On 05/01/2010,
in colleges, community colleges, curriculum, higher education, policy, universities, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration,
by Daniel Christian
On 04/27/2010,
in blended learning, hybrid learning, K-12 related, online learning, online media, policy,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
600 people of Grand Rapids came out to attack, *&^%$& and moan about the movement towards the use of online learning…great. Just great. The GRPS’ School Board was trying to take positive, courageous action and what did they get? An auditorium full of people feeding off each others’ words — words full of emotion but often times unfounded.
Man…do I feel sorry for the school boards of America. School boards — as well as the boards of colleges and universities — are under numerous pressures right now. I commend the school boards — such as that of the Grand Rapids Public Schools — who are trying to take positive and courageous action, and who have to fight a system that is incredibly stuck in “tradition” (i.e. “the way it’s always been done around here” and “that’s how I learned, that’s how you should learn” ). The problem is, tradition just isn’t doing the trick anymore. The world has changed and is leaving behind those folks who are still stuck in tradition. And we haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait a couple of years for those folks who “got it” to pull far away from those still stuck in tradition.
Along these lines…
I’m tired of all the bad-mouthing of elearning / online learning from folks who have never tried it. Several of the folks in the video had tried it and felt it came up short. Fair enough — that’s very valid. But if the materials weren’t good, we need to use the iterative process inherent in instructional design to improve them! Take the feedback from the students and make improvements to the materials — don’t ditch the efforts before they even get off the ground for the rest of the folks. (I do wonder what materials these students were using…? Probably boring, page-turners. We can do much better than that!)
Using blended learning is an excellent and proven way to move forward. Let’s take the best of both worlds to create a world where learning is engaging, fun, and where students can pursue their passions. Let’s let their passions drive learning in other areas/disciplines.
Creating well-done, engaging, sophisticated, interactive, multimedia-based educational materials takes time and money — no doubt about it. That’s why it would be wise to pool resources and create professionally-done, highly-engaging, multimedia-based educational materials (and create supplementary avenues which let the students build materials themselves and/or contribute to the body of knowledge as well). The federal government’s plans to contribute millions of dollars to create these materials is a great idea. If these materials are done well — and create/relay the content via multiple ways — we can leverage these materials across numerous school districts, charter schools, home-schooling situations, etc.
Concluding thoughts:
- Folks, if you want to survive and thrive in the future, ditch the Model T. Start your new engines, and get your car on the race track.
- Burying your heads in the sand and waiting for this perfect storm to just blow over won’t cut it.
- Change is at your doorstep. What’s your plan/response? What would YOU do if you were on these school boards?
P.S. I don’t know enough about the historical decisions of the GRPS School Board to comment on other areas and how GRPS got to be in the situation that it is currently in (which is probably a multi-faceted, complex issue). But an auditorium full of people dogging the online learning world is a step in the wrong direction.
See also:
- A Harlem middle school bets on technology
Attendance, the bane of many schools that serve a community of mostly poor minority kids, is not a problem at Global Technology Preparatory, a new middle school in Harlem, reports the Gotham Gazette. “Tabitha used to hate to go to school, now she loves it,” said Maria Ortiz of her granddaughter Tabitha Colon, who transferred out of a Catholic school to attend Global Tech. As its name implies, this school relies on technology to capture the attention of its students and give them a sense of responsibility and empowerment, as well as to teach academic subjects, such as math and English language arts, in new and more engaging ways. With this approach, Global Tech is a poster child for one of New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s latest experiments, the so-called Innovation Zone, or iZone. This effort seeks to use new approaches to education, including more flexible class schedules that extend learning throughout the day and calendar year, and digital technology to improve student engagement and performance. This school year, Global Tech is one of 10 pilot schools in the iZone, which will be expanded to 81 public schools in the 2010-11 school year. The education department is hoping that Global Tech and other schools like it can finally do something to improve middle school achievement and solve one of the most intractable problems in the city’s education system…Click here for the full story
- Florida House opens door for more technology in classrooms
On 04/21/2010,
in disruption, K-12 related, legislatures / government / legal, pace of change, policy, virtual K-12 schools,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Consider the following timeline of the Florida Virtual School according to this article:
1997: Florida Virtual School is founded.
