as part of learning
debliriges

Readers absorb less on Kindles than on paper, study finds | Books | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...tudy-plot-ereader-digitisation

readers paper read digitally students

shared by debliriges on 28 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • The researchers suggest that "the haptic and tactile feedback of a Kindle does not provide the same support for mental reconstruction of a story as a print pocket book does".
  • She and her fellow researchers found that "students who read texts in print scored significantly better on the reading comprehension test than students who read the texts digitally".
  • a new European research network doing empirical research on the effects of digitisation on text reading. The network says that "research shows that the amount of time spent reading long-form texts is in decline, and due to digitisation, reading is becoming more intermittent and fragmented", with "empirical evidence indicat[ing] that affordances of screen devices might negatively impact cognitive and emotional aspects of reading". They hope their work will improve scientific understanding of the implications of digitisation, thus helping to cope with its impact.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "We need to provide research and evidence-based knowledge to publishers on what kind of devices (iPad, Kindle, print) should be used for what kind of content; what kinds of texts are likely to be less hampered by being read digitally, and which might require the support of paper,"
  • debliriges on 28 Aug 14
     
    Some interesting research to consider about students learning
ggdines

Reducing the digital literacy divide through disruptive innovation | Simon McIntyre - A... - 0 views

www.academia.edu/..._through_disruptive_innovation

digital literacy connectivism global highered

shared by ggdines on 09 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • ggdines on 09 Sep 14
     
    This article suggests that educators in HE can generate systemic change by engaging in open and informal professional development outside and beyond their own institutions. An interesting read for anyone in a support role in Higher Education.
Anne Trethewey

Connected Learning: Reimagining the Experience of Education in the Information Age - 1 views

henryjenkins.org/...cted_learning_a_new_parad.html

shared by Anne Trethewey on 30 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • the idea of a learning ecology, within which learning occurs everywhere, and with their goal to remove some of the obstacles which block the flow of information, knowledge, skills, and wisdom between different sectors.
  • ocus here on participation — in the learning process, in the governance of society — since the struggle to achieve a more participatory culture remains one of the central battles of our times.
  • the focus is on valuing the kinds of learning that children and youth value, the kind that is deeply motivating and tied in meaningful ways to their construction of their identity, recognizing that the goal of education in the 21st century should be in allowing young people to discover and refine their own expertise as they follow their passions and inform their interests
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • he concept of “connected learning” remains a “work in progress,” and the best way to make progress is for thoughtful people, across a range of fields, to read, debate, and respond to their provocation and for those of us who find something here to value, to try to put its core principles into play through our work.
  • Connected learning is not, however, distinguished by a particular technology or platform, but is inspired by an initial set of three educational values, three learning principles, and three design principles
  • Equity — when educational opportunity is available and accessible to all young people, it elevates the world we all live in. Full Participation — learning environments, communities, and civic life thrive when all members actively engage and contribute. Social connection — learning is meaningful when it is part of valued social relationships and shared practice, culture, and identity.
  • Interest-powered – Interests power the drive to acquire knowledge and expertise. Research shows that learners who are interested in what they are learning, achieve higher order learning outcomes. Connected learning does not just rely on the innate interests of the individual learner, but views interests and passions as something to be actively developed in the context of personalized learning pathways that allow for specialized and diverse identities and interests. Peer-supported – Learning in the context of peer interaction is engaging and participatory. Research shows that among friends and peers, young people fluidly contribute, share, and give feedback to one another, producing powerful learning. Connected learning research demonstrates that peer learning need not be peer-isolated. In the context of interest-driven activity, adult participation is welcomed by young people. Although expertise and roles in peer learning can differ based on age and experience, everyone gives feedback to one another and can contribute and share their knowledge and views. Academically oriented – Educational institutions are centered on the principle that intellectual growth thrives when learning is directed towards academic achievement and excellence. Connected learning recognizes the importance of academic success for intellectual growth and as an avenue towards economic and political opportunity. Peer culture and interest-driven activity needs to be connected to academic subjects, institutions, and credentials for diverse young people to realize these opportunities. Connected learning mines and translates popular peer culture and community-based knowledge for academic relevance.
  • Shared purpose — Connected learning environments are populated with adults and peers who share interests and are contributing to a common purpose. Today’s social media and web-based communities provide exceptional opportunities for learners, parents, caring adults, teachers, and peers in diverse and specialized areas of interest to engage in shared projects and inquiry. Cross-generational learning and connection thrives when centered on common interests and goals. Production-centered — Connected learning environments are designed around production, providing tools and opportunities for learners to produce, circulate, curate, and comment on media. Learning that comes from actively creating, making, producing, experimenting, remixing, decoding, and designing, fosters skills and dispositions for lifelong learning and productive contributions to today’s rapidly changing work and political conditions. Openly networked – Connected learning environments are designed around networks that link together institutions and groups across various sectors, including popular culture, educational institutions, home, and interest communities. Learning resources, tools, and materials are abundant, accessible and visible across these settings and available through open, networked platforms and public-interest policies that protect our collective rights to circulate and access knowledge and culture. Learning is most resilient when it is linked and reinforced across settings of home, school, peer culture and community.
  • The urgent need to reimagine education grows clearer by the day. Research has shown that too many students are disengaged and alienated from school, and see little or no purpose to their education
  • The principles of connected learning weren’t born in the digital age, but they are extraordinarily well-suited to it. Connected learning seeks to tie together the respected historical body of research on how youth best learn with the opportunities made available through today’s networked and digital media
  • Connected learning is real-world. It’s social. It’s hands-on. It’s active. It’s networked. It’s personal. It’s effective
  • djplaner on 30 Aug 14
     
