On 09/13/2012,
in higher education, innovation, real-world assignments, United States,
by Daniel Christian
On 09/13/2012,
in future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, online learning, trends,
by Daniel Christian
Why online education has gained revolutionary momentum — from pbs.org/mediashift by Doug Ward
Excerpt:
The rush to create large, free online classes has generated anxiety at universities around the country. With finances already tight and with a surge of movement toward online learning, universities are being forced to move quickly to change centuries-old models of learning. Terms like historic, seismic and revolutionary now pop up in descriptions of the challenges that higher education faces in the coming years.
Many institutions have been preparing for these changes for years, building infrastructure and expertise, experimenting and recruiting, and integrating online learning into long-term strategies. Many others, especially traditional research universities, have been caught flat-footed as education has transformed around them.
This point of dramatic — and traumatic — change didn’t swoop in unannounced. Rather, it crept in like a series of streams meeting in a roiling confluence. Only by stepping back and looking in panoramic fashion can we truly understand how we’ve arrived at a point of transformation and how we might deal with it. Let’s take a look.
Stanford U. releases new open-source online-education platform –– from The Chronicle by Alisha Azevedo
Excerpt:
Stanford University is continuing a high-profile push into online education with a new open-source platform called Class2Go, which will host two massive open online courses, or MOOC’s, during the fall quarter. Beginning in October, non-Stanford and Stanford students alike will be able to use the platform to take classes on computer networking and on “Solar Cells, Fuel Cells, and Batteries.”
Google launches open course builder — from techcrunch.com by
Also see:
- Stanford announces free online courses for fall
The university unveils two new homegrown software platforms to host the courses.
On 09/13/2012,
in 24x7x365 access, cost of getting a degree, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, innovation, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, web-based collaboration,
by Daniel Christian
College may never be the same — from USA Today by Mary Beth Marklein
Excerpt:
“The industry has operated more or less along the same business model and even the same technology for hundreds of years,” says John Nelson, managing director of Moody’s Higher Education. “MOOCS represent a rapidly developing and emerging change and that is very, very rare.”
In a new report, Moody’s Investor Service calls MOOCs a “pivotal development” that has the potential to revolutionize higher education. Questions remain whether these online courses can be profitable and whether traditional colleges will award credit for them. But if successful, MOOCs could lead to lower costs for families and access to higher-quality instruction for anyone in the world who has Internet access.
From DSC:
MOOCs are no doubt a very important experiment within higher education today. It’s too early to tell what the future will bring in terms of pricing, certification/accredidation, learning effectiveness, the form(s) they may take, the corporate world’s perspective on them, etc.
However, my main point that I want to make today — September 13, 2012 — is that MOOCs provide yet another example why the question of “where’s the ROI on all of this investment in technology?” should be considered a dead question — let’s put it to rest for good. I simply can’t take that question seriously anymore. At minimum, MOOCs provide an extremely affordable means of gaining exposure to information and ascertaining one’s interest level in that subject. At the price of higher education these days, such knowledge of what one enjoys and would like to learn more about is worth a great deal. MOOCs rest on the foundations set by so many other investments, technological advancements and inventions, trends, platforms, devices, and the pedagogies available to us due to these other foundational pieces.
On 09/11/2012,
in budgets, business side of he, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, new business models, reinvent,
by Daniel Christian
Technology and the broken higher education cost model: Insights from the Delta Cost Project — from Educause by Rita Kirshstein and Jane Wellman
Excerpt:
Although U.S. higher education has faced numerous crises and dilemmas in its history, the situation in which colleges and universities find themselves at the moment is indeed different. Shrinking public subsidies coupled with historic rises in tuitions come at the same time that colleges and universities have been tasked to dramatically increase the number of individuals with postsecondary degrees. Additionally, many of these students need financial aid, putting further strains on the higher education system. The stratification between rich and poor institutions in their access to resources is also growing. These conditions make the current “cost model” under which higher education has typically operated no longer sustainable and have led to college and university leaders examining alternative ways to deliver both high-quality and affordable higher education. These alternatives incorporate technology and include access to distance-delivered education and services, a focus on learners’ outcomes rather than inputs, and technologically sophisticated buildings and classrooms.
