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The lecture hall is under attack. Science, math and engineering departments at many universities are abandoning or retooling the lecture as a style of teaching, worried that it's driving students away. The faculty at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has dedicated this academic year to finding alternatives to the lecture in those subjects. Johns Hopkins, Harvard University and even the White House have hosted events in which scholars have assailed the lecture.

So educators, here are some things to think about and consider if you are thinking about or already using the flipped classroom model.

More food for thought on discussion and community.

good ideas for good discussion threads

The modern workplace and lifestyle demand that students balance cognitive, personal, and interpersonal abilities, but education policy discussions have not defined those skills well, says a report released last week by scholars from the National Research Council.

The way to think about the iPhone in relation to higher ed is less as a single product but a new product category. This category, which includes Android/Google and maybe eventually the Windows 8 phones, equals smart phone plus an app ecosystem. The carriers (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T etc.) remain a critical (as they own the cellular network), but annoying component of this ecosystem. Annoying because their voice/data pricing plans are only getting more expensive, restrictive and confusing as the hardware and software on smartphones improves exponentially each year. Any impact that the iPhone and its cousins achieve in higher ed will be in spite of, rather than because, the big cellular companies that we all must endure. Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/6-ways-iphone-changed-higher-ed#ixzz1zZpsm081 Inside Higher Ed

"Imagine the moment when these completion exams permit a person to assemble learning from a variety of academic institutions and life experiences to complete a degree. At that moment, the monopoly of institutions over source and cost loosens, and the student gains control of how knowledge is to be gained and at what price. At that moment, the sources of learning are severed from credentialing. At that moment, American higher education is radically changed."

For many years I have considered Wikipedia to be a great sandbox for students to practice information literacy skills. What does it say? How do you know it is accurate? Who is the source? What do they stand to gain? Are there other perspectives? Who are the stakeholders?

Open-source textbooks, long considered a promising way to cut costs but still not widely used, could become more readily available and easily vetted as a University of Minnesota project expands. Minnesota launched an online catalog of open-source books last month and will pay its professors $500 each time they post an evaluation of one of those books. (Faculty members elsewhere are welcome to post their own reviews, but they won't be compensated.) Minnesota professors who have already adopted open-source texts will also receive $500, with all of the money coming from donor funds.

This week, Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO of the Lumina Foundation for Education, released a statement offering ideas for a national strategy to rapidly train workers for new jobs; among these, prior learning assessment (PLA) was cited as one possible game-changer. But beyond CLEP and the controversial challenge exam, how can enrollment managers and academic leaders assess prior learning effectively and with rigor? We asked Denise Hart, director of adult education and creator of the Success Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and author of a landmark study of prior learning assessment portfolios, for techniques that institutions should be thinking about.

When something sounds too good to be true, you check it out. So Jeana Murphy and Henry Jordan did some sleuthing when their employer, Walmart, offered to pick up part of the tab for degrees from an online university that offers flexible hours, relatively cheap tuition and college credit for on-the-job training and experience. Murphy, a 30-year-old assistant manager at a Walmart store in Elkin, N.C., started by Googling the American Public University System, the for-profit institution that two years ago landed a highly sought partnership as the preferred educational provider for the more than 1.3 million U.S. employees of Walmart Stores, Inc.

ebrary, a ProQuest business, is expanding its ebook selection across acquisition models. The company reports this is in an effort to strengthen its new approach to strategic ebook acquisition based on three steps: Transition, Diversify, and Streamline. More than 1,800 new ebooks from Wiley, from John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and 2,300 new titles from publishers, including Princeton University Press and World Scientific & Imperial College Press, will be available in Academic Complete. An additional 6,300 ebooks from publishers such as MIT Press, Oxford University Press, and University of Illinois Press will be available through other ebrary models, including patron driven acquisition, short-term loan, and perpetual archive.

Review the data from the Lumina Foundation's report, "A Stronger Nation Through Higher Education," including degree attainment rates by state and progress on meeting the foundation's goal of 60 percent attainment by the year 2025.

A good picture of the changing landscape of "accommodations."

As universities transition to a mobile-friendly campus, more and more IT departments are considering the benefits of open source technology. Cost is definitely a factor, but schools are just as attracted to the flexibility that open source gives them.

Washington, DC-based Gilfus Education Group has released its annual list of the top five trends in education innovation for 2012, which included three focused on higher education technologies: Prestigious institutions will launch online experiences designed to be as unique as those available to students on campus: "Dynamic and flexible learning experience engines" will emerge to replace learning management systems (LMS); and Tablets will surge as a means of delivering courses and e-learning media.

"These are 23 top online degree program indicator rankings that will be published: 1. Online Bachelor's: Student Engagement and Assessment 2. Online Bachelor's: Student Services and Technology 3. Online Bachelor's: Faculty Credentials and Training 4. Online Business: Student Engagement and Accreditation 5. Online Business: Student Services and Technology 6. Online Business: Faculty Credentials and Training 7. Online Business: Admissions Selectivity 8. Online Nursing: Student Engagement and Accreditation 9. Online Nursing: Student Services and Technology 10. Online Nursing: Faculty Credentials and Training 11. Online Nursing: Admissions Selectivity 12. Online Education: Student Engagement and Accreditation 13. Online Education: Student Services and Technology 14. Online Education: Faculty Credentials and Training 15. Online Education: Admissions Selectivity 16. Online Engineering: Student Engagement and Accreditation 17. Online Engineering: Student Services and Technology 18. Online Engineering: Faculty Credentials and Training 19. Online Engineering: Admissions Selectivity 20. Online Computer Information Technology: Student Engagement and Accreditation 21. Online Computer Information Technology: Student Services and Technology 22. Online Computer Information Technology: Faculty Credentials and Training 23. Online Computer Information Technology: Admissions Selectivity"

"This site is intended to function as an ever-growing repository of comparative media studies in education research. Both no significant differences (NSD) and significant differences (SD) studies are constantly being solicited for inclusion in the website." I don't know why we are still having this conversation but...

Okanagan Mission Secondary School in Kelowna, B.C., is among the early Canadian adopters of the flipped classroom - a model where students switch around what's traditionally covered at school and what's assigned for kids to do at home. Instead of lectures in class and homework after school, these students are watching lectures at home care of the Web and working one-on-one on assignments with teachers during school hours. The Globe talked to some of the students - kids taking senior math and biology classes - and their teacher to find how what they make of "flipping out."

Check out the Tutorial page on teach.wsu.edu -- and please direct instructors to explore. Many videos have been added, covering a wide range of topics