.
From DSC:
I don’t think that what we know today as “MOOCs” are anywhere’s nearly fully-baked and ready for prime time. They will be refined, altered , and new systems/software will be further developed for them. But the idea of reducing costs, increasing access, and experimenting sounds good to me! As illustrated above, the idea of “Rock Star Professor” or “Super Professor” is gaining traction. Also, note the team-based approach here.
From DSC:
I wonder how MOOCs focused on language will go…? It could be great to practice a language from folks all around the world — or will it be chaotic? Different accents. Real-world speaking and listening. Real world conflict, perhaps, as well. But it seems like there could be some effective learning going on — at least “on paper”. I wonder, too, if 1/2 of the time folks could speak one language — and would be the students during that part of the class — while the other 1/2 of the time they speak another language — and would be the “teachers.”
.
And for yet another item on innovation within higher ed! Whew!
Broadband, broadcast lines erode as TV shifts to a mobile, multiscreen media landscape — from by Joseph O’Halloran back from 2/11/2012
Excerpt:
[Q2 2012] research from online video firm Ooyala has confirmed the trend that viewers around the world are embracing mobile, multiscreen experiences for both long-form and short-form content.
The Ooyala Global Video Index Report for the second quarter of 2012 reveals that online video uptake may be rising across the world but that engagement patterns vary by country and region, with a number of global video hot spots. For example, in the UK the survey revealed that 15% of the total time spent watching online video occurs on mobile phones and tablets, while 11% of the total time spent watching online video in China occurs on tablets and smart phones.
MOOCs for credit — from InsideHigherEd.com by Steve Kolowich
Excerpt:
Coursera, the largest provider of massive open online courses (MOOCs), has entered into a contract to license several of the courses it has built with its university partners to Antioch University, which would offer versions of the MOOCs for credit as part of a bachelor’s degree program.
The deal represents one of the first instances of a third-party institution buying permission to incorporate a MOOC into its curriculum — and awarding credit for the MOOC — in an effort to lower the full cost of a degree for students. It is also a first step for Coursera and its partners toward developing a revenue stream from licensing its courses.
The future of higher education: White paper — from IBM and the American Council on Education (ACE; specifically, the ACE Fellows Program)
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
The role of higher education is to give students the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in a globally competitive world. Education isn’t just about teaching students to take tests well, but rather to create lifelong learners who can contribute to a thriving society and competitive economy.
From DSC:
We will have a very hard time creating lifelong learners if a large swath of people dislike learning in the first place. When 20-30%+ of our youth are not even graduating from high school, I can’t help but recall a saying from one of my first coaches:
Always change a losing game. Never change a winning game.
I think that our biggest gift to students is not what they were able to get on an ACT or SAT test — though I realize how important that can be in getting into College ABC or University of XYZ (and thus hopefully helping them get started on a solid footing/career). Rather, on a grander scale, our biggest gift to our students is that they would enjoy learning; that we could help students identify their God-given passion(s), talents, gifts, abilities — and then go develop them and use them to serve others. Everyone will benefit if they do so; and the students will know joy and purpose in their lives. These are the types of WIN-WIN situations that square up with the thinking of many economists — “Do what you do best and everyone benefits.”
College is dead. Long live college! — from nation.time.com by Amanda Ripley
Excerpt:
Keynote Address: Democratizing Higher Education by Sebastian Thrun, VP & Fellow Google
From DSC:
Sebastian Thrun gave a great keynote at last week’s Sloan-C Conference in Orlando, Fl. An especially interesting item:
One of the business models Sebastian is considering is to have Udacity act as a job placement organization. That is, Udacity can run courses, identify the top performers worldwide, and then match employers up with employees. Udacity would get ___% of these placements’ first year salaries. Very interesting model.
IBM’s Watson expands commercial applications, aims to go mobile — from singularityhub.com by Jason Dorrier
.
From DSC:
This relates to what I was trying to get at with the posting on mobile learning. I would add the word “Education” to the list of industries that the technologies encapsulated in Watson will impact in the future. Combine this with the convergence that’s enabling/building the Learning from the Living [Class] Room environment, and you have one heck of an individualized, data-driven, learning ecosystem that’s available 24 x 7 x 365 — throughout your lifetime!!!
.
Also relevant here are some visions/graphics I created from 2012 and from 2008:
.
![The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian-July-2012.jpg "The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian---July-2012")
.
.
.
Udemy rolls out new publishing platform to help teachers create quality online courses — from techcrunch.com by Rip Empson
Excerpt:
To do so, Udemy is [yesterday] introducing a new version of its course-creation platform geared specifically towards teachers. The platform aims to bring expert and novice educators alike greater control and ownership over their online content, helping them to organize and structure that content through a curriculum editor and a more robust toolset for managing and promoting their courses.
Having experimented with different approaches to the presentation and distribution of digital ed content, specifically in regard to their effect on learning outcomes, Udemy concluded that one of the most critical components — and oft-overlooked — is a well-structured curriculum. So, the startup rebuilt its curriculum editor, which now encourages teachers to build an outline as the first step in the course creation process.
Using the new curriculum editor, teachers can drag and drop lectures and sections to organize their content into a more structured course. On top of that, considering that many of Udemy’s teachers are in fact real world experts and not those well-versed in pedagogy, the startup has re-tooled its course creation process. Once they’ve outlined their course, they are served step-by-step guidelines and best practices that touch on everything from planning to promotion.
Excerpt:
In countries around the world, the transition to knowledge and service economies occurring rapidly. Competitive countries are no longer only those that have an abundance of natural resources, but also those with a highly educated populace. Higher education is increasingly recognized as a vehicle for economic development [1].
University leaders are struggling to make sense of how internationalization, the current economic conditions, and new technologies will impact their systems. Educators are uncertain of the impact of open educational resources, alternative accreditation models, de-professionalization of academic positions, and increased grant competitiveness. What is role of the academy in increasing national economic competitiveness while preserving the “vital combat for lucidity” [2] that defines an open democratic society?
Apple TV and the transformation of web apps into tablet and TV dual screen apps — from brightcove.com by Jeremy Allaire
.
Excerpts:
Importantly, designers and developers need to shed the concept that “TVs” are for rendering video, and instead think about “TVs” as large monitors on which they can render applications, content and interactivity that is supported by a touch-based tablet application.
…
The key concept here is that this pervasive adoption of TV monitors is the tip of the spear in creating a social computing surface in the real world.
…
Specifically, Apple has provided the backbone for dual screen apps, enabling:
- Any iOS device (and OSX Mountain Lion-enabled PCs) to broadcast its screen onto a TV. Think of this as essentially a wireless HDMI output to a TV. If you haven’t played with AirPlay mirroring features in iOS and Apple TV, give it a spin, it’s a really exciting development.
- A set of APIs and an event model for enabling applications to become “dual screen aware” (e.g. to know when a device has a TV screen it can connect to, and to handle rendering information, data and content onto both the touch screen and the TV screen).
…
[Jeremy listed several applications for these concepts: Buying a house, buying a car, doctor’s office, kids edutainment, the classroom, retail electronics store, consuming news, consuming video, sales reporting, board games.]
.
Also see:
From DSC:
Graphically speaking — and approaching this from an educational/learning ecosystems standpoint — I call this, “Learning from the Living [Class] Room.
.
Related item:
From DSC:
Sending a special thanks out to Dr. Kate Byerwalter,
Professor at Grand Rapids Community College for this resource!
Also see:
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.