    A description of some American academics getting together on the idea of connected learning. The post describes the values and principles underpinning their conception of connected learning.
djplaner

European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning - 3 views

www.eurodl.org/?p=archives&year=2012&halfyear=2&article=523

distance bad set dejavu

shared by djplaner on 09 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • The three generations of technology enhanced teaching are cognitive/behaviourist, social constructivist and connectivist.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 09 Aug 14
       
      Note: 3 Generations of technology enhanced teaching 1. cognitive/behaviouralist 2. social constructivist 3. connectivist
    • djplaner
      djplaner on 06 Aug 15
       
      That prior note is not a great example of value adding - just repeating what was in the text.
  • tools can be used and optimized to enhance the different types of learning that are the focus of distance education theory and practice.
  • pedagogy and the technology must create an engaging and compelling dance
  • ...97 more annotations...
  • postal correspondence
  • three (or more) overlapping generations
  • mass media including television, radio and film.
  • interactive
  • Indeed, though the authors of this paper are not in complete agreement about this, it is possible to think of pedagogies (considered as the processes and methods used in an attempt to bring about learning) as technologies, integral parts of a technological assembly that must work together with all of the other technologies to bring about a successful outcome
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      Note: Connection between technology and pedagogy
  • technologies evolve not through adaptation but by assembly, incorporating pieces of earlier designs
  • We will see that the ubiquitous capacity of the Internet is creating very profound opportunities for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of all three pedagogical models.
  • instructional designer
  • positivist research paradigms and methodologies.
  • From behaviourist pedagogy emerged the cognitive learning theories that focus on how processing within the individual brain effects comprehension, understanding, storage and retrieval of information. Cognitive pedagogies arose partially in response to a growing need to account for motivation, attitudes and mental barriers that may only be partially associated or demonstrated through observable behaviours – yet they are directly linked to learning effectiveness and efficiency.
  • empirical testing
  • Methods that relied on one-to-many and one-to-one communication were really the only sensible options because of the constraints of the surrounding technologies.
  • “scientific models”
  • that guided the development, application and assessment of learning.
  • CB-based distance education is often developed in the suggested order
  • The model begins with designers selecting instructional goals. Instructional designers identify goals in discussion with subject matter experts with an eye to finding deficiencies in learners’ behaviour that can be rectified by new learning.
  • This is particularly salient when applied to a new generation of large scale MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)
  • ext and usually multi-media learning content. The effort and cost of “developing and selecting instructional
  • creation of brainstorming lists of possible goals, documentation of subject matter priorities, flow charts, gathering of lists
  • Today each of the instructional design activities (see figure Figure 1) is enhanced by a host of Web 2.0 tools.
  • f primary use are distributed text tools such as Google Docs, DropBox and wikis
  • As importantly, collaborative work and negotiation is not confined to text. Collaborative graphic tools, concept and mind mapping tools allow graphic representations of ideas and processes.
  • Low cost distributed project management tools allow teams to design, create, produce and distribute content at costs much lower than in pre internet days.
  • gh quality content defines CB models of distance education, its effective management and control is extremely important
  • the capacity to re-use content created by others is compelling – if not without its challenges.
  • multiple ways of sharing content
  • blogs to Facebook to YouTube and content management systems
  • Perhaps of deeper concern is the reluctance of distance educators to consume and customize content already created by others.
  • Many content developers define and pride themselves on the production of quality content – not by the consumption and customization of works that they did not produce.
  • The final affordance of the net – with tremendous, if as yet little demonstrated capacity to improve CB distance education pedagogy – is learning analytics.
  • mining information about patterns of behaviour in order to extract useful information about learning which can then be applied to improve the experience.
  • In this model, CB pedagogy may be adapted to service the unique learning needs, style, capacity, motivation and goals of the individual learner.
  • strive to create instructional designs that change and morph in response to individual learner’s needs and behaviours.
  • Open Learning Models (Bull & Kay, 2010; Kay & Kummerfeld, 2006) increase learner control and understanding of the system. Open models can also be used by teachers and other support staff to better understand and respond to individual learner needs, although there are potential and as yet unresolved issues with making such models intuitive to understand and control effectivel
  • important source of data to constructing the model is the user’s current and past activities with content in the learning context.
  • data minin
  • data mining
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      Note: Data mining provides an opportunity to identify patterns of student behaviour. This can be used to help teachers better tailor learning and resources to the student. I can see that online tools providing access to metadata, tools for running site-access reports, and and even tagging, might be relevant in this context.
  • From the brief examples above we can see how technologies and especially the Net afford multiple ways in which CB pedagogies and related instructional designs are enabled, enhanced and made more cost effective.
  • MOOCs
  • CB models are inherently focused on the individual learner. While there is a tradition of cognitive-constructivist thinking that hinges on personal construction of knowledge, largely developed by Piaget and his followers (Piaget, 1970), the roots of the constructivist model most commonly applied today spring from the work of Vygotsky (1978) and Dewey (1897), generally lumped together in the broad category of social constructivism.
  • groups of learners, learning together with and from one another.
  • Social-constructivism does not provide the detailed and prescriptive instructional design models and methodologies of CB driven distance education.
  • efines social constructivist learning contexts as places “where learners may work together and support each other as they use a variety of tools and information resources in their guided pursuit of learning goals and problem-solving activities