The changes are welcome and largely overdue in much of higher education, but unless the use of technology, whether in instruction or in the operation of the institution, is guided by an understanding of higher education costs and cost structures, its use will not fix the problem of a broken higher education cost model. This problem is not confined to the way that instruction is funded and delivered; rather, it is much broader, including the costs of academic and administrative overhead and the largely unexamined “fixed costs” that drive so much of institutional spending. To implement technological innovations that can improve both efficiency and effectiveness, leaders must be guided in their efforts by a strong understanding of the impact of the innovations on both costs and revenues, as well as on learning outcomes. Without this understanding, leaders are likely to follow the usual model of innovation in higher education: implementing program add-ons, which are sometimes successful and sometimes not but which inevitably increase costs rather than replacing or reducing them and ultimately fail to take hold in ways that will leverage systemic improvements.
On 08/30/2012,
in corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, education technology, entrepreneurship, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, reinvent, staying relevant, student-related, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
![The Washington Monthly - The Magazine - The Siege of Academe [Kevin Carey]](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/TheSiegeOfAcademy-Sept2012.jpg "TheSiegeOfAcademy-Sept2012")
Excerpt:
The ongoing carnage in the newspaper industry provides an object lesson of what can happen when a long-established, information-focused industry’s business model is challenged by low-price competitors online. The disruptive power of information technology may be our best hope for curing the chronic college cost disease that is driving a growing number of students into ruinous debt or out of higher education altogether. It may also be an existential threat to institutions that have long played a crucial role in American life.
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From DSC:
If higher ed doesn’t respond more forcefully/significantly to the perfect storm it finds itself in, people will find other ways of getting employed and staying employed. The conversation continues to move away from institutions of traditional higher education (here’s but one example). Control is an illusion.
On 08/28/2012,
in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, computer science, emerging technologies, health, innovation, nursing, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
IBM working on Watson app for smartphones — from extremetech.com by Sebastian Anthony
Excerpt:
After conquering Jeopardy, battling patent trolls, and chasing down health insurance fraudsters, IBM now plans to bring Watson to smartphones. Watson is an artificial intelligence that is capable of answering very complex questions using natural language answers. In essence, IBM is hoping to build a better, faster, and more professional/enterprisey version of Apple’s Siri, the voice-controlled assistant that debuted on the iPhone 4S.
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Watson, come here: A clue to cancer! — from jumpthecurve.net by Jack Uldrich
Excerpt (emphasis DSC; regarding the video there, I don’t think we can so easily access/create/contain “wisdom”):
Last year, I published my top ten trends in health care. Number Five on the list was “artificial intelligence.” Specifically, I addressed the ability of IBM’s “Watson” supercomputer to revolutionize diagnosis.
Well, the folks at Memorial Sloan-Kettering have now hired Watson. If you’re in the healthcare industry, I can’t encourage you strongly enough to watch the following two-minute video because it points toward the future of cancer diagnosis.
As one of the physicians says in the video, “This is beyond evolutionary, this is revolutionary!” He goes on to add, “This could totally change the way we conduct medicine.”
The zEC12 aims to do what “private clouds” do faster, better, and cheaper.
Excerpt:
IBM would like big enterprise customers to reconsider that whole distributed “private cloud” thing and go back to the original big data solution: mainframes. Today, IBM unveiled the zEC12, its next generation of the System Z mainframe platform. And like the Borg, IBM is hoping that companies will let the zEC12 assimilate their virtualization environments into a big, black cube.
Active in Cloud, Amazon reshapes computing — from The New York Times by Quentin Hardy
Excerpt:
SEATTLE — Within a few years, Amazon.com’s creative destruction of both traditional book publishing and retailing may be footnotes to the company’s larger and more secretive goal: giving anyone on the planet access to an almost unimaginable amount of computing power.
On 08/24/2012,
in Apple, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital textbooks, education technology, global / globalization, internet, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, mirroring and/or multiple devices, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new media literacies, online learning, UK, web-based collaboration,
by Daniel Christian
iTunes U Course Manager hands on — from UCL – London’s Global University by Matt Jenner
Excerpt:
iTunes U is known as a wonderful platform for finding recorded lectures and podcasts from academics and institutions across the world. But recently it’s also become a location for entire courses, with students, multiple resources and some interaction all happening on devices such as the iPad. It’s all very Apple-based, which means anyone without this hardware can’t access it and thus it remains a little elitist. BUT there’s still some good reasons to look into it – and I hope this begins to explain why.
From DSC:
Thanks Matt for the helpful screenshots and overview of what iTunes U is offering these days!
If Apple were to devote more resources to create a fully-stocked CMS/LMS, they could add a significant piece to the overall ecosystem they continue to build. But this time, it would have significant benefits to those who want to learn and to reinvent themselves over time.