2002: Hillsborough County establishes a virtual school program for high school classes.
2007: Hillsborough County starts offering middle school classes.
2008: Hillsborough County starts the elementary program.
2009: New state law requires school districts to offer full-time virtual classes for K-12 students.
Now consider that they started with 77 students.
Now consider that the “…program served more than 71,000 students during the 2008-2009 school year, according to its Web site.” (emphasis DSC)
Do not underestimate the disruptive impact of technology.
And I realize it’s not just about the technology…it’s about people.
But technology can connect people to each other at ever-increasing speeds.
On 04/13/2010,
in future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, legislatures / government / legal, online learning, online media, open courseware and systems, policy,
by Daniel Christian
Moving college into the 21st century — politico.com (see quotes below)
Today, we’ve reached another turning point. The global economy is changing, and the United States needs to educate its way to a better economy for the 21st century. President Barack Obama has set a goal that by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. To reach that goal, we need to bring 5 million more Americans into higher education and ensure that future generations will have the same opportunity for a college education and success in the work force.
The president has proposed a comprehensive agenda to keep a college education within reach, especially for America’s poorest families, and to dramatically increase college graduation rates in the next decade. President Obama’s agenda includes the largest increase in federal financial aid since the GI Bill — a 30 percent increase in fiscal 2010 alone. In addition, the president’s American Graduation Initiative would provide $12 billion more during the next 10 years to improve community colleges and help students gain access to higher education and ensure that they earn their degrees.
Beyond these investments in our future, one part of the AGI has the potential to have a lasting impact on the future of higher education: The president is proposing to invest $500 million over the next 10 years to create world-class online college and high school courses that will be available to all 24/7/365. Colleges, universities, publishers, other institutions and related consortia will be invited to compete to create state-of-the-art online courses that combine high-quality subject matter expertise with the latest advances in cognitive and computer sciences. Such courses will enable students to move through the material at their own pace. When students do not understand a particular lesson or concept, carefully designed assessments will identify the gap in their learning. They’ll relearn the material and have another chance to demonstrate mastery (emphasis DSC).
From DSC:
- Along these same lines, see: The Forthcoming Walmart of Education.
- If done well, these courses are going to be highly-engaging, while using state-of-the-art technologies and instructional methods. Can one faculty member compete with this team-based approach? No way! (And I mean no disrespect at all here — it’s just too much for one person to keep up with, be interested in, and have the time and resources to do all of this.)
On 04/08/2010,
in business side of he, game-changing environment, higher education, policy, strategy,
by Daniel Christian
Unnatural acts — InsideHigherEd.com by Burck Smith
That said, these deals and actions worry me. Not because they are asking students to pay more – students always have the option to pay more – but because they do not give the students options to pay less.
Pay less? In these budget times? Any student who passed Econ 101 can tell you that, in a perfect market, price restrictions cause capacity constraints. State-mandated tuition levels and political resistance to tuition increases certainly qualify as price restrictions for public colleges. Therefore, the way to increase capacity is to allow higher prices for those willing to pay for it through a provider that’s not subject to state oversight. While these deals will undoubtedly allow greater enrollments and expand access to higher education, they do nothing to address the core failures of higher education economics. Indeed, higher education, abetted by an outdated accrediting and financial aid model, dramatically overprices many courses.
…
Economist Paul Romer wryly noted that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Indeed, the higher education financial crisis presents an opportunity to examine basic pricing and financing assumptions in higher education (emphasis DSC). Agreements like the ones made by Bristol and in California should be welcomed as a way to expand capacity in high-demand fields. However, such agreements can only be embraced if similar agreements are made or policies enacted that allow students to more easily receive credit for taking much more affordable courses at other institutions and in other formats. If public colleges plan to allow students to pay variable tuition for more expensive courses, they should also allow variable pricing for less expensive courses. With many education providers – for-profit, nonprofit, accredited and unaccredited – available to provide additional educational capacity, colleges and their legislative overseers need to look at partnerships that will help students reduce tuition in addition to those that increase it. Given that this is in the student’s interest, not the institution’s, this might be the most unnatural act of all (emphasis DSC).
From DSC:
- The alluded to agreements tell me (again) that this is a game-changing environment. We aren’t going back to the way things were 5-10 years ago.
