On 08/27/2010,
in Augmented Reality (AR), UK,
by Daniel Christian
On 08/18/2010,
in budgets, business side of he, game-changing environment, higher education, UK,
by Daniel Christian
New private university signals drive to privatise higher education in Britain — from sott.net by Zach Reed
BPP, a private company that possesses 14 sites around the UK providing law and business degrees, was granted “university college” status in July, creating the first private university in the UK for 30 years. The decision signals the coalition government’s drive to privatise higher education.
Massive spending cuts brought forward by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government, combined with rising youth unemployment, has seen 200,000 students denied a university place this year. It is in this context that calls have been made to privatise higher education.
On 08/06/2010,
in digital audio, digital learning, digital video, multimedia, UK,
by Daniel Christian
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Also see:
On 07/30/2010,
in adjunct faculty, copyright/ownership/NFTs, faculty, legislatures / government / legal, UK,
by Daniel Christian
On 07/07/2010,
in business, economics, instructional design, strategy, training / L&D, UK, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Learning to change report — from Learning Conversations by Mark Berthelemy
“We’ve just published a research report, based on the opinions of senior decision makers among the UK’s largest 500 firms. Here are some of the findings.”
- The majority (70%) of business leaders fear that inadequate staff skills are the greatest threat to their ability to capitalise on the recovery.
- More than two thirds of business leaders admit that their under-trained workforce is struggling to cope with expanded job remits following waves of job cuts during recession.
- … as the economy moves out of the downturn, two fifths (40%) of leaders estimate that at least half of employee skills risk becoming obsolete.
- Over a third of leaders (36%) lack confidence that their employees have the skills required to deliver the firm’s upturn strategy, with close to half (46%) casting doubt on their L&D department’s ability to provide these learning services.
- Over half (55%) claim that their firm is failing to deliver the necessary training for recovery.
- Around half fear for their company’s ability to respond to surges in demand (51%), retrain and redeploy people where required (47%) and identify where current skills are becoming obsolete (49%).
- More than two thirds (67%) of business leaders are concerned their employees are struggling to cope with expanded remits following job cuts.
- More than half (52%) describe their L&D function as slow to respond to the changing requirements of their business during economic turbulence.
- As strategic objectives have evolved, close to half (46%) of senior managers report no significant change in the training delivery to their workforce. Going forward, almost as many (43%) expect no significant change to L&D delivery over the next 2-3 years.
- The vast majority (82%) of leaders lack confidence that their firm’s L&D strategy and delivery are aligned to the company’s operational strategy.
- Half (50%) believe that their L&D function is stuck in a ‘business as usual’ mindset.
Another interesting quote here:
“Perhaps L&D needs to rebrand – towards performance consulting… Often performance problems are more around culture, systems, processes and communication. Solve those, and you won’t need to provide training in a lot of cases.”
iPod/iPhone Apps: Language Teacher (Part 1) — by Isabelle Jones
General/Productivity
Skype (free): I hear Skype is planning to charge for skype-to-skype calls using the 3G network even if called supported by wifi will still be free. I have found Skype a brilliant way to use text with anybody abroad as well as using good quality voice calls for free, of course.
TweeetDeck (free): A classic Twitter client although there are many many more available including Twitter’s own newly released iphone client and Seesmic.
Edutecher (free): Great application to find subject-related sites and ed-tech tools. A selection of ed-tech videos is also available as well as a copy of their Twitter feed and a search function.
iMindMap (free): simple MindMaps that can be exported and emailed
SimpleMindMaps (free): MindMaps can be saved to desktop, exported or saved to camera roll.
Diigo (free): Great to bookmark new sites from the safari browser although the bookmark does not allow for saving to groups
Box.net (free): useful to share documents between various locations. I have a box on my blog and I can add to it via my phone.
Dropbox (free): very handy to transfer back-up copies of documents to your phone. Just drop a copy in Dropbox folder and a copy will appear on your phone
Linkedin (free): more serious professional networking tool, it also has a wide range of groups for linguists and teachers that are worth keeping an eye on
Evernote(free): good to make notes and add audio or pictures to them. Notes can also be e-mailed too.
TED (free): really interesting speakers featuring in podcasts and videos
Teaching UK(free)-News, ideas and twitter feed
Tumblr(free): for quick logging of text, photo, quotes, link, chat, audio, and video. Great to keep it all in one place, and could be used to collect material for later thoughts and blog posts.
Save My Doc lite (free iTunes): just put in the url to download the document onto your phone
Errands (free iTunes): to do list with scheduling and mailing facility
Schoolbook (free iTunes): great to get to learn your new timetable, particularly if it is a two-weekly one.