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      "social constructivist learning contexts...places 'where learners may work together and support each other as they use a variety of tools and information resources in their guided pursuit of learning goals and problem-solving activities" Sounds a lot like the NGL course!
  • eachers do not merely transmit knowledge to be passively consumed by learners; rather, each learner constructs the means by which new knowledge is both created and integrated with existing knowledge.
  • New knowledge as building upon the foundation of previous learning Context in shaping learners’ knowledge development Learning as an active rather than passive process, Language and other social tools in constructing knowledge Metacognition and evaluation as a means to develop learners’ capacity to assess their own learning A learning environment that is learner-centred and recognises the importance of multiple perspectives Knowledge needing to be subject to social discussion, validation, and application in real world contexts (Honebein, 1996; Jonassen, 1991; Kanuka & Anderson, 1999).
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      Note: Characteristics of Social Constructivism
  • learning is located in contexts and relationships rather than merely in the minds of individuals.
  • leave more room for negotiation about learning goals and activities among teachers and students.
  • less prescriptive
  • Social-constructivist models only began to gain a foothold in distance education when the technologies of many-to-many communication became widely available,
  • that being the loss of freedom associated with a commitment to meeting at a common time.
  • Time constraint issues are especially important to distance students, most of whom are juggling employment and family concerns in addition to their formal course work.
  • ata mining and learning analytics are not only used to support independent study based on CB models but are being utilized to support and enhance group work.
  • extract patterns and other information from the group logs and present it together with desired patterns to the people involved, so that they can interpret it, making use of their own knowledge of the group tasks and activities” (Perera et al., 2009).
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      Example of using data mining and learning analytics with the group.
  • LMS Moodle
  • Standard Moodle analytics allow teachers to view contributions or activities of individual learners
  • Google Analytics
  • Constructivist pedagogies use the diversity of viewpoints, cultural experiences and the potential for divergent opinion that is best realized through interactions with group members from other cultures, languages and geographies.
  • Naturally, technological affordances of most relevance to constructivist pedagogies focus on tools to support effective establishment, operation and trust building within groups. The technologies that support rich social presence, including full range of audio, video and gestures, are associated with enhanced trust development and increasing sense of group commitment
  • connectivism
  • learning is the process of building networks of information, contacts, and resources that are applied to real problems.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      connectivism = learning is the process of building networks of information, contacts, and resources that are applied to real problems.
  • communities of practice
  • Connectivist learning focuses on building and maintaining networked connections that are current and flexible enough to be applied to existing and emergent problems.
  • capacity to find, filter and apply knowledge when and where it is needed
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      role of the learner is to have "capacity to find, filter and apply knowledge when and where it is needed"
  • The crowd can be a source of wisdom (Surowiecki, 2005) but can equally be a source of stupidity
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      "The crowd can be a source of wisdom (Surowiecki, 2005) but can equally be a source of stupidity"....a nice reminder
  • iticism of connectivism as being merely an extension constructivist pedagogy and those who argue that it is not really a complete theory of learning nor of instruction
  • gain high levels of skill using personal learning networks that provide ubiquitous and on demand access to resources, individuals and groups of potential information and knowledge servers. The second is the focus on creation, as opposed to consumption, of information and knowledge resources.
  • Bloom’s (1956) cognitive taxonomy place creation at the highest level of cognitive processing
  • elies on the ubiquity of networked connections – between people, digital artefacts, and content, and thus can be described as a network centric pedagogy and thus may be the first native distance education pedagogy, without previous instantiation in classrooms.
  • Effective connectivist learning experiences demand that learners have the tools and the competencies necessary to effectively find, sort, evaluate, filter, reformat and publish content on the net.
  • hese capacities rely on effective tools, high skill levels and a developed sense of network efficacy.
  • individuals and groups are helped to create and continuously augment, adapt and use a personal learning environment (PLE)
  • second key defining characteristic of connectivist pedagogy is the import placed on creating, sharing and publishing learner artefacts.
  • Connectivist learning designs, like constructivist ones, often involve collaborative or cooperative work between many learners. However, contribution often grows beyond the group to further encourage collaboration across time and space.
  • eyond the tools of creation instantiated within a PLE is an understanding of the technical and legal means to distribute work, while maintaining appropriate privacy levels and not infringing on the copyright nor plagiarizing the work of others.
  • The only solution to the privacy dilemma is to let each student and teacher set the level of access that they feel is most appropriate for them and more explicitly for the nature of the content being distributed.
  • Privacy concerns are also being recognised by the social networking giants.
  • Connectivist designs also involve the discovery of and contribution to new learning communities.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      connectivist pedagogy encourages contribution to new learning communities - make your work accessible to others!
  • Learners are encouraged to make themselves, their contributions and their personal learning environment accessible to others. T
  • create and rate bookmarked resources t
  • hat others find useful, document their learning accomplishments via blogs, and share their discoveries and insights via micro blog feeds. In this manner they create and sustain learning networks that begin at the course level, but grow and evolve as the course of studies ends.
  • the emphasis is far more on the individual’s connections with others than with group processes designed to enhance or engender learning.
  • arder to apply analytics than in the more contained contexts of CB and social constructivist models.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Aug 14
       
