UK university joins US online partnership — from bbc.co.uk by Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent
Description:
Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist who writes about human behavior and public policy. For Time Magazine and the Atlantic, she has chronicled the stories of American kids and teachers alongside groundbreaking new research into education reform. “Kids have strong opinions about school. We forget as adults how much time they sit there contemplating their situation.”
From DSC:
I post this now, because I just saw this via a post that Patrick Larkin made over the weekend — Amanda Ripley’s intriguing talk on education reform — that contains the following excerpt (bolding/emphasis DSC):
The video concludes with the following takeaways from these conversations:
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UK universities forge open online courses alliance: FutureLearn Consortium will offer uni-branded MOOCs starting next year — techcrunch.com by Natasha Lomas
Excerpt:
Today’s [12/13/12] news means even more MOOCs will be offered next year, as 12 UK universities are getting together to form a new company that will offer the online courses — under the brand name of FutureLearn Ltd. The universities are: Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Anglia, Exeter, King’s College London, Lancaster, Leeds, Southampton, St Andrews and Warwick, along with UK distance-learning organization The Open University (OU).
To boldly go where no pupils have gone before — from scienceomega.com by James Morgan
Excerpt:
The researchers behind the design of so-called ‘Star Trek classrooms’ have discovered that multi-touch, multi-user desks can boost pupils’ skills in mathematics. The inter-disciplinary team from Durham University, whose findings have been published in the journal Learning and Instruction, found evidence to suggest that children who used smart desks to complete mathematical exercises benefited more than those who completed their tasks on paper.
During the course of a three-year project known as SynergyNet, the researchers have worked with more than 400 pupils, predominantly aged between eight and 10. The team’s latest results show that collaborative learning, such as that facilitated by touchscreen desks, increases learners’ mathematical fluency and flexibility. Moreover, the researchers are confident that the technology that they have developed could also be used to improve learning across other subject areas.
Also see:
Heathfield Primary School by Holmes Miller — from karmatrendz
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Prinsessegade Kindergarden and Youth Center
Designed by COBE, NORD, and landscape architects PK3
Copenhagen, Denmark
KKE Architects | AJ Retrofit Award for The Riverside — as seen at Anne Whisken’s curated content here
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Also see:
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Meet the Active Learning Classroom — from blogs.ucl.ac.uk by Fiona Strawbridge
Excerpt:
I attended a great workshop at the Educause conference on active learning classrooms – and specifically on the kinds of activities that can take place in them – led by the very energetic Adam Finkelstein of McGill University in Montreal.
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From DSC:
Whether one agrees or not with the scenarios…what’s important here is to promote discussions of the future of higher education across the world. Developing scenarios is an excellent way to jump start such conversations, contribute to strategic plans/visions, and develop responses to the changing higher education landscape.
Learning in a Social Organization (LISO): a clickable guide — from by Jane Hart
From DSC:
A great picture of a dynamic, active, practical, constantly-changing, learning ecosystem:
Amazing timelapse video of Patrick Vale drawing the Manhattan skyline — from thisiscolossal.com as posted by Christopher Jobson