Audio
ipadio (free): broadcast, record, play back and share high quality audio up to 60 minutes in length. Recorded calls can be shared on Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Posterous, Blogger and more…
VR+lite (free Blackberry): simple recorder for messages to be shared by email or social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or Blogger. Recordings can be made private or public. A short audio watermark is attached to recording on the lite version (full version costs £1.19)To be able to edit and receive free storage you need to sign up for VR+Online (free)
iSaidWhat?! (£0.59): simple recorder allowing to do some sound editing directly from your iphone: record, import sound file, cut, arrange snippets, duplicate, share via email, Facebook or Twitter.
iRevise lite (free iTunes): revision timetable, notebooks to write summary, prompt cards for key words, audio recording with gaps for answers.
Photo/ picture resources
Flickr (free): A great way to back up the pictures on your phone, pictures from Flickr’s favourites can also be saved onto your phone quite easily.
Photoshop.com (free) simple tool to edit photos directly on your phone: crop, straighten, flip, rotate, exposure, contrast, colours, black and white, sketch, effects, borders, pictures can be saved, uploaded and posted to Facebook and TwitPic.
Art (£0.59 for full version-lite version available iTunes): Excellent source of Art and information about international artists-great stimuli to discuss colours, shapes and produce extended description or even stories in the foreign language! Pictures can be saved onto your camera roll or emailed and saved onto a laptop.
99 Happy Paintings (free iTunes): can be viewed, exported, used as wallpaper and emailed for copying and importing into teaching resources.
Technology brings education to you wherever you may be — from timeslive.co.za [via Ray Schroeder]
Survey: MBA – Now you can do that MBA via your computer
In the face of international competition, technology and the need for flexibility, business schools have adapted their offerings for MBAs.
No so long ago, the very notion of a distance learning MBA would be regarded with disdain, the chief argument being that it lacks face-to-face contact. But as technology has progressed, so too are those perceptions shifting rapidly.
Irving says the perceived lack of personal contact is no longer an issue. “The way our online students engage, build international networks and share knowledge is no different from the way our students on campus do it.”
Once a year, Warwick runs an eight-day residential programme for online students, but Irving says this may have become superfluous. “The way technology has progressed, especially over the past two years, the experience you can get online now is equivalent to an on-campus experience. And it’s cheaper than getting students to travel across the world.”
On 05/20/2010,
in education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, innovation, UK,
by Daniel Christian
On 05/20/2010,
in education reform, education technology, future, K-12 related, UK,
by Daniel Christian
On 03/24/2010,
in cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, future, future of higher education, global / globalization, higher education, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, pace of change, strategy, UK,
by Daniel Christian
Becta is Fit for the Future (March 2010)
This project will identify opportunities that technology will bring to education over the next few years…
Fit for the future is an exciting new project which aims to identify the opportunities and challenges that technology will bring the education and skills sectors over the next 5-6 years and work with leaders, practitioners and the technology industry to develop practical, real-world solutions.
The rapid pace of change and innovation in technology means that the education and skills sector constantly needs to adapt to the technical and social impact of new developments. Fit for the Future is about looking several years ahead and making decisions today that will make us ready for tomorrow’s world (emphasis DSC — and a quick comment: this is a very smart strategy).
The project began in Autumn 2009 and will run until Summer 2011. Becta is currently working with key leading educationalists, technologists, thinkers and experts to develop propositions in response to the key trends identified in the DCSF-funded programme Beyond Current Horizons.
Focusing on five themes, the ideas that these response groups generate will then be tested in real-world situations to assess if and how they could work on a wider scale.
The five themes are:
Theme 1 – Learners’ personal cloud: this theme explores the capacity of learners to constantly connect or engage with a network or school at any time or place and investigates their experiences and expectations of personal virtual environments and personalised data.
Theme 2 – Learning beyond a single setting: this theme looks at how learning is increasingly taking place across multiple institutions or places (school, home libraries, museums, employers) and explores how technology can support this in a revised 14-19 curriculum.
Theme 3 – Making the most of data: looks at how technology can be used to make better use of the huge amount of data that is constantly generated in the life of a learner and increasingly being used to build profiles about them.
Theme 4 – New Knowledge Skills: Our future economy will be heavily reliant on innovation, research and development, problem solving and digital capability. This theme aims to better understand what competencies, skills and knowledge will be required of both students and teachers, particularly in relation to STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths).
Theme 5 – Education across borders: Learners and educators now have access to resources not just from their immediate surroundings but from across the globe. This theme explores the potential creation of educational franchises across national boundaries supported by technology-based resources and networks.
On 01/20/2010,
in future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education,
by Daniel Christian
The future of higher education [UK] — from guardian.co.uk
An outward-looking forward-thinking summit stimulating debate and shaping thinking on rising to the challenges facing higher education.
The Guardian’s annual summit for higher education leaders returns for the fourth year with a new format and a new outlook. It will be taking place at the America Square Conference Centre, London. The combination of the fiscal crisis and imminent reductions in public service budgets coupled with significant changes in the demands faced by institutions means that the way forward for higher education has become increasingly contested. This year we will bring together higher education leaders for a series of debates that will explore future scenarios for the shape and structure of the sector. Led by key stakeholders and shaped by expert analysis the debates will be supplemented with in-depth panel discussion, focused breakout sessions and insightful keynotes.