      It is harder to apply analytics than with CB and social constructivist models.
  • There is no central course, few common materials, no central binding point where interactions can be observed apart from each individual learner.
  • edagogy is, at heart, entirely focused on the individual learner.
  • The bottom three of Blooms original levels of learning – acquiring knowledge, coming to understand something or some process and applying that knowledge to a context – are clearly within the domain of CB pedagogies.
  • Moving up to the analysis, synthesis and evaluation levels brings us to the need for social perspective. This is often acquired through group and networked interactions characteristic of constructivist and connectivist pedagogical models.
  • Creation can be entirely original or as is more usual, creation involves the building upon, reinterpretation and contextualized application of older ideas to new contexts. Creation, the highest level of cognitive functioning usually requires mastery of the lower levels but, in addition, requires at least a small flame of creativity and insight.
  • Obviously the focus of connectivism with its inherent demand for students to create and distribute for public review and augmentation, fits well with the final creation level of the revised taxonomy.
  • here are many domains of knowledge in which creation of new knowledge is of much less importance than remembering and being able to apply existing knowledge.
  • No single generation has provided all the answers, and each has built on foundations provided by its predecessors rather than replacing the earlier prototype (Ireland, 2007).
  • As new technological affordances open up, it becomes possible to explore and capitalize on different aspects of the learning process.
  • For each mode of engagement, different types of knowledge, learning, and contexts must be applied.
  • students be skilled and informed to select the best mix(es) of both pedagogy and technology.
  • from the student-content interactions of cognitive-behaviourist models to the critical role of student–student interaction in constructivism, and finally, to the deeply networked student–content-teacher interrelationship celebrated in connectivist pedagogie
  • which students become teachers and teachers become students,
  • Connectivism is built to some degree on an assumption of a constructivist model of learning, with the learner at the centre, connecting and constructing knowledge in a context that includes not only external networks and groups but also their own histories and predilections.
  • he late Boston scholar Father Stanley Bezuska assembled a series of humorous quotes (see http://www.slideshare.net/committedsardine/funny-predictions-throughout-history) illustrating the doomsday predictions of teachers as they have been forced to deal with educational technologies.
    • djplaner
      djplaner on 06 Aug 15
       