- Also, I agree with Burck’s thinking here in that we need models that will cost the students less — not just models that more expensive to offer/provide. Again, that’s not to say that the models that cost more are bad. In fact, if you are a student meeting in a face-to-face class that is being taught by an experienced faculty member and that only has 15-25 students in it, you are — and will be — paying a higher price for that type of excellent learning environment. This is reasonable.
- But institutions of higher education need to work even harder to offer a greater variety of delivery methods and at a variety of prices. I propose that we offer more blended and online-methods — as well as face-to-face methods — but that have online-based access to faculty members, tutors, guides. We need to think about what options might be out there for pricing our offerings…along those lines, here’s a graphic I created last July:
On 03/24/2010,
in budgets, business side of he, changing business models, colleges, higher education, leadership, policy, traditional / tradition, universities,
by Daniel Christian
Illinois official has innovative ideas for higher education – Dolph C. Simons, Jr., Lawrence Journal-World
“Stanley Ikenberry, interim president of the University of Illinois, on how students, families and the university all could save money and, at the same time, maintain the quality and integrity of his institution. Ikenberry said a shorter college career, an “accelerated program” that could be in place by fall 2011, would raise revenue for the school while cutting tuition and letting students enter the work force sooner. The president said a combination of distance learning or online courses, placement tests for college credit, high school participation in some programs and, especially, use of summer school could shorten a student’s stay at one of the three campuses.”
From DSC:
I’m not sure what I think about all of the possibilities, but clearly, the environment is pressing us for change. The status quo is no longer an option.
On 03/23/2010,
in budgets, business side of he, change, changing business models, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, policy,
by Daniel Christian
Higher education budgets and the global recession: Tracking varied national responses and their consequences — from cshe.berkeley.edu
Excerpt from the Abstract:
States have very limited ability to borrow funds for operating costs, making the federal government the last resort. In short, how state budgets go, so goes US higher education; whereas most national systems of higher education financing is tied to national budgets with an ability to borrow. Without the current stimulus funding, the impact on access and maintaining the health of America’s universities would have been even more devastating. But that money will be largely spent by the 2011 fiscal year (Oct 2010-Sept 2011), unless Congress and the White House renew funding support on a similar scale for states that are coping with projected large budget gaps. That now seems unlikely.
Original posting from George Siemens — Higher Education Budgets and the Global Recession
As schools lose relevancy, students take charge of their own learning — Project Tomorrow —Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Annual survey finds students moving ahead with learning on their own; offers insights for improving American education with emerging technologies
Washington, D.C. – In the absence of a more relevant learning process in schools, our nation’s students increasingly are taking their educational destiny into their own hands and adapting the various tools they use in their personal lives to meet their learning needs and prepare themselves for the future, according to the 2009 Speak Up survey of 300,000 students nationwide.
The 2009 Speak Up national findings provide compelling evidence that our nation’s K–12 students increasingly are taking responsibility for their own learning, defining their own education path through alternative sources and feeling not just a right but a responsibility for creating personalized learning experiences.
“Students are no longer waiting for policy changes within their schools, or from Washington, D.C.,” said Julie Evans, chief executive officer, Project Tomorrow. “Students want their voices heard by those making education policies, but we are now seeing them move beyond their attempts to share their needs with adults. They are taking the technology they have grown up with and using it to help them learn—inside and outside of the classroom.” (emphasis DSC; like water around a rock…which goes for all of us!)
On 03/16/2010,
in future of higher education, internet, K-12 related, open courseware and systems, platforms, policy,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
This idea of creating platforms is key. Apple let people develop their own apps for the iPhone, and look what happened. Innovation skyrockets when people can contribute.
Where is innovation happening within your organization? In your face-to-face learning environment? In your online learning environment? In your hybrid/blended spaces? How can we open things up more to allow for:
- More creativity
- The pursuit of students’ passions
- Increased flexibility in our offerings
- More innovation
- A greater reach/impact?
Obama ed-tech plan goes live online — from Education Week
The National Educational Technology Plan was released today by the U.S. Department of Education, and you can view our coverage of it here. Also, check out Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s speech about the plan given at the annual meeting of the American Association of Publishers.
