Khan Academy expands to Art History, Sal Khan no longer its only faculty member — from hackeducation.com by Audrey Watters
Also see:
Online students vs. traditional students — from onlinephdprograms.com; with thanks to Mr. Muhammad Saleem for this resource
From DSC:
I’m not sure I would use the word versus here (or the abbreviation for it). Students can be involved with taking both types of courses — face-to-face and online — at the same time. So although some students might be taking most of their classes in a face-to-face manner, they might also be taking some of their coursework online (as the schools provide more online-based offerings and programs).
My advice to students new to online-based learning:
Tip 60: It’s a stream, not a course… — from kineo.com
Excerpt:
Many traditional elearning instructional designers cut their teeth designing self-paced elearning programs. We create events.
However, the talk of the town these days is that learning is not an event. People don’t plop in front of an elearning program or sit in a classroom and BAM! – they’ve got it all rock solid. Instead, we’re talking about streams of activities that may happen over extended periods of time as individuals explore and master topic s or content areas. Instead of events, we hear about “learning experiences” and “activity streams”.
So how do traditional instructional designers stay relevant? And is that even possible? Let’s dip our paddles in the stream and explore together…
From DSC:
This brings to mind a graphic I periodically post…
Living Actor™ Presenter is a new Web platform developed by Cantoche, an international company well known for its unique expertise in 3D avatar technological innovations.
Various benefits depending upon the solution that you go with:
Pearson and Google jump into learning management with a new, free system — from The Chronicle by Josh Fischman
Excerpt:
One of the world’s biggest education publishers has joined with one of the most dominant and iconic software companies on the planet to bring colleges a new—and free—learning-management system with the hopes of upending services that affect just about every instructor, student, and college in the country.
Today Pearson, the publishing and learning technology group, has teamed up with the software giant Google to launch OpenClass, a free LMS that combines standard course-management tools with advanced social networking and community-building, and an open architecture that allows instructors to import whatever material they want, from e-books to YouTube videos. The program will launch through Google Apps for Education, a very popular e-mail, calendar, and document-sharing service that has more than 1,000 higher-education customers, and it will be hosted by Pearson with the intent of freeing institutions from the burden of providing resources to run it. It enters a market that has been dominated by costly institution-anchored services like Blackboard, and open-source but labor-intensive systems like Moodle.
Excerpt:
The mission of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) is to ensure all students have access to world-class education and quality online learning opportunities that prepare them for a lifetime of success. National Standards for Quality Online Courses is designed to provide states, districts, online programs, and other organizations with a set of quality guidelines for online course content, instructional design, technology, student assessment, and course management.
Michael Wesch: It’s a ‘Pull, Pull’ World — from The Journal by John K. Waters
Excerpt:
“We have to recognize in our society that the new media we see in our environment are not just new means of communication, not just tools,” he told attendees at the Campus Technology 2011 conference in July. “Media change what can be said, how it can be said, who can say it, who can hear it, and what messages will count as information and knowledge.”
Wesch compared the need to “re-inspire curiosity and imagination” in students with bridging the digital divide.
“We’ve talked for years about the digital divide and how, if you’re on the wrong side of that technology access gap, you get left behind,” he said. “I think there’s the potential now for a kind of curiosity gap. Consider how much further ahead a curious student will be, compared with a student who lacks curiosity, in an environment in which he or she can reach out and grab new knowledge anytime, anywhere on all kinds of devices. If you’re a curious person, you’ll learn and grow; if you’re not, you could just drift along while others race ahead.”
Apple University will train executives to think like Steve Jobs — from good.is by Liz Dwyer
Excerpt:
If you want to honor Steve Jobs’ life by following in his entrepreneurial footsteps, forget heading to business school. The Los Angeles Times reports that an Apple team has been working on a top-secret project to create an executive training program called Apple University. The goal? To train people to think like Steve Jobs.
…
Apple refused to comment on the existence of Apple University, but the Times says that in 2008, Jobs “personally recruited” Joel Podolny, the dean of Yale Business School, to “help Apple internalize the thoughts of its visionary founder to prepare for the day when he’s not around anymore.” Apple analyst Tim Bajarin told the Times that, “it became pretty clear that Apple needed a set of educational materials so that Apple employees could learn to think and make decisions as if they were Steve Jobs.” Though the curriculum is still under wraps, Jobs himself oversaw the creation of the “university-caliber courses.” (emphasis DSC)
Also see:
Steve Jobs helped plan Apple University — an executive training program to help
Apple carry on without him. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times / October 6, 2011)
From DSC:
If Apple were to choose to disrupt higher education, several other pieces of the puzzle have already been built and/or continue to be enhanced:
At the least, I might be losing a bit more sleep if I were heading up an MBA program or a business school…
Also see:
Excerpt from their Value Proposition page:
The concept of a broad based, highly educated population began its journey to reality a 150 years ago, when Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act in 1862. The Act called for the establishment of “at least one College in every state upon a sure and perpetual foundation, accessible to all, but especially to the sons of toil” (emphasis DSC).
…
Despite the unprecedented success of America’s public university system that is the envy of the world, reduced state and federal funding, almost a trillion dollars in student loans, tuition soaring out of reach for middle class families, stunning demographic changes and declining preparedness for college-level work, today’s public higher education is at a crossroads. Our old ways of doing business are no longer sustainable and the promise of the Morrill Act is in peril (emphasis DSC).
Also see:
![Learnstreaming: Take control of your online informal learning experience [Callahan]](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Learnstreaming-DCallahan-Oct2011.jpg "Learnstreaming-DCallahan-Oct2011")
We’ll take it from here — from InsideHigherEd.com by Steve Kolowich
Excerpt:
Yet the contradiction highlights a problem familiar to many traditional universities: On the one hand, they want to compete in the global market of online higher education. Even before 2008, many lacked the cash or expertise to build an online infrastructure from scratch. As a result, some have ceded their online development and recruitment to outside companies. A cottage industry of online firms — Bisk Education, Embanet-Compass, Deltak, 2tor, Colloquy and others — has emerged to meet this need.
Saint Leo was one of the first to do this, 14 years ago. Now it may be at the front edge of another trend — that of universities that, having made the transition to online education, are dropping their for-profit partners and taking over themselves.
Also see:
Excerpt:
Along with the benefits, the phenomenal growth of online learning also presents an uncharted set of challenges for academic institutions, most of which are much more familiar with the traditional classroom setting. Additionally, it has spurred a new set of demands and expectations from a range of stakeholders including students, instructors, regulatory institutions and advocacy groups. Given these new challenges, several factors are proving to be instrumental in shaping the way higher education institutions implement and improve upon the state of online learning.
…
Technology is transforming education and its impact just continues to grow. By creating and embracing a solid framework for online learning and employing cutting-edge learning management systems, higher education institutions are in a position to significantly improve student outcomes today and into the future.