For example, what if:
- Faculty members worked with students to create the textbooks using iBooks Author?
- And the textbooks were free?
- iPads were used in BYOD type of settings and audio/video/text/graphics-based files could be “beamed” up to a larger presentation display? (Or all of the materials that they would need are already on the iPad from their orientation day and onward — and would constantly be updated throughout their collegiate days? In fact, a supplemental charge could provide the ability for alumni to subscribe to constantly updated streams of content as well.)
- CMS/LMS functions like discussion boards, wikis, blogs, podcasts, videoconferencing and more could be built into iTunes U?
Could be a potent learning setup as such cloud-based materials are available to everyone throughout the globe — at very attractive prices.
On 08/16/2012,
in innovation, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
Dockem’s Koala Wall Mount for iPads is innovative — from macobserver.com by Nancy Gravley
Excerpt:
There are a lot of reasons why Apple customers would like to mount their iPad on the wall, and Dockem has created an aesthetically pleasing mount in the Koala Mount.
Koala Mount holding an iPad with Apple Smart Cover folded back
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iPad luxury accessories by STRUT –– from justluxe.com by Katie Smith
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Photo Courtesy of STRUT
On 08/10/2012,
in Canada, communications, digital learning, education technology, higher education, innovation, instructional design, online learning, pedagogy, quality, teaching & learning, teaching online, using teams,
by Daniel Christian
Nine steps to quality online learning — from Tony Bates
- Introduction
- Step 1: Decide how you want to teach online
- Step 2: Decide on what kind of online course
- Step 3: Work in a Team
- Step 4: Build on existing resources
- Step 5: Master the technology
- Step 6: Set appropriate learning goals
- Step 7: Design course structure and learning activities
- Step 8: Communicate, communicate, communicate
- Step 9: Evaluate and innovate
Also see:
- How [not] to Design an Online Course — from onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com
Moving a face-to-face credit course to an online environment is far more challenging than one might expect – as numerous experienced and esteemed professors have discovered. In this post learn vicariously through one professor’s experience of ‘what not to do’.
Google releases software framework for building interactive experiences in physical spaces — from archdaily.com by Alison Furuto
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From DSC:
Hhhmmmm…I wonder how this could be used to renovate or create new learning spaces…?!?
Hhhmmmm…I wonder how this could be used to renovate or create new learning spaces…?!?
On 08/06/2012,
in Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, education, education reform, entrepreneurship, innovation, learning preferences, learning theories, library / librarians, publishing, reading,
by Daniel Christian
The Complete Parent’s List of Education Hashtags on Twitter — from onlinecollege.org
Excerpt:
As a parent, it’s important to be a part of the discussion about education. Informed parents can make a difference, not just in the lives of their own children, but in schools, policy, and more. You can stay in the loop and contribute your opinion by taking part in these chats and using these hashtags. Check out our list, and you’ll find more than 30 of the most relevant and useful hashtags for parents interested in education today.
10 College Business Incubators We’re Most Excited About — from bestcollegesonline.com
Excerpt:
College campuses are ripe with innovation, as students grow through education and experimentation in school. To help foster this innovation, many colleges and universities have opened business incubators, helping students and others in their community to help make their innovative dreams a reality. Whether they’re offering tricked-out labs or incredible funding opportunities, these incubators offer a great opportunity for students who are smart (and lucky!) enough to participate. Follow along as we explore 10 of the most exciting college business incubators around today, and be sure to share your own favorites in the comments.
The 10 Biggest Breakthroughs in the Science of Learning — from Online PHD Programs
Excerpt:
When it comes to human organs, none is quite so mysterious as the brain. For centuries, humans have had numerous misconceptions and misunderstandings about how the organ works, grows, and shapes our ability to learn and develop. While we still have a long way to go before we truly unravel all the mysteries the brain has to offer, scientists have been making some major breakthroughs that have gone a long way in explaining both how the brain functions and how we use it to organize, recall, and acquire new information. Here, we list just a few of the biggest and most impactful of these breakthroughs that have contributed to our understanding of the science of learning.
10 BYOD Classroom Experiments (and What We’ve Learned From Them So Far)” — from
Excerpt:
With budgets tight, many schools are hoping to bring technology into the classroom without having to shell out for a device for each student. A solution for many has been to make classes BYOD (short for “bring your own device”), which allows students to bring laptops, tablets, and smartphones from home and to use them in the classroom and share them with other students. It’s a promising idea, especially for schools that don’t have big tech budgets, but it has met with some criticism from those who don’t think that it’s a viable long-term or truly budget-conscious decision. Whether that’s the case is yet to be seen, but these stories of schools that have tried out BYOD programs seem to be largely positive, allowing educators and students to embrace technology in learning regardless of the limited resources they may have at hand.
