Group items tagged

Article on how the Finnish Equity not Excellence approach to education actually produces both and makes them a leading education nation.

"India's clampdown on its netizens is set to continue after its government revealed it is setting up a National Cyber Co-ordination Centre to monitor all web traffic flowing through the country - in the name of national security"

"This is an initiative from the University of Otago, the University of Auckland, Wellington Institute of Technology, the University of Canterbury, and supported by Telecom NZ.  It is an open access national virtual world grid based on open source software.  It operates on NZ-based servers hosted at Otago, Auckland and Canterbury Universities, and leverages other national investments in IT infrastructure through deployment on the high-speed KAREN (Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network). The grid has been set up with an academic focus and will be used for research and education, as well as for proof-of-concept application deployments and testing.  The objectives of the NZVWG initative are to: Undertake both experimental and routine use of virtual worlds in teaching and research;Develop engaging, interactive in-world content customised for NZ use; andDevelop new context-specific plugins enabling interaction between the virtual and real (non-virtual) worlds. "

Many recordings from the US NAtional LIbrary from early 20th century. Music and spoken word.

Why loans are a burden on future education.

"Published February 25, 2013 Matthew P. Long & Roger C. Schonfeld In this report, we present the results of Ithaka S+R's study of the scholarly practices of academic chemists. This study, funded by Jisc, presents information meant to empower research support providers in their work with chemists. The report covers themes such as data management, research collaboration, library use, discovery, publication practices, and research funding.   The report describes the findings of our investigation into academic chemists' research habits and research support needs. The digital availability of scholarly literature has transformed chemists' research by creating an environment where they can easily search for journal articles and chemical information. However, they often feel overwhelmed by the amount of new research available, and they need better tools to remain aware of current research. Furthermore, despite their heavy use of technology for research, many academic chemists have been slow to adopt new models of sharing data and research results such as online repositories and open access publishing. Our interviews highlighted the importance of the research group as a unit of academic life, and revealed some of the challenges inherent in working in groups that span institutions and national boundaries."

"(Iceland) wants to take a number of government departments open source. According to project leader Tryggvi Björgvinsson, the migration project will involve the three biggest public institutions in Iceland: all of the ministries, the city of Reykjavik and the National Hospital. "These are setting a good migration example", he says."

The Department of Education's (ED) Office of Educational Technology today released a draft issue brief - Enhancing Teaching and Learning Through Educational Data Mining and Learning Analytics - representing the results of a months-long discourse among 8 academic and 15 industrial data mining and learning analytics experts conducted by SRI International. The brief, inspired by ED's 2010 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP), articulates the challenges and opportunities of Big Data in improving student outcomes and overall productivity of K-2 education systems. It focuses on three key research areas - educational data mining, learning analytics, and visual data analytics - and offers a set of corresponding recommendations, categorized by various stakeholders. ED is now seeking public comment on the draft.

Digital curation - overview by Lisa Oldham, development specialist at the National Library of NZ published in Computers in New Zealand schools.

Information literacy is a human right, according to the Australian Library and Information Association.   Contains a link toe Australian National Library definition of Info-Lit

"A total of 125 students taking a first year seminar course for pre-health professional majors participated in this study (70 in the experimental group and 55 in the control group). With the experimental group, Twitter was used for various types of academic and co-curricular discussions. Engagement was quantified by using a 19-item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement. To assess differences in engagement and grades, we used mixed effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, with class sections nested within treatment groups. We also conducted content analyses of samples of Twitter exchanges. The ANOVA results showed that the experimental group had a significantly greater increase in engagement than the control group, as well as higher semester grade point averages. Analyses of Twitter communications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the learning process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities."

"I personally believe that the greatest role you [libraries] play is around the documentary national identity. People come to you to find out about their ancestors, to find out what life was like, to critically evaluate and understand the past."

Thought you WCELers might be interested in this... Dean ICT Education: Australia vs NZ by Prof John Hosking, Formerly Auckland Uni, now Australia National University Auckland University's Professor John Hosking was a leading figure in New Zealand's Computer Science community. However in 2011 he followed Phar Lap, Russell Crowe and Pavlova across the ditch, in his case taking up the role as Dean of the College of Engineering and CS at the Australian National University in Canberra.

"This web site synthesises outputs from the JISC Learner Experiences of e-Learning programme. The programme spanned two phases over four years from 2005-2009. It comprised nine research projects in total (two in phase 1 and seven in phase two), employed mixed method approaches, and had the sustained involvement of over 200 learners and more than 3000 survey respondents. Five national workshops were run disseminating the methods and findings. The programme focussed on the learner voice. Learners allowed us into their worlds and showed us what it is like to study in a technology-rich age. The projects produced a huge collection of rich, detailed data that sheds light on what learners expect from the use of technology in post-compulsory education and the choices they make about using technology to support their study."

"The Higher Education Academy published the book Transforming Higher Education Through Technology Enhanced Learning in December 2009. Although the book has its genesis in the e-learning Benchmarking & Pathfinder Programme led by the Higher Education Academy from 2005-2008 readers will find that the book contains a thought-provoking edited collection which offers far more than a straightforward account of outcomes of one national programme; you will find that it is both broad in scope and reflective in tone"

Expensive chemistry books (and others!) now free online by a pioneer of open content.

The Inter/National Coaliton for Electronic Portfolio Research convenes research/practitioners to study the impact of eportfolios on student learning and educational outcomes. Each year ten institutions selected through an application process constitute a three-year cohort. Each campus works on an individual project that asks "What learning is taking place as a function of electronic portfolios?" and "How do we know?" This is the supporting website.

This paper summarises the results of the Reflective Learning, Future Thinking research seminar jointly held by ALT, SURF and ILTA at Trinity College Dublin. At this seminar 50 leading researchers from three nations came together to share thoughts about the direction of learning technology development. Summary At the heart of all three discussions we still see concerns about status and valorisation of knowledge, disciplines and roles. Repository discussions touch on quality and gate keeping, portfolio discussions touch on the ownership of identity as a learner, while ubiquitous computing and informal learning touches on fundamental questions of access and learner control.

"(NZ) pupils may soon be able to sit school assessments online when they are ready, rather than waiting for the traditional exam period."