      This particular set of quotes has since been identified as a hoax - but an illustrative one. http://boston1775.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/the-myth-of-students-today-depend-on.html
  • djplaner on 06 Aug 15
     
    One of the readings from the course. Sharing it now as a little experiment in sharing annotations. In theory, if you view this page, you should be able to see the bits that I've highlighted and shared with the group.
thaleia66

The End of the University as We Know It - The American Interest - 0 views

www.the-american-interest.com/...f-the-university-as-we-know-it

shared by thaleia66 on 09 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • People will not continue to pay tens of thousands of dollars for what technology allows them to get for free.
  • Power is shifting away from selective university admissions officers into the hands of educational consumers, who will soon have their choice of attending virtually any university in the world online.
  • Now anyone in the world with an internet connection can access the kind of high-level teaching and scholarship previously available only to a select group of the best and most privileged students.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, who’ve been experimenting with computer-based learning for years, have found that when machine-guided learning is combined with traditional classroom instruction, students can learn material in half the time.
  • Top schools like Yale, MIT and Stanford have been making streaming videos and podcasts of their courses available online for years, but MOOCs go beyond this to offer a full-blown interactive experience.
  • Teens now approaching college age are members of the first generation to have grown up conducting a major part of their social lives online. They are prepared to engage with professors and students online in a way their predecessors weren’t
  • What is emerging is a global marketplace where courses from numerous universities are available on a single website. Students can pick and choose the best offerings from each school; the university simply uploads the content.
  • The era of online education presents universities with a conflict of interests—the goal of educating the public on one hand, and the goal of making money on the other.
  • One potential source of cost savings for lower-rung colleges would be to draw from open-source courses offered by elite universities. Community colleges, for instance, could effectively outsource many of their courses via MOOCs, becoming, in effect, partial downstream aggregators of others’ creations, more or less like newspapers have used wire services to make up for a decline in the number of reporters.
  • To borrow an analogy from the music industry, universities have previously sold education in an “album” package—the four-year bachelor’s degree in a certain major, usually coupled with a core curriculum. The trend for the future will be more compact, targeted educational certificates and credits, which students will be able to pick and choose from to create their own academic portfolios.
  • The open-source educational marketplace will give everyone access to the best universities in the world. This will inevitably spell disaster for colleges and universities that are perceived as second rate.
  • Likewise, the most popular professors will enjoy massive influence as they teach vast global courses with registrants numbering in the hundreds of thousands (even though “most popular” may well equate to most entertaining rather than to most rigorous).
  • Because much of the teaching work can be scaled, automated or even duplicated by recording and replaying the same lecture over and over again on video, demand for instructors will decline. 
  • Large numbers of very intelligent and well-trained people may be freed up from teaching to do more of their own research and writing. A lot of top-notch research scientists and mathematicians are terrible teachers anyway.
  • Big changes are coming, and old attitudes and business models are set to collapse as new ones rise.
  • if our goal is educating as many students as possible, as well as possible, as affordably as possible, then the end of the university as we know it is nothing to fear. Indeed, it’s something to celebrate. 
  • thaleia66 on 09 Aug 15
     
    I came across this piece looking for connectivism at TED after reading the Downes piece. I remembered a talk I watched last semester that spoke of connectivism historically - as something very old, not necessarily connected to the digital revolution. This was such a provocative piece, though, I thought I would share it, and will post more reflections on my blog. Lisa
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