The 25 Best Resources For Finding Nonprofit Jobs — from bachelorsdegreeonline.com
Excerpt:
Finding a job that helps you make ends meet is great, but finding one that helps you make a real, lasting difference in the world can be even better, especially for those who have always dreamed of a career in the nonprofit or social services sectors. Luckily, there are a number of incredibly useful sites on the web that can help you network, share your resume, and find nonprofit job openings in your area. We’ve shared 25 of them here so you can get your nonprofit job search started on the right foot and hopefully find a job that lets you make a positive impact on the world and your community.
8 Career Mistakes New Grads Make (and How to Avoid Them) — from onlinedegreeprograms.com
Excerpt:
You’ve crossed the stage, thrown your hat in the air, and entered the real world. You’re probably eager to get your career started and are already thinking ahead 10 years when you’ll be running a company, saving the world, and making wads of cash. But slow down there, new grad. Your career starts with baby steps and avoiding some of the common mistakes young workers make. If you follow these tips and stay away from some pitfalls, you’ll be in that corner office in no time.
15 Libraries Taking Summer Reading to the Next Level — from the Online Education Database
Excerpt:
While not an exhaustive list (there are a lot of amazing libraries out there), here we highlight some of the libraries we think are going above and beyond in their summer reading initiatives, offering programs and activities that help readers spend their summers reading, learning, sharing, and growing.
8 Predictions for the Future of Academic Publishing — from the Online Education Database
Excerpt:
University presses and academic journals may perpetuate the world’s most groundbreaking research, but they tend towards the heavily conservative when it comes to changing anything and everything about their organization. But the inevitable influx of digital and new media ventures has already started trickling into the tightknit institutions, and many scholars are already calling for a dismantling of the old — and often unwieldy and inaccessible! Some of the latest experiments will stick, while others will go all Crystal Pepsi on humanity. Until time decides to tell, the following represent a few things academics are saying about where their research might be headed.
Top 25 Education Blogs for Proactive Parents — from onlinecollege.org
Excerpt:
As a parent, it’s your job to look ahead and plan for the future, whether that means packing lunch or creating a roadmap for college. Perhaps one of the most important things parents can look ahead to is education. School reform, college, and getting involved as a parent are all important topics for parents to stay on top of, and these blogs all offer great ways to do so. We’ve discovered 25 of the best education blogs for proactive parents, and we encourage you to check them out.
On 07/24/2012,
in 3D, Augmented Reality (AR), educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, health, innovation, nursing,
by Daniel Christian
Augmented reality in a contact lens — from spectrum.ieee.org by Babak A. Parviz
Top 9 best augmented reality iPhone apps in 2012 — from blog.startappz.com
Excerpt:
The principle of augmented reality based iPhone apps is to use the superb multitasking and image processing capabilities provided by the iPhone. Even though the technology of augmented reality is still in an embryonic stage, these smart iPhone apps give us a small glimpse of what’s to come. Most of these apps are available at Apple’s iTunes App Store. So check out the top 9 best Augmented reality apps for iPhone in 2012 Here are some really cool iPhone apps with augmented reality features.
Canon announces mixed reality system for industrial design teams — from Core77.com
50-gigapixel camera is straight out of science fiction — from futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com
David Brady / Duke University
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The Abundance Builders — from wfs.org by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Progress occurs when inventive people solve problems and create opportunities. Here are just a few of the breakthroughs that offer the brightest prospects for a future that leaves austerity and deprivation behind.
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HealthTap debuts paid private medical consultations via mobile device — from betakit.com
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IKEA 2013 catalog has augmented reality — from augmentedblog.wordpress.com
And then some.
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3D printing: The game changer — from T.Rowe Price by Hug Evans
Excerpt:
From my vantage point, 3D Printing is right up there as one of the most exciting innovations I’ve seen in the 20 years I’ve been around here. I think it’s going to change the way goods are manufactured across many industries.
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DIY holodeck gaming system to be built by university students — from thecreatorsproject.com by Kevin Holmes
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iRobot and InTouch Health announce RP-VITA Telemedicine Robot — from spectrum.ieee.org by Evan Ackerman
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New 3D Printers From 2012 — from kraftwurx.com
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